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GREECE, ISRAEL AND PALESTINE,
AND ON TO INDIA
Free Flow the Van is now stored in Greece. We are living in a hot, humid coconut jungle in the Indian state of Kerala.
There are coconut trees everywhere. This is one well-named country: Kerala means “land of coconuts.” We are near the southern tip of India, close to the equator. To tune in, think “tropical jungle.”
Our first house in Kerala, in a shady coconut jungle
We have rented a house near the Arabian Sea for the winter. We try to stay cool in the surf -- that makes it a challenge to write!
Heat has a way of bringing out whatever capacity for doing nothing you may possess. All those little “get busy” thoughts gradually just lie down and give it up.
Sunset on the beach, the Arabian Sea
Today, it is a bit cooler and I am back at the keyboard. The next post, after this one, will tell you about India. We pick up where we left off, saying in Greek, “kali andimosa! – see you soon!”
Well, OK, "soon," not so much. It has been over four months, blame Indian time.
The last post ended with our arrival in little-populated northwest Greece by ferry from Italy. There we enjoyed camping fifteen feet from the waves of a tranquil blue cove, a sweet place to swim.
Let us pick up the story, in present tense! After a week, we head south to Lefkada Island.
Flamingos and Snowy Mountains near Causeway onto Lefkada Island
Lefkada is a classic Greek island that you can actually drive onto, via a causeway. If you live in a camper van, that’s the island you want!
Its October now -- winter is catching up with us. That means rain from time to time. The sea reached its peak warmth in September, now it’s getting a dash more challenging just to wade in, the water’s cooler. Those so very long, late summer days grow quickly shorter!
Beach and cove at our first campground on Lefkada
We arrive at this turquoise jewel of a cove just ahead of a major downpour. This late in the season, we’re one of only two couples in a beachside canyon with big trees and palms. We dash into the only beach restaurant that’s still open, just in time.
While rain pounds down outside, spaghetti with bacon and moussaka soon appear, followed by Greek coffee and dessert. There are only two other customers.
We scurry back to our van and spend the next three days cozying in while the rain keeps coming. Its a great time to read and snuggle. There’s a decent internet connection too.
We leave this wet, lovely spot when it closes for the season. A short drive over dramatic, winding mountain roads leads to another magical blue cove, which turns out to be our spot for a couple weeks.
This cozy little cove is our home on Lefkada.
The weather clears and warms. The swimming is idyllic in the afternoon sun.
Here's the view from our campsite.
We sit, read, and gaze at islands upon islands, myriad silhouettes leading off to a horizon marked by lines of little rippled white clouds.
The view from the beach
Here we meet Nikolas, the very cool, helpful campground owner; and Mavra, his new love from Athens. They quickly become our fun friends.
We first meet Mavra taking pictures on the dock. Mavra’s English is great. She comes over to talk, and Mavra and Amira hit it off in an instant.
We ask her to take our picture. Then I invite her to pose with Amira.
Mavra says, “Oh, no, I need to lose weight!”
Amira says, “Don’t worry about that darling, it’s non-judgment day! Smile, you’re beautiful!” Mavra smiles -- here’s the picture!
It’s sunset. The sky is mauve; the little lines of clouds have turned pink.
A small blue boat, laden with fish, arrives at the dock. The fishermen on the boat pack their fish. They throw the tiny ones into the cove, while sea-gulls wheel and dart around them, screaming in greedy excitement. A few campers -- and every cat in the campground! -- wait for them to bring dinner ashore.
Behind this cat, ten more!
This cat's first in line!
We head back to enjoy the delicious super-fresh fish dinner Nikolos prepares. Nikolos is a great cook! His Greek salads are the best we’ve ever eaten.
To finish up, he smartly delivers free shots of ouzos, a relaxing high-octane digestive. We sit and talk late and long, watching the moon slip up over a high rocky ridge.
