Israel: Jerusalem and it's over

Dear All

It has finally come. My last newsletter. Since I am settling down for a while there is really no need for a travelogue for someone who isn’t travelling. I have waiting a long time between newsletters not only because it is my last but because I haven’t done much. Mostly I have been sitting in my cave of a room in downtown Tel Aviv playing endless Internet games while waiting to either become legal or for an illegal job to come by. My appointment with the Ministry of the Interior is soon so it will only be by then that I will be able to work. Illegal work has been next to impossible to find without the right connections. I don’t know if there is anything harder than the boredom that comes with being unemployment. The catch 22 is that you have time but no money but when you work you have money but no time. For now I have been filling my time wastefully and, common with getting older, the days burn by faster and faster. I made my trip to the Ministry of the Interior to receive a shock.

The LP says to come to the Ministry as early as possible as the line will be huge. I arrived with little sleep from a late night of a band rehearsing in the studio I share as my room. With tired in my eyes and the stale taste of no breakfast in my mouth, the doors finally opened to the sterile super office of the Ministry. I waited in line with the other foreigners and freaks. There were Russians, Latvians and a bunch of caregiver Filipino women all trying to get there temporary status here. After an hour of waiting and some funny looks, I was in the front of the line. The polyglot who managed the counter looked at the information I had brought to prove my heritage. Instantly there was some question. First, why didn’t I do this from Canada and second, why doesn’t my birth certificate have my parents name on it. The first I haven't been home and second, Ontario doesn't seem to issue the parent's name on their children's birth certificates - at least not on the one I have. They took all the papers I gave them and gave me an appointment for Dec 16th. Dec 16th! It was over a month away and I need to work. I asked for a sooner appointment but it was not possible. So if Israel wants this immigrant to be unemployed then unemployed I will be.

So what has this unemployed bum been doing all this time. I met up with Ivan, the french-Mexican who I met in Hama, Syria . The next day it was Gabriel the super traveller. I met up with some of my old friends that I had met during my time in India, Thailand and more. I had met Eyal from Pushkar, Amit from Mt Abu, Shay and Galit from Kathmandu, Ronem from Varanasi and, most importantly, my fathers sister (and their son/my cousin) whom I haven't seen in twenty years. It was an incredible experience to see family that felt lost for over two decades. They overfed me like a good aunt and uncle should and treated me like no time had passed. I was very moved by the whole experience and I have been learning a lot from them about my family and mostly about myself.

There has been some tourist attractions that I have been bumping through. Jaffa, called Yafo by the locals, is an old city with grey brick and cobble stone appearance. I arrived to Jaffa by night as I was coming for one thing and that wasn't to see the city. I was coming for Dr Shakshuka.

I had heard about the restaurant called Dr Shakshuka for many years when Giora told me about it in Prague and now I was finally going to try it. I was expecting a glass and plastic fast food chain with hard uncomfortably seating and hard uncomfortable lighting. I arrived to be pleasantly surprised by the brown kitch style wooden tables and junk everywhere style that made the place much warmer. There are plenty of oil lamps on the ceiling and while paper tablecloth for that extra bit of class. I ordered what you would expect - shakshuka. With a cola, it was a whopping 30NIS which is a lot for this cockroach backpacker but with years of anticipation behind me and the LP recommending it as the finest dining in all of Israel, I had to divulge. At the end, the shakshuka was decent. Not great just decent. As I was told, only your mother can make good shakshuka and I guess they were right.

The days go by fast in the world of the unemployed where every day seems to be the same so I decided that I needed to have some variety in my life. Back to Afula I went for a few days to visit some old friends and then finally to the last place on my world tour itinerary: Jerusalem.

Jerusalem, in one square kilometer, is the holy land for everyone. It hold some of the most sacred places for the three major religions of the world and then some. The fun and funk of Tel Aviv is replaced by religious black cowboy hats and empty streets on shabbat. Jerusalem, though only an hour drive from Tel Aviv, is actually a universe apart. And it is yellow.

Jerusalem in the winter has very little colour and has a consistent symmetric architecture look with all the brick style being the same. It is actually called "Jerusalem Brick" and is a light yellow and bumpy. I suppose this is to simulate the original style of brick that makes this place look old. The city is divided into two major parts: the Old City which houses all the tourist attractions and the New City which holds next to none. My first day in Jerusalem I saw none of them. Jerusalem in the winter is freezing.

I knew that Jerusalem had snow in the winter but only for a short period of time before it melted. Melting requires plus temperatures but this place wasn't. My breath came out dense and foggy and the rain and wind whipped though me with ease. Getting out of the bus station was the first nightmare. This is the only bus station in Israel with no English yet, on a global scale, it is quite easy. Making my way to the recommended bus stop, I found the intersection that Noa and Yishay had mentioned to me and I got off. A phone call later and I was snug inside the one bedroom apartment of friends I had travelled with in India and Nepal and away from the holy wind and holy rain. The next day I was off to see the land of my heritage.

I got a wonderful tour from Yishay. He has been living there for many years and actually does tours every once and a while so touring me around wasn't too hard. I got to see the Jaffa Gate entrance, King David's Tomb, the Coenaculum where Jesus had his Last Supper, the Cardo which is a series of a few byzantine columns that used to be a market place, the Wailing Wall with all the spastic Rabbis praying for peace, the Dome of the Rock with it's golden top and blue ceramic tiles, via dolorosa and one of it's great stations (number 8) and finally the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where Jesus was crucified and then resurrected and the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer with a great view of the city and especially of the Muslim Quarter with it's TV satellite rooftops and intermittent Jewish settler plus heavy guard.

I am not going to go into any large detail about this since there are endless things I can write about these places and since this is my last newsletter I will be lazy and leave it up to you to come and enjoy the holiest place on earth. I also have very good hummus in the Old City.

The only thing I will mention though is something called "The Jerusalem Syndrome" which is a condition of hysterics from new Jews who have come to Jerusalem for the first time and go bananas when they see the Holiest of the Holy. I unfortunately didn't see any and didn't experience it as well. I didn't feel the magnitude of importance of a heavy wall that represents Jewish freedom and closeness to God. I did see the Dome of the Rock with it's beautiful golden dome shining inside the ruined temple. Together it was an amazing sight and I was in awe at the proximity of the holiness' of the place. Most of the places I saw that day weren't confirmed to be the real place where the event happened - like the room where Jesus had his last supper or the place where he was crucified - so I had a half belief in the Wall as well which I know is legitimate as is the Dome but the atmosphere to the day made it otherwise. As well, the view from the top of the stairs looking at the Dome and the Wall gives a clear view of the "fence" that separates Jerusalem, Israel and the West Bank. It was a day of mixed emotions.

Lastly, I went to Masada. For those who have read my previous newsletters, there was a time I was looking for a room on Mt Sinai from my childhood. Well, I was wrong. The room was actually on Masada. The two hour bus ride from the freezing cold Jerusalem to the boiling desert landscape of Masada didn't change much. I did the climb up the steep and harrowing mountainside to the top which took about one hour. I made it to the top to see a fairly open landscape with a few rock structure with some closed roofed and some open. I started my turn in the quest for the room but after two hours of searching, I found only places that I could piece together as my memory had seen it and not the room itself. I found the fountain and and little trough and some other things but never together in the same place so I left, two hours later and hungry and exhausted back to Jerusalem and the comforts of good friends.

