Only got four hours sleep again last night. God how I long for normal nine to five working life where I am guaranteed at least seven hours sleep a night. Did I just say that?

I hate to judge an entire country after a few short days but… the general consensus amongst the traveling community here is that the Israelis are rude (although some thought that maybe they don’t mean to be and it’s just ‘their way’). I haven’t seen too much that would make me dispute that. They never say stuff like excuse me or sorry and good customer service usually means maintaining a steady frown whilst be as unhelpful as possible.

The other thing the traveling community here seems to agree on is that the Israelis are lazy. I think that’s a pretty harsh thing to say about a whole country (based on hearsay) so I wouldn’t say I agree without spending more time here to decide for myself but I will tell you this story. Last night at the club I was ‘supervised’ by a thirty year old Israeli who watched us (a Kiwi, a South African and a Brit) sweep and wash the entire club whilst sitting next to a spare broom with his legs crossed. Occasionally he would say, “Sweep here.” Or “Sweep there.” As he put it to us “When I was twenty I worked with my hands, now I work with my head.” As I put it to him “You are the laziest fucking bastard I have ever met you could have gone home an hour ago if you had gotten off your stupid arse and helped out.” It didn’t go down too well.

Today I made what I consider to be my first steps on my journey home (London). I booked an Easyjet ticket from Athens to London on the 10th and jumped onto a train to Haifa where I caught a ferry to Cyprus. The customs check before boarding the ferry was the most thorough I have ever had. The x-ray guy made me move my pack so he could rescan it. The (cute) Israeli girl went to another room and came back snapping on a pair of rubber gloves. I must have gone all white or something because she quickly explained that it was for my pack. Greatly relieved I opened my pack so she could give it a full cavity check. And she checked everything right down to the opening all of the books to make sure that there was nothing suspicious in any of them. Then they had the cheek to charge me an additional fourteen dollars ‘security tax’ to pay for the privilege of being searched.

Met another great Canadian on the ferry. Dave is 28 and is on his first big tour oot of Canada. It turns oot that Dave’s social life has a couple of glaring omissions (topless beaches, squat toilets, drug experimentation) that has caused me to start calling him ‘Sheltered Dave’.

Also met an Argentinean called Daniel whom Dave and I have nicknamed monkey after the binobo monkey which conducts all of its social interactions with sex. Monkey who doesn’t speak a word of English and if he did he’d probably smack my lights out for calling him monkey. Spent the night at the bar drinking coffee and red wine whilst listening to the live band. Monkey sang the Spanish songs (mostly Ricky Martin) and I sang the rest. The guy in the band sang some of the songs but on the whole he just made moaning sounds that sounded like the real words. This was surprisingly effective (not to mention entertaining) and meant that his repertoire of songs was in the thousands. Additional entertainment was provided by Monkey loudly proclaiming “ai yai yai” at anything in a skirt that walked by.

I am sleeping on the cold metal deck of the boat to save money. For safety I stored my pack in the cabin that Sheltered Dave and monkey share with two orthodox Greek types. Whilst we were in the bar someone went to the trouble of trying to go through it. Nice.

Got to bed at 8.30am and was up again by 11.00am when sleep ceased to be an option at my noisy hostel.

I met a Brit called Ben who is down on his luck at the moment. He has no money for food and is two days behind on his rent. To get out of hock he borrowed fifty shekels to get to a festival on a kibitz were he worked thirty hours straight. He was devastated when the promoter did a runner and nobody got paid. Fortunately the club I was at needed an extra set of hands so after two and a half hours sleep (hey that’s all I had) I woke him and dragged him off to work.

Ben’s plan for getting back to England is ingenious. Well ingenious is one word that you could use. When he wants to go home he is going to go to the British embassy and cause some trouble or break something so they are forced them to fly him home to face trial. Apparently one of his mates did it and when he was sent the invoice for the flight he never bothered to pay it. The lengths some people will go to avoid paying for things.

I read today that the Taleban in Afghanistan has a ‘Ministry for the Suppression of Vice and the Promotion of Virtue’. They should cut straight to the chase and have a ‘Ministry for the Suppression of Freedom and Rights and the Promotion of Terrorism and other Hate Crimes’.

DO YOU KNOW WHY THERE ISN’T PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST?

