Sun 14 Sep 2003

Shalom England.

I’m in that state of mini culture-shock in reverse that you get when you return home after being somewhere very different.

It was another interesting day yesterday. I took a minibus from the hotel to visit some places in the south of the country. There were three of us to start off with this time: an earnest young Hungarian guy, a garrulous South African lady, and me. First, we headed down to Jerusalem again where we picked up a totally silent Japanese guy. As the trip proceeded he just sat there, grinning contentedly. Reminded me of the Red Indian Chief in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

It’s only a mile or so beyond Jerusalem that the deserts of the West Bank begins. The controversial new Israeli settlements are clearly visible along the tops of the hills that run alongside the Ayalon Highway. On the slopes below are dozens of Bedouin camps. At one point we passed a goatherd squatting on a hillside among his flock. It could have been a scene from biblical times — apart from the satellite TV dish attached to the roof of his tent. It’s weird to think of him lying there under the stars on his sheepskin rug, munching his falafel and puffing on his hookah, watching Aston Villa playing Southampton.

A few miles further on we pass the Ramallah junction, where Arafat has been holed up for many months now. Just beyond that, over to the left across a few miles of flat desert, Jericho is clearly visible. Before the intifada, Jericho was visited by many Israeli Jews, but now it’s off limits. Up to the Jordanian border, where we swung a sharp right to join the northern tip of the Dead Sea, and the start of a long drive down the Israeli bank of the sea. Which of course is a lake, but is called a sea. The Israelis like to talk about their three main waterways as "the Dead, the Red and the Med".

All this area that we’d covered up till now, since Jerusalem, was Jordan before 1967. This area, the West Bank, was the part of the country I’d been warned off by the security people at Heathrow, but in reality it seemed safe enough — particularly on the main roads. We passed through a few military checkpoints but were just waved through at all apart from one, where we were asked languid questions by some tooled-up soldier with wraparound reflective shades which, unfortunately, always make me grin. It wasn’t really a grinning occasion, but we got through.

The kibbutz, apparently, is going out of fashion but most of the ones that are left are round this area. They were obvious by the big date orchards that separated them from the road. I was delighted to see ostriches wandering round them – the first time I’d come across them in the wild. They make me grin as well, so it was turning into quite a jolly trip, with much banter from all except the Japanese chap who continued smiling, but said nothing.

By now the landscape was all desert and mountains to our right, and the Dead Sea to our left, with Jordan on the far side. Our destination was a place called Masada, a mountain which hid King Herod’s secret bunker. Quite a place. These days you can get a cable-car up to the top but from ancient times until fairly recently, there was no option but to walk/climb. This is what it looks like:

We were told that before the intifada they were getting 5000 visitors a day. Now it is barely more than a hundred or two. The place has a great story to tell, and was last year named a Unesco World Heritage site. Rather than repeat it, if you want to know the story of Herod and, later, the Zealots, and its rediscovery in the 19th Century, just click here.

Pointless Activity No. 318: Deciding to become a purveyor of sun-tan lotion and inhalers on the shore of the Dead Sea…

One of the interesting things about that picture of Masada is that the top of the mountain is sea level. The Dead Sea and surrounding area is actually about 400 metres below sea level. In fact, it’s the lowest place on earth. I didn’t notice much difference myself, but apparently the air is much easier to breathe, and is a popular place for asthmatics. It’s also impossible to get sun burnt, we were assured.

This claim was put to the test shortly after we came down from Masada, when it was time to go floating in the Dead Sea. It really is a bizarre experience. You can lie back and just fall asleep, floating in the water if you wish. It’s disconcerting; you just lose control of your body. Everything you thought you knew about swimming ceases to apply. You walk out into the water, and the deeper you go the harder it is to keep control of your legs because they want to rise to the surface. Imagine having floats attached to your feet. If you walk out far enough, you just suddenly flop onto your back, as your legs shoot upwards.

Some way out from the shore, a rope is stretched across the water, and I just kept floating out to it whether I wanted to or not. It was while I was hanging onto it, having a breather, that something remarkable happened. The Japanese guy floated past, and as he did so, he opened his mouth and said: "Good experience!" That was the only sound he made all day.

I think I can see the potential benefit of a flotation tank. It’s really very relaxing, just to lie back, shut your eyes and think of anything but England.

The downside of the heavily-salty, mineralised water is that it tastes rotten, and is actually quite dangerous if swallowed. But a really worthwhile experience.

A few other diversions, like lunch at a kibbutz, and some ibex-spotting, then we began the journey back. The one remaining excitement came as we drove through Jerusalem. Being the Sabbath, the Ultra-Orthodox Jews were out in force. These guys are bitterly opposed to contraventions of the Sabbath, one of which is driving. So we found ourselves being shouted at, and at one junction, there was a ‘situation’ developing between the police and a group of Hassidic Jews who were trying to drag dustbins into the road to form a barricade to stop us driving through. Crazy place.

And that was just about the end of the trip. I had thought that I might possibly squeeze in a run when I returned to the hotel, but this idea was abandoned when I had quite a severe attack of gout in my left foot. I’ve mentioned this problem before. In fact, it was one of the reasons I started running in the first place — to improve circulation. It happens very rarely these days. It might have flared up here because of all the red meat I’ve been eating in the last week.

So, with my foot throbbing with pain all yesterday evening and this morning, a run was out of the question. Instead, for the first time on this trip, I sat in the hotel lobby bar and had a few beers as I tried out their wireless internet connection.

This was a really good trip. I learnt a lot about what I went there to learn about — and a load of other stuff that I didn’t know I needed to learn about.

Israel is a different country to me now, and the politics of the region have been illuminated in a new and surprising way. I’ve done a lot of talking on this trip — much more than has been recorded here. I talked with a lot of ‘ordinary Israelis’ about their lives and their history, both modern and ancient, and they’ve made a generally positive impression on me. One thing that’s surprised me is that I’ve not heard much anti-Palestinian sentiment. Anti-Arafat, yes, but not strongly anti-Palestinian or anti-arab. The general feeling is impatience for everyone to get back to work. Arafat is seen as an obstacle, and as unrepresentative of the general Palestinian population. The intifada is seen as being damaging to the Palestinian cause, and not promoting it. For them, the current stalemate is pointless, and there’s frustration with the politicians that they can’t sort out this problem.

In the meantime they continue to worry about their vulnerability and find it hard to understand why the suicide bombings on buses and in public places don’t cause a greater sense of outrage in the world outside.

And I worry about not doing my ten mile run…


One final thing… the sad news that Johnny Cash had died. A unique presence while he was here.

I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.
When I hear that whistle blowin’, I hang my head and cry.

From Folsom Prison Blues, one of those great couplets.

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