Hello again :) Gotta give it to me for being able to quell the will to write much more than I did the years before haha. Human memory is always the weakest memory holder of them all, and that's precisely why civilizations never progressed much until humans found out how to write out their minds and expertise into stories and preserve them.. I don't want this memory to fade away anytime soon, so let's write it out while it's fresh! :)
Earlier this week, I just ended one of the most fun trips I've had in a while. I went to Turkiye and Jordan with dear friends of mine, Sarah and Leona!
Someone asked me if I went with my work friends, and to be honest, it might sound degrading to label them just as my work colleagues. I'd like to say I went with a group of friends who grew together with me, are experiencing the same vulnerabilities and life journeys that shape us to who we are now, and definitely, a good travelmate haha.
We made the plan quite abruptly! You know I am stationed in UAE right now. At first it was just me and Nico (who's in Kuwait) making plans to visit Jason (who's in Jordan). I thought it would just be a middle-eastern STAs trip since well, we're kinda far from anywhere and to be honest if I'm anywhere else, probably the plan would sound less interesting. However, suddenly I heard that Leona was also interested to come! I thank God that Leona talked about this to Nico so he invited her to our "Tipping Point" group chat--which reminds me I should really finish that book OMG I haven't even opened it!
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| The chat that started everything |
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| The book that I haven't even started |
So, we created that group called "The Tipping Point" hoping to kickstart the planning of it all. When Leona joined, I suddenly think about that trip Leona wanted to make with Sarah so I also reached out to her. She said yes and then we were 5!
We set a date for Jordan trip, but Sarah could fly earlier from Indonesia after she finished the Commercial Conference. Leona and Sarah will have another destination first for the pre-trip, sadly I couldn't join for full because there's something in the office :(
HOWEVER, after all the discussions and all the visa problem that we have, this is what we decided on:
- 17 - 19 Oct : Nana, Leona, Sarah in Izmir, Turkiye
- 20 - 23 Oct : Leona and Sarah somewhere (they haven't decided or booked any tix, crazy)
- 24 - 27 Oct : Us three + Nico and Jason in Jordan!
Thursday, 23 Oct 2025
Jordan for me started on Thursday. We just had the visit from our VP in the office so I came to the office. I was pondering if I should bring my duffel bag (decided not to bring a cabin trolley because of the 7kg limit, but then EVERYONE was using cabin trolley so I kinda regret this decision! AirAsia traumatized me bad) or should I go home first and then go to the airport from home? Dubai traffic was so crazy that week and it might be more assuring to go from the office..
However, I decided that given my flight is at 9.50 pm and I could afford arriving to the airport for boarding at 8.50 pm.
I went home with the shuttle as usual, arriving around 6.45 pm and then STILL had the audacity to eat my bakso goreng from Bobi Bowl (it was already at home, don't worry). I still managed to somehow chill and then only at 8 pm I moved my ass from my couch. At the lobby, I started to worry because the taxis took time to arrive at my apartment. Luckily, I remembered that we often had taxis on standby at the lobby. There was one available! It offered good rate too, so I just took it and then went to the airport with that. At that hour, traffic had settled down by a bit too.
I arrived at 8.40 pm (!!!!), ran to the immigration, fuck the immigration for having a longer queue that night and I just remembered, shit I was too used to the leisurely DXB because I always had red-eye flights before... but they were still as efficient as ever, so I made it. But then I also needed to wait for the train to take us to the gates and that night too it took longer than usual! I arrived at the gates area at 9.00 pm, thoughts about me having to rebook flights already came to my mind HAHA. I found out my gates were literally at the end of the area (😭) and I rannnnn all the way there, aiming to arrive 30 mins before take off because I didn't know if this airline would be strict with their gate closing.
Thank God it's a middle eastern flight still. The gates seemed empty making me thinking I'm already one of the last ones to board. But turned out after I went inside the plane, the plane would be full meaning literally majority off them didn't bother getting on the airplane early.
Throughout the flight I didn't sleep but rather making a quite productive time with my Pre-RPC preparation. I arrived safely then to Queen Alia Airport (AMM), feeling the kinda colder breeze than I found in DXB. I saw this sign too, waking me to the reality that I was indeed at the other side of middle east now, the rather more turbulent part :))
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| Sign to transit to Syria by land |
There I was picked up by a driver from our hotel and went to our hotel. It was situated in a very safe expat friendly area. There was a bit of miscommunication since there were multiple building of the hotel that spomehow weren't connected internally, so I had to walk outside for a few minutes before reaching out hotel.
