Haifa - the city on the hill

I'm really glad we made the trip to Haifa. It's built on Mt Carmel and from anywhere in the city you can see it stretching up the mountain.

We were lucky enough to get a place on a tour to the Bahai Gardens (see right). Sounds like an interesting faith - peace and equality in the world, a calendar of 19 months with 19 days (the extra 4 days are for visiting friends) and the odd but practical rule that Israelis cannot join the faith unless they move countries (to keep the peace). The symmetrical, immaculately kept gardens are mostly tended my pilgrims around the world who look after it for 1-2 years in their lifetime.

Still, the heat got to us and before long we had to retreat back down for gelati.

The big day!

The lead up to the wedding was fantastic - the hen's night was relaxing (see right), with lots of food and a tarot-type reading (apparently i've got the spirit of a black crow at the moment and i'll become a whale in the future).




The next night was the henna, which included food, dancing and traditional Moroccan costumes (see left).



Finally, the wedding was last night. Tali looked like a princess and Gil looked great in his brown vest. The setting was perfect - everyone (including the bride and groom) mingled/drank/ate a little beforehand, then the ceremony was held around sunset across the bridge in the middle of the lake (see below). Gil did a brilliant job of saying the vows and breaking the glass, then it was onto the eating and dancing. And there was a lot of both...


The wedding had everything - Tali's sister sang a beautiful song, there were balloons after the bridal dance, we had light wands and whistles on the dance floor.




The food was amazing - there was a very yummy buffet, then people carrying out trays of fruit, then trays of chocolate. And then there was dessert. When you thought it had all finished, around midnight, they brought out the hamburger and waffle stands. Amazing!

It was just such a magical night. Masal tov again to Tali and Gil!

Jerusalem - I love it!

Jerusalem is one of those places that you know you should like. It's a place of significance for Muslims, Christians and Jews, where all three religions meet. Yet I didn't expect to love it as much as I did.

The old city is surrounded by a wall and is a crazy maze of narrow, cobbled streets. There's meat (we can't work out which animal) hanging in the stalls, fresh pastries and bread in the morning (see our local right) and tubs of spices and herbs. Boys push huge carts of goods around without toppling them or squashing any toes.





And then just around the corner (and through an inevitable security check) is the West (Wailing) Wall (see left).



Go over the narrow bridge and you see the Mosque, then turn around and the is the Dome of the Rock, with its bright blue tiles and golden dome (see below right).

It is amazing being in a place where so many 'important' things have happened - where Christ died and was resurrected, where Mohammed went up to heaven, where the First and Second Jewish temples were built.

We ended up following some of the Stations of the Cross and arrived at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre - an odd shaped church with lots of separate areas, where people prayed with muffins and told us off for crossing our legs.

Why you shouldn't fall asleep in buses...

Or in my case, why you don't get too engrossed in a book. We were catching the bus from Ein Gedi to Jerusalem and thought the last stop was the bus station...

I looked up earlier and saw backpackers still on the bus. I looked up again and it was just Mel & I - and the bus driver was leaving the bus!!! Before we could catch him, he'd walked off and into a house!


In true Aussie style, we took a few photos and videos, then realised we didn't actually know how to open the door (no Mel, the red buttons don't do anything). I tried waving at some women at the bus stop across the road, but they thought we were crazy and ignored us (I wonder why?) So, there was no choice - I opened the driver's window and climbed out, knocked on his door and got him to let us and our luggage out.

Oh well, we got home in the end...

The lowest point on earth

It was time to head back to Israel - a car, bus, taxi, interrogation at Israeli border, taxi and bus ride later, we were at Ein Gedi, on the Dead Sea.

It is the oddest feeling floating in water - it's an effort put your feet under water or stand up. The water has an oily film over it, leaves salt residues on rocks that look like dripping candles and burns the eyes (as one guy found out, who ducked under the water!)

Everyone looks ridiculously uncoordinated when they try to turn over. And ridiculously touristy when they rub black mud into their skin - yes we did that, but with free mud. I'm not 100% convinced it helps your skin - it could possibly be just for the locals to laugh at.

