Across the Empty Vast: Madaba to Wadi Musa via the Desert Highway
We left Madaba a little after noon, the car humming gently beneath us. The mosaic workshop was still fresh in my mind, but ahead lay a very different kind of canvas — the open stretch of Highway 15, Jordan’s famous Desert Highway, and the long road to Wadi Musa.
Desert Highway looked exactly as I had imagined — long, open, and endless. I’d never driven through a landscape like this before, and something about it made me sit up, take it all in
There were no trees lining the sides. No fences. No welcoming greenery in the distance. In parts, the land stretched flat and bare, in others, low hills rose in waves—rocky, dry, and pale.
Back home in Dhemaji, Assam, highways are always bordered by life—bamboo groves swaying in the breeze, banana plants leaning lazily over fences, and fields of yellow mustard stretching across swathes of land. Small tributaries of the mighty Brahmaputra snake alongside, their waters shimmering in the sun. And trees—so many trees—Indian Jujube, Ironwood, Silk Cotton, Neem… nearly fifty kinds if you start counting.
The climate there is tropical monsoon rainforest—lush, damp, and alive. The rain pours heavy and long, cooling summers and feeding one of the richest biodiversity zones in the world, a mosaic of rainforests, deciduous groves, and bamboo wilderness.
In Ireland, it’s hedges, stone walls, sheep scattered across fields, quiet bogs, soft hills — and often, a gentle drizzle in the air. A kind of everyday beauty that doesn’t try too hard but quietly stays with you.
But here, there was none of that outside our car.
The color palette was minimal — ochre, dust, pale blues overhead, and the sun — harsh and unblinking in the open sky.
For a moment, I wondered — what if your car broke down in this stretch? There wasn’t a single tree nearby to take shelter under. In some parts, Imad pointed out olive trees far off in the distance, but along the roadside, it was just you, the heat, and the highway.
And yet, it wasn’t dull.
Even with the AC on and the windows shut, I found myself watching — the endless land on either side, the straight stretch of road, the way everything seemed to repeat but never quite the same. There was something about the scale of it — dry, vast, stripped down — that held your attention.
We had been steadily overtaking cars along the way — most of them older models, and more Toyotas than anything else. One in particular caught my attention: a greenish Toyota pickup, its body dented and sun-faded, the boot held down with ropes, windows rolled all the way down. No air conditioning, just windows rolled open, the driver’s arm casually resting on the sill. A family of five crammed inside.
Behind them, a pick-up truck, just as weathered, loaded with white sacks—heading who knows where.
And there we were, windows shut, AC humming, soft Arabic music playing.
It wasn’t just one car. We kept passing more — sun-faded, windows rolled down, families packed close, goods tied down with rope. They moved through the heat like it was nothing unusual.
And sitting there in my seat, I watched quietly. There was a kind of respect that settled in — unspoken, steady — for the people who drive these roads every day.
Not everyone takes this route often. For some, it’s once a year. But for others, this long, hot stretch is part of life. Their daily commute. Their lifeline.
At some point, I must’ve drifted off.
When I woke up, my mouth was dry, and my stomach had started staging a protest. The clock on the dashboard read just past 3 PM.
We had been driving for nearly two hours.
I glanced at Imad. “Didn’t you say we’d stop for lunch in an hour?”
He laughed and said in his familiar Arabic accent. “Few more minutes, my friend.”
Few more minutes turned to an hour and at 4, he finally pulled over. A low signboard stood to our right, outside a building that looked like it had grown out of the desert itself: ‘Mazayen — Restaurant & Bazaar’.
From the outside, Mazayen looked like a typical roadside diner you’d pass without a second glance. But once I stepped in, it felt like walking into a cultural surprise.
The space opened into a large, cool hall, with sunlight filtering through a stained-glass skylight that lit up the center, where a cluster of lush green plants stood quietly like they belonged there. A young, well-dressed man — possibly the owner — greeted Imad warmly, then turned to me with a polite smile and welcomed me in a crisp British accent. To the left, shelves and stands were lined with souvenirs—many of them similar to what I had seen in the Madaba workshop, including antiques and handicrafts. But there was something new here.
Dead Sea cosmetics.
Neatly arranged on both tables and shelves—tubes, jars, and boxes, labeled in both Arabic and English. The man explained that these were skincare products made using minerals and mud from the Dead Sea.
He told me he was originally from the area but had spent several years in London and was now back, helping run the family business. After lunch, he gave me such a persuasive and informative sales pitch that I ended up buying quite a few of those products myself.
To be honest, I hadn’t thought Dead Sea mud had a commercial afterlife. But here they were—scrubs, creams, salts, and serums—sitting confidently among mosaic tabletops, animal figurines, tiny lamps, and decorative teapots.
But it wasn’t just the handicrafts that stood out.
The seating itself had a kind of quiet elegance.
Thick wooden benches cushioned with deep reds, blues, green, white, and ochres in beautiful geometric patterns.
It reminded me instantly of home. Not the physical space, but the textures and patterns.
Assam, my home state in northeast India, is home to many indigenous ethnic groups—Mising, Boro, Assamese and so many others—and their traditional textiles have similar bold, handwoven motifs.
One pattern in particular—predominantly red and white—reminded me of the Naga shawl, woven with great pride and care by the Nagamese people from the northeastern Indian state of Nagaland
We have one in our home, gifted to my father nearly 30 years ago. Still strong, still intact. The colours may have faded a little, but it does its job during cold winter nights, and it’s travelled with me too—to Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka.
A reminder that fabric can carry more than just warmth—it carries memory.
I chose a table that gave me a full view of the hall.
The buffet had everything you’d expect in Jordan—chicken, fish, fragrant rice, salad with fresh olives and herbs, hummus so creamy it needed no bread.
But what caught my attention were the soups.
Two big pots sat side by side. I later found out what they were after asking the young man.
Shorbet Adas and Mulukhiya.
Shorbet Adas was familiar in parts—it was red lentil soup, the same daal we use at home, but this had a different texture and spice combination.
But it was the Mulukhiya that truly puzzled me. A deep green broth, thick and slightly slimy in texture. I asked the young man what it was, and he tried his best to explain — but there wasn’t a common name for the ingredient that I could relate to. I just noted the name of the soup as he pronounced it, and later looked it up online. It turned out to be made from jute leaves. This soup was new to me, but comforting.
Later, I would ask my dad if jute leaves were ever used in Assamese cooking — and to my surprise, he said yes, without missing a beat. ‘Morapat,’ he said — the Assamese name for jute. And just like that, I realised… of course. Back home, people have been eating different dishes made from jute leaves all along.
As I sat back in that beautifully woven seat, slurping a soup made from a plant I never imagined eating, I found myself smiling and thankful—for this chance to travel, to sit here in the middle of the Jordanian desert, and to feel at home in a place so far away from my own.
After my heavy lunch, we continued our journey for another hour and a half, finally entering the town of Wadi Musa—a place vibrant with life, its streets alive with people, lights, and the quiet anticipation of those on their way to Petra.
I had set out that day thinking it would just be a drive. But it turned out to be a quiet mirror—a desert road that showed me how far I had come and how deeply places connect, not by how alike they look, but by how deeply they make you feel.
And somewhere between the ochre hills of Jordan and the wet green of Assam, I had found a thread — not of silk, but of soup, spun from ingredients I never thought the desert and my home would share.