I would like to thank Noa and Yishay for their amazing hospitality during my time in Jerusalem. They welcomed me with open arms, fed me great soups and toured me around. I can only hope to be as good a host as them one day.

My tolerance for the cold has reached its peak and so I headed back to Tel Aviv the next day and here I am, still waiting to be legal to work, still sitting in front of the computer and playing on the Internet and still looking for my answers - which after fours years of living abroad I still haven't found. Israel is my home for the next few months and I will do my best to learn the language and the culture. I am going to try to earn some money, an impossibility according to many who live here, visit friends and family as often as I can and make plans on the next step out of this place.

For now, the closest thing I have to a plan is to work until late May or June and then fly out to anywhere in Europe and travel for two months to some of that wonderful Eastern side and take a cheap flight to London and then to Los Angeles for Burningman. I should be back in Canada in September of next year making my trip, from start to finish, an even five years. From there only God knows what is next.

I have met an enormous amount of people in the last few years and especially on this last leg of my journey travelling extensively. I want to thank people individually but it would be a long process and I believe that those people who took care of me, helped me when I was afraid and showed me the possibilities of human capability know that I am grateful for their time, effort and consideration. It has been a long, strange trip and I couldn't have done it without you.

Be well and thanks for being there.



Oren Jalon
World Traveller

This message is brought to you by the hand sign Israelis use to denote "wait". In Canada, we use a patting motion with an open hand similar to what we use for "stop". In Israel, they curl their fingers up so that the tips point to the sky and connect the thumb to the first two fingers and then perform a slight shaking action. To North Americans it may seem rude but to them this is the sign to say "just wait a second" or "it's my turn"

PS. If I get enough demand for these newletters I will continue to write and give some insight into the daily happenings of Israeli life (including Jerusalem) with better care than with this half assed attempt but for now I will stop until my life starts a new adventure. . .

Israel: Afula to Tel Aviv

Dear All

A bomb in Israel doesn't make the same sound as a bomb would in another part of the world. Instead of a sharp bang, the sound of glass shattering and the cries of bleeding children, there is a just a blimp of excitement, a moment of silence and a roar of laughter. Terrorist and bomb threats are common place here so when a bomb actually does go off, like the one that blew up the Carmel Market two blocks from where I live, most people just hurry along their passive day reading the paper to yawn at another incident and then make their casual joke in their office, restaurant kitchen or computer lab to ease the tension of a stress-exhausted society with one extra burden that most Western countries don't have to deal with. This war isn't just threatening the lives of people physically but also economically as I have recently become all too aware of. This is a place where the average person works three jobs and scrounges just to survive. This is a place where no job is too demeaning to do. Homelessness is a new occurrence on the streets of Israel whereas ten years ago there was none. I walked into the streets of Tel Aviv with more optimism than I realized thinking that Tel Aviv will be the place to find a job. It's not.

Afula is a nice little town but I was feeling a little trapped in the cardboard box of a caravan that Smadar and Yifat were calling home. There is no work in Afula for those like me with a resume filled with random skills and so I felt it necessary to find my Independence. I spent a lot of time on the Internet doing my classic research thing but coming to a very important conclusion - if you can't read Hebrew, you can't read the classifieds and therefore can't get a job this way. The Internet is for the locals to find a job and not for me. Illegal kitchen work, dish washing or otherwise can't be found here so I said my goodbyes to the girls with a promise to return and headed towards the bus station to the Toronto of Israel.

Before heading to my new home, I decided that it was important to have one last trip before my adventure ends. It really wasn't an adventure but another place to see. I went to Haifa.

I knew nothing of this city before coming here and I have left with even less. There is little to see or do in Haifa and the city is so stupidly organized to climb up the mountain that the city engineers have placed a single line metro system to ensure that all the fat Russians that dominate the streets will keep the oversize pant business going. I felt this was a city without hope. This place was a desperate attempt to be Tel Aviv without all their problems but in fact it is the same but smaller and with a lot more work. I heaved up and down the small side street trying desperately to find the entrances to the Baha'i Gardens but eventually gave up out of sweat and exhaustion. The Baha'i Gardens are a series of 18 gardens heading down the mountain in a step-wise manner. The gardens are immaculately maintained and have a waterfall and fountain flowing through it at the bottom levels. There are only two other steps, one in the middle and the very top of the 18 steps, that can be entered unless you have made a reservation a day in advance and since I didn't, I took what I could get. The first level, guarded by two tall Cameroon men, was simple and fair. The next level was an atrocious walk up and upon reaching the second garden, I was told that the shrine that marks a centre piece on this vegetable platter was closed for the day. The Shrine holds the remains of the founder of the Baha'i faith. The last level was an impossibility to find and I gave up shortly. I walked down to rest.

The only other advantage to the city is the 5 NIS hamburger places that seem to pop up around a little roundabout. Reminds me of the 5 Rupee momos I had in Darjeeling. Now that was good momo. With little left to do but avoid the schizophrenics, homeless Russians and not meet up with a friend I had met in Dahab who promised to meet, I left home on the night bus. The next day I was heading for Tel Aviv.

My versions of Tel Aviv at night are not much different than that of the day. For a western city, it is very elegant with a large volume of trees, clean streets and a disturbing low amount of traffic. The air feels clean next to a city beach that, though mildly dirty with cigarette butts and plastic, has soft whitish sand and warmish waters. It is November now and the water is cooler than the summer days and the air as well. I was invited to stay with my friend, Giora, in downtown Tel Aviv. I met Giora in Prague when I was living there and it has been two years since I have seen him. Though we are both a little pudgier and the years are wearing us down, it felt like nothing had changed. There are people in your life that you leave and when you come back to them it feels like it has just been a 15 minute commercial break. Life goes on. I found my way to my friend Giora's place with ease.

Giora lives in the smack centre of town on a strip commonly mentioned in the Lonely planet called Allenby Street. This street has bars, cheap eats, brothels, discos, pubs, conveniently located strip bar and everything else. I made my little nest in his rehearsal studio and spent the last week cleaning it up consuming most of my time. He lives about 200m from the beach and less than a kilometre from the bombed market. It is a great location but the bombing has set me back a little. It went off the morning I left for Tel Aviv while I was still packing for the bus. I went to check it out and see the damage.

The bomb site looked impressively small for an explosion that killed four and injured many. The store that was destroyed was now just a open crater of mangled rock and metal with a fence and a single guard to protect it. Hours after the bomb went off I heard that the place was cleaned and that the neighbouring shops, mostly Russian owned, were open for business as if nothing had happened. If this was Canada, the whole block would have been sectioned off and there would be several hundred police walking the streets but here, a bombing is inevitable and a day off work is a day off pay. So people went about their business as usual.

