Hi all. I’m sitting in an internet cafe in Mumbai, melting a bit from the heat. India is like a dream after the Middle East, even though I have only seen Mumbai so far. Still, I am loving all the lush tropical vegetation (in the city!), the ability to wear t-shirts in public and the lack of armed soldiers. India feels like a liberal heaven after the Middle East.
I’m a little overwhelmed at how behind I am (it’s been four countries since I last posted, eep!), so I’m just going to give you a rundown of the highlights of the Middle East:
LEBANON
Colleen and I decided to go to Lebanon on a whim after speaking to two British guys in Damascus who had just been there. Lebanon is highly unstable right now, with the president still undetermined after almost a year and a half since the elections. Hezbollah is a vivid presence (not only a terrorist organization as portrayed in western media, but also one of the most powerful political parties in Lebanon) and you do have to be careful about where you go in the country. That said, Beirut is a fantastic city on the Mediterranean that shouldn’t be missed. However, it’s EXPENSIVE. We suffered total sticker shock after coming from Syria. The prices may well be the same as the United States.
Amid crumbling, bombed out buildings that have not been rebuilt since the civil war ended in 1990 and the war with Israel in 2006, you also see shiny highrises, fancy boutiques and luxury vehicles everywhere. The Lebanese have a reputation for being the party animals (and craziest drivers) of the Middle East, and from what we saw it did not disappoint. Genmayze is the main drinking street with over 80 bars, a shocking sight in the Middle East. With all the high-maintenance women and sleek cars, it may well have been Los Angeles or Miami. With a high percentage of Christians and French-speaking people, Lebanon has a completely different feel from the rest of the Middle East. And while I admire the Lebanese spirit of “let’s party because we don’t know what will happen tomorrow!”, it is jarring to have a few beers in a bar and leave the building to find a giant tank and armed soldiers stationed directly outside. Also, several parts of the city are eerily deserted as many Lebanese have left in anticipation of another civil war, and there are parts of Beirut that are totally off-limits (unless you fancy a Hezbollah checkpoint).
Due to the current political instability, politics reigns as THE number one point of discussion. It was fascinating to talk to people from different backgrounds about their political views - Muslims who support Hezbollah, Muslims who don’t, Greek Orthodox Christians who distrust all the Arabs in power, etc etc. We also visited a Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut along with two Czech girls from our hostel. The Palestinian woman who showed us around spoke almost perfect English and didn’t blink an eye when we told her we were American. She led us through the camp, a labyrinth of concrete and filth with a tangled web of electrical wires hovering above us everywhere. The camp was designed for 3,000, but currently houses 18,000. It was by far the poorest place I saw in the Middle East. One of the Czech girls commented on how much it reminded her of the slums in Mumbai. We helped cover some books at the school library and played with the kids for a bit before heading back to our part of town.
ISRAEL
Crossing over to Israel from Jordan was the biggest ordeal in border crossings Colleen and I have experienced so far. Most border crossings in the Middle East are a breeze – the officials take a perfunctory look at your luggage, stamp your passport, and wave you off. It usually takes about half an hour max. The Jordan/Israel border was much more like passing through security in an American airport – officials barking directions at you as you pass through multiple physical security checks and generally making you feel like a criminal. But as “friendly” as they were towards the foreigners, the Palestinians had it noticeably worse.
Colleen and I were stopped at passport control and made to wait, ostensibly because we had visited Syria (twice). We had anticipated this, and after two hours a border official came out with a slew of questions for us – “Why did you go to Syria?” “Tourism.” “Why?” “Um, because we wanted to see Damascus.” “Do you know any Syrians?” “No.” “Why did you go twice?” “We had to pass back through after Lebanon.” “Why did you go to Lebanon?” etc. etc. After many more seemingly irrelevant questions such as ”How do you two know each other?” she called my friend in Jerusalem to verify that we were indeed staying with him and let us pass. I should mention here that the rest of the country is also extremely tight with security – metal detectors everywhere, from the bus station to the local supermarket. Soldiers with guns are sighted at almost every turn. Normally this would have affected me quite a bit, but after Colombia and the rest of the Middle East I hardly noticed it.
As much as Lebanon was a shock to us, Israel seemed COMPLETELY western and developed. The streets were lined with trees (in the desert, just like LA!), roads were perfectly paved, buses and bathrooms very clean. It was interesting to see that all the street signs were in Hebrew, Arabic and English (as opposed to just Arabic as we were used to). Jerusalem was the only place in the Middle East where we saw throngs of American tourist groups, not exactly a welcome sight. After the tenth conversation or so we overhead consisting of, “Oh jeepers honey, I think Jesus was buried in there!” we saw a few of the sights very quickly and got the hell out of there. Since we happened to be there for Easter it was particularly crowded, and therefore kind of annoying and exhausting.
Jerusalem has a beautiful old city that is like a much more touristy version of Damascus. So many of significant religious sites are revered by Jews, Muslims and Christians alike, for different reasons. It’s another disheartening example of how difficult it is to find any sense of fairness in “dividing” the territory in this region, or how you can ask any of these groups to give anything up. Jerusalem itself is also divided into different districts, mostly according to religion.
We stayed with my friend Guy during our five days in Israel. I met Guy while traveling in Southeast Asia in 2004, so it was great to see him again. He and his friends were an interesting bunch – an amalgamation of anarchist, post-zionist, communist, hippie, pacifist metalhead types (not your typical Israelis) which provided lots of fodder for interesting conversation. Almost everyone we met pumped us for information about what Syria and Lebanon were like. It was very sad actually, to see how curious they were since they will probably never be able to go there in their lifetimes.
We happened to be in Israel for Purim, a Jewish holiday that appeared to be just a drunk Halloween. We went out that night in Jerusalem and saw lots of Israelis stumbling around in entertaining costumes. Many of them were fittingly Middle-Eastern: lots of Ottoman-era outfits, people dressed as Jesus, Arabs, but also clowns, cross-dressers, witches, fairies, etc. I think my favorite was a guy dressed as an Israeli hippie girl.
Guy also took us to a sunrise music festival near the Dead Sea, which was glorious. We drove out right before dawn and caught a spectacular sunrise and some amazing desert scenery. The Dead Sea was a really unique color and texture – very glassy, smooth and light blue. It’s freakishly calm and looks like it has an oily film on top. I know that sounds gross but it looked really beautiful and shimmery. However, I didn’t go in that time (we went on the Jordan side a few days later).
We spent just a day in Tel Aviv, another laidback Middle-Eastern Mediterranean city. This city, however, was filled with cute boutiques, cafes, attractive beach-goers, adorable gay men and a lovely beach. It reminded me of San Francisco (and Los Angeles).
After four or five days in Israel, we returned to Amman to see the sights in Jordan with Giacomo for a week before flying out to India. This keyboard is sticky so I am going to save Jordan and the beginning of India for my next post. Ciao!