I was greeted by Leona who's asleep for a bit in the sofa and to Sarah who's already sound sleeping, and to a cockcroach........ What a way to start the trip 😂
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| Me and Leona at 1.30 am waiting for housekeeping to finish moping our floors |
The hotel tried really hard to make it up for us, offering us breakfast (that we didn't take) and also later upgraded us to a suite at their newer hotel building. They also tried to make me fill in a survey after we checked out later and ensure I ticked on the "promoter" area of their cleanliness 😂 Well sure, for that I am not revealing their hotel name or rating them badly on booking.com, but they know our eyes were on them haha. But what's funny really is that this cockcroach infested room was supposed to be a "treat" for us since they were upgrading us. I am getting a hunch that this was the suite room nobody ever used hence they somehow need our occupancy lol.
Friday, 24 Oct 2025
Up to the fun part!!! 🥺🥺🥺
So the idea for today is we really need to arrive to Dead Sea by 9 am because I had to present something at 10 am 🫠 I woke up at around 7.20 am and was still soo tired to move but then I jumped because OMG THE CAR RENTAL!!! I had the appointment to take the car at 7 am, luckily they only arrived at 7.12 am so technically I was only 8 minutes late. The car was good but tbh I was still not very awake to be able to process it all. I didn't ask anything about emergency contact etc etc, which was something that I should list as a must-check list next time.
We managed to get out of the hotel at 8-ish, I saw Jason and Nico for the first time in a few months and off we go!
Btw, only me, Leona, and Sarah are the eligible drivers, so we take turn and Leona was the first designated driver that day. I still wanted to prepare mentally for my upcoming presentation haha.
I didn't get to see Amman the night before but it was a pretty hilly cities, with its unique building lining up the hills!
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| Amman city in the morning |
Not long after, maybe after around 40 minutes we finally saw the signs to Dead Sea. We were close!
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| Street signage to Dead Sea |
We made stops as well in the side road to this one abandoned building just to see the scenery. We wonder where Mt Nebo is, which I later learned was actually the place they buried Moses, biblically made sense since he was not allowed to enter the Promised Land but was allowed to see it from afar.
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| The abandoned building we made stops to |
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| One funny gimmick we found along the way: A random rubble that looks like our iconic Marlboro chevron 😂 and to think that this was found by a group of PMI employees haha |
Btw see our car parked? You know, 4 days later we would be in a similar situation where we made a brief stop on the side road.. but then there would be children running towards our car and trying to open our car doors. We would know later that in Jordan there were quite a lot of gypsies and the road towards Dead Sea is one of them. Luckily it was still in the early morning, I really couldn't imagine if at the beginning of the trip we already had some incidents involving robbery or even car thefts 🥲 Thank God for blessing our stupid and unsuspecting minds..
We made it at the Holiday Inn Dead Sea resort at around 9.20 am and purchased their day pass with lunch buffet included. The group proceeded to went to the Dead Sea while I prepared myself to present for the Pre-RPC.
I managed to end the presentation well and then proceeded downstairs. Downstairs, yet at the beginning of the top steps we're already at 393 meters below the sea level! Wow, truly it's the lowest point on Earth.. Small part of me was feeling this profound awe. When I was in Elementary, I found this book about fun facts and would make quizzes about it to my friends. I was really the trivia kid, and to be able to finally be in the place! It felt amazing 🥺
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| First sign I saw when exiting the hotel lobby |
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| I finally saw THE Dead Sea, 422 meters below the sea level! |
So for that reason, I actually didn't manage to relax well on my first float haha. I did float sooo easily, it literally did not take anything for you to make it float. I would also say because I wasn't very relaxed, it's quite a core exercise on my side.
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| Me trying to float relaxingly |
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| Me reading! Haha the iconic pose is actually reading a newspaper while floating, so I kinda regret not taking the newspapers from DIFC to here |
However, turned out it didn't really taste that bitter at all when I accidentally splashed some of the water in my mouth. The touch of the water also didn't stung as much eventhough I think I had some microlesions in my back.
We tried the mud bath as well for the smooth skin. As I typed this, I felt my skin indeed still felt smooth, but I am not sure if it's because of the mud bath or has it always felt like this 😂 If anything, I felt like the sun turned my skin a few shades darker haha.
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| Taking the mud from some kind of.. basin? |
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| Chilling while waiting for the mud to dry and started showing "crack" |
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| Mud bath! |
We ended our floating and mud-bathing at around 1.15 pm and then proceeded to clean ourselves before having our lunch buffet. I didn't have my breakfast so with all the heat I am soooo starving and quite frankly a bit dehydrated HAHA. Thankfully the breakfast was good and warm, with a bit of western food also presented. The beauty of Jordan is I think they have their food influenced by the flavorful Lebanese grills and with the so many western tourists they get, they always offer international cuisine in the buffet!
