Jerusalem, Israel 28-29 May 08

Thankfully we were allowed to drive from En Gedi to Jerusalem through the West Bank as neither of us fancied a three-hour drive around the outside of the West Bank (WB). I was still having sinus trouble and had woken with a massive earache that got progressively worse throughout the morning and when driving up the hills into Jerusalem I was squirming from the pain and the navigating was going downhill fast. We figured the many sudden changes in altitude (we had been going up around 1500m (Golan Heights) then down to –300m (Sea of Galilee) and –400m) for days and sometimes ascending and descending many times in one day was just too much. This pain stayed with me for five days and when I met a chap who was saying he wanted to put his head under in the Dead Sea “just to see what it was like” I told him exactly what it was like!! Anyhow, there didn't seem to be a quick resolution to the pain issue so we carried on as normal as we only had a day in Jerusalem and wanted to head into the WB. After dropping the rental off (top marks to Euan for doing some pretty hairy driving and negotiating the windy desert roads with a very vocal passenger) we caught a bus to Bethlehem and even the bus trip was a bit of an eye opener. The 6km trip took an hour and all on the bus were checked at the ‘border’ and some folk were kicked off and not let through (we weren’t sure why). It costs Palestinians a lot of money to get a permit to travel outside the WB and apparently this can take weeks or even months to obtain. It makes it very difficult for folk who have to farm part of their land that is outside the wall (the wall cuts through towns, farms etc) and the permit is valid only during certain hours. Most folk we met had a view on the whole WB situation and there are plenty of people up for rigorous debate on the subject. Bethlehem was interesting but we weren’t tempted to stay despite the people being friendly and generally welcoming. The price of things such as fruit for eg were much cheaper than in Jerusalem and the place had a slightly unkempt, worn feel to it. We visited the Church of Nativity and the Milk Grotto. Won’t talk about the religious importance of these sites here but I have to say that both in real life were rather under whelming compared to the buildings and behaviour seen in some of the other religious sites. Fascinating nonetheless. Going back out of the WB was probably worse than coming in and I really felt for those that were interrogated at the ‘border’ and then not allowed back on the bus. The permits perhaps were unsatisfactory. We’ll never know.

I wrote a bit about the wall in the last Jerusalem posting but below is a picture of how it looks.

A section of the ~700km wall that divides the West Bank from Israel

Dead Sea, Israel 27-28 May 08

On our way down southwards, we visited Tzippori, the capital of Galilee in 103 BC. Excavations began in 1931 and are periodically ongoing but the age of the site just blew us away and the massive stones in the road were worn with the wheel ruts from carts. The mosaics were most impressive and while the pictures don’t do them justice, it gives a flavour of what they’re like. They dated from 300 BC and were the flooring of houses and mansions. Some were badly damaged and we had wondered how they manage to actually move the mosaics onto a more stable base (some we’ve seen have been stuck on walls in museums). It turns out that one method (used with the Tzippori mosaics) was to stick a special type of cloth to the mosaic, loosen the earth beneath it, then roll it onto this huge roller and chip off the earth and whatever, smooth the back of the mosaic then roll it back onto a stable base.

Tzippori mosaic dated 64 AD (I just cannot get this one to flip sideways)


Another mosaic at Tzippori (same age as above)


We headed to Caesarea on the Med coast to briefly look at the ruins there, then hiked it down to the Dead Sea. First stop after about three hours driving was Masada, a huge fortress on a hill high above the edge of Dead Sea.

On the way down the windy windy road, we passed a sign saying “Sea Level2. Quite cool as you can see we had a long way to go before we hit the Dead Sea.

Sea level sign but check out how far there is to go down! So cool!


It was an absolutely perfect time of day to be viewing the Dead Sea and surrounding scenery – the colours were clear and the sea so still. The white salt deposits looked like waves from a distance but they were actually salt bergs (the thought of salt bergs appealed to me enormously but I think by that stage Euan had had enough of being in a small car with me in the passenger seat!).