Mavra and Nikolas
At our campsite, new friend, a white half-wild kitty, adopts Amira. Amira names her Boo-Boo.
Boo Boo gets very relaxed with Amira.
Amira takes Boo-Boo down to the beach under her arm and asks the fisherman to throw fish her way. They oblige, and soon there’s enough fish for Boo Boo and us too.
It turns out that the cats, especially the young ones, have a hard time with the raw fish. After a woman who had been feeding the cats packs up and leaves, Amira is soon frying fish for us -- and a large number of cats.
Amira on the dock, waiting for the fishing boat to come in!
In the nearby village, we find the best pastry since France. There’s delicious cake! There’s amazing chocolate gelato with a unique chocolate sauce that hardens in the few seconds it takes the baker to hand it to you! It’s better than Italy, and that's saying a lot!
For the friendly young man who owns the shop, everything he makes is a work of art.
Lefkada's haunting seascape
Turquoise Waters
We like to eat late breakfast around lunchtime. The Wine Vat, an eatery and pub run by local Brits, serves delicious bacon and eggs all day, with baked beans, tomatoes, and strong English tea. Yum!
We enjoy hanging out in what is, in fact, a pub, transplanted from Liverpool to a Greek beach – good move! There’s darts, beer, cricket on the big-screen TV, and English accents mixing it up with the local folks.
In downtown Lefkada, we find a Carrefour’s Market that has good food at good prices -- fresh-roasted chicken, good cheeses, and yogurt. It’s like finding an old friend from France.
Before the Rain
DELPHI, GOOD-BYE TO FREE FLOW THE VAN,
ONWARD TO ISRAEL
Originally, we planned to return to London, sell the van, and fly to Asia. However, we’ve dawdled. Here we are in Greece with winter upon us.
A new plan emerges: store the van in Greece, fly to Thailand, then back to India, then back to Greece. From there, we’ll drive back through Europe by a different route, wind up in the U.K. in time to join Dan and Sarah, dear old friends, and board a bargain cruise ship to Florida a year hence in November.
This would extend our trip to a year and a half! Well, we never committed to an exact plan!
Now, though, nature and climate change step in to change our plans again. Massive flooding in Thailand begins just before we buy our tickets. Thailand is no longer an option.
Castostrophic Flooding in Thailand
We cannot simply fly to India. India allows a six-month stay, but you must obtain a visa before you land in India, or you will be immediately deported. We didn’t get it sooner, since the time on the visa begins from the day you get it.
Athens is full of protests and tear-gas. We are sympathetic to large peaceful effective protests. We fully understand the anger, Greece has become an international bankers' scapegoat. Trying to get a visa downtown right now looks dicey.
An online check shows that we can get a visa for India more easily in Tel Aviv, Israel. Michael had always wanted to visit Israel anyway, so we decide to go for two weeks.
Nikolas offers to store Free Flow the van at his campground; Mavra asks him to give us a good price, which he generously does.
We decide to visit Delphi before leaving for Israel, a stunning archaeological site, the spiritual center of ancient Greece. The drive to Delphi begins with a stop in the seaside village of Pailaros.
Michael gets an old-fashioned non-electric haircut, beard trim, and shave from a barber with one chair who speaks not a word of English. We have fun laughing together communicating by hand signals.
Then we walk toward the harbor. We pass a few Muslim women wearing face-veils and scarves. We smile, but we’ll never know if they smiled back!
We want moussaka for lunch. At the first little place, the cook (from Bangladesh!) speaks more English than any Greek we meet in this small country seaside village.
He comes out to explain that moussaka is a big casserole. With so few customers at this time of year, it might not get used up in a day, and he would never serve day-old food.
He suggests another dish that tastes very much like moussaka, with ground lamb, cheese, pasta, and eggplant, that can be can cooked up fresh on the spot. It is called pastitsio, it’ a layered pasta.
He asks Amira, “Would you like to try it?”