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| The Dead Sea salt that's presented in the hotel lobby |
We left the hotel at around 3 pm and this time it was my turn to drive! The drive was smooth with some requests to stop here and there. One of the notable stop is actually this unique place where there seemed to be some flowing water. Later we would find out that this place is the start of another advneturous hiking agaisnt the hard-flowing water to reach a waterfall! So many flies though in this place,, reminds me of one of the 10 plagues of Egypt 😅 This shows how my mind has started to relate everything to be biblical hahaha.
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| Wadi Mujib Adventure Center |
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| You can see the start of the trekking, I can imagine it to be fun! |
Thenn we continued driving. The road is straight and offers spectacular view along the way. As the ethics for passengers, none of them were sleeping and they were all trying to hold a conversation. One of the things we conversed about is how we often saw people trying to hitchhike on the side road. We had this what-if conversations, would you help those kind of people? What were the conditions that would make you want to help them? We kinds decided that if the hitchiker was a kid, we might want to help. (SPOILE ALERT: NOO a group of kids would later soon to rob us..)
Around an hour of more driving, we found yet another good place to stop. I swerved to the right to stop, but then suddenly the car stopped.. Not because I pressed on brake or anything but the car literally couldn't move because of the sand!
I felt the feeling of being suddenly "blegh" into the sand, for a second I even stupidly thought shit is this an absorbing sand or something.. but no it was just a regular sand and you don't drive on sand unless it's a 4WD! 😭
We were those kind of people who now probably needs sympathy from strangers on the street aswjdkjf
That stuck-in-the-sand moment felt like an "omg.." but honestly it didn't feel helpless at all because it was still bright and we had people actually driving past us, so we're not technically so deserted. You can see in the picture, there was me and Sarah even trying to document this because we knew this was going to be a funny moment for the trip. Moments like this are what you're looking for in a trip! 🤣
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| Us trying to document this moment |
I tried some ChatGPT for solution and we tried to somehow move the car.. but it just didn't move at all. Another thing that made me feel hopeful is that when I did my car exchange with the rental guy, she told me that police and everyone likes tourists so they will be kind with us. How true that was because not 5 minutes after, there was a kind guy stopping to help us. He tried to give us solution and we tried to lift the car out of the sand first, but we were not strong enough. Nico was also already sneezing because of the sand so we were quite under resources for manpower. Luckily again, not long after, there was a police car approaching us. That was the only time seeing a police car relieved me so much, together with another stranger who also stopped to help us, we managed to push the car onto the solid gravel road and continue with the trip!
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| The kind strangers helping us push the car |
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| Leona driving again that day haha |
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| And since I'm not driving I can take picture of the scenic road! :p |
Funny though how the whole stuck-in-the-sand incident thing came not long after we had the hitch-hiking conversation in the car! Talked about tasting your own medicine 😂 I think...... Overall we will still need to help each other, but we need to understand the context first. Us or any people stuck in the sand with their car is probably something that merits help because you clearly see what the problem is. However, if a location is known to be a "bad area" and you don't clearly understand the concept of hitchhiking in that area, that may relieve you ethically from not helping.. I think.
AGAIN we stopped at some place because the place offers a stunning view of the upcoming sunset. We made this decision mindfully since we noticed that a foreigner had stopped successfully, there was a local car stopping, and we could clearly see the solid gravel beneath haha.
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| Sunset view! |
We continued promptly our trip afterwards since we were trying to reach Petra before dark. TO BE HONEST, one thing that we also didn't expect was how the road would change, from the very flattish road alongside the Dead Sea to somehow change to us cutting through the winding roads in the mountain without any streetlamp on....
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| Leona driving through the mountain. Now it made sense to us because Petra is literally secluded inbetween mountains and canyons |
I kinda felt relieved that it was Leona driving HAHA because eventhough maybe I could handle it, I would feel too anxious about it tbh. We were driving slowly making sure we made it. Another thing that made us tense was because there was no reception for probably all those 20 kms of journey through the mountain. You can imagine all of us being silent as to now disrupt Leona, while anxiously hoping for a civilization to come.
Interestingly, we also saw soo many people camping in the mountains! They parked their car with their headlamp shooting to the stones, creating illuminating lights for the whole group. Some were starting their bonfire. They looked happy and so were we because they brought signs of life.. no kidding, I was actually afraid they somehow lived in the mountains so I was being extra careful. Leona good for you to be the one to drive because this would have stressed me tf out HAHA.
Weeee finally made it in our luxurious hotel right 7.30-ish pm. Quite a lengthy check-in process because I told them we were five instead of four so they insisted on us having to pay more and to put in an extra bed in our room. We had a quick dinner at a lovely place in the old street, after almost being led by Nico to nowhere, where the place seemed to close, and then we made it back from another abandoned not-yet-done building..... Nico :)))))))))
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| The lovely Old Street restaurant to conclude the night |
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| We tried the camel meat which tasted nice! |
We were also discussing the routes to go the next day. I was worried that we need to do a hike HAHA I could do hike but if it was so extensive I'm kinda worried. Turns out there is indeed hiking included in a Petra trip. Usually people only go to The Treasury, the most famous one about Petra. However, Petra is much more than that, it also has the Monastery but it's at the very end and included steep steps.