Salt bergs. If you look closely or enlarge the picture, you can see the white flecks that look like waves and the salt crystalising around the shoreline (these are actually the evaporation ponds at the southern end of the Dead Sea)


The setting sun made the mountains on the Jordanian shoreline pink and with the blue of the sea and the salt crystalising around the sea edge and on the raised ground in the the evaporation ponds it just looked exquisite.

Dead Sea island with salt


We passed a load of very flash looking resorts (Le Meridian, Golden Tulip etc) that looked to be doing a roaring trade but the funny thing was, they weren’t even on the Dead Sea shoreline! They were on the edge of the evaporation ponds at the southern tip of the Dead Sea – bet they don’t say that on their brochures or web sites (I’d better check now)!! As we travelled further it was very apparent just how much the Dead Sea has shrunk and this is becoming a real problem that isn't easily resolved - particularly given the somewhat fractious relationships between the countries that it divides (and the fact that Jordan is running out of water anyhow so is hardly going to pump more into the Dead Sea!). There was one resort that had clearly once been on the shoreline but now the sea would easily be about 200 meters away and needless to say, it didn’t look very busy.

Dead Sea shoreline - you can see how its shrunk


It was pushing 1900 and we were getting a bit desperate for somewhere to stay by then (the resorts were not our thing and too pricey anyhow) and ended up at one of two options, the En Gedi Field School that was empty of life (except for the Ibex that were jumping freely round the grounds) but persevered until someone came and helped us out. A lot of the Kibbutz’ and Hostels are gated and, once shut, there is no easy way in if you don’t know anyone or have no booking. This place had a gate that was open so once we’d driven through it we weren’t about to leave in a hurry! We ended up staying there the night, perched high above the Dead Sea in a rather wild, shabby looking collection of buildings with the Ibex outside. It was pretty cool.

Ibex on a picnic table


Masada (the big square-looking hill in the centre) viewed from the Field School at 0545 (I got up to watch the sunrise)


We swam again in the Dead Sea (no, I definitely was not risking another dunking as still having problems from the last) so a few more pics….. It was 0730 and already hot hot hot.

Euan in the Dead Sea


and again..!


I saw this rock with salt all over it and it looked so beautiful that I just had to lick it and see what it tasted like. It was absolutely vile, hence the look or disgust on my face.


Me taking pictures of the salt (look at it all!! So pretty!)


and here is the picture


The plan was to drive along the Dead Sea, through the West Bank and into Jerusalem (1 hour drive)but we weren't too sure what the story was with entering the West Bank, or if they let tourists in rental cars through. If not, its the long way up and around the West Bank (3+ hours). Fingers crossed.

Sea of Galilee and Golan Heights, Israel 25-27 May 08

(OK, this and the next posting are but a bit longer than usual but, for me, it’s the most interesting part of the trip thus far I think and I’ve enjoyed writing about it more than usual… so grab a cup of tea or whatever and enjoy!)

As soon as business resumed as normal after Shabbat we were off to hire a car (oh the freedom!!) and immediately took off up the coast to Rosh Hanikra, a tiny wee place that is right on the border with Lebanon (the border was even marked out to sea!). The parts of the Lebanese border that we travelled along seemed to be pretty well manned with loads of jeeps (with antennae sticking out all over them) driving round, big Hummers with guns and a navy ship out patrolling the sea border. We were driving round the border road and there was very little traffic other than army so often it seemed that we were the only (normal) car for miles. As someone from a country that has no borders, I’m fascinated by them and the behaviour around them (depending on which the bordering country is). We visited the town of Metulla, another town right on the Lebanese border and also Kiryat Shmona, a town that has had huge problems with the Hezbollah in Lebanon who, in the past, have randomly fired rockets over the border among other attacks. Kind of explains the military presence in the area really.

We travelled as far north as we could up the ridge high above the Hula Valley before dropping back down to the Sea of Galilee (felt a bit cheated as while its some 300m below sea level, its fresh water). We used a small town called Tiberias as our base for a few nights as it had relatively cheap accommodation and was fairly central.

