A Whirlwind Tour of the Arab/Israeli Conflict: May 28th, 2005

A Whirlwind Tour of the Arab/Israeli Conflict

The Plan: Fly from Cairo to Lebanon. Take bus from Beirut to Tripoli, Tripoli to Aleppo. Go from Aleppo down to Damascus, Damascus to Amman, Amman to Jerusalem, and then back to Amman on June 4th…let’s see how it goes…

Day 1: Saturday, May 28th

I arrived in Lebanon in the afternoon and immediately began searching for a taxi to get me to a bus station where I could find a bus to Syria. The plan was to cross the border from Lebanon into Syria so as to avoid huge visa fees and the 10 day application process I would have had to have gone through if I had gotten a visa in Egypt in advance. Since I was only in Lebanon for about 3 hours I didn’t need to buy a visa but I took out about $20 anyway, just to make sure I had enough. Now, I should have known better than to take a cab from the airport, since they are expensive ripoffs, but time was more important than money at that point so I ended up haggling a taxi driver from $15 to $10. A bus to my desired location probably would have cost $1.50. Lesson: don’t take taxis from the airport in Lebanon.
At first it turned out to be a good idea. I got a chance to ask a native Lebanese guy about Syria (the day after I left Lebanon the last time Hariri was assassinated). The taxi driver didn’t like them too much, saying he was glad they left because Syrians are thieves. He also warned me to watch out in Syria because “they are all thieves.” When I was getting out of the cab he proceeded to try robbing me. Not physically mind you, but more of the guilt trip tactic. I gave him $20 and asked for $10 change. He tried to give me $5. I stared at him and he stared back as if he had done something normal. I then informed him I wanted the rest of my money and he got all upset, saying the ride should have been $15 even though we had agreed on the price. Well, being well acquainted with this kind of nonsense from Egyptian cabbies I simply refused to get out of the cab until I got my money. Eventually he gave it too me and as I was leaving he informed me that I was the son of a whore. I told him he was a bad person (in more colorful terms) and he drove away. I will forever remember that Lebanese guy as the supreme manifestation of hypocrisy on Earth.
The Syrian bus guys didn’t turn out to be much better. First I had to struggle to find the actually bus that would take me to Aleppo (Northern Syria) via Tripoli (Northern Lebanon) instead of a taxi, which would have been far more expensive. I say struggle because when I say “bus to Aleppo” they hear “taxi to Aleppo.” It’s understandable, they want money, but annoying, because they want more than I want to pay. However, I eventually got pointed in the right direction by when they figured out I was serious, but then I had to find the right bus.
The first guys I talked to told me I had to talk to the Godfather. The ‘Godfather’ turned out to be a skinny little man with an inflated image of his importance. He was sitting on a bench surrounded by a bunch of guys who looked like band lackeys waiting for a bone from the dinner table. I asked the guy how much to Aleppo. He asked me if I had a visa and I said no. He said $100. By this time I was sick of getting ripped off so I laughed and said no. Then I noticed one of the lackeys trying to take my picture with his camera. I had no idea what that was about so I turned away. When he didn’t give up I walked off with my face turned away from him.
However, the lackeys wouldn’t give up. They ended up sending one of their more energetic members to try and talk to me. He waived me to a bus in the back of the terminal. It was sketchy, but it was still public, so I followed. He tried to become my friend, as usually, attempting to gain my trust. He then told me I would pay him and then we would go to Aleppo. I thought that was just too hilarious so I got off the bus. He said no, wait blah blah, and so we kept arguing price. Eventually the Godfather came over and drove the bus to the front of the terminal, into a parking space designating it as going to Tripoli. I realized at that point that I had been overly paranoid at first, but no harm done. Mr. Energy and I kept arguing price. I tried to get him down to $50, which I actually would have paid, but the Godfather wouldn’t let him go below $75. Eventually I just got sick of the operation and got off the bus. I then found another bus going to Damascus (Southern Syria). The contrast was huge. Where as Mr. Energy had made up some story about times being hard between US and Syria (which was partially true) and how that made it more expensive to bribe the guards (possibly true) the guys on the second bus told me there would be no problems and it would cost me $5 for the bus and $15 for the visa. I couldn’t help but laugh.
Then Mr. Energy showed up again, when he realized I was not playing games, and suddenly $50 was ok. However, by that time I already knew he was lying and he couldn’t beat $5, although he did try to drag me away. But the guys on the second bus were simply more honest, not changing their minds a lot, and they all told me the same price. One of them also spoke good English. Now, Mr. Energy may or may not have been a nice guy, but the ability to communicate clearly in a language I understood made me trust the English speaker a lot more. This does not hold true for any one in the Middle East who can speak English, but being able to communicate really helps the whole trust thing….communication…interesting…
After laughing at the Godfather and his pathetic band of minions I got my bus ticket and was off. In retrospect, if I had gotten $50 out of Mr. Energy at first, I would have gone with him. But his tough dealing just rubbed me the wrong way. My buddy on the second bus also told me that a bus from Damascus to Aleppo, inside Syria, cost about $5. Do the math and I ended up getting to Aleppo for $25 and met cool people on the bus ride.
I think the English-speaking guy’s name was Ibrahim, but it if wasn’t, I’m going to refer to him as such anyway. He turned out to be Syrian as well, along with the bus driver and all the passengers. Apparently Syrians transit to Lebanon all the time to work or trade. Ibrahim bought trinkets in Lebanon and sold them in Syria. He also transported alcohol. I don’t think he did anything illegal as he was too small time. When I told him about the Godfather and all he was upset and said that he did not like those guys because they give Syrians a bad name and make them look like thieves. I told him that Lebanon had the same problem (along with everywhere else, for that matter).
He turned out to be a very useful friend. At the border he helped me change my money and get my visa. After much rubbing, the money changer had decided my $100 bill was fake and he would not change it, so I had to change a $20 instead. After getting my visa, which was extremely easy and required no bribery, we got back on the bus and entered Syria, no problem. I slept the rest of the way until eventually Ibrahim told the driver to stop in the middle of the road. Apparently that was his stop and as I had no one else to hang out with I decided to go with him, at his invitation. We caught a cab to his place where he dropped off his stuff and then he insisted on buying me dinner. After eating one of the hugest Shwermas ever (for about 50 cents) we went to the phone store so I could call my Mom’s friend’s son who lived in Syria. His name is Mark Antakli and he offered me a place to stay whenever I needed one. I told him I’d be back in a few days and he told me to call when I got back. That being settled, Ibrahim dropped his phone off for repairs (instant service right in front of you in the cell phone store) and while they were fixing the phone he took me to a video game parlor right across the street from his house. Ibrahim had an obsession with Command and Conquer: Generals, which I found hilarious, and it also made us instant buddies. I had played the game a few times in the past, but I had never been all that good and I had never played the expansion which they had apparently released. Needless to say Ibrahim, playing as the US Air Force bombed me into oblivion. It was quite impressive actually. Apparently he has never been beaten, not even by the Americans.
After my womping we collected my backpack from his house, got his cell phone, and then went on a hunt for the old town where there is a coffeshop with an old Storyteller and a restaurant with great whirling dervishes…apparently. As it turned out I saw neither of these things as I had just missed the Storyteller and the dervishes required me to eat dinner, which I had already done. I did get to smoke some sheesha and talk a little politics though. Apparently, according to Ibrahim the Christian who lives in the Christian quarter, religion does not matter in Syria. Everyone can be friends. However, the Muslims apparently do not like the Christians. When asked about the government he responded, “I don’t like them but they keep the peace.” He also told me that he liked Asad but knew that Asad could not do anything because he is surrounded by the old guard who don’t want reform. He also told me that, even though you can’t say anything against the government, if a person gets mistreated by the police, the citizen can report the cop and the cop will be punished. That small amount of law was apparently enough for Ibrahim. Security is very important in the Middle East, although I think I only notice that sentiment because in America we have security, and it is only when we fear we do not that we start to sacrifice our freedoms. Hanging out in the Middle East has at least shown me that I never want to end up in a situation where I have to justify my own repression with fear for my personal security.
Ibrahim’s girlfriend (whom he “only uses for sex.” Apparently they do that in the Middle East too) was visiting him the next day, but was out of town for the night so he offered me a couch to sleep on. I declined, saying I’d sleep on the bus to Aleppo. He gave me his number and told me to call if I had a problem and after directing my taxi driver to the bus station, we parted ways. The taxi driver used his meter, which was nice enough, and we got to the station and exchanged money no problem. At the station a chain of guys directed me through the metal detectors and to the bus to Aleppo.
The bus ride was uneventful. I don’t even remember a checkpoint. One guy did try to sit next to me to talk to me, but when I told me I wanted to sleep and that I was cramped in, he moved to an open pair of seats with no fuss. He also gave me his phone number, but again we had hit a language barrier. My poor Arabic and his poor English simply could not establish bonds of trust I could trust and I got an immediate creepy vibe from the guy. Again, he may have been nice enough, but that language barrier is a serious problem.


