At the moment I'm already spending my last hours in one of the most religious cities in the world; Jeruzalem. And in this last week of this trip I have seen some amazing sites and experienced some interresting things.
On friday the 17th I arrived back in the West; Israel through the south at a city called Eilat. We (still travelling with Neil and Tom) took a direct bus to Tel Aviv where I met Yair a friend I met in Bolivia 2 years ago. The next 3 days I stayed at his place and met up with Avi and Yaki 2 other guys from Bolivia. Went out a few times and chilled at the nice beaches of Tel Aviv. It was good seeing them again. Yair helped me with finding a flight to Europe on an Israely last minute website.
Tel Aviv is a very modern city with nice beaches. In jordan and syria I heard from several travellers that the security in Israel is pretty tight, and at every busstation, big shoppingmall, club, museum or holy site you have to open your bag or put it through a Xray machine. On monday I met up with Tom and Neil who where staying in a hostel and we took the bus to Jeruzalem. Jeruzalem finally... In this trip I had 4 things I really wanted to see; Istanbul, Syria, Petra and Jeruzalem. Isreal is not a huge country and the busride only took about an hour.
We found a nice hostel in the old city with a great panoramic view on the roof, for 30 shegel (about 6 euro) we had a nice bed on the roof.
The old city of Jeruzalem is not extremely big and all the holy sites are only a few 100 metre from each other. In the next few days saw the the Western (Wailing) Wall, the Al-Aqsa Mosque. We couldn't enter the mosque because we are not muslims; we found it pretty strange because we could enter the big mosques in Istanbul and Damascus, later on we found out it was because of political reasons. Visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre build on the location where Jesus was ''crucified'' and ''buried'' which is suprisely near to each other (about 20 meters).
The old city of Jeruzalem is divided in 4 quarters; the Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Armenian quarter. Many people say it's an international city but it's still completely controlled by Israel. In the old town on many corners you see heavely armed IDFers (Israely Defense Force) and many of the Muslim and Jewish holy sites have check points where bags are checked for bombs or weapons. You can feel the tension is this city.
On thuesday we took a bus to the border with Palestine (West Bank) and saw the other wall the infamous "Peace" wall according to Israel. A huge 6 meter high concrete wall with guard towers on the corners, it reminded me of something I saw last year somewhere in Poland.
In Palestine I visite Bethlehem, the church build on te location where Jesus was 'born' and we took a taxi to Ramalah the capital of Palestine where we saw Arafats tomb and by accident president Abbas in a long row of cars and heavely guarded vehicles. Saw allot of gravity on the wall and some swastikas aswell. Walking to the streets of the West Bank we feld the friendliness of the Muslim population again which we recognized from our amazing time in Syria. I imagined that the Bethlehem and Ramalah would be more poor and dirty but actually it's not. A very interresting place to see and good to see and hear both sides of the story. In this last week I talked to many people who life here of have an opinion about the conflict between the Palestinians and Israely. Many people do want peace but you also hear so much hate from both sides for example few days ago I talked to an American
who moved here and had interresting opinions about that Muslims can't vote if they live in the 'Jewish' state. And yesterday talked to an ozzie guy named Lucas where I smoked a few Shisha (waterpipe) with, he went to Hebron and talked to a Palestinian guy who lost some family members in several fightings/wars with Israelies. I experienced many more of these interresting stories but I think I can better explain them in person.
Went to the Holocaust museum which was pretty impressive and saw some very touching photo's and video material. On thursday Tom and Neil went to Tel Aviv to make their way to the airport for their flight back to England, I had a great time travelling with them.
The last few days I went to the Mount of Olives (visited another church, build on the location where Jesus was ''betrayed and ''arrested'') and took some nice photos of Jerusalem. Bought allot of souvenirs and ate many good felafel sandwitches.
After sleeping for 6 nights on the roof waken by the muslim praying at 4:30 and the many churchbells every half an hour starting at 6 in the morning I had a great time here in this Holy city.
Monday morning at 5:45 I have a flight to Berlin (Berlin?!? but I thought Joost lived in the great nation we call The Kingdom of the Netherlands.....), right... Berlin. This was the cheapest flight I could find costing only 220 US dollar, flights to Amsterdam were more then 400. I started my trip hitchhiking so I want to end it hitchhiking aswell... and Berlin is only a small 600 km from Groningen so I think I can reach it in a day.
Because my flight is so early tomorrow morning and I have to check in 3 hours before flight I will head to the airport in a few hours and look for someone who want to play some frisbee with me across the terminal. I hope checking in will go smoothly if they see that I visited the ''great'' enemy of Isreal; Syria.
My next post will probably be from my own Peacefull Greenroom.
Shalom/Salaam.
On friday the 17th I arrived back in the West; Israel through the south at a city called Eilat. We (still travelling with Neil and Tom) took a direct bus to Tel Aviv where I met Yair a friend I met in Bolivia 2 years ago. The next 3 days I stayed at his place and met up with Avi and Yaki 2 other guys from Bolivia. Went out a few times and chilled at the nice beaches of Tel Aviv. It was good seeing them again. Yair helped me with finding a flight to Europe on an Israely last minute website.
