You'se a dumb motherf*cker, won't you back that Ass up?

You better back that ass up. When you find yourself on the trails of Petra you better check yo self and yo donkey, else you might necessitate regulation from AofA and Ketan B.

If you are anywhere near the Middle East, I highly recommend visiting both the Wadi Rum desert and the ancient city of Petra, described as a "a rose-red city half as old as time." But with Petra, visit early in the morning. Ketan and I visited both early in the morning- when it was beautiful, and also in the afternoon- when the place is invaded by hordes of overweight European tourists and the poor donkeys that carry them.

You think Americans are the only ones with an obesity epidemic?? Come to Petra and talk to the poor donkeys. To see Petra you need to walk around quite a bit, and this has borne an industry of convenience where entrepreneurial young Jordanians employ the labor of donkeys to cart around fat tourists. Hey, it's employment for some locals, feeds the donkeys, and tourists get to see more of the place.

The only issue I have is when a god damn donkey jockey can't keep his donkey in check. So Ketan and I were walking down a steep narrow trail coming down from the High Temple, when this local guy on a donkey comes barreling down the trail from out of nowhere. Now, this was not a tourist, but one of the donkey owners who's trying to sell rides to the tourists. Ketan and I jump out of the way on to a rock, and barely avoid getting bum rushed by a sizable donkey and its large rider. Naturally Ketan and I are a bit pissed about our near collision with an unfriendly ass, but the donkey and rider are far down the trail in a whirl of dust.

As we walk to the next switchback in the trail, we pass by a number of locals and we see the same idiot on his donkey riding in tight circles and whipping the shit out of the poor dumb animal with a thick folded metal coat hanger. Now, I'm no card caring member of PETA, but this is just plain mean. As we walk closer the dude almost runs into us again, and this time KetanB has clearly had enough. He casually shoves our mounted foe and demands angrily, "What the hell are you doing?"

A bit more shouting and we get the idiot's attention.

Idiot: "What vhat, What is dee prollem?"

Ketan: "You almost hit us coming down the trail, you're beating that god damn animal without any result, and you almost ran into us again right now!"

Idiot:"What? It is my ass, what can I do?"

Ananda: "Control your damn ass, that's what you can do!! "

More dismissive comments from the rider, and he almost runs into Ketan again. Now he's gone and done it- KetanB is seriously pissed.

"Why don't you get off your donkey, let's see what happens."

The man on the donkey is now afraid.

"Come on, get off your donkey, and let's see what happens."

Even I'm beginning to wonder, "Shit, what happens when he gets off his donkey?" I mean is Ketan going to hit him? I was pretty annoyed, but I wasn't really ready to throw down over a donkey, though I was, of course, ready to back up KetanB. So… fortunately Ketan wasn't looking to go fisticuffs over an incident with an ass , but he was definitely willing to stand his ground regardless of whether this douche was riding on a donkey.

At this point the moron's extended family arrives on the scene, and they are very concerned as to why these two tourists are yelling at their semi-retarded cousin who's still spinning around on an ass.

"What's wrong? What's wrong?"

"This idiot here almost ran us over while riding down the trail."

The extended family shoots a dirty look over to the village idiot who promptly apologizes to us. Not being One Republic we found the apology to be timely enough, and continued down the trail.

Now, overall we could not have been more impressed with the people of Jordan, but like I mentioned earlier, it's best you control your donkey when riding in the canyons of Petra.