If you want to go to Israel overland without getting those annoying stamps in your passport then Jordan is the place to be. As you leave Jordan ask for a stamp on a separate piece of paper - they give it to you with a smile.
Arriving at the Israel luggage is put through a conveyer and scan - not unlike an airport - and the same for personal bags. One then stands in a short tunnel as jets of air is sprayed on you ... why? To blast (and collect) evidence of explosives off one's clothes?
The passport control was slower: I'm behind a Canadian guy who goes through questioning about where he's been, where he's going and why he wants his Israel stamp on a separate bit of paper. They give him a form to fill out and wait at the back. My turn: the same questions, pretty much the same answers, the same form and instructions to wait. The form is simple: full contact details, including cell phone, home phone and email address; intended destinations and the names and details of any friends and relatives that I will visit.
After half an hour later a lady comes and asks for Canadian. After about ten minutes he comes back and it's my turn. Where have I been? I list the countries. Where am I going? I list the towns. Why am I going to the West Bank? Tourism. Do I know anyone there? No. Do I know anyone in Israel? No. Do I have a cell phone? No. It takes no longer than ten minutes.
I go back and wait. It turns out that Canadian, who sports a large, healthy beard, was asked three times if he was Muslim - because of his beard. A German lady who lives in Jordan - married to a Jordanian Christian - is repeated asked if her husband really is a Muslim. I don't get any of this, presumably because my beard's too short (and I'm not married to a Jordanian).
An hour and a half after first reaching the passport control the lady returns. "Are you sure you don't know anyone in Israel?" No I don't. "Are you sure you don't have a cell phone?" No I don't. "You'll get your passport in a few minutes."
Thirty minutes later - two hours after first stepping away from the passport desk and two hours before sabbath starts - I get called back. I'm allowed in (wooo!). I take my passport and head to baggage reclaim. The lady who checks the passport stamp has a good hard look at it: "Where are you going?" ...
Trials and tribulations over, I arrive in the Eternal City and head to my hostel of choice: no more rooms. The hostel down the road? No more rooms. Before setting off on a big hike to find more rooms I double check with the first hostel: they have space on the roof. No worries, I take it. Except nighttime is cold and thankfully they have a late cancellation in their dorm. Sorted.
So, let's move on to Jerusalem. What a city! The old city is small but is stuffed with things to see, the most obvious highlight being the Western (Wailing) Wall and the Temple Mount. I did a free walking tour (and kindly tipped 8 shekels - €1.60 - which was all I had at the time) which covered these highlights although sabbath restrictions applied in the Western Wall Plaza: no technology (cameras and cellphones) and no writing of notes to put in the cracks in the wall (which normally one can do). Our tour group also happens to be in the right place at the right time is invited by a rabbi to have the complementary snacks and drink which accompany the Bar Mitzvah.
The next day, however, I returned to the plaza: photos were taken, the Temple Mount is open (for a few hours though) and my camera goes wild.
Jerusalem (and Bethlehem for that matter) are pleasant but veritably drowning in pilgrim tourists (of whom a surprisingly large proportion are African) and which shows just how few tourists there were in the rest of the Middle East by comparison. Suffice to say, shops here cave into this demand and offer for sale a huge range of Christian paraphinalia.
After some days in Jerusalem, wandering the substantial markets and dodging pilgrims, I did some daytripping in the Palestinian Territories, starting with Bethlehem. Bethlehem's just a spit away from Jerusalem and easy to get to, although it does mean passing through The Wall. It's a strange site partly because it's easily seen in the news media (at least it was) so you have a mental image of what to expect but also due to the dimensions: it's a good four Stephens tall (based on my humble estimate) but only about 50 centimetres wide. It just looks flimsy when viewed from the side. Depending on where you are there may or may not be wire all over the top and the odd watchtower sits wedged into the wall.
Crossing from the Jerusalem side to the Bethlehem side the most striking thing about the ID control is that there isn't a separate entry and exit line so that anyone queuing also faces the prospect of someone queuing opposite him / her waiting for the same ID control officer. There are fingerprint scanners, just like some airports and also a hostel I stayed in (in Bristol). I was waved through without any of this - tourists aren't a problem.
