A slow day in Petra

The previous post in this series is here..

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!

Heaven on earth and other things..

The previous post on this series is here..

Our original flight from Iguazu to Buenos Aires was supposed to leave at 6PM to a local BA airport. We were to go from that aiport to the hotel, sleep and wake up at 5AM and leave in the morning for our flight to Rio.

We had just rested after a long day of seeing both sides of the falls in one day (being wet all day) and woke up to news that our flight in the evening is delayed or possibly cancelled because of severe weather. 

Martin came to the rescue and said "just go to the airport now and see if any flights have seats left". So we packed in a rush from the Airbnb and went to IGR airport. The other airlines said they will give us a refund but that wasn't going to solve our problems if we were stuck in Iguazu! So we went to all other (two in total) airline counters at that airport and found that one local airline had 4 seats left for the next flight. We booked it right there and took off to BA. It was the best decision we made.

We got to check in and spend an evening on the Ricoleta side of Buenos Aires. We took a local map and walked around. I really wanted to see at least two places.. the Colon theater (which was ruled out as we needed prior arrangements to go inside) and El Ataneo, which we did walk and see.

Buenos Aires is beautiful. People are nice. We walked around the parks, took a "bench photo"

saw pitcher plants being sold on the side of the street in carts (nice natural way to keep out insects in the homes! this would be a big hit in India was my thought)

walked past beautiful buildings

had some hot drinks in the local cafe's

went and saw the bookstore that got the title of "worlds most beautiful bookstore" from National Geographic..

For a book worm who loves the smell of new books, this was defnitely heaven. This store used to be a famous theater where the likes of Carlos Gardel had once performed..(you can go read up on Gardel.. he features in my Ph.D thesis dedication). They have retained most of the theater and made an amazing book store! This is a must see if you go visit Buenos Aires..

Then we walked back to the hotel and took an Uber to eat at one of the best local Indian restaurants in BA. I liked it. The family had very high expectations and the waiter did mess up our order and got us one wrong dish and claimed this was what we ordered. Eventually they got us the right dish. Masoor daal is not a fav in this house and that was completely wasted. Yello daal tadka, we will devour any day! It was also too dark inside. Candlelight may be good for a romantic atmosphere but you still need to see who you are romancing. 

All said and done the family gave the restaurant an above average rating. For a guy who was already craving desi food after 4 days in Argentina, this was great! I gave it an A. 

After that dinner and debate on the food, we Ubered to our hotel and had a nice rest. The flight change worked in our favor. The next morning we had an uneventful trip from BA to Rio!

will pick up the travelog in Rio tomorrow..

The northernmost Indian restaurant - Hari Om

The previous post in this travel series is here..

While drinking the hot cocoa provided by Frozen Tony and waiting for the one taxi guy who was actually willing to take us back to Fairbanks, San and me both said this at the same time "Wish we could have some hot tea and samosas right now!"

We had already checked out Indian restaurants in the area earlier in the day.. Hari Om was the one with the best rating. So we asked our taxi to drive us to the restaurant. Given it was closer to the hotel we were hoping to get a taxi after dinner to take us to the hotel.. we were going to cross that bridge.. after some chai and dinner.

This restaurant was small, cozy, and the ambience, service and food were just amazing! I was naive enough to ask the owner "how do you get fresh corriander leaves in this weather ?" and his response was "this is America man. I can get anything here! not an issue". Then he went on to talk about how he gets to see the Northern lights from his bedroom window all the time and how the cold is something you get used to etc.. 

My mind was still elsewhere.. reliving my snowmobile experience. The food was just mouth watering. If you ever go to Fairbanks, don't miss this place. The dal tadka here was better than any I have had in a bay area restaurant. San thinks I rate desi restaurants better when the outside weather is too cold..like when we went to Banff! Maybe desi food tastes better when you walk into a restaurant after freezing your ass off. Maybe..

Do check it out if you hit Fairbanks. We did manage to get a taxi after dinner and Chai!

Pretty much covered everything we did in Alaska. There were not many things to do over a weekend and we did as much as we could given the time. Best part was we made it back to bay area and did not fall sick with a cold or flu or covid! After that Banff experience we were worried about that! Got lucky this time!

We have successfully seen the Northern lights, snowmobiled towards a gorgeous sunset and have had a nice dinner in a desi restaurant, no matter where we go!

Now for more regular bay area happenings..