Israel and on

Dome of the Rock as seen from my hostel roof.

A church within a church, which holds JC's supposed tomb. I don't know exactly what this Jesus fellow did, but based on what they have set up for him, carpentry must have been a PRETTY big deal back in the day.

Western Wall. Taken from my spy cam as the Uzi wielding guard next to me looked away. Photos weren't allowed while I was there due to Sabbath.

Floating in the Dead Sea, whatever you do, do not taste the water.

Dahab, my new home on the Red Sea.

After leaving Amman via shared taxi with 4 awful smelling Palestinians, I made my way to the King Hussein bridge, which is the border crossing from Jordan into the West Bank. Stamping out of Jordan was simple enough, but getting into Israel is a process like no other. First you have to submit your bag to the soldiers at the beginning of the compound, where it gets searched, checked for explosive residue and who knows what else, I didn't see it again for almost 4 hours. Next you talk to the first line of questioners, then take a stroll through this weird booth thing that blows high pressured air at you and takes a bunch of snapshots. Following that you actually get to the immigration official. If they're nice, you can walk right through after a quick little interview but if not you can be interrogated and checked up on. The American/Syrian girl behind me said the last time she came through the border the entire process took her 16 hours. I managed to get through that unscathed, but was held up at the personal bag check for over 3 hours for whatever reason. After finally emerging back into the god awful heat of this place, I caught a bus through the West Bank to Jerusalem, passing some notorious places along the way like Ramallah and Hebron. All in all the Palestinians were very nice.

Once arriving in East Jerusalem, I quickly walked to the old city, getting strange looks from the locals and soldiers alike. The old city of Jerusalem isn't actually that big, but it's incredibly easy to get lost along the windy little lanes that are scribbled throughout it. A giant wall surrounds the entire area, so at least you have some kind of sign when you've gone too far. It's divided into 4 sections, the Muslim Quarter being the largest, followed by the Jewish Quarter, Christian Quarter and Armenian Quarter. I grabbed a hostel in the Armenian Quarter and set about getting repeatedly lost in the city.

I don't think it's a coincidence that I arrived in Jerusalem, the holy city, on my own religion's most holy of days, Boatmas. Attempts to set up a church of good times in honour of our prophet, Lionel Ritchie, were met with opposition from the already packed religious community here.

Walking around the place is an eye opener depending on which quarter you're in. The Muslim area seems to constantly be packed with kebob stands and pirated movie booths, whereas the Jewish quarter (which was rebuilt following its destruction in 1948) is modern, spacious and clean. You bump into some interesting groups of people, whether they be the super orthodox Jews with crazy fur hats, the Muslim cleric guys that walk around with these giant canes, the Christian pilgrims or the ever present, combat-ready Israeli troops that seem to be everywhere. I still don't understand exactly how the security system works in Israel, but I think their logic falls somewhere along the lines of "just give everyone guns". Seems like anyone between the ages of 17 to 25 has a weapon. You'll see a group of young guys hanging around, wearing hoodies and skater jeans about to fall off, then do a double take when you see that they all have Desert Eagles and extra magazines stuffed into their pockets. It took a while to get used to the sight of 3 or 4 18 year old girls walking down the street, all with M-16s strapped to their backs. Crazy place.

Unfortunately my main day for sight seeing in Jerusalem fell on a Saturday, which limited what I could do. I first set about looking for the church of the holy sepulcher (where Jesus was crucified and buried). It was fairly early in the morning when I found it and didn't actually know that I had (I expected there to be lots of people, signs etc..) until it was too late. So, fast forward 2 minutes and you have the incredibly awkward situation of 3 women (the only other people there) sobbing away at the tomb of Jesus Christ, while ole Jord tries desperately to finish his dripping cinnamon bun after realizing what he's stumbled onto. The church itself was pretty cool, there's actually a church inside a church. I wandered around but had no real idea of what I was looking at most of the time and actually had to go back after looking it all up on wikipedia. The actual crucifixion site is a giant shrine now where you climb under this table thing and put your hand through a dark hole to touch the rock. I did it, but I still don't know what I was supposed to be doing besides feeling a bunch of rocks that have probably been fondled by 10 million people. I immediately used hand-san after that debacle.

Next I made my way through the madness of the street to try to get to the Dome of the Rock, the Muslim holy site in Jerusalem. With it being Saturday though (and the fact that the previous day a group of radical Jews had broken into the place), my way was blocked by Israeli soldiers and I could only go so far. Walking down the street a little further I went to the Western (Wailing) Wall, the Jewish holy site. This was probably the biggest disappointment (not that I was expecting anything actually...), but from my vantage point, all it amounted to was hundreds of Dr. Hubermans bobbing their heads at a wall. I stayed there for about 1 minute before heading back to the hostel to watch Superman. Some other sites that I saw were the tomb of King David, some old Roman stuff and the site of the last supper. I tried to find the Church of Crom and the birthplace of Santa Claus, but failed on both accounts.

After Jerusalem I headed south for an afternoon at the Dead Sea. I always figured that the whole floating on the Dead Sea thing was sort of like how people talk about floating in salt water compared to fresh water and really wasn't expecting much. Luckily I was pleasantly surprised to find that it really does completely float you and it actually takes effort to get one of your limbs down into the water, very cool experience. From there some strange cabbie picked me up to head south, back to the Red Sea, to Eilat. An hour or so into the ride the cab broke down amongst a hail of Hebrew cussing and cigarette smoke. For some reason the guy wanted me to help fix it, but instead I caught another taxi. Finally arrived in Eilat several hours later to find the city completely full from Northern Israelis fleeing the kaytusha rockets. After much searching and haggling I finally managed to pay a whopping $30 for a little closet room.

The nightmare of crossing back into Egypt actually began when I first arrived at the Cairo airport and asked the immigration guy if I'd be ok reentering through the Sinai with the visa he was giving me, to which he said, yes yes, fine fine, next. After bussing out to the border, stamping out of Israel, converting all my Shekels back into Egyptian Pounds and walking across to the Egyptian station, I found that this was not the case. The obese, chain-smoking official there told me I would have to go back into Israel, to the Egyptian embassy and apply for a visa. So that sucked. Thankfully the Israeli girls (border duties and things like that are all done by the female half of the army, a pleasant change from the typical border guards) were quite nice to me after hearing my plight and let me breeze back through into Israel.

After clearing through all that garbage, I had missed all the buses going deeper into the Sinai, so I had to succumb to another breaking down minibus. Ended up in Dahab where I am now, and probably be for the next few days while I do some diving. Last night I had a few drinks (or more than a few...) with an Australian who's been traveling non stop for 14 years (thanks to being seriously wounded in the Falkland Islands war and receiving a generous monthly pension from the British Army) who's brother I actually met while I was in Perth, he was one of the odd assortment of characters populating Tony Smash's party, small world.