Passing through The Wall, I walked the short distance to Manger Square and headed straight for the Nativity Church, built where JC was born. It's a fairly ordinary church made more interesting by the pilgrims cramming into the basement area, like college students in a phone box, before starting their singing. This seems to be a common theme as I have observed other pilgrim groups breaking into song as they walked the stations along JC's path to Golgotha.
The Palestinian Territories are quite easy to travel in (shared taxi services proliferate), so after visiting Bethlehem I continued to the town of Hebron to the south of the West Bank. The West Bank is a series of zones of control - Israel provides most of the security outside of Palestinian towns and the Palestinian Authority provides security within the towns. This means that there are often simple roadblocks outside of towns (such as Hebron or Jericho) as you cross into different security zones although outside of Nablus there is a complete ID control checkpoint which requires travelers to queue, pass metal detectors and cross by foot before catching a bus from the 'Israeli' side, outside of the town. The queues were long although the wait was about 30 minutes when I waited there. Hebron, however, is a little unique in that the town itself is divided into two districts: H1 and H2, the latter being the 'Jewish' side of Hebron where several Jewish settlements are built.
Arriving in Hebron I had a potter around the new town centre before heading for the main sight listed in my LP Middle East book: Ibrahim Mosque, site of where a Jewish settler massacred some Palestinians. I passed through Hebron's old souk - half empty - and through a tunnel to the mosque and an Israeli checkpoint at the other end of the tunnel. A simple passport check and confirmation that I'm not Muslim and I'm through. I go to the mosque: bag search and metal detector. I head up the steps to the Muslim entrance: another bag search and metal detector. I go in: it is quite an ordinary mosque on the inside.
Outside I go down to the main road - as I'm checking with the soldiers that it's fine to continue further, one suggests that I remove my kuffiah (Arab) scarf - which is use as a neck-warmer - for my safety because 'it's a Jewish area' . Past another barrier and I'm onto the main road. It is deserted except for a few shops opposite the mosque. One of the shop-keepers speaks good English and we have a long chat. According to this man, armed with a B'Tselem map, these few shops exist because they are the only ones that have a permit and many hundreds of other shops don't exist because they haven't received permits. Yet. It seems that there's quite a waiting list. They happen to be shops previously run by Palestinians but, since they are now on the H2 side of Hebron they are shut ...
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| From The West Bank (16, 17 and 19 February 2009) |
The roads are near deserted except for the occasional pedestrian, bus and IDF checkpoints manned by lone (and perhaps even lonely) soldiers.
I also find out that, as a non-Muslim, I'm also allowed to access the Jewish side of the mosque - surely an oxymoron in action - and so decide to have a nosey around. Bag check and metal detector (including the soldier holding my camera up to a CCTV to check that it's permitted) after which I climb the stairs to the second bag check and metal detector. It's quite a small hive of activity and study with books everywhere and plenty of people around. Some soldiers inside pose with visitors for photos. I had a quick look around a bit more of the H2 side of the city around the Ibrahim mosque before heading back to Jerusalem.
The next day I headed to Jericho - the self-proclaimed oldest city in the world - which is a spit away from the River Jordan and the Dead Sea. It's a quiet town and there are some sights - monastery, ruins, an old tree (you know, the sycamore that Zacchaeus climbed) - which I see the old fashioned way, by foot.
After an unplanned day in Tel Aviv for my camera I finished my daytripping in the West Bank by going to Nablus. I got off to a bad start, going to the wrong bus station in Jerusalem and eventually caught a bus which went close enough to Ramallah that I could jump off, backtrack a few kilometres to the turning, and catch a minibus to Ramallah. Ramallah is a bustling town but one which lacks any real distinction. The town centre is a turning circle with some concrete lions in the middle. As the 'capital' of the Palistianian Authority I would have expected a little better but then, having seen a particularly small and ugly concrete building on the outskirts of Ramallah marked as a PA ministry, I guess I was expecting too much.
