Day One:The Lowest Place on Earth, Dead Sea

One of my remarkable trip in which I fall in love is Jordan. Me and my bestie, Sirin, make a very last minute decision just grab our bag and fly to Jordan for three days before we heading to Myanmar and Cambodia. During that time was fasting season for Muslim, so a lot of the flights not full because during fasting season, many Arabic people just stay and rest at home. So we take Emirates flight to Amman capital city of Jordan. The flight took about 3 hours. We landed at 9.30am and is still morning in Jordan, Jordan is one hour behind Dubai time. Since I'm holding Malaysia passport so I get visa exempted in the immigration, free visa to Malaysia citizen, lucky me!

On the flight, so coincidence that we met another two crews who are our colleagues, so soon we become friend on the flight, and we decided to travel together four of us. First stop we will be heading to Dead Sea. The drive from Amman to Dead Sea take about 1 hour and 30 minutes, since we hired a tour guide with us so we can take this time to take a short nap until we reach there. The fun fact about Dead Sea, is the lowest place on earth at 400m below sea level, beckons visitors with healing mineral waters, air so rich in oxygen it protects people from sunburn, oases teeming with rare animals and world-class historical sites.

The highlight of a visit to the Dead Sea is the lake itself, whose waters shared by Israel and the Palestinian Territories on the western side, and Jordan on the east have a salt concentration of 34%, which is 10 times more than ocean water so that why we get to float easily.

The high salt content means you become incredibly buoyant; floating here is nothing like floating in your the swimming pool or ocean. I find myself more on top of the water than in it. It’s a strange feeling and one that might take a few minutes to get used to.

It was summer when we visited Jordan, so the hot weather and lack of rain mean more water evaporates out than flows in. So the salt gets more concentrated, as do other minerals like magnesium, sodium and potassium. The water level has been dropping by several feet a year as rivers get diverted for use in agriculture and industry and estimated if this carries on at the same rate the Dead Sea could dry up completely by 2050. So we were quite lucky to visit here before it vanish from the earth.

One more important tips for all of you if you plan to visit Dead Sea one day, while you might be tempted to dunk your head underwater or splash about, don’t. Do not getting salt water into your eyes because it sting a lot. Believe me even touching your eyes with your salty hands can makes it worse. So I guess you to keep your chin up, relax and float.

Beside getting floating in the dead sea, we also try out the mud as well. The mud smell like a cow dung, is no a jokes, it smell so bad that I couldn't take it but I still coat myself in the mud and let it dry in the sunshine.

Once the mud dries, get back in and rinse it off; you will immediately notice how great your skin feels.This mud here is famous for its detoxifying and therapeutic effects. It’s rich in magnesium, calcium, potassium, and iron. These vitamins help regulate heart rate, circulation, and cell communication plus it does wonders for your skin.

After the 15 to 20 minutes, we went in to the Dead Sea to float one last time and rinse the mud off. If you put the mud on your face, do not use the sea water to wash it off because like I mentioned even the tiniest drop of water in your eyes will momentarily blind you as it is so salty. It’s one of the most painful things I’ve ever experienced. Then we wrap out everything with a quick shower in the hotel, and have the lunch in the Movenpick Hotel before continue to Petra. It going to take about 3 hours drive to Petra from Dead Sea. On the way to Petra, we stop by some spot to take some pictures as well.

The salts were forming on the bottom of the sea rock.

I really feel myself as a tourist in Jordan!

Jordan is made up of much more than arid desert. The road trip from Dead Sea to Petra, we get to see how quick the scenery change start from bustling cities to serene sea, wooded hills to rocky cliffs.

Love,

Elene