Amira says, “Sounds fabulous to me!”
Delicious! We order pastitsio a couple more times along the way.
We cruise the waterfront, snap a few pictures, and then walk back up the steep hill to Free Flow. The air and the water here are clear and fresh. The village looks like little has changed for many years.
On the highway again, we drive for miles seeing little traffic, rare villages, and endless blue water and islands.
Why do so few people live here? Beauty isn’t everything. The soil is rocky and there’s a long, hot dry season. It would be hard to make a living here.
If much of Greece looks as remote as this, we are not amazed to learn that the population of the whole country is only eleven million. Yet, every day we read that, somehow, the whole world economy hangs in the balance if the folks in this little country don’t keep taking more wage and benefit cuts.
To us, it looks like they’ve been behind the curve for a long time. They help just keeping the main highways drivable.
We see more animals than people along this bumpy highway. We stop to let a flock of sheep cross.
Then it happens! After being constantly offered ham sandwiches, bacon, and sausage, all across Europe, we actually see our first live pig, in Greece! It’s a big, wild boar-looking sort of pig, happily snuffing about.
We still do not know where they are hiding all the pigs in Europe. Wherever you are, dear pigs, blessings!
We finally arrive at a slightly more populated area. In the distance, from our road winding along a cliff, we see a big, dramatic, white suspension bridge spanning the Gulf of Corinth.
It leads to the southern half of Greece, the Peloponnese. We do not cross it -- Delphi is a couple more hours driving along the north shore of the Gulf, and then a steep climb up a winding road into mountains. It will be after dark when we get there.
Sunset on high peaks in the Peloponnese.
The Gulf of Corinth from the road up to Delphi at dusk
There are three campgrounds near Delphi that our guidebook says should still be open, but the first two are closed for the season. We are beginning to wonder where we will sleep this night.
The third one, at the top of the mountain, just a kilometer from Delphi, is still open. What a relief! It’s late, and we are so grateful for the warm welcome we receive from the owners.
In the morning, we awake to a dramatic cliff-top view of big snow-covered mountains in the Peloponnese to the south and, to the north, more snowy mountains at the head of up a deep valley with thousands of olive trees across its floor.
Poppi, a sweet woman who works at the campground, brings us a gift of food she has cooked: lamb, and cake. She teaches us the Greek word for “very good.” It sounds something like polikasa, and we instantly apply it to her edible offerings!
Amira and Poppi
The drive into the little town of Delphi, clinging to the side of a big mountain, takes just five minutes. Narrow one-way streets are crowded with little shops, bars, and places to eat. It’s a tourist town, but the tourists are gone.
Ruins have never been our thing, but Delphi surprises us and pulls us in. We spend a week here!
"Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and a major site for the worship of the god Apollo . . . Apollo [is]a god of light and the sun, truth and prophecy, healing, plague, music, poetry, and more. . .
Apollo was an oracular god — the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle. Medicine and healing are associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or . . . through his son Asclepius"(Wikipedia)
Apollo
For me, who once taught philosophy, Delphi plays a major role in another story: it was the place of a major turning point in the life of a hero of mine, Socrates.
Socrates
Here's the story: Socrates' life as the "gadfly" of Athens began when his friend ... asked the oracle at Delphi if anyone was wiser than Socrates; the Oracle responded that none was wiser.
Socrates believed that what the Oracle had said was a paradox, because he believed he possessed no wisdom whatsoever.
Socrates proceeded to test the riddle by approaching men considered wise by the people of Athens — politicians, statesmen, poets, and philosophers — in order to refute the Oracle's pronouncement.
While each man thought he knew a great deal and was wise, by the time Socrates finished asking them how they knew what they thought they knew, he realized in fact they truly knew little and were not wise at all.
Socrates realized the Oracle was right... while so-called wise men thought themselves wise yet were not, he knew he was not wise at all. Paradoxically, he was wiser -- since he was the only person aware he knew nothing.
