Jesus loves you; everyone else thinks you’re an annoying tourist.

Jerusalem

I wish I could remember more about the death of Jesus. I should know my gospel stories back to front having gone to both a Catholic primary and high school. 

The knowledge would have come in quite handy when walking the Via Dolorosa, or as I remember it; The Stations of the Cross.

For those of you who didn’t benefit from 12 years of Catholic education, this is the path on which Jesus carried his cross.

The path leads you though the Old City to various Churches that have been built on the different stations.  After following the path you end up at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, constructed on the area where Jesus was crucified.

As you could imagine the place is teeming with tourists and pilgrims. It’s quite a spectacle. 

There is a team of Franciscan monks who's job it is to keep the faithful under control. They have a sort of harried look about them, and have a hell of a time keeping snap-happy tourists out of the way of the official religious goings on inside the church.

Like the rest of Jerusalem, this place is totally fascinating. 

On the Via Dolorosa

Monks lead prayers through the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Out side the church.

People praying on the slab that Jesus was anointed on, after his death.

People queue to get into the site of Jesus's burial.

Tourist shops outside the church sell all kinds of amazing stuff.

Whose side are you on?

Jerusalem, Israel

When the Palestinian security guy with the snub nosed AK-47 asks you which side your on, there is only one answer. The answer made even easier when you’re chatting with him by the entrance to the tomb of Yasser Arafat.

The town of Ramallah sits in the West Bank, surrounded by the Israeli security wall. It serves as the capital of the Palestinian Authority. Despite the strife a few hundred kilometers away in Gaza, the West Bank is pretty quiet.

The downtown area is not unlike Amman or even parts of Lebanon, and apart from the occasional bit of graffiti, you’d have know idea about the tension that has existed here. On the surface it seems like any normal town; the people are warm, the falafel is delicious and coffee is strong.

Perhaps the most obvious sign of conflict is the wall. From the window of the bus that takes you from Jerusalem to Ramallah, you can see it extend over the hills and into the distance. You can also see Jewish settlers compounds.

Being in a place that you hear about on the news all the time is a strange feeling. 

Having spent a total of 6 hours in the West Bank, I’m far from an expert on the politics of the area. It seems like a nice place is all. 

After paying respects to Yasser Arafat, we headed to Bethlehem to check out the Church of the Nativity. Unlike Ramallah, this West Bank town was crawling with tourists.

The church was built on the site where Jesus is said to have been borne. Despite is huge religious significance, the tourists here are almost the main attraction. There is a steady stream of pilgrims into the church, singing Christmas carols and hymns.

It’s a remarkable place. 

Downtown Ramallah

A young dude in downtown Ramallah.

This amazing guy sells tea from the big silver kettle.

Yasser Arafat's tomb.

The honour guard at the tomb.

The security wall.

A guard tower at the corner of the security wall.

Pilgrims photograph the site where Jesus was born.

It was freezing in Bethlehem so this nice bloke called Sammy made us Turkish coffee.

The Holy Land.

Jerusalem, Israel

After landing at Amman airport from Beirut, the aim of the game was to get to the Israeli border with the minimum of fuss, and with any luck the minimum of cash.

I failed on both accounts. So begins the battle of the cab drivers.

At this point I’m traveling with Caroline from the US of A. So after I pump myself full of coffee, and we collect our bags we stick out thumbs out for a cab.

The first guy who pulls up quotes us 60 Jordanian Dinars (US$84) to get us to the border. No way. Too much.

The next guy tells us he can get us there for 20 JDs , but he’s not an official “Airport Taxi” so he’ll pick us up from a hotel down the road.

So we jump in an official cab, and direct the driver to the hotel. Our man is no fool. He knows exactly what is going on, strait away; he is on the phone yelling in Arabic.

The only words I can pick out are “Transit” “Hotel” and “Border”. There is some trouble ahead, we have bent the rules.

As it turns out, there are two kinds of taxi ; Airport and Amman. The Airport guys take you from the airport to where ever you need to go. The Amman guys, on the other hand, can only take you from the city.

We end up at the hotel, five minutes from the Airport with the two cab drivers yelling at each other. A cop arrives tries to calm them down. Great.

Eventually we offer the official cab 30Jd to take us to the border. All is well, but we should have just taken the bloody bus.

After a 40-minute drive, we are there.