I have had a lot of time to mull over why things are so shit between the Arabs and the Israelis. You tend to have a bit of spare time to think when you travel alone. After all my deliberation I think I have it boiled down to one single fact that can explain all of the hatred and pain they cause each other. THEY DON’T WANT PEACE. Or a little more accurately they don’t want peace badly enough. If the general population of both sides really really wanted peace then they would find a way to make it happen. Instead what you find when you talk to people (either side) here is that they claim that they want peace and then try to justify their own sides actions. I think that they are just saying they want peace, or perhaps they think they want peace but when you talk to them what you realise is that what they actually want is REVENGE and what they perceive as JUSICE. And the official stats bear this opinion of mine out. In Palestine 85% of people want the ifutada to continue (despite the horrific loss of Palestinian life) and in Israel the hardliner Prime Minister Sharon has an unprecedented level of support (despite mounting Israeli deaths). I think that until both sides realise that they will never get everything that they want then there is no hope for peace. In short: they’re totally and utterly fucked.

JUST ONE MORE…

Why I the Islamic world rushing to line up behind the Islamic fundamentalist Osama bin Liner? It’s mental. The western world equivalent would be if America’s Amish community went bad and drove a suicide horse and cart into the great mosque in Mecca and then the American government decided to protect the people responsible and then all the Christians on the planet lined up behind the Amish community to destroy Islam. Ludicrous! This would never happen because in the west when you commit a horrible crime the authorities hunt you down and punish you. They don’t ‘jump on board’ and say, “Well you’re a bunch of extremist bastards but let’s see where this crazy horse ride goes!”

I went to the fantastic Tel Aviv beachfront and met an Israeli women who is sick with worry because her sons have been called up for active duty and she doesn’t want to see any of then die. She said “When I see a Palestinian women on TV say they are prepared to lose two of their four sons to force the Israelis into the sea I wonder how we can deal with such people.” She also told me that thirty years ago she found a book in an abandoned school that was used to teach maths to Palestinian kids. The book had examples along the lines of ‘if you have five Israeli soldiers and you shoot three of them how man do you have left?’ It just goes to show you reap what you sow and if you poison you children’s minds with hate from day one then you are going to live with consequences.

She also said that Tel Aviv is the city that never sleeps so I decided pop out a little later on a have a look around :)

Back at the hostel I was offered a job at a club for the night. The job involved setting up and dismantling the tables, picking up a few plastic cups and keeping an eye on the bogs at an outdoor club on Tel Aviv’s beachfront. I didn’t occur to me that I was breaking the law by working without a visa until later on when I found out the club I was at had paid the police not to raid the joint and check visas. Anyway it was a great way to sample Tel Aviv’s ultra-expensive nightlife and earn a few shekels at the same time. It didn’t take me long to figure out why they call Tel Aviv the city that never sleeps. Because most of them are off their bloody tits on ecstasy. My first clue was when one of the baby seals (huge pupils make their eyes look like a baby seal) threw up a stomach full of water onto my leg outside the toilets. It worked out great in the end though as most of the pill heads sat on the same bottle of water all night and I had hardly any work to do.

Before anyone asks (because someone always does), no I didn’t score. I am having a little trouble bonding with the Israelis and the pickup line “Hi I’m the guy who cleans the bogs, fancy a fuck?” doesn’t carry the pulling weight you might think it would.

Oh yeah and there was even four strippers! Three girls and a guy. The girls weren’t that flash and none of them were particularly stoked to be there. The highlight was when the male stripper got up on stage in his g-string and fishnet number and some local guy jumped on the stage ripped down his pants and bent over right in front of the dude. The stripper didn’t seem to see the funny side but fuck I laughed and laughed.

Forced to spend another day spinning around Jerusalem waiting for the Jews to let everyone else resume their normal lives. As a protest against religious oppression I watched TV, listened to the radio, used a phone, used the internet, left the house, ate, drank and tried to get laid (failed of course) before the sun set. I’m all for organised religion and other relatively harmless forms of brainwashing for the gullible and weak willed but I really object when it starts to have a negative impact on other peoples lives and especially my life.

Have decided to catch a taxi to Tel Aviv when it is totally dark and the Jews have decided to play nice.

