the new city

good peoples! if u wish 2 read on - u are welcome! (sorry, everyone round here keeps saying that. what am i, a welcome mat?!)
did the lug from tiberias (israel) to assalah (egypt, sinai peninsular) in 3 days, via jerusalem, en gedi, eilat, taba.
for anyone trying to enter a mall in the new city of jerusalem, remember to add 15 mins to allow for the standing, jostling, pidgin-speaking, & searching 4 metal all over yr body that getting into one of the things via the VERY israeli security checkpoints requires. dave pointed out that allthe security workers at these things are invariably ethiopian; they make up the lower israeli class sittting some way above the palestinians, who can't be allowed to work at these things for the obvious reasons. i had to endure twice: once getting off tiberias bus and once when i went out 2 find an atm that i could use. i reckon if u vox popped u'd find most folks would rather risk the odd bomb than do all that goddamn waiting. i would.
next u must allow a few shekels for the mandatory payment required 2 use the glistening toilet facilities. i always get the shits with this (no pun), so while we waited for our jerusalem-en gedi bus i ducked into the secondhand bookstore conveniently located just up from the loo. apart from the happiness of subverting the inbuilt laxative effect of such places to my cause, i also managed to emerge with "the new life", by orhan pamuk, the nobel snubbed (too young, apparently - he's 50+), currently on trial in turkey, turkish author. very cool.

Jumping on the bus, we met an Israeli girl called Lim, and her beautiful dog Fi Fi. The driver didn't even blink when they hopped on the bus together, and I suspect La Fi Fi's seat was free. Lim told me she and Fi Fi travel around following the "rainbow gathering", and when she needs to save between gatherings, she works at the kibbutz or at the hostels at En Gedi, on the Dead Sea. She was a local, and invited us to stay at her place the following day.

That night we stayed at the En Gedi Youth Hostel. It was the most expensive accomodation we've seen so far, but there was no cheaper alternative. We met a cool guy called Ed, so to save some cash we all decided that he & Leon would split a double while I went into a 'ladies' dorm. Actually, all these rooms were the same, so we could've all taken a dorm together, but they tricked us. And the other "lady" in the dorm was no lady at all. She was a little Mussolini, with a bad case of emphasima, and a tendency to badger, lecture, instruct and move heavy furniture late into the evening, between farts and puffs of her endless cigarettes on the toilet. I think she dropped a sleeping tablet, and from that point I had some fantastic thoughts about her accidentally smothering me in her sleep (how exactly I don't know, as I took the highest bunk in the most remote corner of the room, while she occupied the rest of it), then I got scared she might actually cark it in her sleep. She would've been a most unattractive corpse. The poor old thing. Scared the hell outa me!

Next day we tried to get the bus to visit Lim and La Fi Fi, but no bus arrived, so after an hour or so of waiting, we decided to hit the salt. Bouncing around in the Dead Sea is one of my favourite ways to kill an afternoon. Ed joined us for the experience, then he kindly gave us use of his room as he was staying another night. We repacked and headed to the bus station. After much mis-information, we had missed our bloody bus to Eilat.

Then we met some very hysterical taxi drivers. Leon wanted to do the border run immediately, until I told him that would mean sleeping on a rock in the desert. After a fun ride with Imon from Kibbutz En Gedi (he only wanted NIS500! oh how we laughed) and the best yet shwerma at the bus stop, we finally jumped in a taxi with a driver called "EARLY" and that's how he got us there. Early. He achieved this by driving waaaaay too fast, overtaking trucks on blind bends when oncoming traffic appeared, and generally terrorising me (not hard to do at present apparently. Still working on my travelling hide). He called the speed cameras "flowers" because of the pretty police lights above them. When his wife called to ask where he was, he slowed down a little to chat to her on the phone. That was a welcome relief.

Anyway, Eilat was basically a bed in "Corinne's" hostel, and the bus station.

Now in Egypt, on the Sinai, and here is a photo which idicates my mood: Aaaaaah, Assalah! Alhamdulallah!