Middle East – theplaceswe

After spending a couple of hours in no-mans land between Jordan and Israel, we arrived in Israel and made our way by bus to Jerusalem on Friday morning.

I pictured Jerusalem to be this city that was so full of magic and history that it would be like stepping back in time. My first impression was that it was quite modern and clean but then I thought to myself “it won’t be like this in the old city”. After arriving at our hotel we thought we should go change our money and get some food. We were told we should go “quickly as it’s Sabbath and everything will be closed soon”. I thought this would be one of those times when ‘everything’ actually just means the shopping centres and restaurants, cafes and supermarkets would still be opened. Turns out that isn’t the case in Jerusalem. They take the Sabbath very seriously and before we knew it everything around us was closed and I still hadn’t had lunch. Mark had eaten a kabab but after weeks in Turkey and then Jordan I just couldn’t stomach more BBQ meat. On the way back to our hotel we stopped by a supermarket that remains open during Sabbath and bought some food thinking we would go out and eat dinner later at one of the few restaurants that don’t close. I don’t know what happened but we laid down while we waited for a movie to download and BAM! 4 hours later I woke up to a half downloaded movie and a rumbling stomach. Mark woke up shortly after me and being half asleep suggested that we eat the 2 minute noodles we bought as a snack for dinner. I quickly agreed and while waiting for the water to boil, I reflected on how quickly our circumstances can change on the road. One minute we are tanning by the pool at our resort on the Dead Sea and the next minute we are eating 2 minute noodles for dinner in a hotel in Jerusalem during Sabbath.

“The Sabbath is commanded by God. Every week religious Jews observe theSabbath, the Jewish holy day, and keep its laws and customs. The Sabbath begins at nightfall on Friday and lasts until nightfall on Saturday.” – Wikipedia.
The Old Town in Jerusalem still opens on Saturday’s so we wandered down there the on Saturday morning and it was here that I expected to see an old city swathed in history and religion. I saw more of a restored city filled with cheap market stalls and tour groups. Our whole experience in the Old Town was completely underwhelming. Nothing seemed sacred and the large masses of people pushing everyone else out of their way just ruined any sacred atmosphere that may have been present. We left after a few hours of walking around really disappointed in what had become of one of the most sacred places in the world for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike.
One good thing that did come from our day in the Old Town was that while we were out our movie finally finished downloading so we watched that after yet another dinner of 2 minute noodles. It was a really interesting movie and would highly recommend it to those who don’t mind reading subtitles in a film. It’s called Dheepan and is about a soldier leaving Sri Lanka for France with a random woman and child to try to start a new life there.

After a rather underwhelming time in Jerusalem we were hoping Tel Aviv would cheer us up – after all it’s right by the beach! Getting to our hostel there was a fairly simple experience with just a bus and taxi from Jerusalem. Once inside the hostel we met a few of the workers there and a whole bunch of volunteers. At first I thought they were volunteering in Israel and were just staying at the hostel for a few days but I quickly learnt I was wrong. They were volunteers at the hostel, which meant they worked there and in return got a free bed. After a couple of hours observing these ‘volunteers’ I realised that they didn’t actually do much work and I could quite easily assume that the cleanliness of the bathrooms were thanks to them. I’ve never seen so much grime and soap scum on a set of taps before in my life – they really needed to invest in some Jiff or maybe methylated spirits would help. You must be thinking “ohh but Bianca why would you shower somewhere that was so dirty, that’s just gross”. Well my loyal readers, please don’t judge me when I tell you this but I did not shower there for the 2 days that we stayed and I still felt I was better off than simply being in those bathrooms, let alone showering in them. Hostels are very interesting places. I’ve stayed in a couple of good ones before but generally they really push me to my limits. I just can’t find it in myself to be interested in everyone’s story on how they “are trying to find themselves”.

We spent as much time as we could away from the hostel and walked around Tel Aviv and spent time at the beach. It was too cold and windy to be in the water but it was nice to be outside catching the sun at times when the clouds weren’t too strong. After 2 days we were leaving the hostel to spend a day/night at a really nice hotel. The first thing I did when I got there was shower, then second thing was to go spend the entire day by the pool. It was a really nice way to end our time in Israel especially because our last day was also Memorial Day and at 8pm a loud siren went off for 1 minute to remind everyone to stop and remember all of those who had lost their lives for Israel.

