Last day of our stay in Amman before our departure to Mumbai , end of a hectic whirlwind tour spanning 3 different country's with diverse cultures and standards of living. Woke up early as usual and went for a walk in the cold early morning , visiting a local bakery manufacturing various types of bread and pastries akin to
"City bakery", a landmark at Worli in Mumbai. Jordan is a very liberal Muslim country even prior to
"9/11 2001 Muslim fundamentalism" hysteria that has gripped the World at present. Travel in Aqqaba during my sea-voyages was unrestricted and safe , the souk being within the harbour precincts and dry-fruits the cheap delicacy.In 2009, despite
"Al-Qaida Terrorism hysteria" it seems that Jordan society has remained stable and freedom of travel is unrestricted and safe to the average tourist. Amman is a very clean city and "Amaken Plaza hotel" was situated in a plusher locality of the city, a fashionable suburb of Amman.On return to the hotel ,packed the luggage and went for breakfast, later inquiring the costs of some curio's at the hotel tourist shop.Boarded the bus and made our journey to
"Queen Aliya Airport" in Amman. The effects of "International terrorism hysteria" was experienced at the airport customs and immigration checkpoints where besides physically stripping every passenger all other security checks were conducted.
Gulf air flight (Gf972) was punctual on departure at
1515hrs local time and my co-passenger on the next seat happened to be a young Jewish girl, a student traveling from Israel to Bahrain and picked up a conversation with her as she was well versed in speaking English.She was a
"social worker" and as she was reading a Hebrew book i inquired about the Hebrew script and was surprised to note that
"Judaism" has more similarities to
"Islam" culture than to
Christianity. Hebrew books were read from the last page to the front or from
"Right to left" unlike English or most of the other languages in the World.Politics and culture are real paradox's at times as the Israeli and Arabic country's demonstrate and which in turn affect the entire world.Lunch was on board the plane, served with a can of beer but unlike other airlines there was no video films, just inboard earphone channeled music and magazines. We reached Bahrain at approximately
1835 hrs and got the first feeling of the
"Christmas Festive season" on entering the "Duty - Free Shopping promenade" where a "Santa-Claus" robot set was continuously playing jingle-bells and the large duty-free lounges packed with passengers and tourists. We had 5 hrs of leisure time at the
"Duty free transit lounge" and having previously visited it on our arrival to Cairo i got to know the various shopping malls reasonably well on arrival . Browsed through the newspapers at the book-stall and was psychologically depressed at the crash of the Indian stock market, wiping out years of
"Paper Profits" from my self created portfolio.Purchased a
"Cinzano wine bottle" and an
"old Grouse whiskey bottle" at the liquor shop as also a box of
"Mackintosh's quality street" assorted chocolates, memories of my childhood delicacy in Mombasa.Normally,while traveling on International routes i spend my time in transit lounges by browsing through the various newspapers or books kept in the
"Duty-free book shop" and a few purchases, mostly liquor or sportswear.The transit in Bahrain was of 5 hrs, besides , we were already familiar with the lounge hence we passed our time in normal talks as a common stay of 11 days had converted us from total total strangers on departure from Mumbai into acquaintances on arrival to Mumbai, sad that a exciting and educative tour was coming to an end , besides, for me it was the worry of
"Balancing" my finances and living the
"Khushi life" as a
"Self-Entrepreneur".
 |
| Awaiting the plane homewards bound. |
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