As I mentioned before, finding a job in Israel isn't easy. Israel is a silicon valley. So those with computer skills will be able to get a job without a problem but for those us with useless science undergraduate degrees and a mishmash of jobs over the last few years will find it much harder. I was offered one job to cut vegetables in a kitchen but I passed on it being a once or twice a week thing and usually on the weekends. This was before I realized the system of what you must do. Here, people do many little jobs unlike in Canada where a 9 to 5 is the norm and anyone doing more than two jobs is considered a superhero. People here work 24 hours a day and in several fields. Do what you can to survive even if it is cleaning houses by day and playing the banjo on the street at night. This leaves me in a predicament. I neither have worked in a kitchen nor know how to play banjo. For those coming to Tel Aviv, the best option for casual work is at the hostels which have a list you can sign up for and get a few hours labour here and there to supplement your income while you find something more stable. There is no work at the hostels themselves but they get calls from the surrounding restaurants to do menial labour here and there. For me, my rent at my friends place is much better than that at the hostels and I get my own room so I would have to work extra just to be like I would be at Giora's so it isn't the best choice for me. This mix match of various incomes seems to be the lifeline of many Israelis in Tel Aviv. I was told to do whatever I could to get money - life is tough here and things are expensive. So, if things are so hard why am I here? If I stay, what is the next plan of attack?

There is something called an Aliyah. This is the return of Jews to Israel. The federal sector responsible for this is called Immigration and Absorption Department. This word "absorption" frightens me a little. It sounds like I am going to consumed by the Borg, physically altered and returned monotoned and mindless. Maybe this is important to avoid the stress of living in a city where tomorrow you could be blown to dog food but I see it as violent integration. The web site indicates that you get a small stipend from the government, about 1400 NIS from what I ascertain, and five months free Hebrew lessons. So where's the catch? What is stopping the average Joe Jew like myself from taking the money, lessons and leaving the country a few months later. More research is needed.

There is an in between ground that would make me legal. I can get an ID card without a problem seeing as both of my parents are Israelis. This will help a lot. With the levels of unemployment at an all time low, the number of illegal immigrants has dropped. Most have been deported to their respective countries so that the entry level black labour can be done by locals. Does this mean I need to be legal or doesn't it? I don't have many skills so I may just be doing a black job anyways. Seems like most people work black regardless.

The last option is the Kibbutz - a communal agricultural experience where you get free food and accommodation plus a little spending money in return for hard manual labour. I haven't really looking into this option. It is a last resort option for me in case I can't earn money any other way.

The Israeli personality fits into a very stringent framework but mixed with every ethnicity on the planet from Iraqi to Yemenite to European. Even though there is a congregation of history here, there is some uniformity that cannot be avoided. Everyone here gets absorbed into the mesh, "absorbed" if you will, into the standard melting pot which the US is so proudly classified as instead of the independent but together system which is the Canadian salad bowl. Israelis are rude. There is no question. Along the way through all the countries that are Israelis colonies, I experienced a sharing community that found a way to find a place for me - the soon-to-be-another-immigrant. Here, there is no doubt that it is a push and shove, get in the line before you, stop honking that horn culture. I thought these people would be just white Arabs with Arab hospitality but in fact, the hospitality only begins when you become friends. When you break the security perimeter of acquaintance into close friend territory, what I knew from my travels through India comes true and you get welcomed warmly without condition like with Yifat, Smadar and Orit. In the UK and in other western worlds that I have been, a homeless man could be lying bleeding on the floor and no one would help. Here, someone in need is rushed into the closest shop, given food and water and helped along home. Friends in the rest of the west still don't seem to share this kind of closeness I see here. People stopping their car in front of their friends shop just to say hello. Of course, when I gave an old lady my seat on the bus today she neither thanked me nor even acknowledged my presence. They are Western Arabs.

For those who have watched Seinfeld , you'll probably know the family of George Costanza. Though they aren't written into the script as being Jewish or Israeli, they act very much like they should be. They fight and bicker over trivial things that would be just as easily resolved through calmer conversation but the instinct to yell seems unavoidable. Israelis also seem to have a tendency to scream. It isn't a screaming in hate or angry just as a means of getting your voice across as everybody else is also screaming. For example, lets say you brought some take away (called "take out" in US/Canada) falafel or shakshuka sandwiches home to the family. You brought them home in baguettes but one of the family wanted it in a pita but you forgot. What would be the dialogue?

In Canada,

You: Hey everyone. I've got the shakshuka sandwiches.
Family member: Oh, you got mine in a baguette. I asked for it in a pita.
You: Whoops. Sorry. I forgot.
Family member: Oh well. Never mind. It's just bread.

In Israel,

You: Hey everyone. I've got the shakshuka sandwiches.
Family member: Oh, you got mine in a baguette. I asked for it in a pita. HOW CAN I EAT THIS?
You: WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME! I DID BRING IT TO YOU, DIDN'T I! DON'T BE UNGRATEFUL!
Family member: WHAT I NEVER GET IT IN A BAGUETTE! I WANTED IT IN A BAGUETTE! (hands shaking). HOW COULD YOU BRING IT TO ME IN A BAGUETTE? NOW MY SANDWICH IS RUINED!
You: FINE, IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT YOU GET NOTHING!!!!

And so on for an hour or so and after which all is still good.. You just need to know that they scream out of love. Though I wanted to settle from travelling and take a break for a while, I feel the urge to get on the move again. I miss those things that kept me from sitting still. The grass is always greener isn't it?

So, if you come to Tel Aviv beach, you'll find me around 4:30pm sitting by the sand's edge, staring at the girls as they play beach tennis in front of a Goan style sunset and the occasional low flying plane. I have made Tel Aviv my home for now but the future is uncertain. Still, I need to see Jerusalem.

Be Well



Oren Jalon
Immigrant Job Seeker

Israel: Tiberius to Afula

Dear All

From the garbage streets of India through to the super modern cities of China, past the laid back beaches of Thailand and wooden Vietnamese chickens into deserts filled with giant Egyptian pyramidal stone cemetaries and beyond the beauty of Lebanese women or Syrias Roman nicknacks sits an uncomfortable little Meditteranian country which I will call home for now. It has been a massive 13 month journey which still has about two weeks of half travel and half job hunt left in it. Leaving the Middle East's most boring country of Jordan I found myself on the other side of the argument, the side that doesn’t cover their women in cloth or speak in squiggle lines. The road in front of me is paved with pothole and cracks. The road twists and turns around the difficulties of a country in war. The road is blocked with a language barrier. The road across the border wasn’t an easy an easy one especially during Ramadan.

Ramadan has always been one of those challenges I've wanted to try ever since I was a teenager. Yom Kippur, the day of atonement for Jews, is a 25 hour fast and nothing to shake a stick at but Ramadan, though only fasting for the daylight hours, is a month long struggle. I have always been fascinated to try it out but not for religious reasons but simply to see if I could do it. This year will not be that year. I decided that while I was travelling that this was not a good idea. Moving from city to city and from tourist trap to tourist trap gives those with voracious appetites (like this snackaholic) the need to graze often. Travelling the Arab World during this time means using a little discretion. Jamie and I bought food but consumed it in the hotel room. We managed to sneak some on the bus to Salt and do our best to chew it inconspicuously though often we became hypoglycemic and cranky. This is not the best time to be active and I discovered that many Muslims sneak a meal in the day but away from the public eye. The police enforce Ramadan with an iron fist though tourists have the freedom to do otherwise, as we mistakenly tasted some labane and a grape here and there without thinking. I was eager to get to Israel where I could eat in the middle of the day. The excitement was building as we packed the night before to get to the inconvenient border crossing of Sheik Hussein to enter Israel in the North.