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| We found the maps of Petra at the dining place |
We did our research. Walking throughout Petra would take us more than 4 hours one way and probably 2 hours on the way back, since there was literally no way we could take other mode of transportation once we reached the end at the Monastery.
Sarah researched from Youtube on Petra and found out that there was actually another entrance called the backend entrance. This would prevent us from hiking all the way to Monastery in those 800-steps, and also spared us from having to walk back all the way from the Monastery to the front-end entrance.
However, I was a bit wary about that plan because according to my ChatGPT, the hiking from the back-end entrance itself is a 3-4 hour journey. It's not a very well-guided place as well. So why would I want a hard 3-4 hour journey hiking just to skip the "normal" 800-steps, which in the end would not save any time from using the normal front-entrance route?
We didn't decide on anything but saved this information and concluded the day. The hotel also felt so goooddd I really liked the linen in that place. It was very clean as well with a well-lit bathroom. Our suite hotel in Amman is literally nothing compared to this 😅
Oh, and Leona started watching Suits S01E01 that night. Why Leona 🙂
Saturday, 25 October 2025 - Petra Day!
We agreed to start the day at 7 am, so we can start after the sunrise that was at around 6.47 am.
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| View from our hotel room! |
However, I think in the end we started to be ready at around 8 am haha. And I don't know why we didn't go straight to the restaurant but we asked around first in the hotel lobby about the back-entrance route. Thankfully, the guy at the lobby knew about it! A shame that I couldn't remember his name because I've been meaning to mention his name in my hotel review.
He told us that there is an official ticket office at the back entrance which put me in reliefff honestly. Last night my ChatGPT told me that there might not be any official ticket entrance at the back and we might need to exchange it first in the front-entrance. Proof that we need to always recheck the information from ChatGPT.
So basically, we would need to take a taxi to the back-entrance ticket office. There, we needed to exchange our Jordan Pass into our ticket, then we would also need to purchase the 4x4 vehicle ticket that would take us to where the hiking starts. "How long does it take to hike from that place to the Monastery?" I asked since I really didn't want to do the 3-4 hour unguided hike. "It's 1 hour hike," he said. One hour! That's a veryyy good deal to be honest! And if we can also get our official guide from the back-entrance office, that also would be amazing because then it means safer hiking experience as well.
The guy called a taxi that would arrive in the next 2 minutes, but whoa we need them to pause because we wanted to have our breakfast first. Breakfast that would later be essential to our journey.
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| The hotel restaurant is quite decent |
The taxi took us for 20 JD to the back-entrance ticket office.
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| The ticket office area looks decent and well maintained |
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| The sign at Little Petra. Well, if we can hike from here, probably this is what ChatGPT told me what would take 3-4 hours. We continued our 4x4 journey about 5-10 minutes more from this. |
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| View from our 4x4 that saved us a lot of hiking time |
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| The start of our hiking journey to the Monastery |
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| Zaid our kind guide, trying to show us the fruit that they made into gin. My favorite quote of him: "My friend, we have finished the hard part!" 😂 |
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| Me trying to survive but somehow I made it to the area with good scenery haha |
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| This is probably one of the hardest part aside from the hiking, but after that it was okay! |
Do you remember that I said the hike would take around 1 hour to the Monastery? Well we started at 9 am right. When we finally saw the Ad-Deir (Monastery) sign, it was already 11.30 am HAHA. We took the a whole 2.5 hour just to make what people say is 1 hour! But honestly, it didn't feel that long at all. Sure it felt tiring, but maybe because the weather was so nice, we took quite a lot of breaks, and also we heard many stories told along the way, it felt fun!
Along the hike, we were explained how Jordan was made. It was a tectonic uplift, thus the canyons that we saw there were actually under the sea millions years ago. And then I also asked our guide about the 1812 story of how western world found out about Petra, that Johann guy asked to be guided to the Prophet Aaron's tomn. And yep, we saw the tomb along our way, albeit it was so far away. There was a mosque built there and we really could see the white building.
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| If you see the white building, then that's Prophet Aaron's tomb |
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| Signage to Ad Deir, we're close finally.. After 2.5 hrs hike! |
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| Before we see the majestic Monastery, we saw some water cistern first. |
I am a huge history junkie, so going to Petra has been a real pleasure to me. One thing I enjoy at night before sleep is to watch YouTube videos about history, like about the Egyptian history, Greek, etc. Before I went to Jordan, I watched videos about the Nabateans and was amused at how advanced they were in controlling water flow. Imagine sustaining themselves to live in such place where rain is scarce and only happen several times a week! They were able to make use of the caves they have and carved them into water-saving tools. Amazing!