SO MUCH FOR ORIGINALITY

A couple of years ago I had the idea of packaging up coffee, sugar and coffee whitener in one container. It would be great for backpackers etc. Well in a couple of weeks back I found out that some Syrian outfit is already doing it. One week later in Beirut I discovered that Nescafe are also doing it. It goes to show that no matter how smart you are or how good your ideas are that someone somewhere will already have thought of anything you will ever come up with. In the words of Bart Simpson “Can’t win. Don’t try.”

IS THIS THE END OF NORMAL SEX AS WE KNOW IT?

Have any of you ever heard of a sexual act called humming? The kiwi girls I met on the truck from Palmyra to Aleppo told me about it. Surprisingly I had never heard of it before despite being a dirty old bugger. Humming is when a girl puts your testicles in her mouth and forms a seal around them. Then she starts to hum. Apparently the feeling is out of this world and it never takes longer than 30 seconds to make you cum. personally I am more than a little sceptical but I plan to find out the truth of the matter anyway. If any of you get a chance to try this before me (quite likely) feel free to send a review. Oh and get this. Common etiquette says that the guy even gets to choose the tune. Magic.

HUMKU

hum hum hum hum hum
hum hum hum hum hum hum hum
hum hum hum hum hum

DAY 79 (CONTINUED)- ESCAPE FROM JERUSELAM

I missed saying goodbye to rob the American which is a pity because I wanted to confront him about being a spy for the CIA. Now that I think back on our time together I realise their where several obvious clues.

1. Rob was average looking, average height etc and you would never suspect him of anything. Least of all spying.
2. He said when he was young he was an athlete and was well coordinated. Just like a good spy would need to be.
3. He was detained ‘for no particular reason’ for 45 minutes at the Joranian/Israeli border.
4. About his job he said “I worked as a writer of technical books for Microsoft on a suite of packages called Microsoft Office” and asked “had I heard of it?” Nobody who really worked in the IT sector would ever be so dumb as to ask another IT guy if he had heard of Microsoft Office. Sounds like a dodgy cover if you ask me.
5. He knew an amazing amount of detail about the Israel/Palestine problem. Just like a spy would need to know.
6. He said had been traveling for two years (of three) to explain his packed passport. But the stamps and visas could easily have been from carrying out various ‘assignments’ around the world.
7. He took loads of photos. Not too suspect in itself but when considered with the other facts it seems very suspect.

It’s probably for the best that I didn’t get a chance to let on that I was on to him as I don’t know what the standard operating procedure for a blown cover is and I think he would have been quite upset if he had to ‘erase’ me. Also he was probably pretty busy making drops, tailing people, mixing up batches of invisible ink, decoding secret messages and other spy stuff. Right now he’s probably making a small gun out of his toothbrush and shaving foam canister so he can ‘put a cap in’ Sharon or Arafat’s arse if they don’t hurry the fuck up with the peace process.

I eventually got a service taxi out of Jerusalem around 6pm when the sun was well and truly behind the horizon. Got in to Tel Aviv around 8pm and booked into the cheapest place in town. Which worked out to be my most expensive yet. On the up side the room comes with it’s own shower and toilet facilities. On the down side I have to share it with 7 sweaty (and stinky) blokes from around the world.
Its much hotter here than Jerusalem. For the last couple of nights in Jerusalem I have had to use my sleeping bag to keep warm (first time I have experienced ‘cold’ since Mt Sinai). I didn’t really give it a second thought and figured that summer is drawing to an end. My sweat glands have helped me realise that the hot weather is far from over and that Jerusalem must be at altitude or something.

I can tell that Israel is a big step closer to the western world because the porn has reappeared on the top shelf in the newsagents.
An odd thing about Tel Aviv is the number of pet dogs they have here. It’s like no other city I have seen in the last 79 days. You can come up with your own theories for why this might be. I’m tired of doing all the thinking.

The women here in Israel are very nice indeed. I mean they are not Beirut nice but it’s not entirely unpleasant walking the streets. The important thing to remember in Israel though is that all of the women have been in the army and they all know how to kill you with a single punch. Definitely something to keep in mind.
There is one other theory I had about the women in Israel. I was debating it in my head and was in the process of collecting additional data to check my hypothesis when another guy on tour said exactly what I was thinking. Freaky. Later on another guy said it too. After extensive checking I have to say that all the data suggests that I was right. And since I had the theory confirmed by two independent sources it pretty much seems like an open and shut case to me. The theory can be put succinctly in two short words: GREAT TITS.

