Holy land trip Day 1 - Amman, Jordan

You sometimes have to wait for the right time, for the right thing to happen; and the number of impediments you have to tide over to reach your destination is beyond words. But the destination is magical and your experience, Life changing.

My trip to the Holy land

My customary research on the country, weather, food, dressing and people surprisingly came up with information insufficient to really plan out the trip well in advance. Gathering information from the tour operators and friends who have already travelled on it, I unsatisfactorily packed my bags to go on a ten day trip away from the daily chaos of work and household chores, phones and internet I most willingly wanted to give up.

The first destination was Amman and flights from Cochin was routed through Doha where we had a negligible transit time and land at the beautiful Queen Alia airport by early evening on a beautiful Monday. Cool breeze and a crowd of 53 chit chatting in Malayalam and pulling together our luggage we gathered together in a Bus and all set to move to the hotel ( al fanar )where we were told we would have regular evening and morning prayers followed by dinner and breakfast respectively. As I travelled with my father and mother, I was sharing a room with them as the person who uses the Extra bed (usually children – what more do you expect if you are underweight and also the only child to your parents).

Jordan !!

It took me a while to acknowledge the fact that I am going to go to bed in peace in the most read about , beautiful Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan a country of peace loving, friendly people who boasts about one of the wonders of the modern world “Petra”. The love for their handsome King Abdullah II was very evident from conversations I had with locals and also from pictures of the King on signs , banner and posters.

This desert kingdom had clean streets, organised roads and buildings of limestone adding no color to the otherwise pleasant city. Jordan borders Saudi Arabia to the south and east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north, Palestine and Israel to the west.

Amman more or less has the Mediterranean climate with hot dry summers and cool winters and as expected we experienced cold a little more than our liking. I paraded in my winter clothes. While we were clicking photos outside the Al fanar hotel where we were staying, a bunch of beautiful Algerian teachers who had come for a conference also wanted to pose for pictures with us and was amazed by our honey colored skin tone.

The food was an array of fresh vegetables, olives, hummus (chick pea paste ) and bread, be it breakfast lunch or dinner.

The next morning, i intentionally went for a cherry red dash of color to my dressing to add some spice to the limestone buildings and mammoth mountains.

A short drive with regular announcements and explanations on the bus we reached the foot of Mount Nebo.

Sunny and bright ;as it looked from the Air conditioning of the luxury bus, I was whiny of having not chosen the right clothes to wear on a nice bright summer afternoon. To my surprise, shock rather, I am unable to explain how a place can be so sunny and cold at the same time. I happily zipped up my leather jacket stuffed cotton up my ears and started climbing up the Holy Mount Nebo where Moses was given a view of the Promised Land he would never enter.

It was breathtaking to view the entire arid desert from top of the mountain with wind whistling and white dust settling on you before you realise. The panorama would give you a complete view of the Holy land they say! This was rather a dusty /misty day. But Moses, promised land, stick , serpent  at that point it was just a tourist destination. Trying to affirm more I tried reading excerpts of the old stories quickly from the bible on my iPad. Well, I tried to get myself more excited about Mount Nebo.

This was probably the first time I was seeing an elevated ridge and my parents showed off their travel knowledge and how similar it is to the Grand Canyon!!!

We also saw the brazen serpent monument and were told that the Pope visited the holy mount Nebo.

Moving to some demonstration, display and sales at Nebo’s Pearl an Art gallery for the welfare of people with special needs we saw extremely intricate mosaic work done with great finesse and detailing. My mother picked up one to add to her many curio collections.I was amazed at the mosaic painting of a map of the holy land.

The same day we proceed to Israel and waited for hours to clear immigration…..

Signifying the long wait I think you should wait a little till you travel with me into Israel.