Imagining how their civilization was like years ago and then seeing how it's still preserved today is too cool!
And then.. we finally saw the majestic Monastery!
This place was actually a tomb.. SO almost everything we saw in Petra, which were carved into the mountaines, were tombs; except for the other architectures that they built on their own from the ground. It got the name as Monastery because apparently some time after the civilization that built it, it was repurposed as a church. I tried to find out the cross that they said was carved inside, but couldn't see anything.
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| The Monastery stood 48 meters tall |
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| The details that were still seen today. The Monastery is quite exposed over time to weather, winds, floods, and other things. So many of the fine details are already naturally eroded. |
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| After we enjoyed the Monastery and took 10-15 minutes break, we started our journey by hiking down. We saw tired people along the way trying to make it into the Monastery and we just went pass them haha. |
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| Another interesting thing to see: see the farm down there? It was a functioning farm by the people that still live in the caves right now! They live in the caves that were made by the Nabateans as tombs before. It was actually quite comfortable, it's chilly during summer there and warm during the winter. |
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| From the heights we saw the city centre. It was so majestic, and legend has it that surrounding those massive city centers are flowing water ponds. It truly boasts the power and knowledge that these Nabateans people have. |
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| We stopped by a pop-up store on our way to the Royal Tombs. Pop Mie and Indomie were sold there! AND by this time, it was 1.30 pm and we haven't had our lunch hahaha |
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| Those caves are all tombs from different era. |
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| If you saw the simpler ones on the right, those are from earlier times before they learned how to adorn the caves with more decorations |
You can imagine that up to this point, still mules were offered to us by the locals. They seem to detect me because indeed I was ALWAYS wavered if I should just take up their offer HAHA but I've walked this far so I had more burning will in me! I asked why mules are used, turns out they are much stronger for this kind of terrain instead of horses. Somehow they don't need shoes like horses do, their feet are already strong. I also just realized that these are the mules, the offspring of a mare (female horses) and a jack (male donkeys) that are oftentimes infertile. They must have a quite intricate breeding system there then to get this species! That explains why some of them really look like horses despite having a smaller body!
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| Mules |
One thing I also wondered when I got to the Byzantine church is.. what even is Byzantine? That sounds so Turkish no? Turns out it's the Christianity era after one of the Roman emperor converted into Christianism. That's why they have a church here! I'm glad we went there because I read from the guide that the mozaic that's being showcased in the floor are genuine mozaics from that time that's still well preserved. That's so amazing.. And the way the government manages to shield the place with minimum intervention also deserves a praise on its own!
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| The mozaic in the Byzantine church |
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| Royal Tombs from a far. There were 4 major tombs here: Corinthian, Palace, Silk, and Urn. I believe back in their time they looked so impressive, sadly they are facing the west winds so they have eroded so much. This also explained how impressive it is. for the Treasury to be covered and well protected so much. |
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| The most significant one is the Urn Tomb, you can actually see the Urn at the tomb of the building. It's sooo big and actually used as a court during the Roman times |
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| If I ever wrote about my Izmir trip, you'll understand this is a cute recreation of our 1st picture with the Roman pillars haha |
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| Also PAUSE I want to show you how far we've walked up to this time. See that circled part? That was the urn on top of the Monastery. We have walked that far away! |
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| The amazing layers in the stones of one of the caves |
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| Us taking our pictures in front of the theatre! |
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| The facades that will lead up to Petra for our back-entrance route! |
And guys and gals and non-binary pals..... what we have anticipated for the whole TWELVE kilometres hike and walk done in 6 hours has gotten to its conclusion.. About 3 pm, we finally arrived at our grand reveal. The very much well preserved, The Treasury!!!
Our guide Zaid made the grand reveal to be so dramatic I love it hahaha. I really felt the palpitation etc and when I finally saw it, the feeling was priceless!
Can you imagine though how did that Johann guy feel when he caught glimpses of this while he was on his "pilgrimage" journey towards Aaron's tomb? How he had to hide his excitement and then document all of them in his mind to write in a book later?
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| Actually if you can clearly see it was not as big as the Monastery or even the Royal Tombs, but I think the detail in the Treasury topped every other monuments. |
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| Of course I also had to take from this perspective, where suddenly the Siq opened up showing its reveal |
After taking all the pictures in The Treasury, it was finally time for us to go back home. It was already past 3 pm and we haven't had any food after our 12-km hike so we were STARVING. Sadlyy the 2.5 km walk to the front-entrance is not easy either LOL. It was a bit of an incline. Every step of it, I was always tempted to just take the horses... The only thing stopping me was that I didn't have cash in me HAHA.