Socrates' paradoxical wisdom made the prominent Athenians he publicly questioned look foolish, turning them against him and leading to accusations of wrongdoing.
Socrates defended his role as a gadfly to the end. At his trial, he was asked to propose his own punishment. He suggests free dinners for the rest of his life, to finance the time he spends as Athens' benefactor.
This angered the judges. He was found guilty of corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens, and of impiety ("not believing in the gods of the state"). He was sentenced to death by drinking poison hemlock.
Socrates turned down the pleas of his friend Crito to attempt an escape from prison. On the day of his execution, after drinking the poison, he was instructed to walk around until his legs felt numb. After he lay down, the man who administered the poison pinched his foot. Socrates could no longer feel his legs. The numbness slowly crept up his body until it reached his heart.
Shortly before his death, Socrates speaks his last words: "Crito, we owe a rooster to Asclepius. Please, don't forget to pay the debt."
Asclepius was the Greek god for curing illness, and it is likely Socrates' last words meant that death is the cure — and freedom, of the soul from the body. (This account from Wikipedia)
I have little doubt that this was true, At his trial, Socrates accuses the Athenians: "Are you not ashamed that you give your attention to acquiring as much money as possible, and similarly with reputation and honor, and give no attention or thought to truth and understanding and the perfection of your soul?"
One of the most impressive ruins at Delphi is the Sanctuary of Athena, goddess of Athens and philosophy.
Athena
Here is the most beautiful part of what's left:
The whole area and the museum are most interesting and impressive,here are pictures of just a bit of all we saw:
The Theater. Plays, classic and modern,
are still staged here!
We coast down the steep road from Delphi, drive back along the Gulf of Corinth, and take a different inland route back to Lefkada. We stop at dusk by a lovely little town on a lake, and make it back to our campground after dark.
We stay three more nights by this blue cove, re-packing our suitcases – it is going to be different without our cozy van! We prepare Free-Flow for a long winter’s rest.
The next day, Nikolos and Mavra welcome us back and generously help with everything.
Packing our suitcases for the first time since March!
Boo Boo gets left behind for the winter. She'll be OK!
Michael. looking a tad sad, leaving behind this beautiful cove, Europe, and Free Flow, our home sweet home since April.
Finally, it is time to go to the bus for Athens. Nikolos picks us up, and takes us for coffee and cake with Mavra at her little seaside hotel.
They are happy together, and we are happy in the thought that we will see them again.
Mavra at her little hotel the morning we left
After a five-hour, traffic-slowed trip, this time along the south shore of the Gulf of Corinth, we reach the central Athens bus station. It’s a chaotic madhouse!
We get help finding our bus to the airport. It’s late by now, and we are the only two people on the bus. The airport is semi-deserted this late on a Sunday.
Our flight to Ben-Gurion airport lifts off across the Athens city-lit night, and then over twinkling Greek islands around midnight. It is 1:00 AM when we land in Israel.
Our rental car information is confusing. By the time we find the right shuttle bus to Budget and leave the airport, it is 3:00 AM.
Our unbelievably tiny toy-like Suzuki hatchback inspires Amira to say, “It looks like a blow-up car.” Surprised, I give her an eyebrows-up glance. She quickly says, “I mean inflatable!” -- looking around to see if anybody had heard her.
We drive wide brightly lit freeways to an odd little “resort” near the beach in Mikmoret, a residential area half an hour north of Tel Aviv.
It’s 4:30 A.M. as we wait for a car to come through with a magnetic card to open the security gate to the village. The driver takes a little convincing.
Fortunately, we just do not profile as suicide bombers, and eventually he lets us in. Apparently, in Israel, love, laughter, and play only get you so far! But laughter helps!
Israel is expensive: this basic little place with shared kitchen is $72.00 worth of shekels a night. The next day, a determined investigation proves to us that we could not have found anything cheaper. There are beautiful sunsets.
