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After getting through the border back to Eilat, I walked – as I don’t tend to get buses in strange places as I always seem to end up going somewhere wrong – and got back towards the middle of town, quite a long walk of a about 3 miles, past the small airport and dumped most of my belongings back in the hostel, and ate some bread and chocolate spread and some other stuff to eat.

I saw an African family come into the hostel, they were poor and were asking for help as their young girl had not eaten that day, I gave them the other half of my bread and other people gave them something.   It turns out that this family are Sudanese, they are mostly Christians (but not Jewish) escaping persecution, living in Israel with a special visa from the government to stay here, there are quite a few Sudanese families in Eilat, it seems they have probably walked through the Egyptian Sinai to get there too!!    Work in Eilat is probably mostly seasonal as its a tourist place but I think there are labourer jobs in the number of construction projects (which are not so contested unlike Jerusalem and Judea & Samaria) down here.

I really wanted to see the aquarium, but I couldn’t find it as I assumed it was on the middle of the coast line somewhere.  Instead I found a strangely painted car I wrote about previously.  After asking in a tourist information office, it was on the west edge of the sea, heading on a road towards the Egyptian border.

Ok, I decided to walk and head southwards.  On the way there are military stations here, being at the top of the Red Sea it is important to keep this defended, there are shipping cranes here and I saw large numbers of new cars which I think had just come off a boat from Japan.

Its generally accepted that Egypt is the best place in the world to go Scuba diving, but as Eilat in Israel is next door, it probably comes a close second, I saw some specialist shops where you can buy or rental diving gear, as well as Caribbean style bars out the beach, one of the first tourist places I saw was a place which children can swim with dolphins, sounds pretty exciting but it is 300 shekels per child (that £50)  probably best left as a special birthday day out I think.

Eventually being only about a mile away from the Egyptian crossing, I came to the famous aquarium, this was a 90 shekel fee for basic entry but worth it, for a bit more you can have a ride in a boat with a glass bottom around the Red Sea.

The aquarium also some giant tortoises!

At the end of this unusual pier has the best part of this place – go up and you can see views over to FOUR countries, Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia….

Go down the bottom and you will see why there is so much fuss about the Red Sea, there are glass windows that show under the water, the fish here are absolutely amazing!!!

Where as its not so easy to get good shots through the glass, the water is beautifully clear, and when you see those little orange Clownfish now made famous by Disney, like to hide and poke their little noses through the coral, is so damn cute you will want to be sick!!  There are scores of every type of exotic fish of every colour and shape.   I even seen about a dozen stripey yellow fluorescent fish with another dozen purplely ones, it looked like a fishy football match going on.

After coming out of the aquarium, I decided to take a quick look at what was a mile down the road.  There were some Arab people having a party and barbeque on the beach with some tents but round the corner was a gateway to a new continent – Africa!

Beyond these lights on the left and the building I am standing (it was quite dark as you can see) is the border to Taba, in Egypt.  Quite tempting to go there, but Egypt is a massive country about 50 times bigger than Israel, and to see all the juicy stuff like Cairo, Alexandra, Valley of the Kings, and the Nile etc takes a 19 hours to get through the Sinai on a bus.   I did see lots of Nigerian Christians queuing up at the border.

On the way back in the middle of a roundabout was these funny looking models of a submarine and the tower at the pier at the aquarium.

Later on the hostel forgot to actually write my booking for a room down in the book, despite me booking it, and it was full!  Therefore I slept on a sofa on the outside lounge which was fine, people were not too noisy and the temperature outside was just right, this way cost me half price, although in the morning I had 3 large mosquito bites on my head.  The next day it was a time to chill out and chat to the other peeps at the hostel, then get back on an Egged bus back to Jerusalem.

Eilat is a very touristy place, there is no doubt about that, but its generally quite tasteful (the hotels are verging on trying to copy Vegas a bit though) and very safe, I like the good shopping malls, clean beaches with nice outdoor bars, and of course the aquarium.  Its also handy is a cross over point between Egypt and Jordan, although do you research on visa stuff before as you will get asked everything about where you have been, where you are going and who you are going to see.  I just wish it had a better road that connects it to the rest of the country, as its narrow single carriageway, and I am not sure if the tiny airport goes to any regular European airports.

Conclusions:-

For this reason the hostel gets a thumbs up for the really nice staff, location, the fact its staffed by Christians & Jewish believers, free tea and coffee, and has an optional free bible study, but not so great marks for forgetting my reservation and not having paper towels in the toilets, and could do with better sign posting of some sort, – still I will definitely be back there again, if I head that direction!! www.shelterhostel.com

Petra is best given at least two whole days to visit, there is so much to see there!!!

Wadi Rum was ok, but not a great tour due to staff not knowing an awful lot about the places there, having poorly maintained and dangerous looking vehicles, and asking some visitors like me to lie (!?) to the national park authorities.  All the Jordanians I met were very friendly though and not just for the purposes of expecting business.  Of course a lot of trips could be judged by how much you are happy to leave comforts from western country and rough it to some degree.