Despite all that, it was still very relaxing and our skin did feel super-soft afterwards... to top it all off, we had a romantic dinner (omelette sandwich and water) overlooking the pink-tinged Jordanian mountains and the Dead Sea - what more could one ask for!

Petra

Petra was amazing - buildings carved into the mountains, caves for food storage, water systems. The Nacabateans controlled the trade routes and you could see in their work the mixture of Egyptian, Roman and other influences.


To begin with, you walk through a 1.4km Siq (gorge), avoiding the heat and trying to not to get trampled by the horse and carriages.


Then you see it - the Treasury (of Indiana Jones fame).

It is breathtaking - the size, the detail are amazing (see right). The trek up to the Monastery (see right above) was made a little less enjoyable by having to fend off children selling postcards, boys offering donkey rides and uni students wanting to 'practise English'. Still, it was another amazing sight.

The Bedouins

After our little episode in the night, we were keen to leave Wadi Rum. We headed straight for Petra and met a friend of Jafah's - a Bedouin guide whose family has apparently featured in National Geographic (see right). We went up into the mountains to escape the heat, had a 'BBQ' over a campfire (see below), then visited Little Petra (an appetiser for the real Petra).


The Bedouins are remarkably hospitable (regardless of whether you overlook the business side or not). We were invited into houses, offered tents and meals, given jewellery - and we'd only just met them.

Still, we declined the tent and opted for a hotel instead.

A stranger in the night

Ash organised for his friend, Jafah, to pick us up the next morning. After a short tour of Jafah's houses (great views of Aqaba!), we set off into the desert. It felt like we were driving away from everything, with the windows down, Arab music blaring and the mountains (massive piles of rubble) rushed past us.


The first time you are in the desert it's breathtaking. The silence overwhelms you and it's hard to believe that people live there. We burnt our feet clambering up sand dunes, stumbled on a movie crew, climbed a bridge-like rock, survived Mel's first attempt to drive in a manual and helped to tow a family's jeep... everyone seems to know everyone here - or at least, people have the time to stop those in need.


After an amazing sunset, we hung out at the camp, only talking (well rather, showing photos and playing a form of charades) with a large family from Amman until dinner was ready; then we went straight to bed in our tent (see below right).

Mel woke up first and heard footsteps. Someone stopped in front of our tent and said in a soft voice, "Hello. I love you. Goodbye". I called out, then Mel told them to go away. Then someone tried to enter our tent, not quite triggering the booby trap we'd set (a bottle of water... we didn't have much at our disposal). We screamed and the owner rushed over and offered us his tent for the night. Despite Mel being armed with her Swiss Army knife, neither of us slept much that night.

There were people up almost all night trying to catch him, but they never did. I can understand that this doesn't happen all the time, but we don't think we did anything to provoke it (we were covered up the whole time and weren't chatty with anyone but the family) - still, it did seem to taint that part of the trip a little.

Diving in Aqaba

I'd been looking to forward to diving outside of Australia - everyone had said the Red Sea was amazing and it was - so I dragged Mel out for a day trip to the Gulf of Aqaba.

After some scary driving (it's seriously much better not to watch the road), we arrived at the Saudi Border. I had a personal guide who made me do some skills again, then took me on a tour. It was beautiful - I never know how to describe what it's like underwater... doesn't help not knowing the names of anything. But we saw a turtle, huge parrotfish, see through pink things with legs, coral that looked like brains, spiky red things, long flat creatures that camouflaged in the sand and jumped when you went near them, creatures with long, thin tentacles that retracted when you went near them (my guide had an obsession with making things move), blobby sea cucumbers, huge schools of fish that made up a circle, coral shaped like a statue of a sad boy, Nemos and more.

It was freezing though - they gave me 2 wetsuits for my second dive. Time flew while I was under though... apparently we were underwater for 1.5 hours altogether and it felt more like 1/2 hour.