Sunset on ther beach in Israel, Mikhmoret
I go swimming a couple times, but winter is still following us. The shore is windy and cool. At a beachside restaurant, I forget what country I’m in and order bacon and eggs, while Amira and the waiter look at me in jaw-dropping disbelief. Then they both laugh, and remind me: “Not in Israel!”
Much of Israel is a desert, but not beautiful red-rock country. Low, rocky, sandy hills and forlorn bushes with occasional palms line the route to the Sea of Galilee.
Then we get to the “Sea” . . . I pull all my photographer's best tricks to make it look good; truth is,it looked better in imagination.
The Sea of Galilee
Mark Twain's book about his visit to the "Holy Land," INNOCENTS ABROAD, was his all-time best-seller. It may have been his most bitingly sarcastic and ironic book, and that’s saying something.
He wrote, “If all the poetry and nonsense that have been discharged upon the . . . bland scenery of this region were collected in a book, it would make a most valuable volume to burn.”
This is Twain’s description of the Sea of Galilee: “. . . a lake, six miles wide and neutral in color; with steep green banks, unrelieved by shrubbery; at one end bare, unsightly rocks . . . to the eastward low desolate hills.”
The man, as usual, speaks the truth. Don’t go here for the scenery!
Let’s tell the truth ourselves, we didn’t come here for the scenery. We stop for a quiet picnic lunch at outdoor hotel tables, and then drive on to a Catholic church built on the spot where Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount.
This is the dome of the church over where it is thought Jesus gave "The Sermon on the Mount."
The Popes have their names on just about everything
On the way in, the biggest picture is a cardboard cutout of the current Pope. I resist my brief impulse to toss it. I look for interesting photographs:
It’s a pretty spot with a few trees, a lawn, a gift shop, and a line of tourist buses. People from all over the world come here, just as we have.
It’s so far from a natural scene of a poor country carpenter delivering pearls of wisdom atop a hill, that it’s a challenge to connect with the historic, inner depth of what happened here.
Jesus’ teachings changed the world forever, and were the inspiration for the practice of non-violence, which may be the world’s only hope.
This is where Jesus said the humble would inherit the earth. This is where he said, “Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”
You have to study this to understand it -- it's a lot more subtle than you might think.
Here’s the history: women and slaves were hit with the back of the hand. If by a right-handed person, hit on the right cheek; a fist was only for peers; if you turn and expose the left cheek, right after the slap on the right -- visualize this -- you invite the more intimate palm, or the fist, as the arm of the attacker is extended by his backhand slap.
Meaning: “Go ahead. I'm your equal. I'm human too. I’m a child of God. You cannot touch my soul with violence.”
This teaching's about keeping your soul, dignity, and inner peace when the world offers you nothing but violence and oppression. It’s about what is now called non-violence, but there’s nothing about weakness or being a doormat in it.
The comic hipster, Lord Buckley, said something to the effect, “Hey, The Naz (his nickname for the man from Nazareth) was, like, deep into, fully hip to the trip, about the powerful and powerless, about peace and love as the way to takin’ back your power.”
Buckley’s right. Power of spirit is the power of compassion even for one’s oppressor, while firmly, humbly resisting their effort to degrade you by violence.
The power of Spirit reveals the narrowness, weakness, and fear that underlie the power of wealth and force. When you feel that, you know why Jesus inspired our time’s two most amazing leaders: Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King.
On the way home, we stop briefly in Cana. Amira is not up to another mélange of tourists and buses and hawkers. While she relaxes, I look around.
Church at Cana
This is where Jesus performed his first miracle, reluctantly, at the request of his Mother.
A Medieval painting of Jesus and his Mother at the Wedding in Cana, with halos
Wine jars from ancient Cana
Here’s the story: “While Jesus was attending a wedding in Cana with his disciples, the party ran out of wine.