Day 2: Sunday, May 29th

I woke up in Aleppo at about 3 am. The moment I got off the bus I was attacked by 4 hungry cab drivers and I hadn’t even tied my shoe laces (I had slept with my shoes off on the back row of seats in the bus because they did not like it if I put my shoes on the seats). Now, one of my friends back in Cairo had given me a map to a good hotel in Aleppo and as that was all I had to go on, I gave it to one of the cabbies and asked him if he knew where it was. After 2 seconds another cabbie snatched the map out of the first cabby’s hand like a five-year-old child and said he knew where the hotel was. I made him verify that and then I set the price to get there.
He had no clue where the place was and had to run into various stores to find out. He at least ran, felling the guilt of being a lying swindler. When we finally found the place he asked for double the money, which he promptly did not get. The hotel guy eventually came down and scolded the cabby for trying to rip me off. I realized then I had picked the right hotel. At first the hotel guy didn’t offered me the roof to sleep on for $1. I didn’t really care so I agreed. I was about to settle in, but he came racing up the (steep) stairs to inform me he had a room back down on the first floor. My hip was hurting me at that point and I didn’t want to walk down just then so we sat in the kitchen area and worked out my schedule for the next day. I told him I wanted to do a tour of the Dead Cities, and he already had the plan laid out and he said he could get me the cab by 7 am and I would be done by 1 pm with plenty of time to see the rest of the city. I then went down to my room. The door to my room opened in, but because the room was so small the door hit the bed before opening all the way. The only thing in the room was a bed, a chair and a trashcan. Perfect. The trashcan itself would have been worth $5 and I ended up only paying $2.
I woke up at around 6:30 am and packed one of my plastic grocery bags with some snacks and books and then caught my cab at 7 am prompt right outside the hotel. Customer service. The Dead Cities were pretty neato, but maybe not worth the (approximately) $20 I paid to see them all. I didn’t even get to see the ones which the guide book said were really cool. There was one on a mountain which had some cool statues which reminded me of the dogs from Ghostbusters and St. Simeon’s Monastery was definitely worth it (the guy apparently built a really big pillar to sit on so he wouldn’t have to talk to people and then they built him a monastery…). What I did get a good look at was the absolutely gorgeous countryside of Syria. In fact, perhaps the most surprising thing about all my travels was the LACK of desert. They even had a sprinkler system at one place.
We got back to Aleppo about an hour early, which suited me just fine. I stopped off in the hotel for a minute to reorient myself and then got directions to the big Souq (marketplace) from a different hotel guy who had already heard that he looked like William Dafoe…but he really did…it was scary.
The souq turned out to be very cool. It was HUGE and there was tons of stuff, except of course for a soccer jersey and flags which I ended up not getting in Syria . I guess I’ll have to go back . Above the souq I found the Citidel of Aleppo, which was also Garmantuous and built on an equally Garmantuous hill. All in all, the thing was just ridiculously fortified. I explored every nook and cranny for about an hour or two, and even managed to get caught up with a Mediterranean Yacht racers’ tour group (?). The thing which amazed me the most was that the place had trees growing in it. I didn’t even realize I missed trees so much until I started seeing the again (Zamalek, where I lived in Cairo, actually does have trees in it, but for some reason the trees in Syria really got to me).
After the Citidel I got some food and then when on a hunt for the famous bathhouses of Aleppo. The first one I found ended up being the one I went to, although I did find one other. The place I eventually visited was geared toward tourists, however, and being a tourist I figured that was the place for me. On my way to the place I had to walk in front of a huge police station. At that point I had bought a huge bag of pistachio nuts (actually, I always buy a huge bag of pistachio nuts) and as I walked in front of the police station I discarded some of the shells on the ground…right in front of cop. I looked at the shells, he looked at the shells, then we looked at each other in equal surprise, and I just kept on walking.
Avoiding any more pistachio nut shell incidents, I made it the bath house and got acquainted. The whole operation cost about $5-10, which is actually a really good price, especially for a tourist trap. I had to change into a towel and walk around in wooden slippers. The place didn’t have any pools, but it did have soap, sponges, water basins and buckets, so I did actually get to take a bath/shower. The massage involved me lying on a solid stone floor, so it wasn’t all that magnificent. In the end the massage guy (no massage women for men in the Middle East) wrapped me up in about three towels. The operation looked so hilarious I decided it had to be documented and posted as my Facebook picture, which it now is.
After my bath I caught a cab to another marketplace nearby (always insist that they use the meter) in search of a sports store which would actually have Syrian soccer jerseys. I did end up finding the one I was directed to, but they told me they didn’t have any and that I should go the place right across the walkway. I went to the other place and they said to try the first place…Since the situation was to twilight zone for words, I just left it at that. I caught another cab to my hotel, again insisting on the meter. The hotel ended up being pretty close, although the guy still had to ask 20 directions, and then when I finally told him I could just walk there, he tried to turn off the meter quick so I wouldn’t notice the price. Unfortunately for him I did, and he got that price and then complained. I asked him if that was what the meter said, and he said that was too little, but before he could finish he’s whining I had already walked away. If you wanna survive the Middle East, always demand the meter.
At my hotel I tried to ask Mr. Dafoe if I could get a bus to a nearby town so that I could see Sarjella, the cool dead city the book mentioned, but he sweet talked me into staying another night (especially since I had already missed check out) and going in the morning. Everything was closing by then so I went upstairs to the little café and sat to read my Economist and watch some news. There we one other guy up there. We didn’t talk at first, but hostels being hostels conversation is a must. He ended up a being a German guy named Sebastian and he turned out to be pretty cool. Eventually he’s buddy came upstairs, and he was probably the most German German I had ever Germaned in my whole German. He also had preset notions about Americans, like how we never lose our American accents no matter what language we speak. I thought that was hilarious considering how German he was and that he didn’t speak any Arabic, so how would he know? But all kidding aside they were cool (the second guy’s name was Joel) and we eventually went out for some falafel and Beer.
The falafel place was an experience. The guys working there actually had a system where I paid outside, picked up a color chip representing how much I had paid, which I then gave to the guy inside for a set amount of falafel. They also gave us a ton of napkins and were generally really nice. The amount of service astounded me, and they certainly weren’t thieves.
Next we hit up some old really famous hotel which today has fallen into disrepair. The place was big with celebrities back in the day and they even had a framed unpaid check from Lawrence of Arabia, who had been a frequent patron of the hotel.
Over beers we touched on fun subjects like Iraq and the Holocaust. I had always been fascinated to ask younger Germans what they thought of World War II and these two guys at least were sick of it. The anniversary of V-E day had just past, and apparently this is a huge event in German, with nonstop television specials on the war. While they both thought it to be interesting, and the Holocaust to be horrible, by then they had heard enough about it and were ready to move on. I pretty much figured that’s what they would say, having heard this about young Germans before, but hearing from an actual young German gave the theory much more validity. Two Germans gave it twice as much.
In the end I got the opportunity to shock them by demonstrating a basic understanding of their political system, and the goings on of their local politics (the Economist had just had a story about it ). On top of speaking Arabic and being in Syria I pretty much established myself beyond the bounds of the typical American stereotypes. I also got the chance to shock Joel by tsking at one of the barmen who was trying to sell us a tour of the city, which was annoying since I was just trying to have a beer. However, Joel had much more tact than I and was trying to talk the man down gently. Needless to say my method got rid of him, but Joel’s would have been much more diplomatic. I guess I’m not beyond all American stereotypes.
Finally we decided to call it a night. After swapping emails we headed back to the hotel. They were actually very gracious and offered me the use of their private bathroom, which I declined at first but then accepted when I realized the public one had not seat. After brushing my teeth we all went to bed.


