Author: Adrian's Got the Moose

Jerusalem- 29/11/2019

The obvious thing I noticed, as many travelers before me have, is most Israelis abrupt, often aggressive demeanor. Many Israelis think nothing of pushing in front of queues, or yelling a coffee order from across a cafe. When I boarded a train to get to the Holocaust Museum, an older man stopped dead as soon as he entered the train, and a local woman yelled at me for some reason, which seemed a tad unfair. Soldiers are everywhere, uniformed and armed, at street corners, bus stations, and especially the Old City as previously mentioned. What I found even more bizarre is how often you see them in jeans and hoodies, with rifles slung, riding on trams or just walking around.

I found the staff at the capsule hotel I rested my head to be lovely, keen to help and to have a chat. The manager was keen to ask if I was having any problems, and worked to solve them, an older man working in the evenings helped with suggestions and gave me a decent primer on how many Jews are conflicted about visiting the Temple Mount. A young worker in the morning I left gave me great advice on getting to the airport ( which was thwarted by the train to Tel-Aviv being oddly cancelled, which everyone seemed to be confused about, but his efforts were still appreciated). The painfully beautiful and only woman working there told me that many Israelis will stop everything to help someone when asked, and I did experience a Hasidic Jew giving myself and an earnest American woman (he listened to her but answered as if I asked, which is a strange way of dealing with his religious rules) which tram to get back to central station. But this seemed to be quite an exception. For the most part I kept to myself and avoided eye contact, to save myself the disappointment.

So it was the Muslim Quarter I lingered to hang out, to drink thick Arabian style coffee, to get surprised, but genuine smiles when I took the time to pay in exact change. all the while Israeli soldiers stood around belligerently.

The charitable part of me wants to excuse their behavior on Israel being a young country, besieged on all signs by countries dynamically opposed to them, and they overcompensating. But I can’t help thinking that many people visit once, and never want to return after such a frosty reception.

Jerusalem- 28/11/2019

After checking into my capsule hotel (I was thoroughly sick of dorms by this point), I walked to the Jaffa Gate, the closest gate of the Old City. I made my way through the Christian Quarter to the Church of thje Holy Sepulcher, where it is believed that Jesus was laid to rest after his crucifixion.

The architecture is incredible, the paintings are incredible, and everything oozes ancient worship, opulence, and attention to detail. I was treated to some excellent singing by my fellow tourists, even if it did start getting repetitious.

I queued for an hour and a half to enter the chamber where Christ’s body was laid for three days. I wanted to hear angels, feel uplifted, something. Instead, I felt mildly bored and claustrophobic. I genuflected because it was expected of me, and because I knew it would have been what my departed, deeply Catholic grandmother would have done if she ever made the pilgrimage here, and I left what was left of my Christianity in that cramped stone chamber, and out of the church into the sunlight.

I walked next for a short while through the nearly empty Jewish Quarter, which seemed to be mostly high-end jewellery shops I neither had the money or the inclination to experience.

The Muslim Quarter was much more interesting, perhaps because it’s the only place in the entire city (Old City and modern) Where Muslims can feel somewhat comfortable. This quarter contains the Temple Mount, a site that makes the Church of the Holy Sepulcher seem uncontroversial. The al-Aqsa Mosque is one of the three most holy sites in the world to Sunni Muslims, which is built on top of the ruins of the First Temple of Judasim. Every time I tried visiting this site it was closed, bizarrely reienforced by Israeli soldiers, standing obnoxiously at the entrances.

I spent a few happy hours walking through the Muslim and Armenian Quarter, which were complete with barbers, optometrists, doctors and pharmacists. Small walkways led away from the main thoroughfares, quickly becoming quiet, strictly residential affairs, I spent ten minutes kicking a soccer ball with a few young lads before I realised light was fading and I departed. I think I started to fall in love with the casual history and the ancient, crumbling gates.

After one attempt to visit the Temple Mount, I discovered the Cotton Merchants Street, which in its day featured two traditional bathhouses, now filled with stalls selling cheap jewellery, souvenirs, and spices, complete with IDF soldiers guarding the entrance to the Temple Mount, with rifles slung and glaring disdainfully at the kids. I purchased a few Palestinian flag bracelets and stickers from a bemused stall owner, as Arabic school children spent their pocket money.

During my visit to the Muslim Quarter I bumped into Colin, an Australian I had met in Jordan, who recommended I visit the tunnels under the Western Wall, so the next day I visit and attempt to buy tickets, however, I discover that they are all sold out until after I fly out, so I limit myself to the famous Western Wall itself. Its a wall, I wrote a prayer using a pen borrowed from a tour group leader, on a piece of Japenese paper from my travel wallet, folded it carefully, and placed it in between a crack in the wall, stepped back and felt slightly silly.