View down the Hula Valley


Making the most of the car, we explored the Golan Heights which (kind of) run parallel to and then upwards from the Hula Valley. We visited Nimrod fortress (or Qal’at Subayba in Arabic) built in 1230 and now very decrepit but the location is amazing as it’s perched high on a hilltop with an amazing view down the Hula Valley. The route up the valley was (in 13th century) one of the trade routes to from Tyre (Lebanon) to Damascus (Syria) and, from its vantage point, the fortress controlled the route. The fortress is so weathered its almost unrecognisable from a distance and its not until you’re up close that you can see that is more actually more than just a pile of rocks on a hill top.

Nimrod from afar


From Nimrod we headed northeast to the higher part of the Golan Heights and the border with Syria (which seemed to be patrolled slightly differently to the Lebanese border). We didn’t think the countryside up that way was that picturesque but it was strangely beautiful. Lots of barren plains with dead grass that had turned golden, discarded tanks (presumably Syrian) along the road side, bombed out houses, others riddled with bullet holes, dug-outs, bomb shelters and on the hills there were army stations with towers, netting, gun stations and loads of what seemed to be communication points.

Pillboxes (I think?)


Hilltop station


Abandoned houses


I was quite keen to go and have a closer look at one of the discarded tanks but was quickly put off by the signs advising that there were unexploded mines around and was back in the car quick smart.



One of the roads we were driving along was showing on our map as closed but we thought we’d give it a go anyhow and as we approached, we saw this barricade of what looked like huge stones. We were getting ready to turn around but when we got within about 10m of it, we saw that it was just an optical illusion and that the road actually snaked sharply between two big piles of stones. The picture below is of the second one that we passed through (that’s our car driving through) and there are signs in front of it showing its obviously not a barrier. The first one we went through (at the beginning of the road that was meant to be closed) didn’t have any at all but I’m sure you’ll get the jist of what we saw.

Road barrier (or so we thought)


At one lookout point quite close to the Syrian border, there was a large UN camp and right next to it, the bombed out remains of Quneitra, a Syrian town that was flattened by the Israeli Defence Forces in 1967. Quite chilling in a way and the most blatant example of the past relations between the two countries.

UN post right next to Quneitra


Quneitra in Syria


We followed the border with Syria until it became the border with Jordan just south of the Sea of Galilee and headed on into the Jordan Valley. The Jordan border was almost non-descript in comparison to the others. What we saw of it was some rusty barbed wire and netting and didn’t spot any watch towers or any obvious military presence. Very different to the double fencing and electrified wire of the Lebanese border and the monitored Syrian border.

We actually did spot some wild life (which I got very excited about) and it probably helps that the area isn’t that busy with traffic. We saw vultures, golden eagles, a snake (we didn’t mean to run over it but it looked like a thin bit of black polythene in the road until it moved – we didn’t kill it I hasten to add). We also saw this massive wild boar (recently killed - not by us!). I spotted him just off the side of the road and got Euan to do a U-turn so we could check him out. The car that hit him must have been totalled. He was just huge.

Have the car for one more day so may go to Dead Sea, but then again, may not.

Akko (Acre), Israel 23-25 May 08

We were warned about Shabbat (from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday) but we didn’t quite appreciate that everything shut down – buses, trains, shops and all work basically so we hiked it off to Akko a bit earlier than we might have to try and find somewhere to stay. Akko (or Acre as it its otherwise known) is another seaside City but a majority of the Old City walls are bordered by sea and as the Old City seems to be predominantly occupied by Arabs, there were still doors open when we arrived. We were expecting a pretty picturesque place and while it is not that, Akko is very functional with many fishing boats still heading out of the port and the tourism seems to come and go without really being accommodated for which makes a nice change. There is really only one place to stay in the Old City (if anyone wants to start a business in Israel they could do a lot worse than decent accommodation/B&B in Akko!) and as a result the place we ended up in left us wondering if we’d be eaten alive by bugs overnight and we were mighty relieved to wake intact the next morning! We’ve learnt that decent cheap accommodation is difficult to come by in Israel.