Before arriving in Israel we had been told that we would get questioned crossing the border and the process could take hours. This didn’t happen to us on the way in as we had been told but it did happen on the way out. The process to leave Israel was so ridiculous that by the end we really couldn’t see the benefit of it whatsoever. Firstly, when we arrived at the airport and walked over to our check in desk there was a line and security a few meters in front. After waiting in this line for over half an hour we get to security where they advise us they need to ask us a few questions. Obviously we said “sure, no worries”. I’ll add a few of the questions we got asked by one security team officer and then again by a superior officer.

Q: “Where are you going?”
A: “Athens and then onto Madrid”
Q: “How long are you in Athens for?”
A: “We aren’t staying there, it’s for transit”
Q: “How long are you in Spain for?”
A: “ummm 8 days.” Neither of us could remember at this stage so I didn’t take time to pretend to count the days on my hand.
Q: “When do you go back to Australia?”
A: “Not sure, we are travelling for 12 months”
Q: “How do you know each other?” I was a bit shocked at this question
A: “He’s my boyfriend”
Q: “How long have you been dating for?” Now at this question I simply wanted to walk straight onto the plane and leave Israel and all of it’s ridiculous security questions behind but I thought to leave I would need to answer
A: “6 and a half years”
This was the end of the questioning by the first officer. He then took our passports and gave them to his superior who held onto them while she questioned the man next to us.
While we waited I tried to listen in to what she was asking him so I could be prepared for when she was ready to speak to us. In the end she asked us pretty much the same questions we had already been asked along with questions on where we had been prior and what we did in Israel. I’m glad we weren’t the man next to us though. He was asked what time he got to the airport and what he had been doing in the 45 minutes since he arrived. He had to calmly tell her that he had been waiting in line to be questioned. The look on her face gave the impression that she didn’t even believe him.

I was simply dumbfounded by the entire process on leaving Israel. We learnt quite a bit while in Israel though but I’m glad we are no longer there and made it to Spain. Bring on Europe!

Leaving Turkey was hard. We both loved being there so much but we thought Jordan would surprise us just as much as Turkey did.

When we arrived in Amman we thought we were super prepared. I had the cash on me that we were to exchange for Jordanian Dinar and Mark was going to investigate the Visa situation. The exchange rates at the airport were terrible. We were going to lose so much money by exchanging it there so we went to the ATM to withdraw as much cash as we could. This worked out better for us and we were a bit annoyed that we couldn’t exchange our cash but it all worked out – we would just exchange the cash once we got into the city. Just before we had left for Jordan we had read about a Jordan Pass which got us entry into the country and entry into tourists sites but Mark couldn’t see any mention of it at the airport so we paid the equivalent of $80 each for a visa and about half an hour later were finally getting our bags and searching for a bus to take us to town. We flew Royal Jordanian Airlines who have a shuttle bus for passengers which takes them from the airport to 7th Circle in the city. We couldn’t find their bus so jumped on another airport link bus and told them to take us to 7th Circle. An hour later we were being kicked off the bus right on a main road and were being told to get a taxi. We tried to explain to the driver that we were at the wrong spot and wanted to go further into the city. At this point he didn’t speak English which was odd considering he could tell us in very good English that we had to get off the bus and get a taxi from there to our hotel. A lady who spoke Arabic & English eventually helped us get a taxi but by this stage we were just doing what we were told.

The next 2 days we spent in Amman walking the city, seeing some of the cites and relaxing in our room which was quite big compared to some places we had stayed in. We were also hanging out with a guy from Yemen who was in Amman trying to get a study visa for Canada. We invited him to join us on our road trip to Petra. He accepted and we drove later one afternoon to Petra. It was an interesting experience having an Arabic person with us. For one, he helped us save money by always getting Arabic prices for us. He was charged JOD0.85 for a bottle of water and 2 cokes whereas we were charged JOD3. He kindly asked us to stop going into stores with him and just telling him what we wanted as he said that as soon as the shopkeepers saw that we were with him they bumped up the Arabic prices. At one point he told us we would have paid 10x what he had paid simply because we were foreigners and the shopkeeper tried to get more money out of everyone. It’s simple things like this that can make travelling difficult, especially when we don’t speak the language.