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| We still saw carvings on our way back to the front-entrance. This carvings depic the grand procession with camels etc towards Petra |
The last walk was harddd since it was done on gravels that's not very comfy to walk on. A 2.5 km walk felt sooo long when you're just walking without any story or anything. By this time, I was already last in the group so I walked alone hahaha.
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| I still managed to take a pic of the Djinn block, also another significant monument, yet still "just another tomb" at this point of time |
FINALLY we made our way outttt I'm so happy! We were so starving that we went back to our restaurant last night and had our veeerrryyy late lunch there. Lucky that we ate there last night so there was no need to worry about where to find food anymore (more a concern from my side this picky eater lol).
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| Indiana Jones store haha if Indiana wasn't so gore for little old me watching it alone, I would rewatch tbh |
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| Just a cute finding. In Dubai I went to and from the office with a Movenpick shuttle and I found it here! |
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| Us having our well deserved late lunch! |
It was already 5.30 pm by the time we finally had to leave Petra. In the end we really spent the whole day in Petra eventhough we have cut the time by taking the back-entrance haha. Learning from yesterday's lesson, we quickly made our way to Wadi Rum since we were afraid that it would be dark, what if we had to cut through the same mountain?
Somehow Leona drove again (thanks Leona haha) and she took us safely to Wadi Rum. We were staying in a camp and the scheme was that someone from the camp will meet us somewhere, then we would park our car, and the we would go to the camp in their 4x4 car since YES we would be driving on the desert! Thankfully we knew by then that our car was not 4x4.
The road was flat but it was literally dark everywhere without any headlamps again. We couldn't see what was surrounding us at all!
The trip to Wadi Rum took us about 2 hours and we arrived there at around 7.30 pm. Tbh it was quite scary when we were following the guide's car because it looked like we were driving in the dar on the desert, we were still traumatized by the stuck-in-the sand experience yet the guide was speeding like he has no time. We were afraid to lose our trails haha.
In the end we made it safely. We got transferred to our camp and had our dinner that was still served there. It was quite nice and fulfilling to just fill your stomach for the night. The camp was filled with children running around too, thankfully that really made our first impression to the camp to be much more homey and safe.
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| Us at the dinner |
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| The camp common-place |
We were also informed that we got yet another upgrade! Haha yay! We were upgraded from a tent to a bubble. Honestly, I was also expecting a bubble at first so it was like dodging a bullet for me to get the bubble!
After the dinner, there was a session of stargazing at 9 pm. So we made it just in time because the stargazing would start in 20 minutes. It was also convenient as the stargazing would be done just outside our camp. At first I was worried that we might not be able to really see the stars if we're still so close to the light source. However, it was already suuper amazing. There was actually two options, we could also took a car that would take us in the middle of the desert where it would be even darker. However, we opted for the one with the guide that can explain the stars for us. If anything, this trip to Jordan has emphasized again for me the importance and upside of having a guide. Your trips became richer instead of just seeing and taking pictures of them.
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| Our guide explaining to us the North Star (someone just found out too North Star is a real world terminology not just business term haha), Cassiopeia, etc. That's the only thing I remember, so sorry! |
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| I got my tripod so I could take picture of the stars clearly. Here is me trying to map out the stars that I saw the night before. IDK though if those are correct haha. People of the past were so amazing at survival, natural selection back then was so crazy. |
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| He also taught us of identifying tracks on the sand. Amazing but the next morning when we saw real tracks on the sand, honestly couldn't tell if those were lizards or other things haha |
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| One of the pictures I took where I kinda got the glimpse of milky way!!! 🥺 I would probably get better picture if it was darker (you see I still got disrupted by the light of our bonfire) but tbh I was already really happy with this! This was unedited, my edited version was fire 🔥 |
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| Our group picture under the stars! The process of taking this picture was so funny because we need to stand still for the whole 30 seconds hahah |
After that at around 10 am or so, we ended our session and started to head back to our camp to rest. Washing was not so easy especially in the bathroom because amenities and towels were limited. We also decided not to wash our hair which HONESTLY wasn't the most hygienic option, but given it was quite dry with the so many sands in my hair (a bit ew I know), my hair still looked fabulous and non-lepek hehe.
Sunday, 26 October 2025 - Wadi Rum and Amman
The next day was the day where we started our safari trip! We woke up at around 6 am and then saw the peeking sunrise. I took my tripod again and set up an amazing time lapse to the sunrise. That day we would need to get out at 9 am for the safari trip. It was also only during the day that I got to appreciate the view and surrounding of our camp since the night before, all I could see was darkness.
