Youth India organizes edutainment trip to Jordan

JEDDAH – The local chapter of Youth India, a social welfare organization of young Keralites working in the Gulf, organized an education cum entertainment trip to the religiously significant heritage sites of Jordan during the Eid Al-Fitr holidays. Led by Youth India’s North Jeddah zonal president Omar Farouq and tour captain Hisham Hafiz, the group of about 50 men, women and children set out on their five-day long overland journey late afternoon on the Eid day. Traveling along the coastal road passing through the cities of Yanbu, Wajh, Dhiba and Tabuk, the group reached the Halat Ammar border crossing the next morning. Abdu Subhan and his team made what otherwise would have been a tedious journey pleasurable with an array of onboard activities, which continued throughout the trip. Abdullah Wahsh, the guide set up by a tour operator,  received the group at Mudawwara, the border post on the Jordanian side. Following visa formalities, which took nearly four hours to complete presumably because of a communication gap,  the group changed to a Jordan-registered tourist bus. Their first destination on the itinerary was Aqaba through Wadi Rum (Valley of the Moon), a UNESCO World Heritage Site best known for its connection to T.E. Lawrence and the Arab armies who fought the Ottomans during the Great Arab Revolt. But Abdullah made some adjustments in the plan to make up for the lost time due to the gratuitous delay at the border crossing. Instead, he took the exhausted travelers who had to skip their regular breakfast for snacks left over from the previous night to a restaurant in Wadi Musa near Petra for a pre-arranged lunch. As the desert road ran parallel to what was left of the erstwhile Hijaz Railway, Ebrahim Chemnad gave an account of the historic endowment project to link Makkah with Damascus undertook by Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hameed II. The railway reached Madinah in September 1908, but it got no further  because of interruptions caused by the outbreak of World War I. The railway was sabotaged during the Arab revolt against the Ottoman rule in 1916. However, the section between Amman and Damascus was reopened and the service continues till today. The food served in a traditional setting at Al-Qantarah Restaurant was sumptuous, especially as everyone was quite hungry after the skimpy breakfast. Refreshed and relaxed, the travelers were impatient to visit Petra, the capital of the Arab Nabateans. En route, they stopped at Oyun Musa, the fountains that sprang from a rock when the Prophet Moses (peace be upon him) struck it with his legendary stick during the Israelite exodus across Sinai  after fleeing from Pharaonic Egypt. Listed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List since 1985, Petra was made popular by “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”, a 1989 action thriller directed by Stephen Spielberg. Carved in sandstones by an industrious Arab people who settled in the region more than 2000 years ago, Petra was an important crossroads on the trade routes that linked southern Arabia, China and India with Egypt, Syria and Europe.  Entrance to the city is through a narrow gorge called the “Siq” flanked on either side by towering cliffs. According to Abdullah, it would take up to five hours to trek the entire stretch of Petra, which covers an area of about 265 sq. kilometers and that the visitors had to leave by sundown. After a hectic day of activity the travelers spent the night at a hotel in Petra and resumed the journey immediately after the breakfast the next morning. The destination was the historic battlefield of Muata in Al-Kerak where 3,000 courageous Muslims from Madinah pitted against a mighty Roman army of 200,000 men. After praying at the well-preserved tombs of the martyrs, Zaid Bin Harithah, Jaafar Bin Abi Talib and Abdullah Bin Rawaha (Allah be pleased with them), the group decided to visit the Cave of the Seven Sleepers (People of the Cave) near Amman. The seven sleepers, according to Christian and Muslim beliefs, were righteous young men who slept out 300 years in a cave outside Ephesus while hiding to escape repression by Roman Emperor Decius Augustus. Traveling through Al-Wihdat refugee camp on the outskirts of Amman, Abdullah explained how the Palestinian refugees flourished in Jordan, which granted them full citizenship following the Israeli occupation in 1948, by securing their children the best education possible. Abdullah, who spoke impeccable English, impressed everyone in the group with his knowledge of history and religion, as well as adept analyses of Middle Eastern politics. In Amman's old city center they visited the awe-inspiring Roman Theater and other landmarks. On the third day, the group set out in the morning for a dip in the hypersaline water of the Dead Sea, the banks of which at 430 meters below sea level is the lowest point of dry land on earth. After a therapeutic mud pack and a couple of hours floating in the Dead Sea, next they went to Mount Nebo, or Jebal Musa, from where according to the Bible, God spoke to Moses for a second time, pointing to the promised land. Some 2,600 feet above sea level, the summit gave a panoramic view of Jerusalem and the valley of River Jordan to the north. According to Christian tradition, Moses was buried on the mountain. After the homely lunch at a cozy eatery run by a Christian couple in Madaba, the travelers moved to Wadi Shuaib, believed to be the burial place of the Prophet Shuaib (peace be upon him). A 20 minutes’ walk from the Toledo Amman Hotel is the famous Mosque of the Martyr King Abdullah Bin Hussein, the second largest in the Jordanian capital. The mosque opened in 1986 commemorates King Abdullah I, the founder of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan who was shot dead on the steps of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on a Friday in the July of 1951 by a lone Palestinian gunman. It was built at a total cost of about 6.2 million Jordanian dinars (about SR33 million). K.H. Raheem, Ebrahim Chemnad, P.M. Sabu and Mohamed Haneef K.M. presented a historic overview of the sites visited. Youth India’s Mohamed Khasim, Abdulsathar and Fawaz Abdullatheef formed the core team of volunteers. Abdul Salam,  Naushad Wynad, Bushra Sulaiman and Rehina Reneez with their occasional input and witty interjections invigorated the onboard activities. The group began their journey back to Jeddah on Sunday. The trip went smoothly until Halat Ammar, where they were held up for about five hours awaiting customs clearance. Tension began to simmer as most of the group members had to report to work the next morning. Back in Jeddah Monday morning, all members of the group agreed that by and large the tour was an enriching experience, and they urged Youth India to organize more such trips in the future. “I was really impressed by the organization of the trip, particularly the services of the guide, who had meticulously planned everything to detail. The food and accommodation was beyond expectations. The Youth India team leaders deserve appreciation,” M.H. Sulaiman, who with his wife and daughter incidentally was the first to enroll for the tour, said on a parting note.