Jordan: Aqaba and Kings Highway

Jordan: A week in the Middle East
Jordan: Petra and Wadi Rum

Aqaba

The drive from Wadi Rum to Aqaba is short - about an hour or so along the Desert Highway. And again Google Map plays up! We were staying at the Radisson Blu on Tala Bay - which is a resort area about 15 kms south of Aqaba. In Google Maps, this place does not exist at all!

Anyways, Aqaba is a port of Jordan and located in the south of Jordan, on the Red Sea. It is about 25 kms from the Saudi Arabia border (our hotel was about 8 kms away!), and neighbours Israel and Egypt across the Red Sea. Its quite an interesting location at the meeting point of 3 other countries. The first view of Aqaba is also impressive - you are driving amid desert mountains and suddenly you see this town next to the blue sea come into view. I wish we could have taken a photo of it!

Radisson Blu, Tala Bay

Aqaba is famous mostly for the diving offered in the Red Sea. We stayed in Aqaba at Tala Bay for 3 days and dived all the days through Aqaba Adventure Divers who are again located close to the Marine Reserve in Tala Bay. They were quite relaxed and run a good diving centre. Its owner Talal had studied in India for 5 years and was quite chatty with us on what he missed about Delhi.

I again felt that divers across the world are such a different community - they all follow a common language when in the water. And bond well when outside. All get relaxed when in the zone, its the one aspect I haven’t been able to get into. All dive centres run on such relaxed schedules, there is nothing like a fixed time or deadline for anything that they do.. Someday it may come naturally to me, hasn’t happened yet.

There are loads of locations nearby for off the shore diving. We went to Japanese Garden, Seven Sisters, a shipwreck and Black Rock. The sea here is full of colourful corals, and fishes abound. We spotted moray eels, lion fish, stonefish, shrimp fish, lobsters, the puffer, a starfish, sea urchins, sea snake and even a turtle! I tried following it but it was too quick for me:(.

Aqaba mosque

Other than the diving, there is not that much to see around here. We visited Aqaba city once, it was like any other city - some local streets and some touristy streets with KFC and Popeyes!! The city centre where we were walking seemed very alive at night, I was sure there must have been some clubs also nearby (though we didn’t see any). We also saw a beautiful mosque while walking around, not sure if its a famous one or not, but looked pretty at night.

Sunset across Israel

The weather was extremely hot and sunny - around 40 degrees during the day. There was no way you would feel like being out during the afternoon. The evenings were also too humid to be out much. Being in the pool or the sea was the best thing to do when here.


Accomodation + Food

We stayed at the Radisson Blu on Tala Bay outside the city. It was an excellent location next to the Red Sea with Israel and Egypt across the sea. There are 5 pools to fend off the heat, couple of restaurants and basically anything you need to just chill out. We tried the food at two of their restaurants - Heatwave and Baywatch - and both were tasty and recommended.

Just next to the hotel is a marina, where the rich park their boats and buy pretty houses for holidays. It was a nice area to walk around, and apparently you can also rent those apartments. Worth checking out if you prefer self-serve accommodation rather than hotels. We had dinner at a restaurant called Platters in this area which was ok.

Madaba

The last day, we drove back to Amman through the King's highway and stayed at the city of Madaba. The Kings highway is one of the three main highways that run north-south of Jordan from Amman to Aqaba. Desert highway, Dead Sea highway are the shorter more modern routes, while the Kings highway which takes the longest time is the most scenic one.

We had no idea when we took the road how long it is. Finally, this drive took us about 7 hours rather than the 3.5 it would on the Desert highway. I think it was totally worth it, though a bit tough when we did it. We drove through small towns, mountains of all shapes and sizes and colours; some green, some red; some of rocks, some of sand and some were eroded; next to dams and riverbeds; up and down cliffs; next to green reserves and so on. The views at each turn were pretty - one of those paintings or photographs that you see in exhibitions. Not the usual green forests and mountains, but paintings in the sand, of the desert, in yellow.

There were sheep on the way; plateaus; windmills; springs. We passed many small and big villages and towns with beautifully maintained houses. We went up mountains and down into valleys and then up again. Crossed Mujib and Tabbineh dams. There are not many words I have to describe all that we saw! And no pictures either. all that remains is in the mind and what I had felt at the time…

Your mind wanders thinking about all this land would have gone through, all that happened which led to such a landscape.. it was all so very mystic, the entire 7 hours, I can still feel the feeling I had when we were on that drive, endless… where the journey was so much more alive than the end...

Dam on kings highway

Was it worth it - I would say yes, but if you are not much of a fan of scenic drives, where all you get are pretty views, then its not for you. If not, then you would love this road - you should definitely drive through.


Also, as I wrote earlier, try to keep enough time for this drive. One, so that you can stop and enjoy the views. And second, that you can visit the places on the way, like Mount Nebo, Dana reserve, Karak and Shobak castles etc.

We reached Madaba at night and stayed overnight at the Mosaic City hotel. The hotel was near the famous churches of Madaba with the famous mosaics. Madaba also seemed like a bustling city with places to visit of its own. We did not get time to explore them but have heard they are worth visiting.

Anyways that was the end of the trip, flying back to London in the morning. By the way, the drive from Madaba to the airport in the morning at 5 am was pretty too and we saw a lot of rich houses on the horizon - Jordan never failed to surprise us, even on the last morning!

On the whole I would say that Jordan was unlike any other traveling experience of mine. Maybe because it was the first trip to the Middle East. It was a culturally rich trip, with a huge variety of things to see - Petra, Dead Sea, Wadi Rum. I wouldn't say Jordan is a must-visit destination, but if you like going to different types of places, it definitely is! What it has to offer is one of its kind.



Map

Impressions of Jordan