I asked the owner of the parakeet – who was running a coffee stall – “How good is your karak chai?”

“Very good, sir”

“Let’s us try”

And just like that, we sat down to have yet another round of karak chai…

Not having anything better to do this evening, we just walked around the local markets in Aqaba…

… but it made for a great sunset.

First time we saw clouds in Jordan.

We drove to the southern most border of Jordan to see Saudi Arabia. After Jordan, Palestine, Israel and Egypt, this is the fifth country we got to see this trip, up, close and personal!

It was hot as heck (as in 100 degree F). We get out of the AC car. The sun hits us immediately. What do we do?

In India, we have hot tea at a street side stall.

In Jordan, we get Omar to make us some hot Turkish coffee!!

Getting a wee bit inspired to set up a traditional Arabic coffee making set up at home.

… try this – a sunken tank!!

All I wanted to know is the aerial distance from Aqaba, Jordan to Taba, Egypt. I figured if I found out the road distance, I could estimate from it.

I certainly had not bargained for Google Maps asking me to driving ON the Red Sea to a city way down south of Taba and then drive back up north on the highway like driving on the sea was no big deal!

BTW, the real answer is about 12 km. No thanks to Google Maps.

Edit: Have to edit this for Ram Narayanan – he thinks Google Maps is the original reason why Moses had to do it the way he did!! I have changed the title in honor of Ram’s comment!