There was definitely a lot more foreigners in Wadi Musa, the town Petra is in but we didn’t have time to socialise. We got in late, were tired, hungry and had to get up early in the morning. We were completely unprepared for what Petra had to offer. Of course we did our research like we normally do but we usually find that people suggest we allow a lot more time than we actually need to visit any type of monument/attraction so when people online said you need days we thought “narh, we’ll get it done in a couple of hours”. Mark was so happy he put on his Nikes instead of Vans because 7 hours later we were completely exhausted. The monuments there were incredible and we were so glad we took the hardest routes through the site – they offered us some amazing views – but it was hard work. We had a bit of a joke going on which helped us (me) get through some of the hardest parts. Mark would ask “How you going?” in an extremely cheerful voice and I would simply look at him with the most exhausted face I could manage and then we would laugh and move on. It probably doesn’t sound funny to anyone reading this but it worked, surprisingly. It’s now something Mark continues to do when he thinks I’m tired.

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Petra was unlike anything we had ever seen before but we were really looking forward to going so that we could get to the Dead Sea to relax and sit by the pool. Mark and I are both beach people and as amazing as Petra was, for me it was trumped by the Dead Sea. When we first arrived our hotel upgraded us to a suite room where we had a view of the water. The water was so still and looking at it calmed me immediately. I don’t know if I am able to put into words what it looked like… I’ll try though. The Dead Sea isn’t actually a sea but a huge lake, half in Israel and half in Jordan. The water is this cloudy blue-white colour that at some points blends so well with the sky that you can’t see where the water ends and the sky begins. It was surreal for us standing on one side of the lake in Jordan and looking across to see all of the lights on at night in Israel.

Besides being famous for all of the minerals in the water and surrounding ground, the Dead Sea is of course famous for being so salty that you can float without doing anything. The water has what I can only describe as a thicker feeling than normal water and it makes your skin feel slimy while in the water. Being so salty means that the water searches and very quickly finds every tiny little cut or scratch you have on your body. I think I must have looked like a kid in the water. Mark went in before me and was just there floating that I couldn’t stop smiling. Once I got in there I just couldn’t stop giggling (I’m not usually a giggling type of girl). It was so weird being in the water and just floating on our backs. Floating on your stomach is a lot harder as your constantly trying to keep your head out of the water. I had read that you shouldn’t put your face under the water because when the water gets in your eyes it will feel like someone is scratching them out. We didn’t stay in for very long as everything starts to sting after a while. It’s as if tiny little cuts that didn’t hurt at first start to eventually let the salt in and start to sting. We couldn’t help ourselves though. We had to go back in the next day. I’m so glad we did because we also covered ourselves in the mud of the Dead Sea which is said to be full of minerals. We sat in a mud bath and covered ourselves as best we could. A local told us we should we 30 minutes before going to wash it off. We couldn’t wait that long – the mud started to seep into our skin and burn and sting just like the water. Ohh what we do for beauty. Washing the mud off in the salty water was a lot harder than putting it on. Mark got the tiniest bit of water in his eyes and said it was like “someone stabbing [his] eyes”. I could imagine what he meant because while I was washing the mud off my face I got the water on my lips and it made them so dry and then made them burn. It also tasted foul.

On our last day at the Dead Sea we thought we would try the resort spa, after all it was one of the largest spa in the Middle East. You would think being a part of a huge resort that there would be at least a few people in there. Nope, we were the only ones, so we swam around in the pool like 2 kids being told by their mum that we had 30 minutes before we had to leave. Being the only people in the spa though meant that the lifeguard followed us around and he did catch me splashing water into Mark’s face just as he was coming up out of the water – got a few laughs from the lifeguard.

The most amazing sunset from our last night on the Dead Sea

Driving through Jordan was a good opportunity for us to see a lot of the country. At some points we would look around and say “Yep, this is definitely the Middle East”. But Mark simply described Jordan as one big $2 store. Everywhere we went people would try to sell us things for “1 Dinar only” which is $2 for us so we started calling it the $2 store of the Middle East.

I’m writing this post as we sit on a bus in the middle on no-mans land between Jordan and Israel. The next time you hear from us will be, hopefully, from Israel!

Category: Middle East

The Hostel life just isn’t for me

This is the Middle East