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| The sunrise from our bubble camp. |
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| Our camp overlooking directly at the sun. When the sun has risen, honestly it felt so hot inside haha they have nice thick curtains though. |
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| The common-place area during the day. It's cozy and very beautiful with all the orange cast from the stones! |
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| They have a very good makeshift egg station haha |
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| We saw people guding hoards of camels crossing the desert |
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| Starting the day with the safari! |
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| Our first stop was this place where we were hiking, AGAIN.. but this time on the sand. It was extra hard, again I was reminded at our poor car who also had to go through this terrain 2 days before :( |
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| Red sand that reminds me of Mars |
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| The view from the hill, how small we are in this big big world |
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| Another spot that they took us, one of the rock is eroded naturally to form a face. This must have prompted lots of thoughts from the ancient people, no? 😂 |
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| In the middle of the road, our guide also shared how to make soap from the ajram plants. It's amazing that other than smelling soapy, the soap also really have antibacterial features. I asked them if then it means it cannot be eaten, "Yes, camels and dogs don't want to eat them." Amazing simple yet effective way of finding out! |
Another thing I noticed is that Jordan certainly allured many curious westerners. Other than Johann Ludwig Burckhardt the Swiss explorer that rediscovered Petra (yes I finally decided to look for his name rather than just keep calling him the Johann guy), we have another figure who would be commonly called as the Lawrence of Arabia. I am yet to learn more about him and where he stood in the history, whether he had any roles for example in the oppression in the Middle East that we know more-or-less is caused by the meddling Brits, but we have a canyon named after him.
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| Lawrence Canyon |
We took another picture with a view, but honestly after Petra, view from the heights of the rock did not really amuse me anymore. It's rather the red-sandy desert that's amusing to me.
We ended our 3-hour trip at around 12 pm, honestly it didn't feel like we've spent all 3 hours! We were about to drive back to Amman for 4 hours and decided to have lunch somewhere.
The guide drove us back to where we parked our car the night before. This time we got the chance to really look at our parking space during broad daylight and it's amusing how the view was sooo much different. It's more familiar with all the camps and other cars parking beside us. We could even see the road that was very close to where we parked. A stark difference from the feeling of being trapped by the darkness haha.
Anyways, turns out our parking lot was located nearby another camp with a proper restaurant. I got to say it was one of the best buffet we've ever eaten, it could compete with Holiday Inn's honestly. It's also interesting that Elon Musk also stayed the night there, if I remember correctly it was around 2018 or 2019, before he went all political, where Twitter is still called Twitter lol.
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| Receipt from the manager of the camp |
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| You can fainly see the tracks where the 4x4 vehicles passed through |
Going back to Amman, we had yet another freak incidents.. Thankfully this time it also didn't end badly for us. Me and Sarah were the designated driver and we were supposed to change halfway. We were passing this residential area while going through the desert highway and we decided this was a good place to stop and change driver seats. I went out of the car, even we joked about them leaving me since the car was locked briefly. Not long after I went inside, suddenly Sarah saw children running towards us from the rearview mirror and I also saw many of them running towards us from the front. She immediately locked the doors.. but it was a veryyy terrifying experience for me. I am the kind of person who always lock car door but that time, I thought the door just locked automatically so I didn't bother to lock the car. Thankfully we knew how to lock it or else I didn't know what would happen if the kids could open our doors! ☹️😭
Later on Jason would be like, I didn't know you were going to stop.. Yes too late Jason.. but honestly, after all the kind experience we received during our journey, this was indeed one of the least expected things to happen.
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| The view after the driver-change, and the near-robbery situation I would say haha |
Thankfully, we also had another unexpected incidents that ended up beautifully for us :D So, that night we were going to the Roman Theatre. The lobby guy already told us that it was going to be closed, but we said we were just going to look from the outside.
When we were there, apparently there was a game showing?? There was an El Classico match! I was that day's years old when I found out that every Barca x Real Madrid game would be called El Classico. We didn't have any ticket, but I didn't know why we decided to go inside the complex and went through the security.
There was one last gate separating us and the stadium when suddenly an officer was seen calling us. Jason went there and guess what... we were somehow given access to the stadium!!! 😭 Honestly I didn't watch soccer at all, I would be excited to watch it but that was a once-in-every-4-year thing during the World Cup. But duh, the watching session is held inside A ROMAN THEATRE it would be stupid not to grab the chance.
So now, I am well acknowledged of Madrid's new superstar Lamine Yamal (noticed his name many times now on the street), that Mbappe is in Barca, and no I will still mix the two teams' uniforms haha. Sadly there was no other goal made on the second half, but we were already lucky enough to be there!
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| The match! |
After watching the match, we were reunited with Nico. We went to eat the kunafa that Jason had been raving about. We walked through the busy streets of Downtown Amman, getting greeted by "Arigato sushi!" by random strangers on the way. It's interesting to me that every Asians look like Japanese to them, not even Chinese or Korean (this also happens in Turkiye!).