Jesus' mother told Jesus, "They have no wine."
Jesus replied, "O Woman, what have I to do with you? My hour has not yet come."
His mother then said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."
Jesus ordered the servants to fill containers with water and to draw out some and take it to the chief steward waiter.
After tasting it, and not knowing where it came from, the steward congratulated the bridegroom on departing from the custom of serving the best wine first by serving it last. (It was usual to serve the good wine first, and the inferior after most were a bit drunk.)
Worshipers in the church at Cana, backed by contemporary painting of the wine jars
For me, the true, deeper spirit of Jesus, in Hebrew his name is Yeshua, comes through in this celebration of love and good wine. For me, this place has a sweet, deep vibration to it. It gives me a tingle.
The next day we go to Haifa on the north coast, high up on a mountain rising out of the sea. The streets are steep -- it feels like a bit of San Francisco on the Mediterranean.
We go to see the Baha’i’ Gardens, The holiest spot for the Baha'i' faith.
The Baha’i’ gardens, looking way down to the Sea
We somwhow wind up in a little Arab neighborhood and a little hole-in-the- wall place that serves delicious “shwarma” -- lamb scraped from a big hunk of meat on a turning spit, to which any number of things can be added. There’s always hummus (pureed chickpeas), along with sliced tomatoes, peppers, onions, etc., etc.
The folks in a tiny bakery shop, where Amira bought four-inch pizzas with cheese and spinach, send us here. Most of the Arabs we’ve met living in Israel are, to our surprise, Christians, especially in Haifa.
We pass hookah shops -- there are many Muslims here too. Haifa is proud of its long reputation for religious freedom and tolerance.
We hunt for a sort of bohemian coffee shop in a down-at-the-heels, artsy little neighborhood, hoping for interesting conversation. There’s only a couple people there, it’s too early on Saturday for a crowd.
Amira asks a man by a hookah shop what they’re used for.
He says, with a knowing smile, “Mainly, tobacco.”
We talk a little, and Amira asks about peace between the Jews and Arabs.
He says, “We don’t sit around and talk about peace. We just live here. Nobody says we have to like each other!”
So much for our hope of finding a spot where folks enjoyed identifying first as human beings!
We drive back to our humble digs in Mikhmoret, remembering that we came to Israel partly to get an Indian visa. The next morning Amira manages to talk to a helpful man in the Indian Embassy, and he tells us we are short on time, and urges us to go immediately to a travel agent in Tel Aviv.
Near the sea in Tel Aviv
We drive in Tel Aviv until we know we’re lost (as planned!), and hail a taxi to make sure we get to the agent just before they close.
The young woman Israeli travel agent thinks we have no chance to get it done before the date on our non-refundable plane tickets to India. She is having a computer problem with a receipt, and calls her boss.
It’s a good thing, because the boss decides, when she hears the details, to come right over. She just happens (!) to be with an Indian woman from the Embassy, who agrees to take our applications with her that very day.
The Indian man who originally agreed to make sure it would happen also comes through, and it all works out in the end; he even allows us to pick up our visas ourselves late on Friday afternoon, because the agency closes at 1:00 PM on Shabbat, and the visas won’t be ready until 4:00 PM.
It’s entirely against protocol, but it happens! It’s all a bit dramatic! Had we not got the visas on time, it would have been a major and costly hassle. We could not help feeling that if there are such things as luck and synchronicity, this is what it looks like when they show up! We are so relieved.
We celebrate that night in Tel Aviv, rejuvenated by the best shwarma on the trip, which we find at the stall of friendly young Jewish man who serves us at sidewalk tables.
We drive the freeway from Mikmoret to Jerusalem. This is where Israel gets prettier. We drive up into higher ground. It is much greener. There are trees and flowers. It also gets colder – colder than we’ve been for quite a while.
Of course, we get lost! By now, you know the story, and so do we! An angel shows up, a busy young Jewish man. He puts aside everything and leads us to our hotel, the not-recently-refurbished, kosher Park Hotel.
