Advertisement
Published: August 10th 2011
On Monday I left Amman for Israel and the West Bank. I had stayed the night with one of Tad’s friends from CIEE who graciously allowed me to stay with him. After waking up early, I took a taxi from Paris Circle to the north station, which I managed thanks to Tad’s Arabic tutoring.
Normally people take a shared taxi from the North Station to the King Hussein / Allenby border crossing for like 5JD, but I got really lucky and a bus to the Allenby bridge was leaving just as I got to the station and I was able to hop on for 3JD. The bus wasn’t even remotely full. Quite lucky really.
After driving through the desert for a while, with some towns interspersed, you arrive at the border crossing. I have never been to a border crossing like this before. Actually I have very rarely driven across a border – almost all my experience comes from trains and planes. It is quite weird to keep driving past jeeps with machine guns mounted on the top. After going through Jordanian border (exit tax 20JD), you have to get onto another bus that goes through no-mans-land. This bus
is run by a Jordanian company, and we got to the Israeli border checkpoint.
Once you arrive at the Israeli border, the tension is increased. There are guys not much older than me strolling around with automatic machine guns and their fingers on the trigger. I suppose that Israel’s history makes this not such an unreasonable thing, but is disconcerting. The guys with machine guns in
Jordan don’t seem to have the same steely resolve of the Israeli army guys.
The Israeli border is surprisingly disorganized. I figured that it would be clear what the order of operations is, but there is a great deal of disorder with Westerners randomly cutting in line (I followed them), and bags being taken away only to be given back later on. From each point it is never clear what the next thing to do is. Perhaps this uncertainty is intentional to keep folks with less than honorable intentions on their feet.
First they take your bags, and then from there you go up to a counter where a girl stickered my passport, and then I entered into the main building. I was specially called over for a bag check, and
they checked it for explosives, cleared me and sent me on my way. Then on to the actual border crossing where you get a stamp in your passport. Again a bit of disorder, but I was able to get a spot on a line, and waited for 3 people in front of me to go, which took about an hour. They were asked innumerable questions. Finally my turn in line, and I went ahead and told the girl what I was planning to do. She seemed to like my answers since I passed through without too much fuss. A three month entry visa. Welcome to Israel! I picked up my bags and went out of the terminal where I caught a sherut (Israeli version of the shared taxi) to the old city in Jerusalem.
Jerusalem as a city is quite an interesting place. The old city is a claustrophobic and confusing mix of old alleyways that are covered with millennia of history and modern shops selling everything imaginable, from gold necklaces to spices by the barrel. There is one spice store that smelled particularly pungent, and it seemed like they had a fan blowing the spiced air into the
path of the walkers in the souk.
I decided to spend all three nights in Jerusalem for simplicity. I stayed at the Citadel hostel and the first and third nights I slept in a single room (110 SH) and the middle night I slept on the roof (50 SH).
On the first day I had a half-day in Jerusalem and I wandered around at first trying to find my hostel with great difficulty. Maps are not hugely useful in old city Jerusalem. After successfully finding my hostel I dropped my bags with great happiness, locked up my stuff, and set out for a walk. In my wanderings I ended up in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is where Jesus is believed to have been nailed to the cross. The feeling in this church was so intense, and left me quite in awe. Apparently, there is a psychiatric disease called
Jerusalem Symdrome that otherwise healthy people get when they come to Jerusalem and are in contact with such religious history.
I also went to the Western Wall which I accidentally arrived at. Security is pretty tight, but I was able to take some photos. A very religious
site, and draws quite a cross-section of the Jewish Israeli population.
One of the things that struck me the most strongly was the diversity in the Jewish population. Growing up outside New York City, we have a lot of contact with Hassidic Jews and other Jews that have their roots in modern-day Europe. There are also large numbers of Jews with roots in Africa, and for that matter, Muslims as well. I guess all the mixing is what makes Jerusalem such an interesting place.
On the second day in Jerusalem, I got walking early in the morning and headed out for the Dome of the Rock as the first stop. On entry into the Dome of the Rock, I was stopped by a guy who told me that shorts were not acceptable, even though other people were clearly wearing shorts that were shorter than those that I was wearing. He made me buy a flimsy piece of cloth that he tied around my legs in order to make me more modest and made me pay an immodest amount of money. I felt a bit scammed, though I should have thought ahead a bit since I have been to
a number of mosques in India. It was just so nice to be walking around in shorts. Oh and I didn’t really have a choice since all my other clothes were being washed, so my hands were tied a bit.
The Dome of the Rock is an impressive building, though sadly I am not allowed inside since I am not Muslim. I wonder what it looks like inside. There are always a number of people praying outside the Dome of the Rock as well as students studying the Quran. Tourists are only allowed into the Dome of the Rock area through the Morocco gate, but can leave through any gate. The day before I kept trying to get to the Dome of the Rock through the gates that were exit gates and I couldn’t figure out why they wouldn’t let me in. I finally figured out the way in.
After the Dome of the Rock I walked back through Old Jerusalem towards New Jerusalem. As soon as you cross out from inside the walls of Old Jerusalem, the feeling changes entirely. The roads become wider, the spaces feel less claustrophobic, and everything becomes much more European. Were it
not for all the signs being in Hebrew, I could easily imagine that I was walking down a main street in some European city. I felt very much like I was in Karlsruhe with the tram lines (still in testing mode) going down the center of the street. Relatively high-rent stores line both sides of the street and there are cafes everywhere.
In my wanderings I ended up at a market (perhaps the Yehuda Market but I wasn’t sure), and wandered around there for a while, soaking up the ambiance. I bought some dried strawberries (delicious), and a cheese crossaint. My second moment of joy was the first bite of the cheese croissant. It was absolutely perfectly cooked, and just so good that it is hard to express. Probably the best goodness per shekel in my whole time in Israel.
On that note, Israel is crazy expensive. In three days in Israel, I think I spent as much money as all the time I have spent in Jordan so far. Everything is expensive. Even more expensive than Europe I think. Luckily there are a lot of ATMs around, otherwise I would be in major trouble. While I was
there there were people camping out in a park protesting the price of housing in Israel, and I can easily understand why.
While I was sitting in a park, a guy came up to me and began to lecture to me on how if I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior I could be saved. Uh oh… I was feeling a bit lonely and combative, so I bit, and ended up having something like a one hour conversation with the guy. It was a pretty interesting conversation, though the biggest sticking point between us was his insistence that the world was becoming more and more evil. I think based on every quantitative measure, the world is becoming less evil. Yes, we now have tools that can result in absolutely massive destruction, but the average person is living a life that is healthier and longer than their grandparents. Anyway, it was fun to talk with the guy.
After that I saw that there is a Church of Scotland church, and given my predeliction for anything Scottish I tried to find the church. I eventually did after a range of wandering, but I finally made it. The Church
is so not at all like a Scottish Church with definite Middle Eastern touches like the ceramic work around the door to the guesthouse connected to the church. At one point it was a church with a guesthouse, now it seems it is a guesthouse with a church.
I wandered back to the hostel, nursed my blistering feet, and went out and got a dinner of labneh, tomatoes and bread to save a few shekels. Labneh is one of my favorite things that have come out of the trip so far.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.068s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 10; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0346s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Nathan Bell
non-member comment
Ian, nice entry. These are some important sites you are visiting and describing. Pretty cool