But as I walked through the street, I was also reminded of this one scene I watched in Misaeng where somehow, the guy was chasing for the villains in Amman like WHY how does that adds intrigue to your storyline that revolves around being corporate guys 😂
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| Downtown Amman |
So when I got to the kunafa place, I was glad that they have a proper eating space and a toilet. I was feeling quite under the weather after being dehydrated for several days and one of the symptoms for me is wanting to go to the toilet for often #TMI.
Honestly I never ate kunafa before. Not even the Dubai chocolate as I don't really like chocolates and sweets, especially with me wearing this aligner for the past 1.5 years already, like it's a hassle that's not worth it. However I must say, it was a good snack! It kinda tastes like sweet martabak but thinner and more fluffly. The cheese added is also a nice twist, the snack doesn't taste too sweet. Nana approved!
Then that night, we also ate shewarma as the savory meal for the night. It was good! Honestly, this was how I pictured my doner kebab in Turkiye would be like, and I ended up tasting that food here in Amman 😂
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| The kunafa place! |
That night, past 12 am we also mini-celebrated Sarah's birthday at our room 🥳
Finally Monday came.. We did not have the Monday fright but indeed we started on having the anxiety for having to be back to work haha. We did our last half-day trip here to Jerash.
Jerash is another Roman city ruins. When we were in Wadi Rum the day before, we met tourists from Netherlands who have been in the country for 2 weeks. They said they visited Jerash and it was amazing. It covered a vast area and was actually very well preserved.
And they were right. When we were inside, I could feel the difference from what we have seen in Ephesus. Obviously we could say that back then Jerash was nothing compared to Ephesus. The theatre and gymnasium in Ephesus was much more gigantic and they even had a bibliotheque, but compared to preservation, I felt like I could imagine the city better in Jerash.
Jerash was also unique as it underwent 4 types of imperialism: Greek, Roman, Byzantine (Christianity), and Islamic. Therefore, there we could see 2 types of architecture from Greek and Roman era, a church, and also a mosque!
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| Arch of Hadrian. We had this as well in Jerash. There I know that market visit for the emperors were also planned waayyy before so they had time to build a gate 😂 |
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| If you zoom in, you can see a very clear decoration for the pillars on the left (Roman, corinthian design) and on the right (Greek) |
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| Imagine how big this city was with the so many pillars erected signing the road! |
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| We met a coin collectors who wanted to sell us this coins. I was instantly reminded of the tax story Jesus was tested by the Pharisees lol: "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God" Clever, politically correct answer! 😂 |
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| Nymphaeum from the half-circle architecture for the water nymphs. I'm kinda confused why the guide told us it's the women's baths.. but well maybe it served for both. |
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| We also got to see Temple of Artemis! I believe this was nothing as big as the Ephesus ones, but it's still erected! |
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| See how big the complex is.. And to imagine that actually many of them are probably still underground waiting to be excavated |
We ended our guided tour at around 11.30 pm and by that time we should really get going to Amman. But we still spent around 20 minutes or so waiting postcards HAHA let's hope these postcards made it here because I forgot to take pictures T_T
I fell asleep on the way back to Amman. We made it to Jason's favorite restaurant in Amman. This is a cute little restaurant called Joz Hind that sells daily-updated menu. They have amazingg Mediterranian fusion food and I love it! I love it when I got my western food without me being the one requesting for it HEHE.
It was also here that we celebrated the birthday of Sarah with a surprise cake 🥰 Honestly, we have prepared a cheesecake before but there seemed to be no proper moment to do the celebration. And then somehow our drivers bought a much bigger proper cake for us HAHA. We did the celebration in a very tight time we had, since we had to go back to our hotel, check-out, and then go to Amman airport. We really should've finished prepping everything up before we went to the hotel!
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| My western foodd!! One of the nicest pasta I've had in a while too |
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| Joz Hind |
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| Happy birthday, Sarbro! |
We made it safely and on-time to the airport for our check-ins and waiting for the gate. When I boarded my flight, I also noticed that wow it's the golden hour! Seems like a good ending for a very good trip. 🥺
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| Golden hour |
Epilogue
To me, how I enjoy a trip is highly dependent on the people that I spent the trip with. This is honestly one of the best trip I've had in a while because of several factors:
- It has a nostalgic value. I am going on a trip with friends that I haven't met in a while. While I just met Leona a few months back yes, but the feeling that we were now separated thousand miles a way somehow made it felt more special. It's not like we could just go to the others' desk and say hi to each other anymore.
- It's in a new place that none of us has gone to that offers a completely unique experience. It felt like I couldn't go to this place without this trip.
- And the many unexpected incidents that happen on this trip that creates new layers of unforgettable stories. Getting upgraded to suites & bubble camps, getting your room cleaned at midnight, getting stuck in the sand and being helped by strangers, almost getting robbed in the middle of nowhere, and soo many other things!
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