Laos was the first country where I began to embrace a slower pace of travel, thanks to James’ suggestion to stay in the country longer than what I had planned – it was our first trip together after our initial meet up in Hong Kong a few months earlier. I had booked a return flight to and from Vientiane, the capital of Laos. But my newly-found travel buddy told me about Luang Prabang and convinced me to budget a few extra days in the country so we would have enough time to visit its ancient royal capital. I decided to agree with him and despite the oppressing heat and humidity, our time in Luang Prabang turned out to be one of the most relaxing and rejuvenating travel experiences I’ve ever had to date.
After my unforgettable first trip to Japan, I was thinking of going to a place I had always dreamed of visiting: Jordan. Thanks to an incredibly cheap promo for a return trip via Muscat, I booked the flights to this Middle Eastern country for April. Three months before the date of departure, however, James instinctively checked the flights for Jordan and what he found out shocked us: the flight departing Jakarta to Muscat was for some reason cancelled. I called the online booking company (whose customer service officers were extremely helpful, fortunately) where I bought the tickets to clarify this and in the end they offered to reroute my departing flight through Kuala Lumpur with Royal Jordanian. However, because the transit time was too tight, I decided to opt for a refund altogether and chose central Vietnam to replace Jordan – my second time to Vietnam was a blessing in disguise as this replacement trip ended up being one that was filled with visits to beautiful ancient temples and tombs, a stay in a charming old town, and heaps of mouth-watering Vietnamese dishes.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t until our trip to Lebanon in April this year that my interest in going to Jordan reignited. A food writer in Beirut who guided a group of four people, including us, through the streets and alleys of the Lebanese capital to savor the diverse flavors of its cuisine told us that even though the za’atar (herb and spice mixture used in Levantine dishes) we had in Beirut was really good, the best kind actually comes from Jordan. Then there was the magnificent ruins of Baalbek which made me think of another ancient architectural wonder in this part of the world: the famous rock-carved city of Petra. Lebanon was country number 29, so heeding all these implicit suggestions during our stay in Lebanon, I decided that Jordan would be the country that would complete my travel resolution.
Finally, after canceling our original trip, I found myself setting foot on Jordanian soil two weeks ago, visiting the Middle East for the second time in a year. As opposed to the lush, well-watered landscape of Lebanon, that of Jordan’s is dominated by desert and barren hills, only occasionally interspersed with rare patches of greenery. Amman was bustling with life and felt very safe with a strangely stark contrast between its west and east sides. The ruins in Jerash were impressive, all scattered across a vast area which made me imagine how this place must have looked like when the Romans still lived here. The mosaics of Madaba were astonishing, a testament to this land’s richly layered history. The monumental structures of Petra were spectacular, each and every single one of them meticulously carved into the sandstone hills and mountains of the arid landscape. Wadi Rum was both magical (in the morning and at night) and unforgiving (at midday). And the food! I enjoyed Lebanese food so much, but most of the world already knows how good their food is thanks to the huge Lebanese diaspora. But Jordanian food… It’s seriously underrated.
In the upcoming weeks and months I will elaborate further on my travel experiences in this kingdom. But probably the question some of you might ask is this: what’s after 302020? Nothing, really. At this point I’m already convinced that I won’t need another travel resolution to keep me exploring the world because I know that’s one of the things I enjoy most in life. I will most likely return to countries where I only spent a little time visiting in the past (Thailand, the Philippines and South Korea) as well as satiating my curiosity of places I’ve never been to.