Day 3: Monday, May 30th

I woke up early, as usual, and went on a bus station hunt. Bus station hunts are always fun because they always involve talking to people who only speak absolutely no Arabic, and there are always 20 bus stations with a million busses. Eventually I found the mini-bus I wanted and headed down to Sarjella. Once again I got lucky enough to run into an English speaker, who was so fascinated by the fact that I was white, young, alone and spoke Arabic, that he just had to help me. In fact, that was pretty much the reaction I got from just about everyone in the Middle East, except for Lebanon and Egypt where people like me are a dime a dozen. He told me which stop to get off at, which I did, and then I had to go hunting for another bus to get to Sarjella (I had been dropped off in Idlib, a small town close to Sarjella).
First I tried the bus station. They didn’t have anything, but I took the opportunity to check on the buses down to Damascus. After finding that out I went to look for a taxi to get me to Sarjella. I ended up finding one across the street. In the course of trying to explain what I wanted I drew a crowd of about 20 guys who all knew exactly what was going on and how to explain it. As it turned out none of them had any clue what I was talking about, but the taxi driver AT LEAST had the foresight to stop off at a tourist center to figure it out.
Inside the tourist center was hilarious. I walked into a room where about 7 guys were sitting around doing nothing. I asked them where Sarjella was. They offered me a seat. I sat down, because you have to sit down, and then asked again. They started asking about my Arabic and where I was from and I obliged, because you just have too. Eventually the conversation paused. I asked them about Sarjella again and they said to wait a few minutes for the guy who was supposed to be sitting behind the desk to get back (there was no one there at the time). I waited about 2 seconds and then realized I had played that game before. There was not going to be any behind-the-desk-guy and if I had waited I’d still be sitting there. So instead I stood up and said I really was in a hurry (which I was) and much to my surprise and pleasure they all sprung into action and we got the whole thing sorted out in about 30 seconds. After that successful operation in time management my driver and I continued onward to Sarjella.
Sarjella itself was a drive, but it was worth it. I spent about 2 hours there. The place is huge and has buildings everywhere. In fact, people still live in the ruins, giving it a very eerie feeling of life. My guide followed me around for a while (although we kept playing this game where he would walk in front of me as I was following him, and then I would go a different direction and then he would run, catch up, and then start walking in front of me again as if he had planned it that way all along), but then he got tired and just sat down. I don’t think he could comprehend why I was so interested in the place, and honestly, I don’t even know. The place simply inspired the imagination (for example, I kept finding these pairs of rooms with single arches in them; as in, there would be a room with one arch spanning it, and next to that room, but in a separate room, would be an identical room with an arch spanning it. At first I thought it was interesting, but after the 4th one I started imagining Stargate style teleportation fields. I even found a symbol on the ground which looked like the wind, implying speedy travel through the air and I almost flipped out!...I like Sci Fi).
After exploring a house and a farm within the ruins, I decided it was time to go so that I could catch my bus to Damascus. As we were leaving another van pulled up. Now, picture this. My guide and I were going around to the right side of a building. The young, blond American girl, her mom and her dad who got out of the van went around the left side (from my point of view). My driver, as if he had meant to all along, switched directions and walked all the way around the other side of the building on a small wall which encircled it. As I he walked he practically stared at the girl the whole time. I found the whole situation so comedic I almost filmed it. They didn’t end up married, though, and we didn’t have time to talk, so we got back into the cab and raced back to Idlib.
After some mixups as to the location of the bus station (my driver knew where it was and I thought I knew. He took me to the right one, and I told him to take me to the other one, and then he took me to where we started and realized he had just stopped above the bus station instead of below it, where I recognized it from. Needless to say, not trusting the cabby may be an instinct, but it’s not always right). Eventually he went with me inside and I talked to the bus guy, who sold me a ticket and everything got straightened out. I paid my cabby and then sat down to read Heart of Islam, some book written about Islam specifically for American Christians.
While I was sitting reading two guys walked up to me and introduced themselves. Apparently introducing oneself to foreigners is the thing to do in the Middle East. One of them was a swindler and kept interrupting the other, but eventually he caught a bus. The other guy turned out to be much cooler, if a little shyer. His name was Osamaa and he was about to take his big final English test the next day in Damascus. His one dream was to take his family to England or America, which sat just fine with me. We tried to get seats next to each other on the bus, but I wasn’t all that interested in talking the whole bus ride as I had had that conversation a million and a half times (and nobody would trade seats anyway. If they would of I might have done it because it was a double-decker bus which I thought was insanely cool and he was sitting on the second level). When the bus stopped for a break, the guy I was sitting next to asked me if I was going to give my book as a present to the bus driver. Apparently the bus driver had just gotten married and he had a little shrine/present offering place set up in the bus for people to leave stuff. I figured the guy really wouldn’t want a book about Islam written in English, so I declined.
At the rest stop Osamaa insisted on buying me lunch and bought me drink even though I said I didn’t want one. I think he was actually insulted that I had refused, whereas I was thinking that usually after someone offers it is polite to refuse, but I’m pretty sure he just dismissed the slight because I was a foreigner, which was fair because I really had no idea what was going on there. We got back on the bus after another failed seat swap. He just really wanted to talk.
In Damascus he offered to take me to his place, but I said I really wanted to see the sights before it got dark, so he took me to the Old Town. We saw a statue of Baybers (the Mamluk who ended the Crusades permanently and then stopped the Mongols in his free time) and the shrine of Saladin! As both of these were right next to the Umayyad mosque (which foreigners have to pay to enter) we headed in there (after buying out my ticket in the “Putting On Special Clothes Room” where women have to put on baggy robes).
The Mosque was amazing and I got to witness some Shias hitting themselves and singing/yelling at the Shrine of Husayn. Husayn was the son of Ali, the husband of Fatima who was the daughter of Muhammad. Husayn was also beheaded at Karbala, I believe, by angry Muslims who didn’t want him to take power as a descendent of Muhammad. Apparently his head, or something to do with it, is kept in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.
By then I had seen enough and I had to call my friend Mark to set up a dinner time. Unfortunately I didn’t have a phone, and neither did Osamaa. So we walked a little ways into the market until I saw I guy with a phone clipped on his belt and I asked if I could borrow it. The guy was cool enough and let me use it and after getting all the directions from Mark as quickly as possible I hung up and returned the phone. The guy asked for no money; just nodded his head. But, seriously, who asks to borrow a phone?...Well, me apparently.
After exchanging contact info, and being offered a bed and food (if I had wanted to I could have survived two days in Syria for free off the hospitality of total strangers), I had to go. Osamaa was very sad that I was leaving. I thought that a little bit much since we had known each other existed for all of 6 hours, but that may be because I’m an American who “has lots of friends (as all Americans do, according to Osamaa) and he is Syrian, and does not have many friends. Although, Ibrahim knew absolutely everyone in his whole quarter, so I guess Osamaa just didn’t have a lot of friends. So much for generalizations about Syrians.
Either way, I had to go. Osamaa directed my cabby to the place, and we said goodbye. It turned out to be easy enough to find Mark’s place. It was right across the street from some school, and when we go to the area the cabby asked around and we found it. When Mark saw my cab pull up he simply yelled my name really loud from his second story balcony. Effective, to say the least; even my cabby knew they were talking to me (I guess he figured they weren’t all that many people named Sam in the street). After paying way to much (I agreed on to high a price and he didn’t have a meter) I went upstairs I met Mark and his lovely wife Rosey. Being wonderful people they cleaned my clothes AND let me use their shower. Mark also let me up load all the pictures I had onto his computer just in case the Israelis didn’t like them. They then took me to a marvelous Italian place and bought me dinner (again, the whole getting across Syria for free thing).
Mark did point out an interesting trend which I was starting to notice. A lot of the people in Syria like Asad. In the taxis there are pictures of Asad with his family and flowers behind them; hardly the image of a dictator. Asad is apparently trying to paint himself as Mr. Nice Guy as opposed to Mr. Tough Guy, especially after the incident with his neighbor. The amazing this is, it’s working. Even more amazing, he might actually be a nice guy. I haven’t done a lot of research on the subject, but the guy is trying none the less. From my impression of the Syrians (whom Ibrahim describes as a clever lot of whom everyone is scared) Americans and Syrians would get along just fine, if we weren’t so busy fighting each other. We currently have sanctions on Syria, which hurts Mark’s business (Chrysler), because no car with %10 American parts in it can be imported. Invading Syria is really not an option, as far as I can tell, because the people really don’t have that many problems with the government and the government itself poses no threat to anyone, except that it’s annoying.
After dinner we headed home and I crashed on the couch after watching a little channel 2: American movies with Arabic subtitles…Heaven.


