Advertisement
Published: September 30th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Another atrocious nights sleep one of the new occupants snored like a giant anteater with bronchial pneumonia. We kept chucking stuff at him during the night but he wouldn't wake up, thankfully wouldn't have to put up with that again as I headed off to Tel Aviv.
With my huge backpack I waddled off to Damascus gate to get the bus to the trrain station, was then told that I should head off to Jaffa gate (the Israelis call it yafo). From there you need to walk up Jaffa road to the bus stop. On arriving at the central bus station, it is huge, apparently Egged the main bus company in Israel is the largest in the world. The bus station has 7 floors, with all kinds of modern shops and outlets.
Immediately got on a bus which cost 18 sheckels and started the one hour journey to Tel Aviv, sitting next to me was a soldier, throughout the journey I was hoping his safety catch was on!!!
Although just an hour away Tel Aviv was a world away from everywhere I had been so far, for lunch I had salad and Pizza at 12:00 - how civilized.
I then got a Dan bus off to my hostel, staying at Hayarkon 48 by the beach as Kev spoke to a fellow traveller who recommended it. It is a bit pricey for me - 75 sheckels a night but the facilities are excellent they have 3 toilets per floor and 2 showers and they are clean. The place has a common room with TV and a pool table and in the morning you can have toast and coffeee but no tea - how uncivilised!!
Went for a swim, the waves were huge, loads of surfers on the beach, it was like being in Hawaii - kinda.
I went to Mikes place, quite a famous ex-pat hangout on the beachfront, it still bore the scars of a suicide bombing a few years back. The barman was from Glasgow!!! you just can't get away from them :-). The bar is next door to the American embassy so it was full of our brethren from aross the pond, spotted a few jarheads there as well.
Took advantage of the happy hour a pint was 14 sheckels instead of 24 - a bargain. Tried all the beers and for
Maccabee was the best.
The next morning I nursed my hangover with a morning stoll across the seafront to the city of Jaffa (2km south of Tel Aviv) with the joggers, cyclists and power walkers. The city is mainly christian and there are numerous churches there was even a Church of Scotland mission (probably full of Glaswegians).
Jaffa is definately worth a visit but there is a lot of building work going on around the port so it will be a lot better in a year or two. There isn't much to do in Tel Aviv apart from sun bathing, swimming and drinking, ther'll be more of the latter than the former for me though.
When I got back to the hostel, the new occupant of my room was Kev from Jerusalem so we went out for a few drinks later in the night.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.065s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0337s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
anonymous
non-member comment
Just finishd reading about your trip to Israel!
Hello David! So as the message title reveals, I read about our journey and enjoyed i a lot. I'm myself planning a trip to Israel in the spring with my friend, something of a celebration for graduating from high-school. So now that I'm searching for hostels here and there, I thought if you'd remember the ones name that you stayed in EinGedi? The price 113 shekels isn't the cheapest, but it still fits the budget! Thanks for your time, and if you have any tips for a couple of backpackers, feel free to ad some:D Have a great day and keep on bloggin while tripping!