We landed for the night in the tourist free city of Irbid - Jordan's second largest city with nothing to do. After a rest and a wander we discovered too soon that all the restaurants close at 7:30pm so we went to bed with empty bellies. The next day, we packed and caught a bus with still no food in our stomachs. Starving, the first taxi brought us to the wrong bus station. It seems that most taxi drivers know thew word bus station but have no idea about the word Israel. We couldn’t believe how confused they were when you said Israel. Eventually, an English friendly taxi driver brought us to the right station and even showed us which bus to take. The last and one of the best examples of the Arab hospitality I have come to miss now being in the serve-yourself Promised Land. The bus took us to the middle of nowhere and slapped us down off a dry dusty desert highway, under a scorching Arabic sun, and gave us the finger. The index finger and the word nus kilo which means half a kilometer in that direction. Exhausted and barbecued by the sun's rays, Jamie and I became angry and began to complain often. It seems like an empty death walk leading to nowhere when, from around the corner, peaked those familiar giant plastic orange hopscotch tack blockade. A passport check, a sweaty back and 23 Kilogram bag later we were walking down another kilometer stretch of road to the passport control on the Jordanian side. Everything was running smoothly though I was spending significant energy on making Jamie feel better from the day’s difficulties and meanwhile, I was missing an important issue. After having our bags scanned and paying the 5 JD departure tax with the little money we had left, I passed my passport over to passport control then Jamie did the same. As they looked through her passport they asked her if she wanted a Jordanian exit stamp and she replied yes as she has already seen many Islamic republics like Syria, Pakistan and Iran but they didn’t ask me. I follow her answer’ with an immediate don't stamp mine but it was too late. They stamped an incriminating Jordanian exit stamp in my passport leaving me captive to evidence of travelling in Israel. I fumed. I couldn’t believe what just happened. I spent months telling myself not to get a stamp leaving Jordan and now in the heat of the day and the confusion of placating a grumpy fellow traveler, I forgot to request the stamp on a separate piece of paper. Shit shit shit shit! It’s my own fault but still. Now this means that for me travel to Pakistan and Iran, two countries I really want to see, I need to get a new passport but I only got this passport 4 months ago. Leaving Israel from here, something I am already thinking about, I will have to go to Turkey and travel through the expensive parts of Europe instead of heading East through Iran and Pakistan like I originally wanted. I walked out of the passport control feeling very stupid and angry with myself. How could I let this happen? My day went from laughing at my burden of this inconvenient border to shaking my fist at my own absentmindedness. I waited for the bus that crossed to the Israeli side with an acidic aftertaste in my mouth and an echo in my belly.

This is where I first felt the paranoia of the most hated people in the world come into play. The bus drove for a few minutes then stopped at a gate. Two young adults, one boy and one girl, came out both wearing mirrored sunglasses and dressed casually. The only thing that wasn’t casual about them was the boy was caring a very large gun and circled the bus staring at the passengers inside, assessing the situation. The driver, a Jordanian, held his hands up and then stood as part of the system to surveille the bus for bombs or weapons. The girl used a large angled mirror, like a dentists mouth mirror but bigger, to check for bombs under the bus. Slowly, we got let through.

The border on the Israeli side was modern and systematic. We got approached by a very attractive security woman who starting inquiring me with some basic questions like if I had packed my own bag, did I get any gifts from Jordanians to bring to the other side or what were my plans in Israel. When I started to talk in Hebrew she began to warm up. I did request to speak in English and she continued in English but became very interested in my time in Syria and Lebanon - those mystic countries that Jews aren't allowed to be in and have only heard stories about. I was quickly let through, bag searched and sampled for bomb dust and finally stamped into the country (not on my passport this time). I didn’t realize that this was my interview. Being Israeli was definitely an advantage and it sped up the process significantly to about twenty minutes. Jamie, as a shiktse, wasn’t so fortunate. She was interviewed and her passport was held. As we both waited my passport was requested again and I handed it over. Then the real waiting began in the empty fluorescent tube lighting of the passport room. It took two hours to get the passports back, something for me that should have taken only a few minutes, and with a smile and a welcome, we entered the holyland.

The women at the passport control were just stunning. At the time, I wasn’t sure if these girls were just standard fare or if this was a ploy by the tourism department to promote Israel but this place was a beauty pageant with a gun. The people that processed us were young, busty and beautiful more than any other border I have been to where the police stamping and checking me were heavily mustachioed, grizzly and ungiving. One undercover cop asked me, in Hebrew only, if I was afraid of being in Syria. I told him that I wasn’t afraid, that people generally didn’t ask me for my religion and that the people are very good as I don’t know the word for nice or peaceful in Hebrew. It surprised him and he walked off thinking in a different light.

Jamie and I walked to the other side of the world that day. We entered a new language, a new thinking and a new pace. The economy of the country was the first thing to grab us, as the only taxi to the neighboring city was 40 NIS (new Israeli shekels) or a whopping 9 USD. On our budgets, we couldn’t agree to this price and we scrambled to find an alternative fruitlessly. Luckily we hitched a ride to the border town of Beit She-an where we waited for a bus to Tiberius.

The first thing you notice when you cross the border is how green it is. The temperature drops slightly, the humidity increases and the foliage seems to grow off of everything. There are plants and trees everywhere. There are western fashions, girls in bulging very tight pants and early twenties youths in army gear with more very large guns and very large sunglasses. The bus stops have numbers and destinations listed. You get receipts when you pay for your ticket on the bus and stores all have prices listed on the products. This is a brave new world I have come to call home. I come back to the West and everything right and wrong about it.

Tiberius is the first city we decided to stay at so that Jamie could bike around the lake. It took us 8 hours from the Jordanian side to the Israeli side, door to door, and we were happy to get to our room. Our expensive room with color TV and air con. TV! Oh sweet TV how I have missed thee. Then, after settling in, we finally ate our first (very expensive) meal of the day of shwarma which in every other country should have cost next to nothing. The cost of this place is beginning to hit us and we start buying our food at the local grocery shop.

You do notice some differences in the way people behave when you leave the complicated life of the East and enter the West. First, nobody welcomes you to the country like the Arabs did but also nobody forces you to buy anything. I can walk into a store and out of one without a purchase and without hassle from the staff. Whereas most people in the West feel that customer service is a dead industry I feel the lack of attention and force that shopping had on me in the Third World as refreshing. Sometimes, I just want to know the price and not buy anything but up to now this was impossible. If you ask for a price it implies to the staff that you want to buy and the tourist price is instigated and a bargaining process begins. Here it is nice to be left alone, pick what I want and know that there will be no fight for the food, soap or whatever I want to buy.

People in Israel speak very good English who is very bad if I want to learn Hebrew. So far, I have managed to communicate with a few people when we needed help getting around and also being able to read Hebrew, I have been able to read where we are going sometimes. I spent my time in Tiberius watching TV, thinking about my future in this city and eating the best chocolate spread in the world. Tiberius itself is a very nice city compared with many I have passed through but boring and we needed to get on our way.