There are a number of shops here in Tel Aviv that look like they have closed recently. A year of Intifada (the Palestine uprising) is obviously costing the Israeli economy dearly.
The remaining tourist here at the moment fall into a small number of categories. the diehard tourists like me who came a long way to get here and didn’t want to go home without seeing the sights. The mentallly unwell who are here for their own reasons and who will probably stay until they get in trouble and are sent home. The young and dumb who think Israel is a great place to live and work at the moment. And the down on their luck. There a quite a few of these last two groups. People who live from day to day and work illegally for a fraction of what the Israelis earn. There’s loads of shitty under the table work for the tourists at the moment. Partly because there are so few tourists to do all the work and partly because the Palestinians are all locked up in the occupied territories.

The other main group that you see here is South Africans. Many of the Saffas use Israel to put together enough cash to get their English working visa. The other main advantage for the Saffas is that Israel acts like a halfway house for them so that they don’t have to go cold-turkey on street violence i.e. they don’t go from a situation where they are likely to get shot at every day (South Africa) to a situation where they are very unlikely to get shot at all (London).
Found out about a kibitz here that has a ratio of five girls to every guy. Apparently they Danish and Finish girls there used to have a competition to see that could ‘score’ any new boys first. That was until their respective embassies advised them all to leave. I got this information first hand from a Saffa guy called Andrew who lived there with his girlfriend. He described being there with his girlfriend was like taking a sandwich to a restaurant. Like everything in life, this information is for sale for the right price. All serious bids can be sent to my email address.

The Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur officially starts at sunset today and goes until sunset tomorrow. This is the most important holiday of the year for the Jews. During this time they don’t watch TV, listen to the radio, use phones, drive cars, leave the house, eat, drink, use cosmetics, fuck, anything. All they do is sit around with their families in quiet prayer and contemplation. Yom Kippur is taken very seriously indeed and the Jewish run part of the country (most of it) grinds to a complete halt. Fortunately the Palestinians etc keep their shops open so I wont starve. Actually it’s a bit academic for me as the Palestinian shops are the only ones I can afford to go to. Everything here is very expensive. Even more expensive than London in most cases. Apparently it has a lot to do with the high taxes charged by the government. Which would make sense since brand new tanks and planes don’t come cheap. I should add up what I think I will paid in taxes when I leave so I can estimate what contribution I have made to the Israeli military machine. probably just a few bullets because I am a broke backpacker but I would like to think my share was used to buy something like a box of camouflage panties or similar.

Actually if you were going to attack Israel Yom Kippur is the ideal time since most of the country is busy pretending that it is some time around the third century. They also caught some baddies coming across the Syrian border a couple of nights ago and found a weapons cache. So I think there will be some trouble of some sort. The Israelis thought there might be trouble because there were loads more soldiers on the street today and they even mobilised the hot chick brigade. Which is basically made up of hot looking Israeli chicks with big guns standing around looking sexy as fuck.

Was going to head to Tel Aviv tonight with a Palestinian run service taxi. I know that everything will be shut because of Yom Kippur but I thought I could spend the day on the beach until everything opens again at sundown. But none of the Palestinian taxi drivers here drive on Yom Kippur because people throw stones at their cars. The religious tolerance in this part of the world is totally fantastic.

DON’T STAY AT THE AL ARAB BECAUSE THEY ARE WANKERS

Was kicked out of the crappy (but cheap) al Arab hotel tonight. The manager backtracked on his position of the previous night and insisted that I pay for the extra evening. I was trying to tell him that I would rather pay the extra money to someone else than to pay him twice and he kicked me out. We exchanges our thoughts about each other and fifteen minutes later I was booked into the Tabasco Hotel which is much nicer but it also more expensive. Oh well. The total amount that I lost was less than two quid but it goes against everything I believe to give into scammers, liars and thieves unless I have absolutely no choice.

Up at 5.30 to take sunrise photos of Jerusalem with Rob the American. Getting up early is the perfect excuse to not have a shower. Was a little grumpy to have a third disturbed nights sleep in a row but the photos would make it worthwhile. Or at least they would have if I had taken the fully charged battery instead of the empty one.