Day 4: Tuesday, May 31st

We all woke up early and after demanding I take time to eat breakfast and take more food with me (I felt like Bilbo Baggins and his band of Dwarves, hiking across Middle Earth and randomly being put up in really nice places with really nice food and getting sent away with lots of provisions…hey, maybe that’s why I like traveling so much) we hit the road. We hadn’t been able to find any ATMs that worked the night before, so Mark gave me a generous loan to get by on (which I ended up needing every dime of before I found an ATM). We got to the bus station early and Rosey, who is Lebanese, helped me get the right train ticket. After that I wished them an ever grateful farewell (because they really had been awesome) and sat around waiting for my bus.
After a little excitement confirming my bus had actually arrived, I got on and we headed toward the Jordanian border and Amman. When we got to the border we (it was mostly non-Middle Easterners) all had to run back and forth between a bunch of windows in order to get our visas. Somewhere during this havoc I made friends with some absolutely hilarious monty-python loving British woman named Hannah with whom I spent the rest of the bus ride chatting. In the end we both concluded that it was sad that more Americans didn’t travel to the Middle East. It’s a lot of fun and not all the dangerous but any sane person reading the news in America would not come to that conclusion.
Hannah got to have a special interrogation at the Jordanian border (meaning she was the only one who got her bag searched or got asked any questions), we continued on…for about five minutes and then stopped at a rest stop (even though we had just stopped at another one 5 minutes earlier). The second one gave me the chance to talk with a Chinese UN Observer working in southern Lebanon, which was a fun little slice of international politics. It was apparently the first assignment the guy had ever had. No pressure though.
Eventually we got going and arrived in Amman. After exchanging some contact info with Hannah, which would later be put to good use, I split off in search of a bus to Jerusalem. First I bought the latest edition of the Economist, also put to good use. I don’t know where I was in Amman, but it was nice. I felt like I was in America. The shop owner had spoken English, and the guards I asked directions from also spoke English. Then some lady who worked in the Parliament building (which I had apparently been standing in front of) who also spoke English, informed me I had to get papers at the Israeli embassy. After getting ripped off to get to the Embassy, and then arguing with the guards about the embassy being closed on a Tuesday at 12 in the afternoon, I was informed that I did not need anything to get into Israel because I was American. Great. So I found another cab I got him to take me to a bus station where I could get a bus to Jerusalem. I had to go through some more cabby-arguing hoola-hoops at the bus station before I found what I was looking for, which was a shared taxi to the border. When I found it there was only one other passenger. They told us that if we paid up the other two seats we could go right then. In turned out to be about $6 so we both agreed and were off in about 20 seconds. I was so shocked to be moving that fast I didn’t realize I had something to read until we were ten minutes into the ride.
My fellow passenger was a nice enough guy, and the driver was pretty funny too. They spoke to each other in Arabic the whole time while I read, and the one time they did ask me how I was, I said I was fine and then asked the driver how he was, and he said not so good because his wife had just beat him up…I love Jordan.
The Jordanian/Israeli border was a trip. My fellow passenger disembarked at different areas, possibly because I was American and he was an Arab, but whatever. The border it self was like some weird concrete town from the Old West. There was no movement, but there were guys sitting around, and it was hot, dusty and windy. I eventually found the passport place on my third try and they were nice enough to not stamp my passport without my even asking (you see, any stamps which show that you have been to Israel prevent you from being able to go to Lebanon or Syria. To get around this the border guards on the Jordanian and Israeli sides ask if they can stamp or simply do not stamp your passport). After that it was an hour long waiting game. I ended up running into the first Americans I had seen in the region (really the first Americans, outside of AUC Study Abroad Students, I had seen in the Middle East). They were just normal ‘ole Americans and they were pissed as hell at having to wait for some dumb bus which came on some weird schedule which did not maximize time. I couldn’t have been happier talking to them. They were so American I just felt nostalgic. Although I had gotten over being frustrated with “the way things work” in the Middle East, I can easily imagine how an Arab would see an American walking around all impatient and just wonder what was wrong with them. And then I can imagine being that American.
Eventually I was that American and I started asking around. I eventually found some dude lounging around in the information office. I asked him what was going on, and he said the bus would be coming and also offered to drive me to Jerusalem when we go to Israel. The Americans offered to do the same. Eventually the bus did come (right about the time my clothes were dry…what?) and we headed off to the border. My buddy from the information office wasn’t on the bus. When we got to the Jordanian border, right before the no man’s land and the King Hussein bridge (different from the Sheik Hussein bridge, I discovered) the bus stopped. My buddy got on. I thought that was kinda weird, but it turned out the guy was Israeli. Eventually he got a private car to take him across the border while we were still waiting in the bus. Given his special access and complete lack of worry attitude I just figured he was a Mossad agent…who could hang around with Jordanians and feel completely safe… … It was cool.
Eventually two stragglers got onto the bus and we got moving. We got to the Israeli border and they waved us in. The actual travel time was about 5 minutes. It took an hour and a half to do it. And then there was the Interrogation.
Now, Israeli bus station are like American airports, except with hot female interrogators. After giving up my bag to the baggage claim/inspection center (I forgot to take my Economist out, which turned out to be a serious oversight as it would have been useful during the 2 hour interrogation to come) I went to the metal detectors. At the metal detectors I off-loaded my phone, wallet and change and then I took one big step through the metal detector. Now I do this at every single airport and with every metal detector on Earth, but the 3 and half foot tall Israeli chick (hot) with no uniform, 6 inch platform shoes and an air of command would have none of it. She immediately told me to go back through the metal detector and walk back through it normally. She then directed me over to the side and began grilling me.
She asked about where I had been, where I was going, what I was studying, what religion I was, why I was studying the Middle East, why I had decided to learn Arabic, what I was planning on doing with my life and what kind of books I had in my backpack (which I didn’t even have on me). She asked so many questions I started to feel like we were on a first date!
She took particular interest in my trips to Lebanon and Yemen. I got to have a little fun when she asked why I had gone to Lebanon:

Her: So, why did you go to Lebanon

Me: Actually I went there twice. Once at the beginning of the semester and once just a few days ago. But that time I was just crossing the border into Syria

Her: oh

As for Yemen, she simply had no idea what to make of that. When she asked me what kind of books I had I told her I had a book called Heart of Islam in my bag. It was then that I realized how bringing that particular book might not have been the best idea (I had specifically not brought a biography of Nasser because I thought it might offend them. The same logic had applied to my Koran, but somehow Heart of Islam slipped through…). She then asked me if I was Muslim. I said no, I’m Christian. We talked about some other stuff…and then she asked me if I was Muslim. I said no again and then we kept talking and then she asked:

Her: Are you sure you’re not Muslim

Me: I’m pretty sure I’m not Muslim *gulp* although that might have changed recently without me knowing

Apparently being a cute-smart ass worked, to a certain degree. She thought I was funny enough, but she was not about to let me get off that easily. After she let me go past the metal detector area, I had to get my passport checked out. They actually asked me if they could stamp my passport, and I asked them not to, and they were very nice about the whole thing. I think they enjoyed sticking it to Syria and Lebanon. After that I was about to get through the gate when the interrogator chick appeared. I waved at her and said hi, and she said “They let you though that easily?” Then she waived me back to the passport area and told me to sit. I sat. And I waited. Then they started to ask me what I was going to do in Israel. I told them I was going to see Jerusalem and maybe Bethlehem (I didn’t mention my plan to go to Ramalla) and that I was meeting a friend in Jerusalem-

Hold on a second… I need to paint a clearer picture for yall

Here’s is what the Israeli border girls (hot) had to work with: I was a single male, traveling alone. I spoke Arabic, study in Egypt, read books about Islam and was majoring in Middle Eastern studies. I had traveled to Turkey, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Yemen, Lebanon (twice, even tried to get into Hizbollah country in the south) and Syria, and had just crossed the border from Jordan via Lebanon and Syria. To top it all off I did not know the name of the hotel I was staying at in Jerusalem and I was meeting a “friend” with whom I had studied and lived with in Cairo, who was also a male, traveling alone, who spoke Arabic and was majoring in Political Science. I would have had to genetically alter my skin color, put on a turban and wear a Koran around my neck on a golden chain to be more of a security risk.
But I really did not mind. In the end what happened was that they sent 4 different hot Israeli army chicks in uniform to talk to me for no other reason than I was sitting there. I felt like the absolutely biggest Mac Daddy in the whole world. There were Israeli Army guys who weren’t getting as much attention as I was, and I was even managing to make the interrogators laugh. I had 4 dates in two hours, which is by far my best record to date!
In between my dates, however, I had nothing to do because I forgot to snag my Economist. So instead I ate all the croissants Mark and Rosey had given me and watched the Israeli Army draftees. They were actually very interesting. First off the girls were the only ones in obvious military uniforms. The guys had on the kind of nice clothes guys go to clubs in, except that the whole had the same exact outfits. The first interrogator girl had also been dressed casually. The girls all flirted with this one guy as well, and it started to look a lot like a high school after awhile. They were all young, 18-21 at the most, and they weren’t all Semitic. Most of them were white, although there was one black guy, which, to be honest, seemed pretty random. They did all speak Hebrew, which I thought was pretty cool since Israel had pretty much brought that one back from the graveyard of languages. But once they had work to do, they dropped their ditzy attitudes and put on no-nonsense faces, and I didn’t give them any, and neither did anyone else.
As for my interrogation, it eventually ended when (like 1984) I told them everything I knew about my buddy Andy in Jerusalem and they were satisfied that I had told them everything and they probably knew exactly where he was, although they never did get around to telling me. After they told me I could leave I had to get my gate pass to go through the gate to the SECOND ROUND OF SEARCHING! Really it was just a quick bomb residue check, but I thought it was just hilarious since I had just been sitting around for two hours. Eventually, right about closing time for the border, I got through, and my bag was sitting on the luggage carousel, completely untouched.
Unfortunately my Mossad buddy was long gone by then. My American friends had also disappeared, although they had given me a pen at the passport check which I never got a chance to return to them. So I had to take a bus, which was easy enough since it was the only one, but it sure was expensive (about $5 to Jerusalem. For a bus that’s quite a lot). The bus dropped me off a little ways up from the Damascus gate of the Old City of Jerusalem. All kidding aside, I have to admit that Jerusalem is a pretty amazing site to see. The history of the place demands recognition on first glace and the people streaming in and out of the gate seem perfectly willing to accept the city walls’ dominion, as they have for millennia. Apart from being one of the most died for places on Earth, it also has the highest concentration of soul-seekers I have ever seen.
I wandered into the city and just kind of sucked it all in, although the 6 Israeli army guys at the entrance questioning people really shattered the moment with a quick dose of reality. But even that played back into my awe. Finding myself in the middle of the Middle East, the place so disputed it could possibly be blamed for my studying the subject in the first place, I just did not know what to do with myself. I guess all I can do is describe what I saw.
The Old City itself seems to be built on rolling hills, because the whole thing is just a series of steps and ramps. The steps themselves have genius little ramps installed on each one so that carts can easily be rolled down them, and there were a lot of carts. Besides the old scene of the Middle Eastern Souq, with people selling all manner of things out in the open air and yelling at anyone who would listen, there were Jews dressed all in black, with black hats and long hair; modern day, new age bikers rolling down the ancient little ramps on the stairs; backpackers; tourists; tours groups; evangelicals; a church choir and one Hawaiian lost on the opposite side of the planet. Only a real good poet could accurately describe the insane contradictions of that little melting-pot which never quite mixed.
Eventually I found an internet café at the beginning of the Christian quarter (there is a Christian quarter, a Muslim quarter and an Armenian quarter, which I still haven’t figured out). I checked my email and figured out where my friend Andy was staying. The hotel was called Petra Gate and was near the Jaffa Gate (don’t worry about it). Right before I found it I had to restock on pistachio nuts, so I stopped at a little stand and asked for a bag. The guy quoted me a price and laughed, and tried to get it lower, and he lowered it a fraction, but then wouldn’t budge. He accused me of not trusting him and I promptly informed him that he was right, that I did not trust him, nor did I trust any other shopkeeper in the whole city. In the end I gave him the price he asked for because, hey, he might have actually been telling the truth…
Andy wasn’t in the hotel, but apparently they knew who he was because some French guy said he had just gone out and would be back in a little while. I got the same room as Andy (the whole place was dorm rooms) and dropped my stuff off. I talked to the people for a little while and found out that they were all there just to see the place, like me. Most of them were young students, but there were a number of old men there who were always getting into political debates, which I thought was hilarious since none of them really knew what they were talking about. The guy working behind the desk informed me he had his own religion and I got pretty much the same response from everyone. Eventually I had had enough small talk and I ventured out into the city to find Andy or just to see what I could see.
Right outside my hotel was the tower of David. I really didn’t know what that was, but I did know who David was, and the fact that his Tower was just sitting there right outside my hotel was such a shock I had to take a picture. I continued to wander and eventually I got lost, which is just where I wanted to be. The crazy thing about getting lost in Jerusalem is that you find stuff…BIG stuff. For example, I stumbled upon a small door with a small sign above it which said “Church of the Holy Sepulcher.” The door and the sign were so unremarkable that at first I didn’t think I had actually found what I thought I had found. Through the door, however, was a nice sized plaza and then a big church – the one where Jesus was buried for a couple days…
Inside was a real doozie. Right through the door there is a slab of stone where people were bending and kissing and such. I asked a guy who looked like a guard why everyone thought the stone was so important and he said something to the effect of “ask them!” I figured he wasn’t a guard and didn’t really wanna talk so I just walked away. I explored the rest of the place but really had no idea what to look for. Eventually I got back to the door and saw the same guy lounging on a bench by the door with an air of belonging. I asked him about the stone, again, saying “So, what is it?” This time he yelled “How should I know!?” I really didn’t know what the guy’s problem was so I just turned my head away and watched some poor woman crawl up to the cold rock and smooch it while I pondered what it was I had said to tick that guy off while at the same time wondering what could be so important that someone would humiliate themselves in public in such a fashion. Eventually the guy spoke up:

Him: Ya know, you shouldn’t ask questions like that.

Me: like what?

Him: expecting to get an answer

Me:…..riiight….

Him: usually you say excuse me, or something

Me: You are completely correct and I apologize. So, do you know what it is?

Him: it’s the rock where they cleaned Jesus after he was crucified. And the big structure over there in the middle is where his tomb was.