We planned to see Nazareth but things kinda fell through. We woke late, missed the first bus and had an expense crisis with the cost of leaving our bags at the bus station being over three USD. We eventually got to Nazareth but left immediately. Jamie went off to see a friend and I called an old friend of mine, Yifat, and she welcomed me to stay with her in a town about an hour south of the Nazareth called Afula. Nazareth itself is a modern urban jungle with the relics of Jesus past lost in the bowels of a new age. We ended up in the Christian Muslim quarter passing the churches we heard about but didn’t go into. We justified it as there being little to do in this town after a day racked with mistakes, assumptions and unnecessary spending. Saying a sad goodbye to Jamie and getting on the bus to Afula, I said a warm hello to Yifat and entered the Israel I was so familiar with when I was travelling through India and Thailand. The Israel that opened its arms to me and gave unconditionally. The Israel that welcomed me as part of their family and fed me until the seams split. The Arab hospitality has shifted from the sawdust filled teahouses in Egypt to Israeli mom cooking and talking over Nescafe.

Yifat has let me stay at her place even during this chaotic time of her moving house. She has invited me to every meal she has had with her family and welcomed me to her family and her family has accepted me like a son. I have eaten chamin again like I did in Goa and chicken soup, home made humus and fresh delicious vegetables as the Israelis from my past have all promised would be waiting for me, chopped in little diced pieces. Both her and her flatmate Smadar have been absolutely wonderful to me offering me whatever I need to get my life started here where finding work as a foreigner can be difficult.

I cannot leave out Orit in this equation. She has been unquestionably altruistic in my quest to find my new life. Her first idea was to go to an expats bar in Tel Aviv and talk to the local foreigners about working here. So, one and half-hours later we were in Tel Aviv. It is amazing how close everything is especially if you are only looking around the North. We arrived at night.

Tel Aviv by night doesn’t look like an anything-special city. It has roads, sidewalks, shops and pubs and all those regular things that make up a city. There are skyscrapers and city residences though relative to the rest of the Middle East this city is better organized and isn’t just a series of incomplete concrete houses without paint. We arrived at MASH (stands for More Alcohol Served Here) to find ourselves as one of only two other small groups in the bar on a Saturday night. Israelis aren’t known to be drinkers and this is evidence of it. The bar was empty though for those who know the Hebrew days of the week will know that Sunday is called Day One in Hebrew and is the start of the working week making Saturday night for us actually Sunday night for them. I asked the owner what I could do to find work in this country and the answer was bleak. He told me to get legal. Find the necessary papers to be allowed to work legally here and then go and find work. Otherwise there are bars on the waterfront who may need waitering or cashier work. In all honesty, this limited option doesn’t fill me with much hope. There has got to be more. The waitress at MASH, a Dutch girl going for citizenship, found this job by word of mouth of a friend. Here, there are no websites for expats unlike in the Czech Republic where a quick search will lead you to great sites like www.expats.cz which has accommodation, jobs and more for the newcomer to start their life. Here you’re on your own.

So now I am now in this gray area of travel and work. As I am now unemployed I have started the process of finding a job. This isn’t going to be easy in a country with 30% unemployment. I have done some research and with the edge of having Israeli parents, I will next head over to the Israeli equivalent of the Home Office and figure out how I can get a residency status or ID card without getting a passport or doing my Aliya. Then, to find a job will require more effort and I will seek out that next step when I head to Tel Aviv and make it my home. The days pass fast in excitement of settling down, having my own room and learning about a city fully instead of just running through it.

Next, I go to the doctor and dentist for a well-needed post epic check up and tune up. Then, I will make my way to Jerusalem and see all the necessary tourist holes and look for jobs there. Haifa is in the works and Tel Aviv is last. Let the games begin.

Be well



Oren Jalon
Immigrant Job Seeker

Jordan: Amman to Petra

Dear All

This is my last day before I head to the Promised Land. The end is almost here and I am not sure what to do with myself. I haven’t worked in over a year and the thought of not having my own schedule, my own feeding routine, my own life is somewhat frightening. Soon, within days, I will need to settle down, do the full time job of finding a full time job and finally concede to the fact that my epic journey is over. For now, I am breezing though the boring country of Jordan.

Again, I cruised past the border with Syria with no problems. A 10 Jordanian Dinar (JD) visa fee and I was set to wander a country I knew had little to offer. Most people fly through here seeing only Petra and Amman. This isn’t a cheap country with the Dinar having more weight than the US Dollar – something I haven’t experienced since England. We arrived in Amman and caught a shared taxi to the hotel.

The owner of our hotel was an asshole and completely uncaring of his clientele. The hotel at this budget level was one of the worst I have been to with unflushing toilets and either incredibly hot showers or unbearable cold ones. Once out of the hotel, Jamie (the Canadian I have been travelling with since Syria and now a good fun friend and great travel partner) and I noticed how incredibly boring this city is with little to interest a tourist so we rested for the day, planned our day tripping and ate often at the Iraqi restaurant.

The one thing about this restaurant wasn’t just the great food but the number of Iraqis there. This was the first time they were able to leave Iraq as now passport are being issued to the people. They told me that they liked Americans and were happy that they put an end to Saddam but that they weren’t fixing the country fast enough and that things are still in chaos. I asked them if it was safe for me to travel there and they all, in unison, said no. So there goes my dreams of being an Iraqi truck driver and therefore my travels go on. The following day, Richard, another Canadian, Jamie, a Malaysian named Thiam and I went to the Dead Sea.

After an hour by taxi through desolate desert and past many police checks, we got to a resort area which we declined to go to. We refused to pay for the entrance so we convinced the driver to go ten kilometers ahead and found a rough rock beach at the edge of the Dead Sea. The water was pleasant and warm and was blue at the shoreline but appeared darkish as it opened into the rest of the sea and to Israel on the other side. The liquid appeared to flow like an oil slick but the water was still very thin. The taste, as expected from water that is so salty nothing can live in it, gave a burning sensation with even a little of its sickening brew on my tongue. Floating, the stereotypical image of the Dead Sea, held true to its word. You could stand upright, not touch the bottom and still be head up over the water’s surface. If you did manage somehow to roll onto your stomach, the salty water would push against your chest and knees to arch your back so that it became difficult to right yourself again. It was an amazing experience and one I plan to repeat when I head to the Israeli side of the sea.

The next day, Jamie and I headed to Salt - a small town with a neat name. This small hillside town has a museum, many concrete block houses and a tourist information centre with no information on the city. We went just to see some small village life and well, we got some and realised why so few people come here. It was a nice place and we did try to by some salt in Salt but the salt came in huge bags so we passed. We came back to the hotel and watched some well needed TV.

The trip to Petra, the red rose city of tombs and temples, was on the first day of Ramadan. Last year at this time I was in India where the need to hide food from the starving locals was unneccessary as Bombay was a mix of Muslim, Hindu and Christians who all partake in eating at various times. This time, in an all Muslim world, we must eat discretely as to not disturb the holiness of the holiday. We by food from the market and eat in the room, we wait for the call to prayer to have dinner and gorge ourselves from a day without grazing on snacks. The city of Wadi Musa, the pop up city that connects Petra and the hotels, is a classic example of a tourist trap. Though the hotel was incredibly cheap due to the tourist decline in the area, the restaurants are overpriced and the touting is everywhere along the route through the city. Petra, the archeological site itself, is amazing as can be seen by the view from the hotel rooftop with a bubbly mountain range covering the ancient site itself..

The entrance leads slightly downhill to a cresent canyon with a flat face and a groove at the bottom to carry rainwater to collection sites. The wall face holds images of camels and soldiers until you reach the first and probably the most amazing sight – the Treasury.