Akko City walls and harbour (the land in the background is Haifa)


Local chap jumping off the City Walls


Strangely enough, there are more Baha’i Gardens 5km outside Akko but these gardens house the tomb of the founder of the Baha’i faith. We walked to the gardens then spent the afternoon at Nahariya (a bit further up the coast) on the beach. Thankfully the local sheruts were running to Nahariya as it was a bit too far to walk!

Baha’i Gardens outside Akko (the red bank at the back is made up entirely of red Geraniums. I’ve never seen so many in one place like that)

Akko was a pretty chilled out place with boys on horses clattering round the streets, cats foraging in rubbish, street sellers selling their wares and, without fail, the call to prayer from the Muezzin five times daily. In Jerusalem, where there seems to be a Mosque every few 100 meters you got a chorus of calls that overlapped, drowned each other out and while it should theoretically sound awful, its actually quite pleasant and calming. However, there was one Muezzin in Akko who Euan reckoned had been taking a few tips from James Blunt – he really did wail on and on and on…



Two days in and around Akko and we were well ready to move on and decided to hire a car for a few days to explore northern Israel.

Haifa, Israel 22-23 May 08

We are only in Haifa for one night on our way up the coast. As it turns out, the distances between places on the coast is so minimal you spend a day travelling up there then move on if need be. Haifa is a port City (we were tempted by the ferry to Athens as a way to get to Greece without going through the border kerfuffle but no, we resisted) and while there is plenty to see, Haifa didn’t grab us to spend more days there (no offence to any Israelis that are reading this!). We stayed in a Catholic Hospice and the nuns who ran it had great senses of humour but ran the place like a military camp and the security was similar!

Check out the heights (bearing in mind Euan is a tad under 6ft)!


We visited the incredible Baha’i Gardens (there are more just down the coast outside Akko) that stretch up a very steep hillside and have been built around a shrine (Shrine of the Bab) to the Baha’i prophet.

Baha’i Gardens from the bottom




Bottom terrace


The gardens have 19 terraces, took three years to build, 150 gardeners to now maintain them (the land they are built on was previously “a lot of old Arab houses”) and were built with donations from Baha’i followers – we figure there are some wealthy followers. The gardens are absolutely pristine, nothing is out of place, security is high and a majority of the gardens are off limits to visitors. We got chatting to the security chaps at the gate and one was a Kiwi from Gisborne so he gave us some useful info about visiting etc. Viewing the gardens from up high, you can’t see the lower terraces but the top terraces lead down to the Shrine of the Bab.

Baha’i Gardens from the top!



The gardens were built to face the tomb of the founder of the Baha’i faith across the bay in the Baha’i gardens near Akko and Baha’i followers world-wide make a pilgrimage to pay homage here. The Hospice we stayed in was booked out completely for the next 10 days with visiting Baha’i.

Caught the train along the coast to Akko – a very short ride of 30mins.

Jerusalem, Israel 19-22 May 08

We were on the way to Amman and fully intended to go on from there to Damascus but a last minute decision saw us heading for the Jordan/Israel border in a service taxi, rather than for the Jordan/Syrian border in a big bus. We were taking a few chances trying to cross the border so late in the day and its hard to know who to believe as we were being told varying stories (people telling us the border closed at 1500, no-one else would be going across, we’d get stuck and so on) but we went for it anyway. The security procedures around the border crossing were a bit extreme. Basically went something like this: Service Taxi to the Jordanian border, get exit stamp for Jordan, board the bus that took us the 4km to the Israel border, through about four heavily armed police checkpoints. Offload outside the Israeli border and all luggage goes through security that would put an airport to shame. There, (we must have looked suspicious) we were asked loads of questions, made to fill out form after form, wait for ages, asked more questions, fill out more forms, asked further questions (we clearly look too old to be normal backpackers!) then, after a few hours, we were allowed through. I have never seen so many machine guns in my life. Onto a sherut (shared mini-bus) through a very barren part of the West Bank and into Jerusalem. We caught sight of the huge wall that separates Palestine from Israel. A huge great thing stretching for some 700 plus km, 6m high and a huge cost – something like US$3 billion to build and millions to maintain apparently.