That evening, the dive shop owner, Ash (very funny guy) took us out for some local food - and there was a lot of it. He ordered one of everything so we could try it: salads, dips (& fries) for entree, then platters of meat for the main. Simple, but very nice food!

We ended up at a bar of his Canadian cousin's, where we heard about female Japanese rapists, learnt about Jordanian marriage proposals and tried to decide whether Ash or Mel would have the best island (not so sure about using elephant trunks instead of blenders...) - naturally, it was all settled with an arm wrestle.

No mans land - border crossing and budgets

The trip across the border to Jordan was surprisingly easy. They wouldn't let us take photos however, so we settled for pictures under the 'Welcome to Israel' sign (see right).

I was horrified when Mel suggested we make a run for it (to avoid border stamps)... so horrified in fact, that I (and the wind) threw most of our Jordanian money away and she spent the next 5 minutes running through the compound chasing after it. She attracted so much attention that the guards came over and ask what we were doing - we had been told to go straight from one counter to the next.

The Israelis, with huge guns casually slung over their shoulders, checked out passports several times, then there was a little walk through no mans' land. Straight, dusty and lined with tall barbed wire fences, the road seemed to stretch out to the Jordanian mountains. Once we were there, they checked out bags (and asked me what my soap was), before whisking our passports away. And that was when we got the dreaded border stamp. Oh well. At least the Israelis can go crazy stamping our passports now. We got into a white taxi and had to change into a yellow taxi (strange) and got dropped off at our hotel in Aqaba.

Mel had a little scare with the ATMs - they told us the transaction was successful, but didn't always spit out money, so of course we tried again... and again... the random amounts sometimes worked, but sometimes didn't. Then finally, we decided we should cut our losses.

We splurged on a hammam (Turkish bath where you are washed with special dark soap for ages, sit in a sauna, then get scrubbed like crazy so your skin falls off). It's actually a lot more fun and relaxing than it sounds and for the first time since arriving, I felt SO clean!

We only had 8JD left on us (16AUD), so we were on a mission for a cheap dinner. Which was actually quite easy. For 7JD we had a huge plate of mixed grill, cheese pastries, meatballs (kobe) and lots of advice on travelling to Petra. We went all out and left a 1JD tip.

Don't think Mel is going to trust my assessment of food again though... I told her that the roasted green thing was a capsicum (it tastes like one when you don't have a mouthful of seeds) and she burnt her mouth off and spat our her food like a heathen. I, on the other hand, thought the meat was really spicy... (well, with chilli it is!)

Go Aussies!

We found a little pub near the markets in Tel Aviv that was not a football free zone and settled in to watch Australia vs. Japan.

We'd found ourselves a lot of Aussie supporters (including the bar owner) - the first goal by Japan was devastating for everyone. Another guy there told us not to worry, mate... Australia will win 3-1. Not surprisingly, no one believed him.

Nothing much happened until the last 10 minutes when Cahill got 2 amazing goals, then Aloisi kicked the final one - it was amazing!!! The bar went off, even the huge adopted dog. Perfect end to the match really!

On the sunny side of the world

Beautiful, sunny weather greeted me in Paris after a horrendously long flight. I met Mel at Chatelet station in Paris and went back to her family's place for breakfast. The afternoon was spent on an infuriatingly long search for one of her relative's picnics - about 1.5 hours later, we found it, on a patch of grass behind a swimming pool.

Couldn't resist a nap in the afternoon. After saying goodbye to her lovely cousins and uncle, we faced our first interrogation. After picking up our Israir tickets, we were separated and questioned extenstively. They even took my card for the wedding couple, my guide book and called the people we were staying with Tel Aviv. But with that amount of sleep, I just found everything hilarious.

The night flight to Tel Aviv was half empty but still uncomfortable. We found our way to Vered's apartment (after knocking on the wrong door for 10 minutes!) and succombed to another nap before venturing into the city.

So far, we've just visited the Yemenite Quarter, in particular the Carmel Market, where we're stocking up on fruits / snacks / cheap clothes. Think we'll settle in somewhere to watch Aus vs Japan, before heading off the Eilat / Aquaba tomorrow.