If you are interested to see the Treasury from the comforts of your couch, turn on your TV and rent Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The last scene where Indy goes into the temple to get the Holy Grail was filmed at the Treasury. It has long pillars and a large room guarded from intruders trying to find the holy grail themselves after it was lost in that earthquake that ate that evil German woman who was foolish enough to try and grab the grab instead of saving herself. The entire piece is carved from the stone and is another majestic example of human achivement. The rest of the place is littered with more rocks and junk and amphitheatre and a Monastary which actually looks like a larger and more plainer version of the Treasury as well as being 800 steps up. By the end of the day you are exhausted and need a taxi to get back to the hotel. We bought a two day pass but a small hitch in our plan changed everything.

The next morning we bumped into Molly and Matt. I had met Molly a few times travelling the same route through from Beirut to here and she had managed to get a free ride with a Bedouin tour guide to spend a night in the desert. She invited us to go along and with a little last minute panic we agree. We packed our stuff, shoved it into the back of the 4x4 and we were off into the Wadi Araba sunset.

After dropping most of everything but the essentials for the night, we drove to Little Petra – a smaller version of the main tourist place. We drove over dunes, past jagged mountain and clear sparsely vegetative landscape to get to a small drizle river that twisted around large boulders. We hide from the noon day sun while we smoked floavour tabacco from the shisha and ate a fantastic lunch of potatoes and vegetables cooked in tin foil and placed in the fire. Then, after chasing the sunset, we set up camp near a gorgeous triangular sand dune, ate freshly killed chicken made in the Bedouin style of buring it underground and watched a clear starry sky light the night darkness. We laughed and talked and shared. It was a great time camping, once again, in one of my favorite environments.

We returned back to the hotel by the next morning before it became offensively hot. We rested for a day and then Jamie and I mad rushed to the top of the Jordan to a city called Irbid to where we are now. Tomorrow, if we successfully make it through the Israeli border with our Syrian visas, we should be in a village near the Sea of Gallilee enjoying Israels only lakeside.

Take c are



Oren Jalon
World Traveller

Syria: Aleppo to Damascus

Dear All

"She is like a cat in the dark and then she is the darkness.." –Fleetwood Mac

The black blob of fabric stands idly on the road. It has no front or back though you sense a direction. You can imply some limbs behind that standing blackness and even a boob or two past an enlarged belly that is the most giving element of human form. The head and face are covered completely by a black cloth and the black garment gives the whole body, hands to feet, neck to toes, a look of a mobile curtain. Then, out of nowhere, she moves. The motion indicates a front but with feet covered completely the body seems to hover over the ground instead of striding on it. In the Arab world, the most orthodox women are wrapped in black clothing so that only her husband and family know what they look like. Another blob approaches the first blob and they meet face to face. A blabber of Arabic comes out as two friends gossip over the days events but how do they know each other? They look like every other black blob out there! Their faces are completely covered, their hands are gloved and the cut of the cloth is the same between each other. They must have magic powers. How do their kids know who to run to if they get lost? How do their husbands know which woman to bring to the car when the shopping is done? I was in Aleppo on Friday – the day black blobs and their husbands and kids pray in the mosques

Aleppo was a ghost town on Friday. Steel garage doors lock stores shut and empty streets whistle silence without the honking noise pollution of the oversize import American cars. I decided that I would tick off the things on my list as soon as possible then head to Damascus as soon as possible. First I went to the hammam.

Hammam means toilet in Arabic but in this context it means Turkish bath. The one in Aleppo is famed for being the best in Syria and though I am not one to be into massages from muscly hairy men, the sauna sounded exquisite to me then so I paid the 8USD to get in and prepared myself for the best

Walking into the hammam is like walking back in time. There is a brown decor of old chairs and tables along with a domed roof with small holes drilled into it in the pattern of a star. I was lead by this hairy man-monkey into a sauna after undressing behind a thin veil curtain. At first, the sauna seemed meaningless and barely hot but 10 minutes into sitting in the room the hot water drained from a pipe onto the floor and steam burned into the ground, heated the air and sweat flooded my eyes and skin. The heat was so intense I showered often with the hand bucket and loofah-ed occasionally to clean the dirty patches of backpacker grime off me. Then, when I was sufficiently lobstered, I was redirected by the man-ape to lie down and prepare for a washing of a lifetime. He scrubbed me down with the loofah and olive oil soap tearing at the skin and big chunks of grease from a year of sitting in my own filth fell off my body. I haven't been this clean in months and it felt good to be without all that extra weight. Then, he viciously massaged my arms and legs, torso and head but the pain was so intense I insisted he not force the massage. After a final sauna and a good rinsing I was taken out of the bathing room to relax with a drink of water. I was hypnotized by the effects of the Turkish bath so much that I barely noticed the half hour that flew by and the scented oil the masseur poured over me and rubbed into my hair. The entire experience took around an hour and a half and it was great.

After visiting another citadel which is just another pile of old rocks to me once again and with the souq closed because it was Friday and with my job completed of photographing the Commonwealth cemetery, I decided there was no reason to stay in Aleppo anymore so I jumped a bus to Damascus.

Damascus is similar to Aleppo but bigger. It has all the modern needs of a city without the Americanizing that most places have except Coke and Pepsi can still be found but imported from Saudi Arabia. I did several trips from Damascus but nothing of any special adventurous note. Bosra, a good few hours south of the Capital and almost to the Jordanian border, is as small town whose tourist attraction is the amphitheatre that had a citadel built around it. Maalula is a quiet little hillside town where Aramaic is still spoken - the original language of Jesus - but there is little to notice there as the church rich town has few speakers that you can sit and listen to. The cathedrals are nice. On the off days where I didn't do day trips, I explored the city but especially the beautiful Umayyad Masque with its amazing mosaic in a huge court yard which we snuck into to avoid the 1USD fee and the neighbouring Iranian Shitte Mosque which is absolutely magnificent with its mirror-tile walls and coloured blue vine patterns in between. This is one of the most beautiful mosques I have ever seen and it makes me want to go to Iran where the mosques are even more attractive. After getting lost in the bizarrely named Jewish Quarter and unsuccessfully changing money we went for dinner and ate hummus. it is said in Israel that "there will be peace in the Middle East when Israelis are eating hummus in Damascus". I was just doing my part.

The following day we got up very early and caught the bus to Jordan. My mom's fears of me being violated in the axis of evil are now over and I have made it to the land where Israelis can roam free without fear. I have already passed through the boring metropolis of Amman and I am now in Petra which I will write about next time. After seeing the ancient ruins of Petra, I will head to Wadi Rum to try some camping in the desert and finally I am off to my last country and the country I will call home for a while, Israel...

Take care




Oren Jalon
World Traveller

Syria: Aleppo, Hama, Palmyra and back

Dear All

Syria is a country of mistaken identity. From the outside, it looks like a menacing Arabic military monster where everyone carries a gun, yells out loud while firing and kills all foreigners without question. From the inside, it is a peaceful dusty country full of warm hospitality and over eager good intentions. Syria treats it's foreign guest with more appreciation than I have seen anywhere else. This place is jam packed with old ruins, nauseating cleanser coffee and acrobatic rotisserie chicken. Most people know the word "welcome" more than they know the words for hello. This is a country which knows Jesus.There are many Christian pilgrimage sites including a city where the locals still speak the original language of Jesus. There is the first church ever here (created around 40 AD) and Christan graffiti everywhere. This is a diverse land filled with dead cities, open antiquities trade and sheep farmers. I arrived in Aleppo with no problems.