Rob and I did a tour of the old and new cities after that. First stop the church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is where Jesus was supposedly crucified, buried and resurrected. We also toured the Via Dolorosa where Jesus carried the cross and the place where the last feed was held. How I was able to visit these sacred sites is a good story in itself. You see the bible is quite different from the Lonely Planet in that it doesn’t have any maps (not that the Lonely Planet maps are that crash hot). Luckily the roman emperor Constantine’s mum was here around 300AD and she came over all funny and had some visions and stuff, which showed her where all the places that Jesus went to in the bible were. Well that’s all that settled beyond all reasonable doubt then.

After that we took a tour of the new city including the Mahane Yahuda market, Ben Yehuda Street and the ultraorthadox Jewish neighbourhood of Mea She’arim. The last place is described by the Lonely Planet as the world’s most reluctant tourist attraction. This is because loads of tourists love to pop by and gawk at the ultraorthadox Jews who basically want to just get on with their lives and perhaps listen to a little ZZ Top (there I go again). Their neighbourhood is signposted with huge bills that say ‘we ask you with all our hearts please do not pass through our neighbourhood in immodest clothes’ and goes on to give a list of examples. You probably haven’t realised this because I certainly didn’t until Rob pointed it out but the places we visited have all been targeted in recent suicide bombings. In short, we did the terrorist attack tour of Jerusalem and lived to tell the story.

Had a run in with the hostel owner at the al Arab about paying for my bed on the roof. I try to pay day by day so if I make any sudden changes to plans then I can just get up and go without having to worry about getting a refund. I think it’s better that way since I am the only person that I trust completely. Today it backfired on me, as the hotel manager’s senile father doesn’t remember rudely demanding the money or me paying him yesterday. I paid the extra but had a talk to the manager later on and worked it out so that I don’t end up out of pocket. Sorted.

I was woken at 2am by a Russian women crying and wailing at her husband in the next room. She went on constantly and didn’t stop. The six of us on the roof next door were all kept up by her racket until the Japanese guy got the receptionist to come up and have a word. This was effective for about two minutes until she started up again. Eventually the fuzz were called by a neighbour and three policemen, nine army guys with automatic rifles turned up. That shut her up. When they got there they knocked on her door and said who they were. She said, “What do you want?” I remember thinking ‘they want you to shut the fuck up you dumb bitch’ (I was very tired). Then they said some other stuff and she said she was pregnant and I remember thinking ‘great, that’s nine people you are keeping awake’. I’d had enough by now. enough of the drama, not enough sleep. So I went down stairs to watch CNN (to try to find out how many pets had been hurt) before my sightseeing tour at 3.30.

The tour started with a walk up Masada for a sunrise photography session. Masada is most famous for being the site where 960 Jews on the run from the Romans killed themselves to avoid capture. What were they thinking? ‘We can really show the Romans by being dead when they knock the front door down.’ I bet the Romans really kicked themselves too. I bet they thought ‘fuck those zealots really showed us a thing or two today.’ This is another perfectly good example of religions fanatics taking their beliefs out on themselves and not other innocent people.

The next stop was the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is 340m below sea level and nothing grows in except, apparently, four kinds of fungus. The water itself is 33% solid, which means that you float much more than you normally do. Which was kind of fun. Some floating, a few photos, and a couple of mad dashes to the showers to flush burning dead sea water from our eyes we were on our way again.

We saw some other stuff later on but it was nothing to write home about.

COS I’M WAILING

Got back to the hostel at four in the afternoon and tried to sleep. The still wailing Russian girl and her husband were being kicked out so I took off for a look at the wailing wall. Apparently they are heroin addicts or similar so everyone is pleased to see the back of them.

SHE’S GOT LEGS

The Wailing Wall was either packed with orthodox Jews preparing for Yom Kippur or they were having a massive ZZ Top look-alike competition (a cheap and predictable joke I know, but I couldn’t resist). Either way it was Wailing Wall to wall big beards, black hats and black suits.

When I got back to the hostel I found that my pack had been broken into. They couldn’t get into the main part because I keep it locked up and as far as I can tell all they got was my Swiss Army Knife. Surprisingly I am not even slightly fussed about this. Which is lucky because it’s not every day that you get robbed and don’t give a fuck. I figured it was the junkie Ruskies and one shitty old Swiss Army Knife is a small price to pay for a good nights sleep.