What struck me, and probably struck most visitors, is the sheer density of historical and religious sites, and how close they are to one another. From the Western Wall, you are only a ten-minute walk from the Temple Mount. Maybe a twenty-minute walk from there you can visit a number of the Stations of the Cross, which for me was a truly bizarre thing to visit, understated as they are compared to their depictions in any Roman Catholic church. Ten minutes from there you can visit the Church of Holy Sepulcher, the holiest site of Christianity, but ignored by Jews and Muslims.

Jerusalem- 28/11/19

Crossing into Israel after so long in Jordan and Palestine was intensely jarring. After so many huge roadside signs stating that you are heading into a Palestinian village and that it’s not safe for Israelis- in English, watching the reverse made me want to scream. I was on a public bus filled with Palestinians, we drove along ten-metre concrete walls before stopping at a checkpoint.

Following the lead of my fellow passengers, I get out of the bus and join the line, with passport in hand. But the bus driver orders me back on the bus, and I comply, not wanting to cause a scene. Two soldiers enter the bus to check IDs of myself and the Palestinians that meet the age/disability requirement. I hand over my passport, and its barely glanced at before handed back to me with a grunt. A gentleman behind me is asked his age (53) and was told next time to get off the bus. Another gentleman in his seventies apparently needed further questions and was ordered off the bus. After quick checks of the Palestinians waiting outside, we depart. The man was still outside waiting as we pulled away. The last I saw of him was as my hand was held against the bus window in a pointless gesture of solidarity, but he never saw me as the bus pulled away. I only realized then that my interaction with the soldier was conducted while I was still wearing my hat and sunglasses, which I never would have gotten away with usually.

Bethlehem, Palestine- 25/11/2019

By the time I reached Bethlehem, my trip was almost over, so I could only afford to spend one night there.

I visited the Church of Nativity, Which while being a beautiful church, was an underwhelming experience, and confirmed my lapsed Catholic opinion that Christianity is more interested in the death of Christ than his life or teachings.

After a long walk, I arrived at the Walled City Hotel, a hotel owned by the artist Banksy to increase people’s understanding of the issues facing the modern Palestinian people. I could not afford to stay there, but I could visit the museum.

The perspective and visual storytelling was fascinating and heartbreaking. The strongest exhibit was an old fashioned telephone, with the label “If it rings, answer it” which with some trepidation, I did. “My name is… from the Isreali Intelligence Service, we are going to bomb your house, you have five minutes to get out” This left me deeply unsettled.

The hotel is alongside a corner of the seperation wall betweeen Palestinian Bethlehem and Israeli Jerusalem. The hotel features a free service where you can create your own stencils to use to spray paint the wall. I couldn’t think of anything to add, so I just walked along the section of the wall, taking photos, glaring at the security towers, and trying not to cry.

Ramallah – 23/11/2019

Ramallah is a sprawling city just north of Jerusalem, but firmly belonging to Palestine. It is the de facto capital of the Palestinian Authority, it was also where Yasser Arafat was held under house arrest for two years by Israel.

Ramallah is where the Palestinian and Israeli conflict fell into some context for me. I visited the Arafat Museum, which also contained his mausoleum , which was both a focus of attentiuon but seemingly deliberately understated .

While I am familiar and agree with the adage that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, it was still a surreal experience. Groups of thirty plus school children on field trips to a museum dedicated to the memory of a man widely viewed by the western world as a terrorist mastermind. I found the museum to be stark and moving, In the gift shop, I bought two pins of the Palestinian flag, and with a painful awareness that I paid for them with Israeli Shekels.

Later, I visited the Al-Amari Refugee Camp. Originally housed in tents, now residents live in poorly constructed tenements, and the main street contains a clinic, as well as minimarts, bakeries and mobile phone shops. While residents can freely move in and out of the camp, being surrounded by the urban sprawl of Ramallah, high unemployment and rising property prices leave many with nowhere else to go. Our guide pointed out writing on walls, which indicated children killed by Israeli vigilantes, men who returned from prison, and in a handful of cases pilgrimages to Mecca.

We met a resident in his family’s third storey home, along with his beautiful children. Over coffee and cigarettes, and being translated by our guide, he told us stories about being arrested, and being tortured. One instance of torture involved him being stripped naked, bound to a stainless steel table, meat placed over his genitals and dogs let loose into the room. We finished the tour, and I was left feeling numb and helpless .

Jericho- 21/11/2019

Jericho was my first stop after passing into Palestine. Jericho was very similar to many places I have visited with developing economies. Many near-empty shops, taxi drivers hungry for fares, bins present but rubbish on the streets, friendly but idle locals. For a place my goverment thinks I shouldn’t visit, everything seemed quite calm.

