AirlineRatings.com Names Air New Zealand As Its Safest Airline For 2024
16.12.2023 - 14:41 / matadornetwork.com
Step into the cramped hall of Jordan’s Souk el-Khodra, the Amman Vegetable Market, and the aroma is the first thing you notice. Certainly, the colors are dazzling – the bright green of raw chickpeas, deep purple of sumac, golden turmeric, and dozens more vibrant provisions decorate brimful tables. Meanwhile, the ambient haggling in Jordanian Arabic provides a melodic soundtrack.
But it’s the scents that captivate. Many vendors have their own roasting ovens, which gently spin as they roast peanuts, tree nuts, and watermelon seeds, emitting their rich perfumes. These creamy, wafting smells mix with warm hints of cardamom, cinnamon, and clove and are sprinkled with the pungent perfume of thyme, fenugreek, marjoram, and countless more herbs.
Photo: Noelle Salmi
Our guide at the market and throughout the week is Moayad Al Otaibi. The son of a chef, Otaibi studied in kitchens and studied archeology in college, making him the perfect guide for a pilot tour of Jordan oriented on food to be offered by the travel company Explore Worldwide. The seven-day trip costs between $1470 to $1630, excluding flights, with a $530 surcharge for single-occupancy travelers. Explore Worldwide works with local providers to design journeys, which can last from four days to three weeks and are bookable three months to over a year in advance.
The Vegetable Market is located near an ancient amphitheater in the oldest part of Amman. At a shop just next door to it are yet more spices, offered up as dried leaves and berries or ground into powders. Many are blended into combinations to be purchased whole or crushed – among them several versions of za’atar, a mix of thyme and sesame that may also contain other herbs and spices. In Jordan, za’atar often includes the lemony tartness of sumac.
“Almost all the spices come from India,” Otaibi says. “We use the same spices, but with Middle Eastern flavors.”
Photo: Noelle Salmi
Al Otaibi, an Amman native, is passionate about his country’s cuisine and enthusiastically details how to prepare each dish we encounter. On our trip we’ll admire Jordan’s deservedly famous highlights, Petra and the Wadi Rum desert, while also visiting village bakeries and dairies, hiking through fields of wild herbs, and helping cook our meals.
A trip to the Ajloun Forest Reserve in 3,500-foot hills north of Amman gives us a first taste of Jordanian flavors and hospitality. On our journey there, we pass the Jerash region, home not only to extensive Roman ruins but to copious olive groves. At the reserve itself, a workshop converts olive oil from those groves into moisturizing soap bars, either plain or enriched with ingredients like pomegranate and oatmeal.
Next door, the Biscuit House bakery turns out sheets of redolent
AirlineRatings.com Names Air New Zealand As Its Safest Airline For 2024
Unveiling Jordan’s baptism site’s significance, the insightful interview with Rustom Mkhjian highlights interfaith harmony and future collaborations in religious tourism.
Japan will head to the AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2023™ as the top ranked Asian side. The four-time AFC Asian Cup winners maintained their 17th spot in the latest FIFA World Ranking issued last Thursday.
The Asian Cup comes around every four years, but for some countries, the wait is much longer than that.
Merging hospitality with the world’s top Asian destinations, Remote Lands is at the forefront of the luxury travel planning industry. The operator offers itineraries to 38 different countries on the Asian continent, highlighting the cuisine, heritage, and standout features of each. The company has teamed up with hospitality brand Aman to add a personalized element to its trips by jet.
With holiday travel coming up, travelers may be thinking back to last year, when a spate of severe winter storms grounded flights across the country just around Christmas, and an operational meltdown at Southwest Airlines dragged on for nearly a week after.
With nearly 40 million people slated to fly during the holidays this year, airlines are preparing for what could be one of the busiest holiday travel seasons on record.
When you think of a cruise vacation, you probably imagine sailing the tropical waters of the Caribbean, or navigating around the Greek islands. Your brain likely isn’t conjuring images of the sandswept deserts of Saudi Arabia. But Saudi Arabia strives to make itself more attractive for international tourism — making the process of getting a visa very easy, and establishing tourism-specific destinations like NEOM and AlUla. And thanks to its efforts, it’s become a desirable new destination for Red Sea cruises. Since the first cruise to Saudi Arabia in January 2022, sailings to the kingdom have multiplied. Right now Jeddah is the country’s main cruise port, though as tourism development continues throughout the region, more ports are likely to open. Whether you’re a cruise enthusiast or a newbie, now’s the time to consider a Saudi Arabia cruise.
What’s happening right now in Saudi is groundbreaking — literally and figuratively. Huge developments, so massive they’ve been dubbed “giga projects,” are transforming the country like nowhere else in the world, bringing in new attractions, opening next-level luxurious hotels, and even creating entirely new cities.
Disclosure: TPG accepted a comped round-trip ticket from United for the SFO-CHC flight to get access to the events and executives on board. TPG paid $574.67 for a positioning flight to SFO and for other associated costs, such as hotel and ground transportation.
The skyline of Amman looks a bit like a game of Tetris. From the top of the Bronze Age Citadel, the city’s highest point, the view seemingly comprises tiny blocks of tightly compacted, limestone houses strewn with washing, topped with water tanks and interspersed with the odd cypress tree. The clear blue sky is occasionally pierced by one of the city’s many minarets. The soundtrack, a cacophony of traffic and car horns honking from the streets below, is soothed by the echoes of the call to prayer.
I'd seen images of baby Krishna atop a banyan leaf in pop devotional art posters all over India. Yet it was only on a dusty lane in Jaipur's Old City that I witnessed the leaf of the banyan tree deliver something divine in person. “That's outstanding,” said Chintan Pandya as he tasted a piece of kesar pista makhan—a seemingly simple bar of saffron-tinted butter topped with bits of crushed pistachio—picked off the dried leaf. “No…mind-blowing.” Licking his fingers, America's most acclaimed Indian chef passed the bar to me. “Here, use your hands.”