My five hour commute from Tripoli to Aleppo was uneventful. I got to the border of Lebanon and checked out then to the border of Syria , with visa ready, and checked in. It was all very easy. I watched a landscape change from riddled old apartment complex to motley sewn fabric tents scattered between run down housing. The bus pulls into a dirty little lane with some other buses lined against the plastic strewn road. Helplessly lost, I hail a cab and ask for my hotel and got in. Unable to give the correct change of 25 Syrian Pounds (SP) with only 1000 bills in my hand, the driver gave me a free ride. It was the start of good things to come. I gave him 1000 Lebanese Pounds instead. His generosity, though without a word of English, was a pleasant breeze through the blizzard of bargaining, fighting and scamming that I have experienced from the very start of my trip. My hotel, a rock dungeon style with a rooftop dormitory. In fact, many places in Syria have wondrous rooftops that open to the temperate winter nights, gaze over the endless deserts and echo the Call to Prayer from green fluorescent tubed minarets of glorious foreboding mosques. Dorming in Syria is like well protected camping though the nights are chilly and the Japanese tend to snore a lot. I only stayed in Aleppo one night.

I forgot my favourite towel in Tripoli and though the value of the towel can be replaced, the sentiment can’t as I bought it in India . I called the hotel twice to see if a Slovenian girl who was coming to Syria could bring it to me but she was heading to Hama – a city in the centre of Syria so I needed to head there fast. I had one day in Aleppo so I decided to get to a Commonwealth cemetery to photograph the tombstones for my friend Ralph. Without any help from the hotel and none of the taxi drivers understanding where to go, I went to the tourist office to get some advice but when I reached them, they were about to set off on a tour of the tourist attractions outside the city and offered me a free tour. I hesitated. I need to get this cemetery done or I would have to return to Aleppo later in my trip. They told me that the tour would only last two hours and that there would be plenty of time to go so, with false promise in hand but free tour ahead, I went aboard.

The first place we went to was the Dead Cities which aren't really dead at all but mildly populated stone houses with roman and Christian ruins everywhere and olive trees growing in the backdrop. The road down was a long drive but the cobblestone red barriers that edged the road, the open flat desert and the Osho-phile Lebanese for company made for a great trip. I got a free English translation describing the 2000 year old rocks that used to be churches but are now just backyard playthings. We ate lunch at some bizarre located restaurant with magnificent traditional food of barbecued chicken, hummus, falafel and all the pita you can eat before the tea and locally grown, huge and hard green grapes came out. Full and satisfied, enjoying the conversation of some Osho youths trying to liberate my consciousness from its prison and engage me into a world of enlightenment, I headed back into the bus to head to St Simeon's Basilica.

These set of ruins are the remains of a church that was erected for a man who stood on a pillar and preached the word of God for 36 years never leaving the pillar until he died. The basilica was a wonderfully over arched rock pile that impressed me more than the average rock pile that I go to. The earthquake rubble that normally puts me to sleep was actually incredible aesthetically pleasing and I was impressed with the absurdity of the devotion of a people of the insanity of one man. Can you imagine if someone did this today? Preaching the world of God from the top of the CN Tower would lead to imprisonment and not to revetment. How the world has changed.

By the end of the tour, I had missed my chance to go to the cemetery so I settled into bed in the dorm, tried to ignore the Japanese guy grinding his teeth while he sleeps next to me and head out to Hama the next day.

I went to Hama with Julie – a Californian with a fantastic sense of humour. We settled into our hotel and wandered the streets of Hama to find them empty. Saturday here is a holiday though this concept seems to vary from city to city instead of by country. In Christian villages, Sunday is the day off but in more Muslim places it seems that Friday and Saturday are days to relax and pray. The empty streets did mean that we could wander the place without the classic sidewalk collisions and seeing the Norias (1600 year old waterwheels used for irrigation) could be seen by us and the other Syrian tourists. We walked to another typical citadel and then ate more chicken like we have been doing for days. It seems that the Syrians have a very limited diet of falafel, shwarma and rotisserie chicken. The last few days have been a cloudy forecast for my gastronomical weather report. It has become hard to eat on a budget and eat the same things over and over but you put it in your mouth, smile and try to enjoy. At least there is no more curry, spicy and rice!

I took several tours out of Hama . Though Hama is a nice town, it hasn’t much to offer but as a hub for the sites around the city. First we went to Afamia.

Two minibuses land 30SP later, Julie and I were in Afamia. It is a long lane way of pillars about 2km long. It takes about 20 minutes to see and, unlike Julie who was fascinated by the emptiness and destruction, I found this place more dis-interesting than usual. The pillars here were just a multiple of the pillars at Byblos or Baalbek or anywhere else I've been. Peaceful at the top and after a nice drink with a local family who did their best to welcome us, we headed back to the hotel to sleep the night and prepare for tour two.

Crac des Chevaliers is another crusader castle set on top of a mountain side. It is big, beautiful to look at from afar and seemingly impenetrable. This is the last that interested me. From the inside, it is just hollow halls and destroyed fragments of rock that need to be returned to their original home. I wandered the castle with Jamie, a Canadian from Victoria who has been on a monster tour for almost a year starting in Russia and passing through India , Pakistan and Iran to finally come here. Both of us have seen our fill of old rocks and found no interest in the place. The ride up in a semi-luxury tourist car set with a TV that televised the best tourist attractions of Syria and the 5 star hotels advertised that we could stay at, was the best part of the whole experience. We took a local bus back. One tour a day is plenty for those with no schedule and little money. The next day we went to Palmyra .

Palmyra seems to be the exception to the rule in Syria . Unlike most Syrians who are a wonderful, welcoming culture, the Syrians from Palmyra are a money thirsty mob desperate for every tourist coin they can get their hands on. From the moment you arrive in the tiny town, you are touted, cheated and lied to. They try to pull you into their store, overprice you for the simplest things and harass you endlessly. I am reminded of how many places that have had tourism have turned into cesspools of deceit as a result of needed tourist income, like Thailand and Vietnam , and now Syria is soon to follow. I am glad I am seeing this country now instead of ten years from now when the tourist industry truly messes this place up.

The city of Palmyra is small and fairly ugly. Concrete block unfinished housing fill garbage streets with children who beg for money and pens and don't hesitate to open your bag and reach in. The store owners call you in from the one main street here and the kids try to sell you postcards and yell at you when you don't. Thank god the ruins of Palmyra are so beautiful.

The ruins are a multitude of different styles, shapes and textures. The old rocks are wrinkled and bumpy from the erosion of wind and sand while the new reconstruction is smooth and uniform. There are the long line of white columns that stretch for a few kilometres which start at a large arched entrance, have an alter with four surrounding pillars in the middle and end somewhere in the horizon. Off to the west of the archway is a large amphitheatre made of more white stone which accentuates the white pink desert around and the ruins all around. We walked for hours but we arrived in time for the pick up to the tombs that need a taxi to reach – but we missed the pickup.