After I settled into my hostel, I took short walk to Ein Al Sultan, apparently the oldest known settlement in the world.

However after Jeresh and Petra, it was a tad underwhelming . The nearby spring, which supplied water to much of ancient Jericho, was more picturesque.

My next step was Mount Temptation . I could of taken a cable car to the top, but of course I walked, which granted some incredible views.

The Mount Temptation Monastery was impressive, and conceals the cave where it is said that Jesus spent forty days and nights, while fasting and being tempted by Satan.

Due to claustrophobia and the legions of the devout, I didn’t get any closer. Also, the monastery featured a church, but there was a long queue to enter, and I felt uncomfortable around so much beating of breast style piety, so I departed.

There were also some excellent views from balconies.

The next morning I took a walk to Herrod’s Palace, a good two kilometres from my hostel, but wonderfully flat after yesterday. Following roadsigns, I left the barely sealed road for a dirt track and was soon stopped by Israeli soldiers. I had previously waved at a pair of soldiers on a side road they seemed to be blocking, who barely acknowledged me. This time was different. Where are you going? What are you doing? Where are you from? Do you know you are in the Palestinian Territories? it physically pained me not to answer with no, I thought I was in Disneyland, however armed soldiers, even ones with painted fingernails and lipstick, are not the best recipients of my retail and travel tuned sarcasm. Once it was clear they had no further need to hinder me, I continued on my way.

I walked through alongside a small farm, and jumped a half-broken down fence, and arrived. I spotted half a dozen more soldiers, chatting to themselves and taking selfies. After taking a few photos, I realised that the only other people there were a large tour group, and I got closer on the pretense of reading some signs, I realised they were speaking Hebrew, marking them as Israelis. The plot thickens.

Later, when discussing  my escapade with some other travellers at the hostel, I learned that many Israelis are told that the whole of the West Bank is a war zone, and the chances of being a victim of a terrorist attack is incredibly high, hence the perceived need of ludicrous levels of security. meanwhil, I found Palestine to be much safer than other places I have traveled to, and apart from some children who viewed me as an ATM, every Palestinian I met was friendly and welcoming.

Amman

I spent two nights in Amman before crossing the border into West Bank. After dropping off my backpack at my shitty hostel, I spent a happy afternoon walking around downtown Amman. Apart from the cookie-cutter souvenir shops, there seemed to be many jewellers, perfumers and sweets shops around. One of those perfumers offered me a coffee, and made a sample vial of my favourite scent i sniffed, along with a business card in case I changed my mind.

What fascinated me the most were all the alleyways, often dominated by a single business, and decorated with balloons and the like.

Many of the stairs, forming major pedestrian thoroughfares, were well decorated.

The next morning, my sleep having been interrupted by drunken Spanish, I walked up to the Amman Citadel, which has a long history of being  occcupied and worked on by different groups throughout history. I discovered the whole place overrun by a film studio, Coldplay were playing in concert there in a few nights. I managed to get some good shots while dodging trucks transporting portaloos, forklifts moving crates, and the oppressive gaze of the tourist police.

The Citadel also offered some incredible views of Amman.

A short distance down the hill, my way assisted and shortened by excellent advice from a smoking Jordanian man to use a hidden staircase, I found a stunning Roman Theatre.

After getting incredibly lost, I found my way to the partially restored Nymphium.

That night, after organizing my bus ticket to cross the border, I took an Uber to a local Turkish Bath, which was a good two hours of…

• showering
• Steaming
• Showering
• Steaming
• Showering
• Spaing
• Scrubbing
• Washing
• massaging
• Saunaing

Which was all heavenly, and not nearly as brutal as the Turkish Bath I visted in Istanbul in 2008, even if the building didn’t date back to the Ottoman Empire.

I decided to walk back to the hostel, but soon got waylaid when I discovered a very hipster area close by the bathouse. I found an amazing shop selling pop culture goods, and more than a few pro-Palestine items that I would have loved to buy. but could not afford to have on me when I crossed the border. So I limited myself to a cute button and a sticker for my notebook.

Making my way down some stairs, I spotted a few local lads rollerblading, which is the first time in over ten years I have spotted anyone on rollerblades.

Google Maps being more useful than usual, told me to walk down a slim pedestrian alleyway, and I spotted a Liquor Store sign, and walked in planning to buy a beer  to take back to my dreary room, to see if it improves the ambience. Butt it turned out to be a tiny, dark bar, possibly skirting the local laws by not calling itself a bar.

So I dwelled long enough to click glasses with the resident barflies, enjoy my first beer for a week, and listen to some surprisingly good pop music, before saying my goodbyes and departing. I would have loved to spend more time there, but I needed to pack before bed and leave early in the morning, and experience has taught me never to pack drunk or hungover.