Waking late I nearly missed the border closing for the second day in a row. My desire to put as many kilometres between the Evil Fins and myself provided me with all the motivation I needed. The border crossing between Jordan and Israel was relatively hassling free because nobody wants to go to Israel at the moment for some reason. There was quite a bit of sitting around though and it took over two hours in the end so I’m giving it a 4/10 on the howmuchofabitchwasthatborderometer.

Met a fascinating New Yorker called Rob. He is two thirds of the way through a three year world tour and was able to help me put New Zealand in perspective. New Zealand has four million people. New York has eight million. What we call a Prime Minister he calls a Mayor.

Have to remember to stop saying, “salaam” and “shocker run” and the other Arab words that I have picked up and used constantly for the last two and a half months. It’s much harder than it sounds. Fortunately on my modest budget almost all of the people I come into contact with in Israel are Palestinians (they’re also broke) so I hope they appreciate the effort. And get this not a single Palestinian I have met had been carrying a gun or has had a bomb strapped to them. Often you get a little speech about the conditions the in the occupied territories or behaviour of the Israelis. Everyone has I drum to beat I suppose. It just so happens that the Palestinians have rather a large drum.

There are hardly any tourists here at the moment. Everyone except a few idiots have been scared off. My hostel has 25 people but this time last year they had 250 people. They had them sleeping everywhere from the kitchen to the shower stalls. The trouble must be costing the country millions of shekels every day. On the up side it’s an accommodation buyers market at the moment and hostel guy dropped the price before we could even offer him a lesser amount.

Oh yeah they call the money here shekels. When I toured Europe in 1999 I got tired of keeping up to date with all the different currencies in so I started calling everything shekels. I never realised that there was actually a country where the money was actually called shekels. I don’t expect anyone to find this amusing except me, but that’s okay.

I booked an expensive tour of a bunch of sights around Jerusalem, which started at 3am. I was pretty tired from living it up with the Evil Fins but I still only got to bed at midnight.

Up early and had to stop Fouad’s maid from ironing my clothes. I’m not sure they could have handled the shock. I noted that this is as clean as my cloths have been since I left London. You could say that my hand washing skills aren’t what they could be. Or if you wanted to be a bit more blunt you could say that they were crap.

I have decided that my emails could be a little more quantitative so I am going to include a howmuchofabitchwasthatborderometer.

Made it to the Lebanese border at nine. The Lebanon to Syria border gets a measly 1/10 on the howmuchofabitchwasthatborderometer because it was so easy. Fouad’s mother had called the guy in the army in charge of the border to smooth over the fact that I didn’t have a visa. He’s a close family friend don’t you know. Then Fouad took me right into his office like he was his nephew or something and my passport was stamped and handed back in record time. It cost me 25,000 Lebanese pounds, which are 11,000 less than what the guy in Beirut quoted me. Fouad’s ‘uncle’ wasn’t at all happy when he heard this because it meant that someone in the capital was trying to pull a fast one. The Syrians were even better. I said, “Transit visa.” they said, “Transit visa?” I said, “Yes, transit visa.” they said “Only three days?” I said, “I only need six hours.” they said “Three days.” I said “Six hours.” they said “You sure? Three days no more?” I said “Yeeeeeeeeeess I’ll be gone this afternoon!” and that was that. One FREE Syrian transit visa in less time than it takes to have a piss.

The bus ride to Damascus was stopped slightly short of bus station after the drivers refused to pay the army NOT to search the bus. I didn’t know where to go and before I could ask anyone two strong willed Lebanese women from my bus put me under their protection. They guided me through the bus station to the right place while simultaneously putting all the sharks in their right place. Then they made sure that I paid the right price for my trip to Amman and took off. Top chicks those Lebanese women.

The trip from Damascus back to Amman was in another dream westie fixer-upper. This one was a beat-up old Chrysler. And the driver took full advantage of what was left of the cars original capabilities.