Me: (so you knew all along, like you looked like you would) ya know you look like a guard

Him: so

Me: right

So the lesson I took from that one is that it is all about tact…and that customer service has yet to reach the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Then again, maybe I insulted him by acting like a customer. I can only assume he was Christian since in that part of the world people defend religious sites usually believe pretty strongly in them.
Needless to say I went to check out the tomb. Inside were more people praying. The shrine room itself was small and cramped and only fit a few people at a time. When a line started forming a priest arrived to speed the process up. I hunched over and half crawled into the place, took some pictures, and walked backwards back out of the place because that seemed the respectful thing to do (everyone else was doing it as well, including the priest. Apparently turning your back on a shrine to where Jesus used to be is not acceptable…although I hardly think it would have bothered him all that much).
I went wandering again and stopped short when I saw a sign pointing down a narrow alley which said “Western Wall.” I had a hunch what that was. I turned down the ally, which switched from the normal Old City stones to slick, polished modern ones with security cameras looking at them. I knew I had found something big, only to be confirmed by the security checkpoint I had to go through next. Through that was the Wailing Wall. At this point I was just to flabbergasted to realize how amazing it was that I had stumbled upon to of the most revered sites on Earth in a matter of minutes, but the Wailing Wall itself was a site to see. The thing is huge, and it was people praying in front of it non-stop. About twenty yards from the wall there is a fence and past the fence has to wear something over their hair. I didn’t realize this at first until some guy mumbled something at me and pointed at the entrance. I then realized I was meant to take one of the white paper disks in a cardboard box by the entrance. I did so, keeping with my new found tradition of tact, and explored a little. To the left of the outside portion of the wall there was a covered area. The wall continued into the building which I discovered to be a kind of library/study/prayer area. To the right of the entrance there was another fence separating men from women. The women got a smaller section of wall. I’m not sure if they got a study area too.
As I was leaving the wall I got to experience, for the first time, plain clothed individuals walking around with M-16s. That was a lot of fun. Apparently IDF soldiers who are issued M-16s have to carry them around at all times, including visits to the Western Wall. I left the wall complex and eventually wandered into the exit from the Dome of the Rock area above the Wall. I was promptly informed by the Israeli guard, in no uncertain terms, that I could not enter and that only Muslims were allowed now because it was prayer time and – do you speak English? – you can come back tomorrow between 7 and 11 am. I made a mental note and walked back to my hotel.
By the time I got back my buddy Andy had returned and we had a fun little reunion in the lobby. We went out to get a bite to eat and swap stories and then wandered around the city a little bit more. It turned out we both had randomly wandered into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Wailing Wall, so I guess they are easy to find. We ended up walking into the random Armenian Quarter where there where maps of the Armenian genocide plastered all over the walls. Ironically, I don’t remember there being a Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem.
Eventually we crashed early in preparation a long next day.


Day 5: Wednesday, June 1

We woke up early and set out to see the Dome of the Rock. Our plan was to see that quick, then go to Bethlehem to the south and then go north to Ramalla, and then go back to Jerusalem and from there go to Haifa by night.
The entrance to the Dome of the Rock plateau, at least for foreigners, is a long tunnel-bridge. It starts with a bag search and a metal detector. The plateau itself is empty except for Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. The Dome of the Rock is a truly incredible sight. Besides being huge it is beautiful. However it is also off-limits to non-Muslims. The guard at the door seemed to take particular delight in yelling at non-Muslims about how the place was closed and had been that way for five years. None of the other guards did anything except continue to eat their lunch on the side of the Mosque. The guards were Palestinian Muslims, not IDF soldiers. The guards would not even let in one white woman wearing a head scarf who was accompanied by another Muslim woman. The white woman, being white, pretty much stood out, but the funny thing was that she looked like one of those women straight out of a movie who are very understanding and are trying to get in touch with all cultures and faiths. But she was denied entry to the Dome of the Rock. Personally, I thought it was a great exercise in tact and culturally outreach, especially the angry fat guard and his buddies eating falafel right on the side of the building they think is too holy for the likes of me to go in.
After taking some pictures Andy and I found some IDF guys and asked them why we couldn’t go in the Dome. “Politics.” Apparently after Sharon went on a little walk into the Dome a few years back the 2nd Intifada started, and after that no foreigners have been allowed in. Except for Laura Bush who had been there just a week earlier.
After that racist little run in we vacated the premises and headed for the bus station. We had to figure out the Arabic name for Bethlehem, but once we did it was easy enough to find the right bus. On the ride out to Bethlehem I got to see first hand the huge Israeli settlements. I couldn’t tell from the angle, but the way they were walled in I assumed they were in Palestine. They also had nice big construction cranes poking out of them, even though I’m pretty sure somebody told them to cut that out.
We rode the bus as far as it would go, but the Palestinian bus driver would only drop us off at the border; he would not cross it. It would have taken too long anyway. Andy and I just walked up the gate and showed our Blue Passports and that was the end of that. A little ways in we got a nice view of Israeli’s brand new “Security Fence.” This thing doesn’t play around. It is about 20 feet tall, if not more, and about a foot thick. It is built with individual stone slabs which get connected together after they are dropped in place. Each slab has one hole in the top which makes it really easy to place them using a crane.
Bethlehem itself was pretty nice. The taxi drivers turned out to be like any other Arab taxi drivers, but that worked ok for us. Besides that, the place was cleaner than most other Arab countries I have been too. There were also Palestinian Authority traffic police. When Andy commented on it, I respond, “That’s what it’s all about. Traffic cops and security guards.”
In Bethlehem we found the Church of the Nativity and the Milk Grotto. Unfortunately the Christians at the Church of the Nativity did not offer free tours (unlike the Copts in Cairo), although they didn’t charge admission. The site where the manger supposedly lay is constructed in such a way that one must get down on one’s hands and knees, in a position of submission, in order to look inside it. There isn’t a single piece of hay in the shrine.
The Milk Grotto was interesting because it was a church glorifying Mary breastfeeding Jesus. In the Middle East I had experienced so far it was about the last thing I expected to see, but Christians are weird.
After that we were feeling done with Bethlehem so we caught a cab back to the border. The cabbies on that side would not drive past, or even up to, the Security Fence. We walked up to it and took some pictures. One of the funniest things to see was the professionally stenciled graffiti on the wall. Apparently the Palestinians have enough money to make stencils to spray paint walls. They even had a stencil of Jabba the Hutt beside another stencil of Ariel Sharon. The only worthwhile message on the whole wall looked like it was scribbled in sharpie, saying “No borders, no countries, Fuck Occupation.” It was at least forward thinking.
Crossing back into Israel proved to be a simple matter of flashing our Blue Passports and then we caught our various busses up to Ramalla. That border crossing was a whole different story. First off, there was major construction going on, although I have no idea what they were doing. Secondly, there were mini-busses everywhere. Getting out of Israel into Palestine proved to be pretty easy; all we had to do was walk through a revolving gate. From there we just caught a mini-bus to the main bus station. The only thing we really did in Ramalla was eat. The restaurant was nice though and the city street market was pretty standard for Arab countries, although very different from Israel. The border doesn’t just divide governments in Israel/Palestine. It divides ideas, cultures, religions, lifestyles and it divides the West from the East.
After lunch we headed back to the border. At the border we had to get in a cramped slow line for about 30 minutes (the English concept of Queuing has not quite caught on in the Arab Middle East). We toyed with the idea of just flashing the Blue, but figured that would just be too much, and besides, it’s all part of the experience! The men and women were divided and searched separately. For us, they did the standard metal-scan and pat down and searched our bags. When we did eventually show the Blue they simply waved us through, but for the Palestinians they had Laptops with Satellite uplinks with which they checked out the workers passes. After we got thought we caught a mini-bus from right on the other side of the border back to the Old City.
From Damascus gate we headed back through the city to Jaffa Gate. On the way I checked out prices for an Israeli flag (25 shekels) and a Palestinian flag (10 shekels). I didn’t end up buying them then because I felt like I was getting ripped off, but they wouldn’t budge on those prices. The Palestinian guy offered to give it to me for free rather than haggle with me, but Andy wouldn’t let me. We head off without flags to the bus stop. We then caught the bus up to the main bus terminal. There we had to go through another set of metal detectors and bag scans. The bus station itself was a mini-mall, meant to service all the people waiting for buses. The ticket counter itself was an experience. Instead of buying a ticket for a certain time, you simply pay for a destination, and if you buy a round-trip ticket you can use it one way for two people and it’s cheaper. However, if you wanna know what time the bus leaves you have to go to the information window next to the ticket counter and ask them about your destination. Then they tell you the time and the gate to go to. After getting all that sorted out we found the gate and eventually got on the bus.
The Bus ride went smoothly (without breaks, which I had begun to get used to in the rest of the Middle East) and we arrived in Haifa around mid-afternoon. We followed the map in our book and compared it with the bus map and eventually caught the right bus to the hotel we were looking for. The bus driver was even kind enough to tell us where to get off. The hilarious contradiction was that, unlike an Arab bus driver, this guy had absolutely no interest in being my friend. He simply saw helping us as part of his job description.
The map in our book ended up working pretty well, but we only found our hotel when Andy decided we should go towards the Microsoft sign. Our hotel ended up being right before it. The lady at the desk turned out to be a Scottish, which just added to the randomness of the whole place, but the hotel was nice enough. Up in our dorm room we met some interesting chaps. One was a guy who was both renting a room and sleeping in the back of his car, which I thought was kind of redundant since the whole point of having a car is not having to rent a hotel room…what? Most people drive them? Oh.
After that we went out to explore a little bit of Haifa around our hotel. We ended up eating at a falafel place where the owner spoke Arabic, which we found to be utterly hilarious. Later in our trip one some guy even asked us if we had tried any Israeli food. When we said no he said “You haven’t had any falafel?” As much as I noticed differences between the ways the cities of Palestine were run as opposed to the cities in Israel, I just couldn’t help but laugh at how much the same people are. But I guess they would have to be brothers, wouldn’t they?
With nothing to do, we hit the sack.


