Away Awhile Journal Entry 60

Journal Entry 60

November 30th, 2005

"How I Almost Returned to Sri Lanka (and other stories from the Holy Land)"

Well, another update, another sequence of events I'd've never predicted.

I was in Cairo. Four days. Met my friend Ian. Saw the pyramids: they're big. Kinda triangular-like, with four sides, surrounded by annoying camel and donkey touts, and Egyptian schoolgirls daring each other to speak to you. Else in Cairo: great orange juice, and fantastic cheap street food. Off to Jordan. Need to avoid Israel (I'm going to Syria and Lebanon), so take the long expensive way via the Sinai peninsula and the Red Sea. Major pain in the ass.

Jordan. My Israeli friend David (travelled with in Ethiopia) and his friend Miron meet me. Together we visit Petra. Anyone who's seen 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade' is familiar with this. The wonderful Treasury House carved into a cliff after you've been walking through a narrow gorge for 2km. That first glimpse is priceless. But there's much more to Petra. Tombs and palaces everywhere carved into cliffs, all amid a landscape that's worthy of a visit in its own right.

Off to Amman, Jordan's capital. Alone again. Find the best hummus in the world. I visit Jerash, an old Roman city, then I quickly head for Syria. And get deported. But...are you deported when you never actually get in? I left Jordan in the morning, and sat in Syrian immigration for the whole day waiting to be rejected and booted back to Jordan, and Amman, just as dark was setting in. A visit to the Syrian embassy the next day gets me no further.

See, my brilliant plan was to fly from Amman to Beirut, Lebanon. From Lebanon, border visas for Syria are merely $16 (as opposed to $100+ had I got Egyptian residency status and sorted out my visa in Cairo like everyone else does), offsetting the cost of a flight. But the flight's more than I anticipated. I find a flight from Amman to Beirut via Sri Lanka and U.A.E. for not much more. Those would be brilliant stopovers! Very tempted. But then I luckily find out in time that as of 17NOV, you can no longer do this visa on the Lebanon border (after many years of this policy, I miss it by a mere four days!). So I try the Jordanian border. Failure. Ahh...the fun of red tape!

As always, I have a backup plan. When I said goodbye to David and Miron, I thought it was for a few years (before I'd visit Israel). Little did I know it was merely for three days. Enter Israel. Instead of evading the dreaded Israeli passport stamp, I actually request it. This makes my life simpler as I can no longer debate visiting Arab countries...I simply cannot enter. On this passport anyway.

So Israel it is. I'm held up on the border (surprise). They tend to question travelers who have been to Yemen recently, turned back from Syria, don't know how long they plan to stay, are unemployed, don't have a ticket out (or even know what country they plan to exit TO), and don't even know where they're staying. Even all the Palestinians were admitted before me. Seriously.

But I get in. Meet David again. Spend the next days in Rehovot, a very normal city. His friends become my friends. Take a drive up to northern Israel: the Golan Heights, Nazareth, Sea of Galilee. Beautiful, even if more modern than Europe even. Float in the Dead Sea, like a carrot in cold soup (you can be told it's a bad idea to dunk your head under water, but I'm of the type that will always try it anyway...it is a bad idea, by the way...and really, really, don't do it twice).

I spent time in Tel Aviv, a lively and modern city on the Mediterranean. And Jerusalem: its ancient and troubled brother. Full of biblical sights. Stony hilly twisty Old Town, full of holy sites for Jews, Muslims, and Christians. North of the Town, I wandered through traditional orthodox Jewish neighborhoods full of dudes in black hats with foot-long curly sideburns and beards. Like another planet.

And Bethlehem. What a place! Site/victim of the new Berlin-like 'Wall' being constructed to separate Israel and the (Palestinian) Territories. Entering the city is like entering (or exiting) a prison. Inside, it's strangely quiet and empty for an Arab town. By habit, I walk everywhere. See the Church of the Nativity, and the spot where Jesus was allegedly born, concluding the list of random biblical spots I've stumbled across. Things seem to have changed a bit in the last two millenia.

Weird feel here with the Wall. To me, as an outsider, I can't quite fathom how this concrete monstrosity is a permanent solution to the problem. Like so many places I visit, I'm actually happy that I can visit, then walk away and not have to deal with the existing situation. It's so complicated and convoluted that no outsider can truly comprehend all the in's and out's. Some try, and end up looking and sounding like ignorant fools. So I'll just shut up.

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I conclusively state that the Arabs are #1 at hummus (chickpea-based dip), while the Israelis are #1 for falafel (deep-fried chickpeas, usually served in a pitta bread with veggies).

I end up content that my plans turned out as they did, ending my Middle East tour in Israel instead of Syria. The foremost thing I noticed here is the mix of people. Signs are in Hebrew and Arabic, sometimes Cyrillic. The people have every shade of skin and eye color known to man. Markets are a colorful mix of people and goods. Having spent a lot of time recently in homogeneous Arab countries (aside from Egypt), it was quite a change to enter this island of different-ness.

I only spent one night at a guesthouse out of nine days in Israel. I've been staying with friends, and this is one country where that is definitely the most enjoyable way to go! I've been spoiled. Tomorrow, I leave by plane, for Turkey, since by land I'm obviously locked. It's always a wonderful feeling to re-enter a place you know, and Istanbul is definitely near the top of those places. But like so many of the cities I end up in multiple times, it's merely a transit point...

'American citizens should...avoid crowded public places, such as restaurants and cafes, shopping and market areas and malls, pedestrian zones, public transportation of all kinds, including buses and trains and their respective stations/terminals, and the areas around them.' (US government web site, on travel in Jerusalem) // Gee, that's practical, isn't it?

Away Awhile is hosted by Josh Trutwin.