TRAVEL AND LIFESTYLE DIARIES

Before we start our amazing Wadi Rum Desert adventure, we told our Bedouin guide who happens to have the sexiest 4x4 jeep in Wadi Rum that we first have to feed our grumbling stomachs. Our lunch in Wadi Rum village and lower foto taken on the road to Wadi Rum village. The rock cliffs and rock formation become finer and stunning as we approach Wadi Rum. Meet our cool Bedouin guide: Tyseer! I will tell more about him later =) Tyseer, our Bedouin guide was very straightforward, he asked, ‘Do you want expensive where everyone goes to eat or cheaper but local-Bedouin food?’ Obviously, we chose the latter. In hindsight the restaurant was a much better option. There were no hordes of noisy tourists, we have lovely views to ourselves and the food was quite local-style and not overpriced yet it was good. In fact it was too much food for lunch haha. We did not realize that it was a whole menu set (2 menu sets!) that Tyseer ordered for us. If we knew, we would have only ordered 1 menu ...

For starters, Wadi Rum is a government preserved and protected area located in the Aqaba province of Jordan. It is the largest WADI or VALLEY in the country, and this is where Prince Faisal Bin Hussein and T. E. Lawrence based their headquarters during the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans during the World War I. We drove from Amman, Jordan's capital city all the way down to Petra and then Wadi Rum. Wadi Rum is about 60 kilometres from Aqaba. Map courtesy from Lonely Planet. Because Wadi Rum is a preserved place and an important attraction, entry is regulated, and of course, commercialised to serve a vital purpose. Unlike its neighbouring Arabic countries, Jordan doesn’t have extraordinary resources to depend on such as oil, but fortunately it is rich in history. Tourism is a major industry in the country and is a big income generator for its economy. Locals are quite aware that their country benefits from tourism so they treat their visitors very well. Tourist police are everyw...

I like to travel in style and it doesn’t have to be staying at luxurious hotels and eating at Michelin starred restaurants, although I love to indulge every now and then—for me, in order to survive the holiday in good mood, the basic amenities have to be there, as well as some comfort of course. Now Blondine and I are faced with the challenge of spending a night in the desert... hmm... We’ve read fascinating stories about travellers staying with Bedouins in the heart of Wadi Rum desert in Bedouin camps, and although this is truly an experience worth doing for, we worry about the conditions of the accommodations. Is there electricity? What about toilet? Where can we leave our car? Is it safe for 2 women to sleep in a tent? So many questions. Trivial perhaps for others? Well I found this hotel camp called ‘Bait Ali Lodge’ in the middle of the desert, located just a few kilometres away from the environmentally preserved area of Wadi Rum. It is probably the only camp with a bit of fril...

The next day we woke up to a beautiful blue-skies sunny day in Wadi Musa. I loved the town valley view from our room’s window and I quite felt sorry that we were leaving. So before we finally left Wadi Musa terrain, we stopped by a viewing point cliff for a quick last look of the beauty of Wadi Musa. There are actually several viewing points with car parking along the King's Highway (going south). Here you can see amazing vistas of the rose-red limestone mountain that surrounds the ancient and lost city of Petra. A few souvenir fotos of course were in order. So we drove on the King’s Highway from Wadi Musa until we reached the Desert Highway intersection. The King’s Highway is an exhilarating experience on its own but it’s the northern part of the highway after Wadi Musa that has breath taking spectacular views, which I will blog separately later. On the road on the King's Highway (south) with my handy Nokia GPS - OVI Maps. This time Blondine is driving. King's H...

Because we ate a lot during lunch in Petra , we skipped dinner... even if the shawarma at Al-Arabi Restaurant was tempting, but I guess not tempting enough when you still have a full stomach. I read that for a vast majority of women, it normally takes several hours (I think 4-5 hours or more compared to men) to digest food intake. What more when you are getting old and have a slow metabolism? So no dinner but some ‘Hubbly Bubbly’ instead =) I have no idea how the hubbly bubbly term came into existence but this is basically a local jargon that means doing the Shisha or Hookah, or in English layman’s term—Water Pipe. Visiting an Arabic country is of course not complete without spending an evening of shisha indulgence. If a westerner’s idea of socializing is booze, the Arab’s is doing the hubbly bubbly. Luckily our hotel has a cute café offering the hubbly bubbly. We ordered the mint flavour. They actually come in a variety of flavours. We just showered and too tired to ev...