Day 6: Thursday, June 2nd

The Scottish girl wasn’t there in the morning, but her boss was just as nice. She made us breakfast and let us store our bags at the hotel for free while we explored the city. We figured we had to go the beach, since there really is nothing else to do in Haifa except for the Bahai Gardens which were too hard to get into (organized tours necessary, or something) However, even from a distance the Bahai Garden were worth seeing. The things age absolutely amazing, literally cascading down a mountainside. We also saw the German Colony, which is basically a scattered collection of buildings and a mall…
After that we caught a cab to the beach, which ended up being expensive and right next to the bus station we had started at, respectively. The beach was ok and it was pretty hilarious that Andy thought the 1 foot waves were big. I didn’t even think they were waves, but that’s because I’m beach spoiled. Other than that we saw two girls and a guy practicing Capoeira on the sand (they were actually doing standing back flips and no hand cartwheels and I would have asked them to teach me if my hip hadn’t been killing me at that point. The hip’s alright now, in case anyone was concerned *mom*). We ended up just drinking a beer and watching the guys with M-16s stroll down the beach.
After our beers we caught the bus back to our hotel and then caught another bus to the bus station where would could find a bus to Lake Tiberius. We ended up running into an Israeli kid who was being released from the army as a conscientious objector, essentially. When I asked him what he thought of all the goings on, he said “It’s all bullshit.” No one else shared an opinion with us.
When we got to Tiberius he got of the bus early, so I figured we’d never see him again, and then the bus continued on to the main station. At the bus station we asked around about how to get to the lake and couple of cabbies told us, “oh, well you can just walk a block down that way.” We did so.
Lake Tiberius was cool. Apparently there are a bunch of cities scattered around its shores, but we didn’t want to, nor could we, spend the time checking them all out. I did manage to get an Israeli flag, however. I saw one hanging on a shop door and asked the guy working there if I could buy it. He said 10 shekels and I agreed because that was 15 less than the last offer (you get a little less than 5 shekels to the $1). Then he dropped the price to 5 shekels because the flag was dirty. It was a steal.
After that we found McDonalds and had lunch. McDonalds is the friend of backpackers everywhere. After lunch we took a stroll down the lake and eventually found speed boats. Now to me this seemed like a great idea, but Andy turned into a big chicken and started whining about how he wanted to see his girlfriend again. I don’t know what he was afraid of, I’m a great driver…I can drive with my feet for heaven’s sake……… …….. Well POO on all of you!
After the boating no-go we went the other direction, and much to our surprise we ran into our friend from the bus working behind at his Ice Cream stand. We got to talking and eventually he told me I should get a hair cut from his friend who is apparently the best haircut guy in town. At that point I was looking how I usually look so I figured a haircut was in order. After saying goodbye we followed his directions and eventually found the place. It was down some stairs inside a kind of sub-mall, but the salon itself was a whole different universe.
First off, the barber was about as metro-sexual as a man can get. He did have an extremely good looking assistant, however, who appeared to do nothing except be good-looking. She did offer us tea (which we never got) and gave me a picture book of all the different haircuts the barber dude had given. It was possibly the scariest book I had ever beheld. Besides the book and the metro-sexual barber, the place was populated with adolescent 12-15 year olds who all had metro-sexual aspirations just like their barber role model. The kid we watched get a hair cut could NOT stop staring at himself in the mirror and was constantly making the Blue Steel face to himself (for those of you not hip with the jive of the new age, Blue Steel is a male model face made by Ben Stiller as the character Derek Zoolander in the blockbuster film, Zoolander). Now, normal people would have run screaming, but Andy and I agreed that getting a haircut like the one I could get here was simply too good an opportunity to pass up. So we waited.
Eventually an IDF guy showed up with an M-16, which I thought was weird, but had gotten used to. At this point it was getting close to the time we had to go catch our bus, so I asked how long it would be. The guy said about an hour. It was about 550 pm by that point and our bus was at 7pm. One of the cronies said, “Relax, you have three hours. You only need to wait an hour.” I then asked him if he had any idea what time it was. He hadn’t. We left.
At the bus station we had fun trying to coax the ticket guy to come to the window and actually sell us a ticket, but we eventually got it and went and waited at our booth. Eventually two New Yorker Jews came and sat down with us. Hilarity ensues.
I’m pretty sure it was me who started the whole, “So what do you think of all this,” conversation, because that’s what I do. Their answer was that they didn’t live here and to understand what was going on you really had to be here experiencing everything. The woman (it was a guy and a girl) said that security was so tight they patted her belly, and she was pregnant. But they both understood, and what they did not understand they accepted. Then they asked me what I thought.
I informed them in no uncertain terms (veering slightly from my tactful tradition of the last 2 days) that I thought the whole place was “going to hell in a hand basket.” I pointed out that while I found it hilarious that I started studying the Middle East just to learn more about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the more I learned and the closer I got, the more sick and tired of hearing about I became. To me the solution seemed simple: if Israel built their wall right on the green line and removed their settlements from the West Bank they would have absolute moral authority and a big wall to hide behind. It would entirely end the discussion, except for the fact that Israel depends on low-wage Palestinian workers to support its economy, but tight border checks like the one near Ramalla could easily handle that problem. Even if the Israelis did a land grab for a couple of settlements near the border they would get away with it, although with less moral authority. The guy objected, however, on the grounds that the whole area was really Israel’s anyway. Now technically, this is true, insofar as Israel won it in war. But the point of the Green Line which everyone agreed on was to give the Palestinians something to call their own, and since the PA was now supposedly in charge, attempting to maintain any claim to any part of the West Bank seemed greedy.
Needless to say they didn’t sit with us, but Andy and I continued the conversation anyway. Eventually we both agreed it was no longer a problem we could solve although it was still the single problem which needed solving. Palestine is the ONLY issue which every single Arab I know objects to, even the Kuwaitis. And because America supports Israel, we get all the blame. Fair or unfair, we are reaping the whirlwind.
In Jerusalem we stayed at the Petra Gate hotel for one more night.


