June 24 saw us celebrate our 25th anniversary. Given the kids just want to come home to their beds and sleep, they wanted us to be gone to celebrate it somewhere far away.
San, the planner, did an amazing job of planning a one week trip with practically one day in each city in eastern Europe for the most part. Only thing I had to do was to give a list of places or Viator tours of interest in those locations.
Our first City was Zadar. We took three flights to get there. SFO to Frankfurt, then Frankfurt to Dusseldorf, and finally Dusseldorf to Zadar on different airlines. We were tired by the time we got to Zadar airport. Got a Taxi and were dropped off at the old Town. This is literally a walled area that looks like the inside of a castle where no cars are allowed.
It took us some time to find our hotel. It was a beautiful hotel right next to one of the gates to the walled area. We just got dropped at the wrong gate!
The whole place was beautiful. Cobblestones that were smooth from years of feet walking on them.. it had been hit by the war but was rebuilt. We had leftover packed food and we just ate that in the hotel room after walking around our hotel. It was already late and most of the stores were closed. So we went to sleep early.
The next morning we had to walk a mile to the group gathering point for our all day adventure.
The roads were empty but beautiful. . .
Our beautiful hotel.. (the room was decorated Honeymoon style).. The Palazzo venezia!
When San starts posing like this on day 1, I couldn't be happier!
Video highlights..
Have 1000's of pics and videos from this trip, but never got around to blogging about it. As soon as I came back work caught up. Then my dad's condition took a turn for the worse as he swallowed kanji into his lungs. At one point doctors asked my mom to notify next of kin as they didn't think he would survive the night. We were all there in India and he made a miraculous comeback and is home now. That meant the blogs never made it.
My goal is to clear those out of my camera and laptop by writing at least one little blog before bedtime everyday. . .
We were done with Wadi Rum. There were more flight changes for part of our group. So BIL and family had to stay in Amman for an extra day. The rest of us had rescheduled our return (which was originally through DC on United) to go through Doha on Qatar airlines with a 8 hour gap in Doha!
At least we would all be together till we were done with the dead sea experience. It took us a good 3+ hours to drive to the dead sea from Wadi Rum. We drove along the Israel Jordan border and stopped at Aqaba to see Egypt, Palestines West Bank, Jordan and Israel from the freeway. You can see it in the video. No wonder the place is tense all the time! The population density around the red sea area was incredible!
Then we were driving alond the dead sea. It was desolate. We could see a lot of farming on the Israel side, but nothing on the Jordanian side. We were blessed by the camel gods again on the drive. .
Zaid stopped us at a store to buy some beauty products made from the dead sea. We spent 30 minutes there. It was interesting to know so many dermatology clinics and skin care treatment centers sprout around this area based on the curative aspects of the salt and water.
From the store we went to the Crowne plaza where a lunch had been arranged. It was an amazing buffet with a lot of vegetarian options and we got to drink tea with fresh cow milk for the first time in 5 days! There was a cake cutting celebration! With our tummies full, we were apprehensive of going in salty water.. what if we swallow some and the lunch comes out?!
It was too late to discuss. So off we went. There is a beautiful elevator that takes us down to the water level in the Crowne Plaza. They also gave us towels and pool access as part of the service. It was all pre-booked. There are a lot of villas and long term housing accomodations in the crowne plaza. We learned that medical tourism, especially for dermatology is famous here and folks do stay there for 3 months at a time to take daily dips in the dead sea!
The signs that said Beach access were a lie. There is no BEACH! it is a bunch of rocks you walk on and eventually float.
This is highly risky. Out of the 8 people in our group and 6 others on this so called beach 5 of us had cuts and bleeding injuries when we came out of the water. Happy that no one hit their head on the rocks!
Yes, you do float in the water and if the salt gets to your eyes or mouth, it stings badly and you have to rush to the shower to clean it out. There is no sand and the rocks on the floor cut your feet! My thighs were all bruised and bleeding (realized it much later), San's back was all scratched..
Like my niece aptly noted "the dead sea will take away all your pain and then double your pain by the time you are done floating!"