Tel Aviv is a very modern city with nice beaches. In jordan and syria I heard from several travellers that the security in Israel is pretty tight, and at every busstation, big shoppingmall, club, museum or holy site you have to open your bag or put it through a Xray machine. On monday I met up with Tom and Neil who where staying in a hostel and we took the bus to Jeruzalem. Jeruzalem finally... In this trip I had 4 things I really wanted to see; Istanbul, Syria, Petra and Jeruzalem. Isreal is not a huge country and the busride only took about an hour.
We found a nice hostel in the old city with a great panoramic view on the roof, for 30 shegel (about 6 euro) we had a nice bed on the roof.
The old city of Jeruzalem is not extremely big and all the holy sites are only a few 100 metre from each other. In the next few days saw the the Western (Wailing) Wall, the Al-Aqsa Mosque. We couldn't enter the mosque because we are not muslims; we found it pretty strange because we could enter the big mosques in Istanbul and Damascus, later on we found out it was because of political reasons. Visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre build on the location where Jesus was ''crucified'' and ''buried'' which is suprisely near to each other (about 20 meters).
The old city of Jeruzalem is divided in 4 quarters; the Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Armenian quarter. Many people say it's an international city but it's still completely controlled by Israel. In the old town on many corners you see heavely armed IDFers (Israely Defense Force) and many of the Muslim and Jewish holy sites have check points where bags are checked for bombs or weapons. You can feel the tension is this city.
On thuesday we took a bus to the border with Palestine (West Bank) and saw the other wall the infamous "Peace" wall according to Israel. A huge 6 meter high concrete wall with guard towers on the corners, it reminded me of something I saw last year somewhere in Poland.
In Palestine I visite Bethlehem, the church build on te location where Jesus was 'born' and we took a taxi to Ramalah the capital of Palestine where we saw Arafats tomb and by accident president Abbas in a long row of cars and heavely guarded vehicles. Saw allot of gravity on the wall and some swastikas aswell. Walking to the streets of the West Bank we feld the friendliness of the Muslim population again which we recognized from our amazing time in Syria. I imagined that the Bethlehem and Ramalah would be more poor and dirty but actually it's not. A very interresting place to see and good to see and hear both sides of the story. In this last week I talked to many people who life here of have an opinion about the conflict between the Palestinians and Israely. Many people do want peace but you also hear so much hate from both sides for example few days ago I talked to an American
who moved here and had interresting opinions about that Muslims can't vote if they live in the 'Jewish' state. And yesterday talked to an ozzie guy named Lucas where I smoked a few Shisha (waterpipe) with, he went to Hebron and talked to a Palestinian guy who lost some family members in several fightings/wars with Israelies. I experienced many more of these interresting stories but I think I can better explain them in person.
Went to the Holocaust museum which was pretty impressive and saw some very touching photo's and video material. On thursday Tom and Neil went to Tel Aviv to make their way to the airport for their flight back to England, I had a great time travelling with them.
The last few days I went to the Mount of Olives (visited another church, build on the location where Jesus was ''betrayed and ''arrested'') and took some nice photos of Jerusalem. Bought allot of souvenirs and ate many good felafel sandwitches.
After sleeping for 6 nights on the roof waken by the muslim praying at 4:30 and the many churchbells every half an hour starting at 6 in the morning I had a great time here in this Holy city.
Monday morning at 5:45 I have a flight to Berlin (Berlin?!? but I thought Joost lived in the great nation we call The Kingdom of the Netherlands.....), right... Berlin. This was the cheapest flight I could find costing only 220 US dollar, flights to Amsterdam were more then 400. I started my trip hitchhiking so I want to end it hitchhiking aswell... and Berlin is only a small 600 km from Groningen so I think I can reach it in a day.
Because my flight is so early tomorrow morning and I have to check in 3 hours before flight I will head to the airport in a few hours and look for someone who want to play some frisbee with me across the terminal. I hope checking in will go smoothly if they see that I visited the ''great'' enemy of Isreal; Syria.
My next post will probably be from my own Peacefull Greenroom.
Shalom/Salaam.
Some info about the photo's; A tourist with a God save the Beach t-shirt touching the holy stone, where Jesus was put on when he came of the cross; the ''Peace'' Wall; the Western Wall; Some IDFers eating icecreams and your favorite traveller Joost himself enjoying some amazingly good Jelly Beans infront of the Grotto where Jesus was "buried" and "resurected"
2 comments:
Shalm Joost. You rock my world and things of that sort. I finally got my laptop to work with the wireless connection, so I'm chilling downstairs and just browsing the internet. Jerusalem is experiencing another heat wave, so I'm not going to be outside much here. Anyway, I hope you made it home safe and that hitchhiking was a blast!
mate - hope you got back ok - not heard from you in a while and miss the hair!
Tom
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