Day 7: Friday, June 3rd

We got out of the hotel early and headed to the border. I had convinced Andy the night before that he should really use his extra days to go to Jordan and see Jerash rather than stay in Israel/Palestine. That being settled we had to get to the border and fast, before it closed. Much to our chagrin, Andy could not cross at the King Hussein bridge because he had not entered from there, so we had to go all the way back to Lake Tiberius area and get a cab to the border up there. Luckily it was a little closer than Tiberius and we had lots of time to spare. Unfortunately it was Friday and the little border town we ended up in didn’t have any taxis or busses running to the border that day. We ended up having to hire the friend of some falafel stand owner’s car for an obscene price (50 shekels). We thought the ride to the border might be a ways, but it really turned out to be about a 10 shekel ride. We saw it as just one last scam before we left. That was of course before the scam where we had to pay to get out of the country, but they run those kinds of scams everywhere.
After getting all set up to go (Passport still clean, mind you) we found out we had to wait for the bus to take us the 100 yards across the border. There wasn’t much point in objecting, so we checked out the duty free shop. At first I left our bags outside, but then the guard said I had to bring them inside and that she would watch them. It hadn’t even occurred to me that the guard might watch my bags for free. Isn’t security great? The duty free didn’t inspire, but I did get the chance to offload some of my Lebanese pounds. The girl working behind the desk had never seen Lebanese money before because she was Israeli and couldn’t go there, so I gave one to her. Her take on the whole situation was that it was ridiculous because her best friend who worked with her in the store was a Muslim Arab and she just didn’t understand the problem. The big wall understood the problem though.
We eventually caught the bus and got into Jordan. The moment we got off the buss we noticed the culturally shift as we were instantly hounded by a dozen men who all wanted to help us with baggage carts to carry our bags about 25 yards. We got our visas no problem, although that’s when I found out I didn’t even need to buy one since I wasn’t going to be in the country that long. They ended up not stamping my passport, again very kind, so technically I have never visited the States of Israel or Palestine.
We had to walk the rest of the way into Jordan, which was almost relieving after the never ending 10 second bus rides, and eventually found a taxi area with fixed ‘brices’ to Amman. The prices turned out to be about double the meter ‘brice’ but that’s how it goes (there is no ‘P’ in Arabic, so the Ba sound has to be used to simulate ‘P’). The driver at least drove really fast.
We had him drop us off near Al-Hussein Mosque and eventually found that our hotel was right next to it, but above it. The hotel cost about $3 for a room and it must have been the nastiest hotel I have ever stayed at. The sheets were definitely not clean and blankets were unheard of. Somehow they did have a sink and soap, which I thought would definitely add a few dollars to the price, but not.
After getting settled we decided to head out. We locked our door on the outside by slipping a metal bar across it and locking it with a tiny padlock. We first got some food. While eating we decided to try and find my friend Hannah’s hotel and the Turkish Bath house which was somewhere near by it. This involved us getting lost for a while and getting directions pointing us in opposite directions until finally we just chose to get a cab. The great thing about the cab ride was that while we thought it was 8 dinar (something like $12) it was really .8 dinar. Andy gave the guy a 10 and he gave Andy 8 dinar. We still got ripped off by about three times the meter price, but at least he gave us some money back.
The hotel, where the cabby had dropped us off and where Hannah was staying, was pretty nice and moderately priced. The desk guy was extremely helpful as well. After giving me Hannah’s room number to call on the house phone, he called the Turkish Bath place for us to set up an appointment. He also drew us a little map. Eventually Hannah came down, and after introductions we all headed out to some bar where Hannah’s friends had invited her to go. It was a little ways down a hill but turned out to be right near the Bath, so it worked out pretty well.
The bar itself was something from another world. After walking through the dark monochromatic streets of Amman, the bar ended up being a bright and colorful bookstore/internet café/bar/restaurant. It was like everything the Modern Middle Class could want rolled into one. The bag itself had an outside seating area. One wall of an adjacent building was completely covered in huge mural and the place itself had nice soft blue lighting and sports on TV. The clientele were from all walks of life, but mostly Middle Class people, which is a rare thing in the Middle East.
After a few drinks we got directions from our new friends to the Turkish Bath and we headed out. We took a wrong turn at first and had to ask directions to get back on track. I ended up asking a bunch of college-student looking people where it was. They were an interesting lot. They were all party-dressed and seemed to have been coming out of the house they were standing in front of, presumably from a party. It was so normal (relative to my life) I just couldn’t believe it. I asked them in Arabic where I should go and they directed us. It was another one of those times I realized Arabic really did work for communication, just like English.
The Bath house itself was fantastic. The staff was cordial and the whole thing ran on a timed system. First a shower, than steam room with cold juice. Then Jacuzzi, then exfoliating skin scrapping and soap down. And I’m not joking when I say scraping. There were no dead skin cells left on my body and my skin was red. I discovered it did help me get a great tan, however. After the scrape down was the massage. This place gave the best massages by far and Andy and I both walked out totally relaxed and felling like a million bucks. I had finally proven to someone (rather, he proved it to himself) that getting a good massage and a steam was not only NOT gay but in fact extremely relaxing and probably healthy to boot!
After the bath we headed back to the bar for a few more drinks and then caught a cab ‘home.’ The night was cold, as we had no sheets, but at least we had beds.


Day 8: Saturday, June 4th

I woke up early and after saying goodbye to Andy and a whole year of hanging out in Cairo I headed to the airport. When I asked the taxi guy to use the meter he said the meter price was not used to go to the airport. I had enough money at the time so I really did not care until we got to the airport and realized he had charged me double the actual price, which is in fact the price non-white people (and more determined tourists) pay. However, I only had a 20 dinar note and 7 single dinars, and the driver wanted ten. He did not have change and I told him I didn’t care since he was ripping me off anyway, and he looked like he was about to cry. Eventually some cool guy just standing on the street gave the guy 3 more dinar, on top of my 7, and scolded him for ripping me off. The guy turned out to speak perfectly good English and was from New York or something. I chalked it up as yet another random act of kindness without which I might not have lasted long in the Middle East.
At the airport it turned out I was not actually confirmed on the flight so I had to sit and wait for about 4 tense hours until they finally called me up and told me I had made the wait list. I did get the chance to see an interesting thing though. I’m not sure what was going on, but there was some American guy trying to get a plane to Mosul, in Iraq, and he kept getting military visitors while he was sitting around. An interesting region indeed.
I finally arrived in Cairo and caught my standard 35 pound cab to Zamalek. On my way out of the airport I had to sign some paper. The Egyptian Military Soldier managing the post asked me if he could borrow my pen (the one I had borrowed from the Americans at the Israeli Border) and then with a sly smile on his face, did not return it. I told him to give it back to me and he said his pen didn’t work and started whining about how he needed to fill out lots of forms and needed a pen. I found it so hilarious that I had just been robbed by the Egyptian Military I just let him have the pen. Anyway, he did need to fill out a lot of forms and it certainly was not his fault his own government couldn’t provide him with a pen, although I’m sure he would have taken the heat for any delays.
Back at my house I finished packing up and then went to visit my friends Ali and Helal and their wonderful sister Asma’ so I could sell my cell phone and have enough money to catch a cab back to the airport. I got to see my friend Rebecca there as well, which was great cause I got to say bye to everyone. The funny thing about saying bye to the American students, however, was that it didn’t really feel like a goodbye. I was still friends with all of them and was planning on seeing almost all of them over the summer. And even if I wasn’t friends with them, I get the feeling I’ll be seeing them all anyway.


Day 9: Sunday, June 5th

At 1 am (flight at 5 am) after packing and sweeping my house for any belongings I may have left about 7 times I left my key in the house and locked myself out. It was the end of an era. But not before a cabby tried to rip me off one last time on the way to the airport. I offered him 50 pounds for a 35 pound ride and he tried to tell me that I should pay 60 because it was night time. I then got the chance to inform him that I not only knew exactly how much it was to go to the airport and that I had gone there the same spot about 100 times. It was just one last taxi joke to leave behind in Cairo.