The border is unassuming. There is the occasional guard tower with a .50 cal machine gun, some barbed wire but otherwise it’s noting too special.

Our bags are x-rayed to within an inch of their life, passports are stamped, forms are filled out and that’s it.

Welcome to Israel.

You wouldn’t know it, but you drive through the West Bank on your way to Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is great; once you get past the tourist kitsch of the old city there is heaps to see. After getting lost in the maze of old narrow streets and alleys I stumbled upon the Jew’s holiest site, the Western Wall.

It’s a great place to people watch. Filled with soldiers, Hassidic Jews and crawling with tourists; it’s quite a site.

The Jaffa Gate to the Old City.

A soldier with his family.

The wall of the Old City.

Tourists at the Western Wall.

There is a pile of kippahs for tourists who want to approach the wall.

Tourists.

The Jewish quarter of the Old City.

The Islamic Quarter. 

Young Israeli soldiers pose for a photo by the Western Wall. 

Shalom Lebanon. Shalom Israel.

Beirut, Lebanon.

When I woke up on my first morning in Beirut, I noticed that my laptop had not charged over night. I checked the power point, tried several combinations of adaptors and chargers and still I had no luck.

So I asked the dude at the counter (the same guy with the gun, for more click here) and he said, “Oh yes, that is because we have black out every day because Israeli Air Force bombing in 2006. Now we use generator for lights only during the blackouts, the other power doesn’t work”.

For this dude, it was just a matter of fact; there was no anger in the statement. If anything, he seemed frustrated with the Lebanese government for not fixing it soon enough.

This was the first real mention of the war with Israel.  I didn’t think that the effects would still be so tangible.  

It was a strange feeling, because the next day, I checked out, flew to back to Jordan and crossed the border into Israel.

Here are some photos from my last day in Beirut. I was in the student quarter of Hamra for the most part. Like much of downtown, it’s full of bars and cafes.

Stay tuned for tales of Israel, the Western Wall, the King Hussein Bridge and the War of the Cab Drivers in the next post. 

Graffiti in the student quarter.

More graffiti

I wish I could translate this minni poster for you, but your guess is as good as mine.. 

As a University student I always wanted an old Datsun like this. I think it's a 120Y. A beautiful car.

The local beer is pretty damn good.

The 8mm Bar in Hamra. 

My travel dudes, Matt and Caroline in a restaurant in Hamra.

Smoking shisha and playing backgammon is bloody great. Thanks to Caroline for teaching us how.

A Gun in the Drawer.

Beirut, Lebanon.

The last time Lebanon saw open conflict was the 2006 war with Israel. The years before are checkered with civil war, more war with Israel and general awfulness.

The signs of the past can be seen everywhere. Buildings throughout the city are pocked with the distinctive scars of battle, there are bored teenage soldiers armed with M-16s dotted about the city and when the dude from our hotel reached into a drawer behind a counter to pass me a key, I could see the but of a semiautomatic pistol amongst the pens and stationary.

I got stopped at one checkpoint and had my bag searched by a baby-faced soldier with a huge rifle slung over his shoulder. He was fairly chilled out about the whole thing. I was probably a little more anxious.

Despite all this, there is a very positive vibe in the city. There are slick looking dudes with permed-haired girlfriends sitting in swanky cafes in the center of town, and there are hipsters and students drinking cocktails and smoking lucky strikes in the bars at night. I really love this place.

Beirut is armed, but it doesn't fell dangerous.

The city is pretty quiet on a Sunday. Most shops are closed so we decided to amble down to the corniche and watch the locals enjoy their weekend.

My two travel buddies were possibly the only tourists I saw all day. This makes us a real novelty.

While perched watching the sun set down by the water, a dude came up to me shook my hand put his arm around my shoulder, took a photo of the two of us, then offered me a smoke. He had no English, and I have no Arabic so that was the extent of our cultural exchange.

This happened to me two more times that afternoon. Beirutians, it seems, want to meet foreigners, or at least have their photo taken with them. 

There are sentry boxes like this all over the city. Some police told me off for taking this photo, but it wasn't too much of a big deal.

The abandoned Holiday Inn shows how fierce the fighting must have been. 

A wall on the ground level of the Holiday Inn. 

Traffic by the corniche.

There is a photo of the this guy and me on his phone.

This group of dudes asked me to take their photo.