It was an interesting experience though. You get smeared with oily black sand, let it dry on you for 5 minutes, then go wash it out, float a bit, then get hosed down with fresh water.. followed by selective sand washing again and a final salt scrubbing.
When the entire thing was done, my skin was very very smooth but extremely dry! The supposed super moisturization didn't work on my skin. Maybe the salt water dehyrated me a lot. We were asked to drink a lot of water after that dip. The dead sea has 6-8 times the salt of regular seas and is also oily!
We walked back the hotel area and hung out by the pool. Then said our byes. It was time for the four of us to leave for the airport.
It was an hour plus drive from the dead sea to Amman airport and we saw tires burning in different places. We were hoping that my BIL's family stay safe the next day they were on their own and made it to our flight on time.
At Doha we took a transit Visa for 20 USD each. Then we took a taxi (they are reliable and affordable) to the Central Inn (15 minutes from the airport) and crashed there for the night. We got 5 hours of sleep. We already had boarding passes on carry on luggage only. We were back at the airport in the morning just in time to clear immigration, security check and board our flight to SFO!
The long return flight was actually good and the Vegetarian meals was excellent. This is my first time flying Qatar Airways, and I have to say they did a great job!
A video highlight of the drive to the dead sea and the experience there.
For the first time, I have managed to finish blogging about a weeklong trip within a week of returning. My family knew I wanted to finish it this time and have let me keep at it...
Yet to blog about the anniversary trip from July. Hopefully will do that over the next few days!
Thanks for reading through this series!
This traveling family wishes you all a wonderful 2025!!!!
We woke up at 3:30 AM and drove to Cairo Airport from our hotel. Then caught a flight to Amman. There was a pre-paid Visa (thanks to Latif) which we had to get and then clear Immigration and customs. It was a decent airport but the smoking room door was wide open! So the whole area smelled of cigarette smoke. I went to the restroom and found cigarette butts in the toilet.
This cannot be happening was my first thought. It was an international airport for crying out loud! Came out of that area and once we were out of the airport away from people, took a few deep breaths to calm down.
We met our driver and guide Zaid. Between him and Ala, our other driver, they were going to drive and guide us for the Jordan leg of the tour. Not all of us could get on the same flight. So six of us made it on a 6:30 flight and the other two were on a 8 AM flight. Given our rest stop break, they made it to Petra within an hour after we reached.
Most of the folks dozed off during the three hour drive. I was trying to stay up and take videos and also talk to Zaid to understand the area.
Once we reached Petra, we were all hungry so we went straight to a restaurant suggested by our guides called "My Mom's recipe restaurant". It was walking distance from our hotel and the Petra site entrance and Museum.
The rooftop restaurant was well decorated and cozy!
Mom's recipe apparently included too much salt. The lentil soup was good but very salty. The rest of the food was amazing. They had a lot of veggie options. There was even french fries in the menu!
After all of us ate, we went and checked into the Le Maison Hotel. We all got a 2 hour nap.
We started for the Museum at 4PM. It was a really quiet and nice museum. It was all self explanatory. We spent an hour in the museum, then took pictures outside as the sun started to set. Most of the museum is covered in the video.. I also thought some of the museum claims on plaques were exaggerated..
The first two pics were taken before we went into the museum.. the next two after we came out an hour later..
golden hour makes such a difference..
This was followed by some shopping in the stores next to the museum. We were debating having dinner at one of the other places when we saw that the menus were identical with slightly higher prices. So it was decided that we go back to the rooftop at Mom's recipe in hopes that mom uses less salt for dinner.
Turns out Mom is consistant and they like to make their soup that way! The folks tried a bunch of other veggie items and they all turned out great. The soup was okay with rice, so I made a daal chaawal out of it. It was a win win for the group!
My BIL had planned a surprise cake cutting for my co-sister and Zaid and Ala arranged it nicely. It was a happy moment for the entire group on what was an otherwise long and tiring day.
Also Jordan was expected to by much colder, but it was pleasant in the evening!
A video highlights of our first day in Petra..
We made it back to our hotel and for once we had to be at the breakfast area only at 7AM and start sightseeing at 8AM.
That made our day! Finally a night of rest and sleep!
