The bus from Cairo to Tabat ( Israeli boarder) was among the worst I have been on lately…the seats were in various states of repair and the air conditioning, again, seemed to be stuck on full blast making for another cold nights travel. Got to Tabat at 5am and then walked across the boarder, the difference between the Egyptian and Israeli infrastructure was immediately obvious. After a thorough bag search and questioning I was in Eliat and Israel! Managed to get a lift to the bus stop with some Americans who had come from back from Cairo on a day trip on the night bus and had a rental car waiting…skills saved forty sheckles. At 7am I was on the bus to Jerusalem……..
The landscape on the way through the Negev desert was amazing we passed by the dead sea ( surrounded by resort style hotel complexes) and the ancient fortress of King David at Masada. Unfortunately due to time restrictions I wouldn’t be able to visit either properly this trip.
Once in Jerusalem, and some more bag scanning at the bus station, I made my way to the old city to find a hostel. After negotiating with a few different “sales reps” I booked a dorm room in “Petra Hostel“. While the location was ideal, right next to Jaffa gate, the conditions were far from it. The floors were covered in dust from a construction site across the road and the staff were far from helpful. As the guide book put it the place had been visited by Mark Twain in his lifetime and not cleaned since. It was the cheapest I was going to find in town though (and still pretty expensive). Proportionally accommodation is well expensive in Israel. .My crappy dorm room worked out around 15pounds a night….bobbins lah!
My first sightseeing stop was a tour of the Old City ramparts. Pretty awesome the fortifications were built by the Ottomans in the 13th century and the views of the city from the top were amazing. After this I explored the city saw the western wall ate falafel and wandered around the Bazaar for a few hours taking it all in.
That evening returned to the dorm room and the overbearing smell of bad feet originating from a new occupant who was asleep in the dorm. Fearing a repeat of the horrors of AZ hostel in Prague earlier in the year, I instantly asked to be transferred to another room.
The soul inhabitant of the new dorm was a Jewish guy from Oxford called Dan. Dan was a forty year old drug and alcohol addict who was in Jerusalem to try and sort himself out. A really nice guy but with obvious problems. I shared a drink with him a learnt that he drank a bottle of vodka a day, was on prescribed methadone, anti depressants and had to take sleeping pills each night to sleep. A dangerous diet, to look at you couldn’t see much wrong with the guy apart from a slightly crazed look in the eyes and the voice of the super roadie from Wayne’s world 2.
After a few drinks in the hostel was ready to sleep and realised the time was only 9pm. The days seem a lot longer in the middle east, it gets light around 6am and dark by 5pm like winter back home, but the fact that its T shirt weather at the same time seems to be throwing my body clock somehow.
The next morning I sorted my bus ticket to Tel Aviv out and then got stuck into some more sight seeing in the old city. On my way to the mount of olives outside the city walls I ran into a crazy polish dude who had been living in America. He was also looking for the mountain so we went together. After a couple of minutes talking to the guy it became apparent that he was bonkers. He told me he was walking across Israel and sleeping rough wherever he could find a good spot. He looked the part for this, but he also said he had been in the US military …maybe true, but he was obviously in way worse condition than me and was out of breath halfway up the mountain.
All the way to the top he talked intensely about conspiracy theories such as: the nights templar were a homosexual Satanist sect, people who wear black and white combinations of clothes are vessels for unrestful spirits that are channelling their energy through them, various hidden symbols of power on the dollar bill had in his pocket ( I almost shouted “red team go!…. red team go! “), and various other babblings. At no point in his sermon did he actually say what the significance of any of this was to anything. I must have had a crazy magnet on in Jerusalem….. although this guy made Dan the junkie seem like Jeremy Paxman. In fact I got the impression that there were a lot of crazies drawn to Jerusalem…I guess you could say they had been going there for 2000 years or so.
I said goodbye to the Polish Profit at the top of the hill ( he had actually grown on me a bit by this point although anymore time spent in “lectures” would have been overkill.). I went back to the city to try see the dome of the rock but the gates were locked with a sign saying it was to holy for tourists to visit. I found out later it was only open in the mornings…..damn it that would have been cool. Next was the church of the holy sepulchre, built on the supposed sight of Christ crucifixion. It was typically rammed with Russian pilgrims, but have to say it was one of the cooler churches ive been too. Built on various different levels it had chapels from all denominations of the faith. Like an Epcot centre of Christianity.
That evening I bought some Vodka with Dan and we basically had a carbon copy of our previous conversations, on account of his bad memory. He was a pretty interesting guy though had a good knowledge of Israeli history, We then went to a shisa bar and after went to the new town. On the way Dan , who had been to Jerusalem many times showed me the sight of a bomb blast he had witnessed some years ago. I felt perfectly safe in Israel and it seemed like a Hebrew version of America to me, but the graphic description of the aftermath of the blast served as a reminder that the situation in the country is always volatile.
Dan had to go back to the hostel to take his medication(s) before too long so I said my goodbyes and stayed on in town and went to a few bars. Spoke to lots of Israelis who were all really friendly. Later I saw the worst blues band ever in one pub…… A 20minute sound check followed by one poorly delivered going through the motions number, and then another 5min sound check for some reason….Man that ain’t the blues…if you don’t got it you don’t got it…….
After a while I was pretty drunk….. with crissy bado threatening to make an appearance and beer selling at 5 quid a pint I went home early at around midnight. Seemed like 3am to me I later found out that 12am is the time most Israelis start going out…..
The next day had a mild hangover, left the hostel at 10 after talking with a Mexican guy at breakfast and caught the bus to Tel Aviv.
Only had a short while in Jerusalem but the old city was one of the coolest places ive ever been…a highlight along with the pyramids for this trip don’t think my words have done it Justice but im a bit behind on my blogs at the moment and the details are slightly hazy ….Its interesting to see the pilgrims and holy sights of the three major Semitic faiths in such close proximity….. the views and points of interest around the city were quite literally of biblical proportions…..
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