I decided for no particular reason I would go to Israel
next. For some reason though, the flights to Israel were quite expensive. So I
did what any cheap backpacker would do. I flew to Amman in Jordan, with the
intention of getting a bus over the border to Jerusalem. It was about $200
cheaper to do this, and it meant I got to briefly see another country.
Jordan is a uber-Muslim country and so five times a day
there is a ‘call to prayer’. What this means is five times a day, some guy goes
to the top of the highest mosque, sings the most annoying prayer song, through
a concert-grade amplifier. Oh and the first call to prayer is around 5am, and
lasts about half an hour.
Amman’s not really a great tourist place, but I walked
around and took a few photos. Here’s Amman’s biggest tourist attraction, a
crappy Roman Amphitheater.
Actually, I didn't even both to stop walking to take this picture.
Here’s what the town looks like:
Nice and boring looking.
The next day, I was off to Jerusalem, Israel. Technically
it’s only 2 hours by road, but Israel is notorious for their border security,
so I knew it would take some time at the border. The drive to the border was quite scenic:
After getting to the Jordan
side of the border, I went through Jordan’s brief exit procedure, was forced to
give them my passport and was given no advice on what to do next. Then I saw a bus outside that touristy looking
people were getting in to, so I followed. This bus takes you like 100m over a
bridge, but you can only cross the bridge by bus, otherwise someone will probably start shooting at you. We waited maybe an hour for
the bus to fill up, then finally someone showed up with our passports. Then we
drove 20 metres or so and waited for another hour for god knows what. Other
buses were passing us all the time. I think you could pay extra for VIP
priveleges, so we had to wait for a hundred buses to unload, before us Very
Unimportant People were allowed to proceed. All this waiting gave us plenty of
time to make friends, so a group of us decided we would share a taxi to
Jerusalem once we crossed the border.
The four of us went through the first stage of security. A
security guard took our bags (with no means of identifying whose bags were
whose). We were all handed a card. Three
of us got an X in one section, but the Chilean guy got an X in a different
section. We didn’t know what this meant until we went through the X-ray
machine. After this, the Chilean guy was taken somewhere else, and the rest of
us got to continue on to customs.
Israeli customs is pretty intense.
They questioned me about a lot of things, usually very directly - ‘Have you
come here to commit a terrorist act? Do you know how to make a bomb?’ There
were many more of these questions, and I continued to answer ‘no’ to
everything. Luckily he didn’t try to trick me with a double negative. Me and
the other guys were let through and collected our bags, which were just dumped
in a big pile.
We waited awile for the Chilean guy to appear, but he
didn’t, so we went to get a taxi. However, the taxi driver decided he was only
willing to take one of us – we couldn’t share. I have no idea why. I can only
imagine he was trying to help out his taxi comrades. The taxi was way too
expensive for one person though, so we got a ticket in the shared van instead.
Only problem is the shared van doesn’t leave until it’s full, and for some
reason, no-one seemed to be going to Jerusalem. We waited for about an hour, at
which point there was only one seat left to be filled. We agreed between the
three of us that we would just buy that seat, so we could finally leave. Just
as we went to do this, the Chilean guy appeared. He told us he had been heavily interrogated because his surname is of Arabic origins. He bought the
last ticket and we were on our way.
Jerusalem is now essentially two places. There’s the new
Jerusalem, which is not all that dissimilar to a European city:
..and the old city,
which is a gated district that is a fairly well preserved version of the old
Jerusalem that Christians, Jews and Muslims identify with. Given this is an
important city to three major religions, I guess it’s no surprise that
everyone’s always fighting over it. Actually no-one seems to even know who
Jerusalem belongs to anymore. I think Israel and Palestine both lay some sort
of claim to the city. And because of this, no-one really agrees on whether
Jerusalem or Tel-Aviv is the capital of Israel.
The first night there I didn’t do all that much, although
there was a fire near our hostel, which we went and watched for a little while.
The next day I was off to the old city. I walked down the hill toward the old city:
I could have caught that train, but I'm a road warrior. I walked through Damascus Gate:
.. into a
flurry of markets lining the quite narrow streets:
Even if you’re not
religious, you get an eerie sense of the significance of this place. I was half expecting Jesus to walk around the corner. There are
actually separate districts for Christians, Muslims and Jews. I had a look at
all of them. Probably the most
spectacular place was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is the place
Christians believe Jesus was buried.
And for me to say a church is spectacular
is really something, considering I’ve seen a million of them, and am generally
not easily impressed by churches anymore.
Also, here is what the old city looks like from above:
That gold roof building is the Dome of the Rock. It marks the spot where Muslims believe Muhammed ascended to heaven. I think it was only recently that the King of Jordan gave them all this gold for the roof, so it would look cooler than the previously bronze roof.
That night was my first experience of Jewish culture. It was
a Friday night, which is the start of the Sabbath. The Sabbath runs from sunset
Friday to sunset Saturday. It is a truly unique experience walking the streets
during the Sabbath in Jerusalem. On a night which would otherwise be bustling
with people, there is nothing open and no-one to be seen. It’s a ghost town.
The only people you see around are the tourists, all heading to the one or two
places in the city centre where you can still buy food. A group of us went to
the very busy burger place that was open, stuffed our faces and went back to
the hostel.
The next morning (Saturday) I wanted to go to Tel-Aviv.
Because it was still the Sabbath, most of the transport options weren’t
available. Thankfully, there are some pagan taxi drivers that will drive you
there in a share-cab with other people.
Tel-Aviv is only 45 minutes away from Jerusalem, but the two cities are
very different. Tel-Aviv is where the pagans go to live it seems. There’s not a
lot to see there, but there’s a nice beach and pretty good nightlife. Still, I
took it pretty easy for the two days I was there.
Next, I was off to Greece. I headed to the airport well
before my flight, which was lucky, because as hard as it is to enter Israel,
it’s even harder to exit. They had a lot of questions that they wanted to ask
me. In fact, the guy literally wanted to know about my entire holiday. I named
every country I’d been to previously and how long I’d been there. After maybe half an hour,
he sent me to another area to get my bags searched.
Firstly, they asked me to
pull all electronic items out of my bag. I pulled a few things out. Then she
asked if that was all. I said yes. She searched my bag and found a few other
electronic things I forgot I had. Oops. She enquired as to why I had lied. I
told her ‘take a chill pill sweetheart, I just forgot a few things’. Actually,
I think I just said the end of that, or I would probably still be detained
in Israel right now. She then pulled
everything out of my bag and tested it all for explosives and what not.
Luckily, I had hidden the explosives well, and she didn’t find them, so she let
me on my way.
Summary
Awesome:
The old city. So much religious history here.
Craptacular:
Call to prayer in Jordan. You pray. Let David sleep.
The Sabbath. I know religions aren't known for being fun.. but really.. you can't close everything on Friday night!
What's Next
Enough holiness. Time for Greek Island partying!
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