We negotiated a 4:30 pickup but the owner of our hotel told us that we were already too late and that he was waiting nearby but he had left. We tried to negotiate for a new taxi but the prices where ridiculous at 200 SP when for a 5km distance where most of my commutes for 4 hours from one city to the next have always been around 75SP. We finally got one for 100SP and we went to the first set of tombs that were nothing special and though we were able to climb the tomb, the view was nothing special either. Next, we went to second set of tombs that were equally unremarkable and so we went home but stopped early to see the Temple of Bel , another very old walled temple with a square building with some more pillars. We ended the day ready to leave the city. It is a shame that such a place with so much beauty and history can be tainted by a people that terrorize its customers. This place is a gem covered in feces. It was a place I could have spent days wandering and relaxing but I can't handle the people here so I left back to Aleppo where I needed to get my cemetery photos again.

After getting overpriced for the ticket from Aleppo to Homs and getting threatened once for dropping a single date seed on the man in the seat in front of me, I was glad to get back to the wonderful people of Aleppo . I arrived at 2pm on Thursday checked into a local hotel and immediately headed to the cemetery. I caught a taxi there but I realized that I was in the middle of some sort of cemetery district. I wandered asking for the cemetery then a nice Christian family with one son who speaks English directed me to the site. Though the hours were Saturday to Thursday 7:00 to 17:00 , it seems that the weekend started early for the security here. I went back to the family and asked them for help. After calling a few number with no success, the 15 year old son walked me to the commonwealth cemetery, helped me break into the place by jumping the fence whereas I got all the pictures I needed and then jumped back over. I was sweating with fear over the though that I could be imprisoned in a Syrian jail, have my pants pulled down and my secret identity discovered leaving me in the hands of Syrian guards and imprisoned terrorists to show me where I dropped the soap. Luckily, the entire mission impossible went smoothly and I found myself drinking cinnamon tea, eating jam and bread and talking about Montreal with their 20 year old son who is planning to study at Concordia next year. I came home happy with my little adventure.

The next day was set for taking a bath at the local hammam, checking out the souq or market and relaxing in the Christian quarter, Citadel and drinking lots of juice but, alas, Friday is the weekend here and little was open. The Citadel was another bore and leaves little to be discussed than more rubble, more rocks and more castle on a mountain. The hammam was an interesting experience though – but I leave that for next time. I am currently in Damascus getting ready to go to Amman in a day or two. I have no itinerary and no plan but the sooner I get to Israel the sooner I have to get to work so I am procrastinating heavily. You will hear from me soon

Be well



Oren Jalon (aka Rony for those who met me here)
World Traveller

Lebanon: Beirut to Tripoli

Dear All

Day trip after day trip. Old ruin after old ruin and flattened sandwich after nauseating flattened sandwich. I have been soaring in and out of Beirut for days checking out the local attractions. After Baalbek, everything else seems to suffer by comparison. I headed to Byblos.

After a day's rest from Baalbek, I took a minibus to Byblos. This is know to be the oldest city in the world. Again, there are beautiful old rocks stacked randomly around site with signs indicating a much larger structure which, I believe, the archaeologist fabricated to create a more impressive tourist attraction. The 31 steps of an amphitheatre now only have five and the pillars near the rubble is actually a huge open air chamber. Exhausted by the little sleep I have been getting sharing a room with Syrians and Jordanians who feel it is acceptable to watch TV at 4am to help them fall sleep, I left the scorching heat of the day, the emptiness of the Sunday streets and found the local bus home.

I took the luxury bus there. It was only 2000 LP instead of 750 but it was quick and non-stop though it did drop me off in the middle of the highway where there was no bus station or indication of the site. I managed to find my way around as most travellers develop an instinct for these things after a while. My way back I found a local bus which didn't travel the main highway but skimmed the coastline showing people sunbathing on big white rock beaches, jet skiing and enjoying their weekend. I passed many nightclubs with "live shows" which left me curious to know more but eager to find my bed more as I was slowing entering dreamland on the bus itself. I got dropped off in the middle of some wretched suburb of Beirut, managed to find a service taxi home and slept the day away. That night would be my first night in Beirut's legendary night scene.

The main strip is called Rue Morot or Morot Street. It is a small one lane way that starts perpendicular to the on ramp of a highway. It is full of glitzy, stylish bars and clubs some with a one-boy-one-girl policy and others with an enormous cover charge. I managed to find a blues bar and meet the owner on a slow Friday night. He mentioned that to start a bar on this street, you need to be well connected to the military at high levels. Corruption is so bad here that any blemish in your past, even before starting your business, will justify the officials in extorting you for money or simply shutting you down if it benefits another cutthroat club on the strip. There is enormous rent, expensive initial costs and cheap 1.50USD per hour staff to pay. There was a time when getting pumped in the club meant guns would be pulled and not just from those involved but from everyone. Everyone had a gun. Now, less than a decade later, it is a peaceful place where the youth of Beirut go bankrupt in their own non-aggressive way of showing off. Borrow your daddies car, credit card, wear as few colours as possible, speak English, be slick and you're there.

The next day, exhausted from a late one staring at all the eye candy, me and a few others from the hotel made our way to Sidon, called Saida by the locals. This is a fairly uneventful town with a castle that costs too much to see for whats its worth and for whats left. It sits on the Mediterranean, has a market or souq that pushes out from the harbour selling head scarves, beads and other religious ornaments, and is very, well, plain. With the exception of the WWII British cemetery that I am photographing for a friend, there is little to offer here. End paragraph.

From Beirut, back from Sidon, I stayed a few days just to kill time, and headed to Tripoli where I actually did none of the things you can do here. There are famous, in-the-bible cedars to see -you can see one on the flag - but I didn't go. I justified not going by telling myself the 15USD it would take to get there and back wasn't worth seeing as I could see these trees in Canada. Now it takes a lot for me to be amazed. Now, I feel that I am on holiday from my holiday. These are the effects of not being entertained after a year of travel. Tripoli has a citadel and a few other old rocks to look at but I passed and basically slept the days away. This city isn't as nice as Beirut nor the people as welcoming though they are friendly and considerate as typical Lebanese are. The city is a little dustier and chaotic. There is a constant rush of traffic eating the asphalt and people bustling around. The time I spent walking was really just to see a place that seemed like every other general crumbly high rise town I have been to. There is more street food one being a dry bage thing with a thin slice of cheese in it, grilled and a purple salt and pepper dusted on top. It also has a cemetery that filled a morning worth of work. At the end, I spent a total of 9 days of my 15 day visa in Lebanon.

I have to mention the hotel I went to was the Haddad Pension which has the motto "Miss your grandma?" This place is doily heaven and run by a bunch of very sweet old ladies and one with a very fine hump from dusting the place for over a century. They fed me and took care of me like I was their grandson and it was the best part of Tripoli. When I left my favourite towel in their hotel and headed to Syria, I managed to contact them and they arranged to return the towel. Bless them.

Now I sit in Hama in Syria already passing through Aleppo quickly which I will write about in my next newsletter. I have been lazy keeping the journal up but I know my travels end soon. I still have a few cities left in Syria and I am moving slow possibly to procrastinate going back to work Nobody really asks me my religion and only a few have started conversations about politics which I politely avoid. Nobody wants to deal with trouble so nobody asks. It is a pleasant exchange of don't-ask-don't-tell. I feel very safe and welcomed here.

Be well




Oren Jalon
World Traveller