Nablus, however, was something different. It's the largest city in the West Bank and, unlike Ramallah, has a distinct city centre with market and a souk and is home to the finest specimens of an Arab sweet dish called kunafa. Kunafa is basically a layer of melted cheese with crunchy bits on top and it is delicious. I was lucky that when I arrived at the LP-recommended centre of kunafa excellence a man was coming out of the kitchen with a massive tray of the stuff on his shoulder. Within seconds the waiting kunafa afficionadoes had assembled and within about 10 minutes the whole tray - and I stress that it was a monster tray - was gone. I helped the cause by having two helpings which I consider to quite restrained under the circumstances.
With the West Bank crossed off my list I headed for Israel proper and my first stop was Tel Aviv. I Couchsurfed the rest of my trip in Israel so bunked with Irad who also showed me around the city and took me to a gig in a local pub by the local band Shmemel. It's hard to define their music so I recommend that you look at some of their clips (click on the link). Tel Aviv is all shopping, cafes, theatres: the anti-Jerusalem. Want to see something old? It's not there although nearby Jaffa is an antidote. Unfortunately the weather was rubbish but that didn't matter with the nightlife options on offer. As I was staying the weekend Irad kindly took me out and about to see the countryside north of Tel Aviv and drop me off in Haifa, my next destination. It was jolly cold and wet but in between the bursts of rain we stopped at the Rothschild gardens where Rothschild resides in his crypt, a small monastery and some druze villages.
I stayed with Amir in Haifa - a visit again blighted by bad weather. The first full day I was there the weather held up enough for me to head to the old town of Acre. It's not unlike Byblos in Lebanon (although the weather in Byblos was a lot better): old port, crusader castle, small old town around the port and - unique to Acre - some Templar tunnels. Thankfully I was able to pass the worst of the weather in the castle, avoiding raucus school groups. I also saw Waltz With Bashar whilst in Haifa: it was recently nominated for an Oscar (it didn't win).
To finish my trip I headed to the Sea of Galilee, specifically to the town of Tiberias. I stayed with Atalya, in the small town of Kinneret, and spent my days there traveling up and down the western side of the lake (and also a few hours with a local sea scout - a neighbour of Atalya - on the Sea of Galilee. It is a particularly beautiful part of Israel partly because of the season: there were wild flowers blooming all along the edge of the lake and it was a pleasure to just potter around there for a few days.
I had also heard that the far north of Israel was a great place to be: I arranged a stay at short notice in the Dafra kibbutz with Atalya's friend Ido and headed there for Tiberias. Unfortunately the same weekend I was there was also the same weekend that the rain clouds (and thunder clouds) decided to return. It was freezing cold - snowing on the nearby Mt Hermon (home of Israel's only and overpriced skifield and, I later saw, on the hills near Amman - so although I didn't get to see more of the great outdoors I did get to meet some of the people in the kibbutz. Nearby Corrine and her two Nepalese lodgers and some other acquaintances of Ido were all graced with my presence and plenty of food was consumed (I donated a lot of rice to the cause - glad that I got a new bag before coming).
Keen to get back to Jordan to finish off my visa I couldn't wait for the weather to get better so did a quick walkabout the next morning and then left for Israel's northern border at Sheikh Hussein Bridge.
I exited Israel - no stupid questions, just a departure tax - and then off to Jordan. Except there's a problem: I ask for my entry stamp on a separate piece of paper (kind of necessary to maintain the facade that I've never visited Israel) except that Jordan puts their entry stamp next to the Israel exit stamp. That's in my British passport (which I used to enter Israel in order to keep my other passport 'clean'). So the Jordanians wanted to stamp my British passport. Not a problem except that I'd then have two entry stamps and can only get one exit stamp as I leave ... they invited me into their back room for a bit of a chit chat and asked their superiors about the different options and, well, there were none that were feasible. They were very helpful but in the end the only advice I got was to lump it and to not have my second entry visa stamped on exit. Frustrating that their bureaucracy can't cope with such eventualities but my main passport is still untarnished by the pale green ink of an Israel border stamp.
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