Modern Jeresh.

Something I enjoyed about my three night stay in Jeresh was the complete absence of tourists outside of the archological park. Because Jordan is such a small country, many tourists stay in the capital and take day trips, which makes logistical sense, but in my opinion no good for actually experiencing the country.

Tour buses would park just outside of the archeological site, and vomit out tourists. The tourists would be herded around for a few hours, perhaps get lunch at one of the on site restaurants, then be consumed by the tour buses and sent back to safety in Amman.

My hostel was a good kilometre and a half from the site, and because I refuse to pay for a taxi when I can walk it without feeling too exhausted by the time I get there, I spent a lot of time over the two days around the windy, hilly streets. This is how I ended up eating at restaurants where I was the only non-resident, getting a haircut conducted with no English ( and at a price that I suspect indicates the sheer audacity of me walking in there), and getting on first name basis with the owners and patrons of a coffee shop, where I was not allowed to pay for my first coffee. It was in this coffee house I learned that many Arabs as much as practicable pretend that Israel doesn’t exist, and all that land west of the Dead Sea is simply Palestine.

Every where I went I was asked where I was from, and welcomed.

The hostel I stayed at had only been open for a month, and each night I had a six bed dorm room to myself. The afternoon staff member noticed me writing and typing up my blog entries, and commented that as a writer, I must love the authenticity of the city. I loved my stay in the hostel, lonely as it was, but I doubt it will still be there in a year, unless there is some dramatic shift in the way people travel through this amazing country.

Ancient Jeresh- 17/11/2019

Jeresh is a modern city built around, and on top of an ancient city, which is, of course, the reason I stayed for three nights.

It was a settlement as far back as 7500 BCE, flourished during the Greco-Roman era until various earthquakes destroyed much of the city. The Crusaders made use of it briefly, then it lay abandoned until the Ottomans made use of it in the 16th century.

Today Jeresh is one of the best preserved Greco-Roman cities outside of Italy. Excavations began in 1925, and still continue today.

The main entrance of the ancient city of Jeresh is the incredible Hadrian’s Arch, built by the Roman Emperor of the same name.

The Oval Plaza was the main square and focus point of everyday life in the city, and was a crossroads between the two major roads. It was built with impressive Ionic columns, paved with stone slabs, and featured its own drainage system.

The Cordo leads on from the Plaza, linking many state buildings, and would have been lined with hundreds of stalls.

My favourite building was the Nymphaeum. a two-storey fountain, to supply water to the masses in excessive style. The pink granite basin was likely added by the Byzantines.

A number of temples line the Cordo, the most spectacular in my opinion being the Temple of Artemis.

Which included a number of gates and entrances.

The city featured at least two theatres, both amazingly restored. The Southern Theatre featured some beautifully anachronistic live music when I visited.

I think the thing I liked the most about Jeresh is that It was not just a collection of distant buildings, you could see how everything was interconnected. Various gods rose to dominance and faded as the people changed. all the while business and wars were conducted, and empires rose and fell, but for thousands of years the city endured.

The Dead Sea- 15/11/2019

I took an Uber to the Dead Sea Spa Resort. After paying for a day pass I made my way through the resort to the beach, which turned out to be a bit disappointing .

I knew the sea has been receding at a rapid rate, and it’s hard to impress an Australian with any beach, But I still felt it was hardly worth the effort and expense.

Nonetheless , I was there. I dodged Europeans, having suddenly been rendered invisible , stripped off my shirt, left my flip flops on the beach and slowly made my way into the water.

The first thing I noticed was sharp stings from various cuts, abrasions and rashes I had picked up in my travels. Luckily these subsided swiftly. Once the water was up to my nipples I lifted my legs from the mud. It felt very odd, I had to force my legs to stay submerged as they fought their way back up, being excessively buoyant compared to the rest of me in the supersaturated salt water. This became a problem as a man almost ran into me, and I instinctively tried to breaststroke out of the way, and I struggled to right myself- apparently trying to float on your front is how many people manage to drown in the Dead Sea.

Eventually, I managed to find a spot I could float unmolested, which was pleasant enough for half an hour, but then I got bored and headed back to the shore to shower in the open air. the Dead Sea water tends to leave your skin feeling very oily.

I had lunch and a cocktail overlooking one of the resort’s swimming pools, before doing a few laps in the pool before laying down on a deck chair to read for a few hours.

But it was clear I was a pilgrim in an unholy land. I had more in common with the Philippine staff than any of the guests, and apart from mild flirty looks from one older Spanish woman, I was entirely ignored. So I departed and left the obscene excess for those who are more comfortable with it.