The Syria to Jordan border was much worse. The Syrian end wasn’t too bad and I was first back to the car. The Jordan end was a bitch though. Firstly my stuff was searched. Not really searched, just searched enough to make me unload my pack from the car, open my pack and close it again. Which isn’t as easy as it sounds. That done I headed into the disorganised circus called the Jordanian immigration building. Here I needed a ten Jordanian Dinar (about ten quid) visa despite only planning to spend a few hours in the country. Haven’t they heard of free transit visas? The exchange place at the border offered me exactly ten Jordanian Dinah for my 31000 Lebanese pounds. Coincidentally this is exactly what I needed for a visa, and he knew it. It’s also about thirty percent below the current exchange rate. When he also refused to give me a printed receipt I figured he was going to pocket the difference at the end of the day. Faced with such a blatantly obvious scam I told him to go and fuck himself. In those exact words. The second exchange and only other exchange place offered me eleven Jordanian Dinahs. At this stage I was beyond caring and also out of options since the visa guy only takes Jordanian Dinahs, so I dropped my pants, bent over (metaphorically of course) and took the cash. Add to this the fact that the customs building was packed with people and there is no organised queuing system and that the desk that supposedly deals with foreigners was processing a huge stack of other visas the whole experience took bloody ages. Based on all of this I have given the Syria to Jordan howmuchofabitchwasthatborderometer a whopping 8/10 (with 10/10 being a full cavity without the option of a firing squad instead).

Getting to Amman I discovered that I had to spend the night here as the border crossing into Israel closes at three in the afternoon. I needed some cash to pay for my ride from Damascus so I got a taxi driver to whip me up to the local ATM for two Jordanian Dinahs. When I got back I was negotiating an extension of my driver’s services to my old hotel when the group of four taxi drivers I was talking to suddenly all walked away from me. I was a little surprised by this and stood there like a silly tourist watching them go. And they kept going. Right across the road and further. I couldn’t figure out what was going on until I noticed the latest car to pull into the car park had two cops in it. I had no other choice but to get my pack and flag down another (legitimate) taxi from the side of the road. I considered doing a runner with my original drivers two Jordanian Dinah but decided that would be a wanker thing to do so I tracked him down to his hiding behind a parked car. He didn’t even look up at me and as he hastily signalled for me to throw the coins in his general direction. Very amusing indeed.

Walking back from the cafe I decided to get some chicken and some sleep to make the border crossing into Israel first thing the morning. Well that was the plan until some people on the street started to scream at me. I had been in my own little world and was a little startled until I realise it was the Evil Fins (previously the Top Fins from Cairo). They railroaded me away from my cheap night of rest and recovery into a night of noisy debauchery where we sniffed tequila (I do not recommend this) and ended up drinking vodka until 4am.

Oh and my poo is solid again although sometimes it floats. That was quick.

The mosquitoes caught up with me again last night and made the most of it (me). They must have flown all the way from Hama in Syria to catch me. Well at least I know how fast they can travel, about fifty kilometres a day, give or take.

My new diet is going really well. Yesterday I lived on shuwarma, chocolate and coke (hangover food). Today I had burger king for breakfast. Fatbastardness here I come.

Also on personal issues my guts have gone again. I did promise to keep you posted after all. Don’t worry it’s not that bad since I am in a place with loads of toilets an I’m not throwing up, feeling weak or any of the other things that come with having a dodgy stomach.

After some initial tough talk from bush I had thought that we was backing off from all out war and was regaining his composure and common sense. That is until today when I saw his comments on the BBC web site about the ruling Taleban in Afghanistan. “…they follow in the path of nazism and totalitarianism … and they will follow that path all the way to where it ends: in history’s unmarked grave of discarded lies.” and “every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make … either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” and them’s real fighting words so I think that things might get a bit tense here soon. Especially when you consider how one-eyed the everyday Arabs choose to be about things. They see Israel as another crusade and completely ignore the suicide bombs in Israeli cafes. They see the Iraqi sanctions and resulting deaths through starvation and lack of medicine as murder and refuse to even consider what might happen if Saddam’s regime develops a working nuke, ballistic missile or effective biological weapon. So if Bush bombs Afghanistan even further into the dark ages (how much further they could possibly go?) then the resulting Arab/Muslim deaths will unite a large percentage of the Arab/Muslim world even further against the USA/West. Possibly even to the point where the Arab leaders who enjoy American/Western financing and support so much may not be able to remain in control their own countries. A good way to explain the one-eyedness that the average street Arabs have is shown by the widely held belief here that the CIA and/or Mossad planned the hijacks. The rational for this are scary to say the least:

1. Only those two organisations have the power or skill needed as they are both omnipotent
2. You can’t do anything in the USA without the CIA knowing, as they are omnipotent
3. Nobody else has anything to gain. The Americans will get a huge insurance payout and the Israelis will get even more Arab deaths, which is basically all they have ever wanted.
4. Apparently not one Jew died in any of the attacks. So they all knew in advance and stayed away that day. Or the other one you hear is that four thousand Jews died in the world trade centre. So what were they doing there eh? Eh? Don’t you think that is a bit suspicious eh? Eh?

Before you ask. Yes a large number of people here really believe this shit and to make matters worse they seem to be getting (at least some of) their information/ideas from the (government controlled?) Arabic news television. Unbelievable.

More drooling around the streets of Beirut and have decided to risk making a run at the Israeli border despite hearing it was closed recently. My rational for this is:

1. I didn’t come all this way to miss seeing the sights in Israel
2. If it does ‘kick off’ here then I will be a lot safer in pro-American Israel than in one of the Arab nations.
3. If the border is closed then I can come straight back here and take the Beirut option.

That afternoon Fouad (the other guy from Petra) picked me up from Beirut and drove me out to his house just this side of the Syrian border in Aanjar. Fouad’s convertible Mercedes is much nicer than Sako’s (sorry Sako) and Fouad definitely believes in honking. As well as swearing and vigorous hand gestures. It didn’t matter though because we flew over the mountains so fast that most of the honks sounded like they were coming from the car behind us.

Coming into the Bekaa valley we were stopped at a military checkpoint where a guy in an army uniform tried to sell us something. Fouad politely said no thanks and we passed through. He explained that the checkpoint was a fundraising venture run by the Hizboula. That’s the same Hizboula who like to fire mortars at Israeli villages. I don’t think Fouad likes them much but they’re not the sorts of people you mess with. In fact they’re not the sort of people you do anything other than be exceptionally polite to. I am reminded of the joke about what you call a three hundred pound gorilla with a baseball bat. Sir.

Twenty seconds later we passed through a Syrian checkpoint. Almost all of the military in this part of Lebanon are from Syria. They established their intelligence headquarters here during the war and haven’t decided to leave yet.

One thing we were going to do is drive by the house of one of the hijackers who only lived two towns away. Fouad even knew the guy through his sister who went to school with him. I wanted to take a photo of his house but we (or more accurately Fouad) decided not to as the locals there are a little jumpy at the moment.

Aanjar has some small roman ruins and is the home of a large number of Armenians. The Armenians moved here from eastern turkey in 1915 after the Turks tried to remove their race from the face of the planet. Aanjar completely escaped the destruction of the war in Lebanon because the local Armenians stayed neutral. Although the presence of the Syrian intelligence HQ might have helped a bit.

Fouad’s maid did all my washing and made me an excellent home cooked meal. It didn’t exactly fit in with my new grease and sugar health regime but it tasted great so I didn’t say anything. Later on Fouad met a friend in Beirut and I hung out at Sako’s where I used his computer (these emails don’t write themselves you know) and drank imported Grolsh.

I have been keeping a close eye on what is happening in the region via local newspapers, the internet and television because I want to make sure that if it suddenly gets too dodgy that I have some warning. I am starting to get a little over the CNN coverage though. The other night a reporter gave the following insightful report. “Thanks Connie. I’m standing down here at the perimeter of ground zero. There are hundreds of people holding up homemade signs thanking and supporting the rescuers and some giving descriptions of the missing people. This little boy is holding up a sign for his missing father. It gives his name, hair colour, eye colour and height, which you can see, was five foot nine and has been crossed out and is now five foot eleven. Now I ask you Connie what difference could two inches possibly make?” the reporter pauses to allow the full emotional impact to sink in “but would we do any different if it were our father? Over to you in the studio Connie (chokes back tears as camera cuts).” Thank god for the BBC is all I can say.

Later on met Fouad’s parents who are really great. Apart form being fantastic hosts they are really interesting and right up to date with all the developments in the local situation. Which isn’t always the case in this part of the world. They know way more than I do despite my best attempt to stay abreast of things through the Internet and television.