Barren part of the West Bank


We entered the Old City from a very non-tourist side – the Muslim Quarter – and on hindsight, it wasn’t a very smart thing to do (but we didn't know not to). I’m sorry to say we were harassed by kids (one threw a stone at Euan (damn good shot too), I got punched in the arm a few times etc (it didn’t feel right to punch them back)) and it was sad that they felt compelled to treat westerners that way but is an indication of the sense of injustice obviously felt and therefore taught to the kids.

Now, I’m not religious in any way shape or form but I would challenge anyone, religious or not, to come to Jerusalem and honestly say that they’re not blown away by it all. Its difficult to describe but there is just so much history you can’t help but be impressed. We stayed for three nights and 2 full days and didn’t get to see nearly as much as we could have. The Old City is a place to get lost in and that we did. We even went full circle on our first night there! We managed to find somewhere to stay – a very strict Muslim place where there was no alcohol, a curfew and unmarried couples were not allowed to sleep in the same room(!!).

We visited the Church of St Mary Magdalene where there were two tombs – one for Tsar Alexander's mother, the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, and Princess Alice of Greece (Queen Elizabeth's mother-in-Law) who harboured Jews during the Nazi occupation of Greece. The behaviour of those visiting all these holy sites was moving, fascinating and, at times, plain disturbing.

Mary of Magdalene Church




Nearby is the Church of All Nations that houses the rock of agony. The olive trees were most impressive.

Church of All Nations


Olive grove in the Garden of Gethsemane


It’s estimated that these trees are up to 2000 years old (the Romans cut down the originals in 70 AD)


View of Old City from Mt of Olives. Jewish Cemetery is in the foreground.


There is a water tunnel (Hezekiahs Tunnel) that was dug about 3000 years ago by Canaanites to secure the water supply for the City. The tunnel is over 500m long, very narrow (to narrow to turn around) and water is about 70cm deep in places and it leads to Siloam’s Pool in the City of David. Cool experience but spooky if you switch the torches off. When we went down it was just Euan and I so we could fool round a bit with switching torches off and walking in the pitch black etc but it wasn’t really that funny (I was at the back and got quite spooked).

Jerusalem really is a melting pot of religions. The City is clearly split into quarters and whether the split is conscious or not, the way the people change from one section to the next is freaky. I can’t see how the Palestinians are going to take part of the Old City as their capital and Israel take another part for theirs. It’s just a myriad of streets, walkways and steps so any kind of formal segregation would be a nightmare to adhere to.

The Temple Mount is very close to the Western (Wailing) Wall and is a huge site. It was virtually empty and we weren’t allowed in the Dome of the Rock so just had a look round outside. The Western Wall is the only remnant of Judisms holy shrine – originating from 20 BC.

Mt of Olives and Temple of the Rock


Praying at the Wailing Wall


Dome of the Rock at Temple Mount




The presence of guns in Jerusalem is quite unnerving at first. Gangs of teenagers walking down the street with semi-auto weapons casually slung over their shoulders, or girls walking round with pistols. Soldiers seemd to be everywhere and all were carrying at least one weapon. Seems to be completely normal though and after a day or so you don’t really notice.

When signs said leave guns at the gate, it wasn't a joke!


We found the Church of the Holy Sepulchre quite grim – it’s the place where Christ was crucified and buried, and the behaviour of some folk here was just plain disturbing. There is a marble slab (Slab of Unction) inside the main door and people were rubbing things (hands, faces, hats. clothes etc) all over it. One lady had a little plastic (human) foetus that she was rubbing on it. That was definitely weird.

Christs Tomb


Slab of Unction


We visited the Yad Vasham museum (a US$56 million museum complex a 30min local bus ride from the Old City) which, as a museum is mediocre but as an architectural complex, spectacular. Worth a visit only if you have time to spare we think (the London Imperial War Museum exhibition on the Holocaust won hands down in my view).

Jerusalem definitely had its touristy areas but step round a corner and you’re back into the original ancient areas where there is no-one other than locals around. A wonderful place and I was quite sorry to leave.

Next stop Haifa (we think!).