If you are bringing your iPod, I would highly recommend Chicane’s Behind the Sun album, a good selection of trance tracks that go well with the beach vibe that is Eilat, and of course I got the best of Indiana Jones soundtracks to play while I was around Petra 🙂

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On Sunday the day after my birthday we went to a town called Modi’im, mainly with the intention of seeing a movie and looking at the shops in the mall. Sadly this particular cinema only did two English films and neither of them seemed that good. Looked at a few shops, one of the being Tower Records, I got chatting with the guy behind the counter, as it was quiet, we would the only people in the store, and there was some nice reggae tunes playing that the man on the till had chosen to put on, after a bit of chatting he said the Skatalites were playing in Israel in a few weeks. Sounds great, but cant really afford to get a ticket for them currently.

After the mall went to visit one of my friends’ family, this South African couple who had made Aliyah to Israel not so long ago, the flat they had was lovely, very modern, but extremely spacious but best of all was getting out onto the balcony, as it was on the 18^th floor you could see for miles, everywhere from Ashkelon all the was to Petah Tikva, with the skyscrapers of Tel Aviv in the distance.

Afterwards this man called David pointed out that me and the other 3 of us were from complete seperate continents (myself from UK, one guy from the US and the two girls from South Africa and Japan.) kind of similar to what the bible says about God bringing people from the four corners of the earth. Fascinating stuff.

My Birthday went really well, I was nervous about not having the right amount of food but it all turned out perfect, had 12 of us out in the porch outside our small flat, then there was 5 of us at Jerusalem comedy club at the top of Ben Yehuda Street, this was fun, was 40 Skekels to get in (£6)  we had the barman who was also MCing the event, and inevitably, as it was by birthday, I got lifted up on a chair with some people and had some Israeli song sung by the guy with the microphone, next was the warm up guy who looked very new to stand up, he was ok, but had to keep looking at his piece of paper to remember his gags, after 20 minutes there was the main guy called Charley who was a real natural, he kept the jokes coming thick and fast and I liked the fact he used a lot of his experience of making Aliyah from the US and getting used to life here was the main bulk of his material.   Was a really great night.

Great things in Israel

Biblical places & seeing scriptures in action

Its easy to see places here in the bible like Mount of Olives, the walls of the old city, the way the Jewish people have come back from the four corners of the earth in accordance with scriptures, you only have to look at olive trees in city streets, and iconic sand stone buildings to know this is a special place.

Food

Food is good here, really like Falafels or Shwarama sandwiches.  Don’t think I can go back to normal sandwiches at home now.   I do like getting fresh stuff, fruit, vegetables, meat, bread, cake, etc from the Shuk (open air market)   I also really like meeting up with friends for Shabbat (Friday night to Saturday afternoon) for dinner as everything in the city stops then.

Family life

One of things I like most about Jewish people is they love their families.   Seeing kids with their dads out shopping and out in the park here is something that should be more common place in the UK, instead at home people look at relationships as throw away things that get replaced by something new when they hit a problem.   Here it seems marriage and family life are taken seriously, and there is a strong amount of respect here.  Even yesterday on a Monday evening in the park near my house, I see hundreds of people, families having barbeques and picnics out in the grass.

Low crime

There are house and car break ins sometimes, but assaults or robberies are pretty rare here, except for the occasional pick pockets.  This is a much safer place to live than most cities in the world.  Plus the fact there are soldiers and police, on and off duty making you feel safer.

City life

I like the fact there seems to be lots of live music, comedy clubs, entertainers in the street, also ice cream bars (why don’t we have these in the UK?)   as well as bars and coffee shops, theres always fun places to visit friends.   This is even more so in the more secular city of Tel Aviv.

Scenery

I like the views from the city as Jerusalem in mountainous and you can see from a long way across Mount of Olives or Mount Scopus.

Shopping

Taking a wander round the markets is fun, if you feel brave, you can always barter with the very pushy Arab traders who are hawking T shirts, biblical souvenirs, jewellery and middle east related gifts.

Diversity

Contrary to what you see on the news, (‘apartheid’ and other nonsense attempts to discredit this nation) there is a mutual respect for different ethnic backgrounds and beliefs.  Jewish people comprise of all shades of the skin spectrum, as people have come back from the US, the ex-Soviet states, France, Morocco, Iran, Argentina and many more places, you also have different approaches to Judaism from secular to ultra Orthodox.   Moslem people are treated well as many work for Jewish employers and receive better pay and working conditions than if they work for Palestinian owners.  All road signs, public information, government web sites, etc all have Arabic translations and Russian as well.    I haven’t been to East Jerusalem or any of the Palestinian territories as these are not safe for visitors.

Hard things in Israel

Things are expensive.

