Umrah Ziarah Jordan 2010 The Series - KLIA-Bangkok-Amman Journey

Betullah orang kata, kalau hati dah ke sana, yang tinggal terus dilupakan…

I cried a bit thinking that I have to leave my children behind to start the journey. But then, the moment I stepped inside the departure hall, it seemed miraculous that I instantly forgot them. First unpleasant experience we encountered at the boarding gate is the strictness of airport regulation in determining what we can bring and what we cannot bring on the plane: ever since 9/11 all types of liquid containers exceeding 100ml shall not board the plane. We have to leave all our drinking water behind. I decided to opt for “drink till u bloat” campaign, and stayed back a while to finish all my precious drinks. Later I had this devillish look in my eyes when I looked at the boarding officer as if saying to him "I have nothing to leave behind". Hehehe...

Some of us even have to let go of their beauty products such as body lotions, moisturisers and whatever they were taking with them. I know some of these products are expensive. Imagine leaving behind a brand new bottle of SK-II Miracle Water at the counter! Huaaaaa..... boleh sedih gak kalau aku yang kena..

And let the journey begin....our route:

1)  KLIA to Suvarnabhumi International Airport, Bangkok, Thailand via Malaysian Airlines System.

2)  Suvarnabhumi International Airport, Bangkok to Queen Alia International Airport, Amman, Jordan via Royal Jordanian.

Flight to Bangkok took about two hours. Since there is no direct flight from Malaysia to Jordan, we need to get on board of the Royal Jourdanian from Bangkok to continue journey. Transit in Suvarnabhumi Airport was NO FUN. Immigration was worse than KLIA. You need to take off your shoes and even belts for inspection. I became a squeezy toy during the inspection when the lady officers wanted to confirm that my brassiere is of underwired type. Haish! Angin aku satu badan dengan diorang ni!

No food sold here is halal, except for the ones sold at Ichi-Ban restaurant. My husband and I decided to window shop from one end of the terminal to the other faaaaaaaaaar end (the airport is damn big!)and ended up with both our legs sore and painful. But then we had fun spotting and counting how many transveties we saw at the airport. Well, they are easy to detect, actually. Face like beauty pageants, body solid-molid like calendar girls, but still, they can't hide their manly features. After wasting much of our 3 hours wandering, we were seated again on board, very much to our relief, but this time journey took up 8 - 9 hours to reach Amman.

 

One thing that I noticed about the Jordanians - their body frames are huge, both men and women. They are tall, fair skin and bear features like the Arabs. And mind you, they built their aircrafts to suit their height, too. We ladies found it difficult to keep our hand luggages into the high overhead compartments. Even when the men of our group offered to help, we still need the assistance of the flight attendants to put away all the the bags safely. Food served on the flight consist of spicy (using the Jordanian whatever spice, I think) chicken cooked with potato, white rice (long and fat!), fruit salad and bread. Not bad at all. It reminded me of MAS catering during the kaya-raya time in the 1990's. Heavenly. Praise be to Allah for this plenty of delicious food!!

When landed, the outside temperature was 8 degree celcius. Cold and windy. Macam kat London la pulak...

My husband, at the visa counter in Queen Alia International Airport, Amman. Later the airport authority made an announcement prohibiting the use of cameras within the area. Opps! (By the way, the Levi's jean he was wearing in the picture went missing when we got back to Malaysia. We figured out that we did not pack the jean in our bag when we left Madinah for Makkah. That's the last of his favourite RM500 jean, bought in Colorado, USA a year ago...)

These are some photos I took from the bus around Amman outskirt.

This is a residential area, for the poor, I was told by our tour guide, Achmed. They have this interesting building infrastructure where they do not build any roofs on top of the house. Reason: when the need comes and there is sufficient funding, they will erect another floor on top of the building. So a single storey house could become a five-storey apartment after several years. Wow!

 

You'll find rows and rows and rows of trees of olives along the road, as this is one of Jordan's commodity that contribute to one of the main source of income to the country. Jordan has no oil like Saudia Arabia, it is a country that exports agricultural products like corns, olives, fruits, and vegetables to neighbouring countries. Though bigger than Malaysia in terms of size, Jordan has only five millions population.

Just arrived at the hotel.

 

This is The Golden Tulip hotel, situated within the airport vicinity. To get out of this hotel and travel to the city or anywhere you like, you'll have to obtain a visa from the immigration counter at the airport, which cost you 10 Jordanian Dinars. Oh! Talking about currency, you'll be surprise to know that the conversion rate is so unbelievably high here. 1 Jordanian Dinar is equvalent to 6 Malaysian Ringgit. Wow again! Mahalnya!  

Next posting: A visit around Amman to historical places in Islam.