Mainly costly probably like the capital of any other country, but food (in normal supermarket) is expensive here.   Bread is normally around 12/13 shekels (#2) here.  Fruit and vegatables are cheap in the market, more so if you get them when they are nearly at the end of the shelf life.

Hebrew language

Its really difficult, I need to investigate some means of getting to grips with learning this.   In a lot of cases people do speak English to some degree.

Political instability

Theres always the worry and threat of terrorism and war, at the same time, protests are quite common with religious groups against homosexual pride events, a recent riot that the police where picking on a woman from the Orthodox community who was accused of child neglect, as well as the frequent heated discussion on land for peace deals and pressure from the EU, UN and the US over land.  Generally you don’t easily wander into things like this they seem to be on the outskirts of town and you are advised to stay away from disturbances.

Smell

This is probably more to do with the extreme heat and scarcity of water, the drains often smell bad, as do rubbish bins out in the streets stink as well as the dozens of stray cats I see in my street.

Traffic

Driving is quite bad here, the fatality rate is about twice what it is in the UK and US.   A lot of cars look heavily dented and scruffy looking.  People often don’t wear seat belt and speak on the phone whilst driving.  If you see someone parking, they nearly always kerb their wheels or mount the pavement.  This seems a thing consistent with all of southern Europe and Mediterranean countries.

Had Shabbat dinner (from friday) at a friends house on the other side of town, well a longish walk across the park along side the the Knesset (government building) Had some really good food, got to sit on a balcony across the city, the view was amazing. Whats more that balcony had a wooden frame built around it, so it could be used as a Succot tent, just throw a big tarpaulin over it.

Our team consists of people from US, Canada, Germany, South Africa, Australia and Japan, until now actually I was the only Brit but there another person joined this week.

Went for a walk this evening, on the east side of Portsmouth, from Moorings Way, over to the seafront around Eastney Marina around to Eastney then to Locksway Road, St James Hospital and back to Moorings Way, must have been a good nearly 4 miles.

Only have a week till my flight, so probably going to miss the sea around Portsmouth. Got somewhere to put car for 6 months, so now need to fill in a load of forms to get the tax disc I bought a week and a half ago refunded, as well as insurance.

Now got to work out how to condense things I need for 6 months into a 20 kilos, or more accurate a 5 kilo bag with 15 kilos of airlines quota…

For those of you who know me you may know I am heading back to Israel to do some volunteer work for a charity in Jerusalem.

I am pleased to announce that I have a date I am flying, I am flying out on thursday July 16th.

This last week has been hectic as I am due to move out of the house I rent this weekend.

I have a lot of things to arrange, hand over bills to someone else, find somewhere to store car, but first renew tax, get address on paperwork changed, and then box up all my things and go.

These last few weeks hasn’t been without some worries. My job was due to finish last week, but due to a lot of praying and things getting busy and people on holiday or ill, I have been given an extension on my contract until the day I fly, which I am really thankful for.

On Monday of this week I went to get my visa. This was paid by my employer in Jerusalem but I had to pick it up and get it glued into my passport. I got myself a coach to London, forgetting to bring my Oyster card with me (I tend to go to London about 4 times a year to see friends or go shopping or trade exhibitions) so decided to walk to Kensington where the embassy was, half way through walking there, I put my hand in the back pocket of my trousers and realised I had my Oyster card from the last trip a couple of weeks previously.

On the way there I spotted the embassies for Iran, Ethiopia and for various other countries I didn’t recognise from the flags which are probably in Africa or the Middle East. Once I got to the small junction on the map I printed out I found, there was a small not that significant office next to a fire station with two policeman outside one of the holding a quite impressive gun, upon getting there I was asked to wait on the other side of the road and wait for of the staff to meet me. Got a chance to briefly chat to a few other people there. Eventually a man came out with me thinking he was another customer waiting to me seen, once it was my turn to be brought in I had to show my passport about three times, then was turn away as I didn’t have any passport photos with me, so quick 200 yard dash to Boots down the road and £4 later I got some, once back I went through a typical airport style doorway metal detector and remove everything from my pockets was turned out, I was asked to turn on my phone and iPod and that had it removed from its pouch as well to be checked. Once through the office I filled in a form which had some boxes in Hebrew I didn’t understand, give the forms through to the clerk at the counter and waited about 15 minutes and read some magazine in Hebrew (well read the pictures) after then I have passport all stamped and ready to go. Spent the rest of day in Oxford Street as pleased I got some bargain priced clothes from a shop with 70% off so I got two pairs of jeans and three shirts for a total for £21.

Later that day I got my plane tickets, I decided to opt for BMI rather than British Airways who have roughly the same price, as BA are in trouble and asking their staff to work for free. BMI offer a print your own tickets and wack on a hefty £4 charge for credit cards, which include their own Amex card which I ordered in January just get a free flight out of it (I will get the flight another day though)

All in all a good day with some sunny weather and its nice to have a slightly shorter week too.