We park our car in the last spot in the hotel lot, and do not drive again until we leave for the airport. Getting lost once in this big city was enough for us.
We were not looking for the Ritz, or kosher, either; we were looking for the best deal, and this was it. The food was part of the deal!
There was a huge free buffet breakfast and half-off buffet dinner every day. Best part -- the food was good! Food is a very big thing here. Amira explains: “I’m Jewish and I know what I like: quantity, quality, and a great deal!”
This hotel had a special elevator that, on Shabbat, stopped at every floor without having to push a button. Well, it stopped at every floor whether you wanted to stop or not, that’s how they got around pushing a button.
Pushing a button is “work.” The Law forbids work to orthodox Jews on Shabbat. This elevator is no doubt a blessing to the Orthodox. However, when we enter it, we do not realize it is a Shabbat elevator -- who knew there would be seven full stops, from the lobby to our floor? No button pushing for your floor needed!
Here’s the good news: Jerusalem has just opened a shiny new metro train two weeks before we arrive, and we can see a station from our window. For now it’s free, it’s simple; it’s easy, clean, and comfortable. Trains run every fifteen minutes, until midnight. We can see this amazing artistic new suspension bridge the train goes over from our window in the hotel.
Of course, it doesn’t run on Shabbat, but you can’t have everything. Besides, everything is closed on Shabbat, so it doesn’t matter.
Except that, On Shabbat, you can only find food in the Arab quarter of the old city, for which we need the train. Even the hotel stops serving. We walk to an international Holiday Inn.
Shabbat is the one day that Jerusalem, with pretty much non-stop honking horns – you wonder, has this country been taken over by New York cab drivers? The whole city goes so silent it feels eerie.
The rest of the time, Amira says, “Jerusalem feels like New York on steroids!” These drivers are absolutely stressed out! Maybe stopping feels more dangerous here? It’s off the charts for road rage and horn honking.
Italy used to be the leader, but they seem to have settled down. In this contest, New York is a mere also-ran.
Israel feels uptight and tense. Could it be the missiles lobbed in from Gaza? Could it be Iran promising to wipe the country from the face of the earth with nuclear bombs? Who knows?
It’s a tough crowd for laughs. Seriously, the spirit of seriousness has made serious inroads here into the culture of schmoozing and joking.
Everybody here has had mandatory military training – everybody except the black-clad Talmud-studying Hassidim, hurrying about without a look to the right or the left, in their black old-fashioned top-hatted outfits—nary a smile or no laughs in that crowd!
Quite a few folks, of both sexes, have fought in wars where Israel’s very existence was at stake. Are they easy game for a smile or a laugh? Not so much.
Even so, the most famous Jew of them all, Jesus, could still keep his sense of humor when times were tough. In another bit from the Sermon on the Mount, he said, "If they sue you for your coat, give them your underwear too!"
That is a court- room joke punch line for the super poor, for folks way past losing the house to foreclosure. Nakedness as non-violent protest strategy continues to be popular. I bet few know “the ever-lovin’ Naz” recommended it.
The first place we go to see in Jerusalem is the “Wailing Wall” – this is all that’s left, the western wall, of the original Temple in Jerusalem. It is the holiest spot in the world for Jews.
It’s where Jews from all over the world go to pray, the original capital of Israel. It’s the place where the ancient wandering desert tribes made their first home after escaping from slavery in Egypt.
This is where they finally placed the precious Ark of the Covenant that contained the Ten Commandments, the laws of human life brought down by Moses from God. The original temple was destroyed in the Babylonian exile; the Second Temple was built on this same spot. For millennia, daily prayers have been said here.
There are parts of the Wall above ground, but the oldest parts of the Wall, with stones from the First Temple, require entering underground excavations.
Amira heads in to pray here, in the women’s section, but is stopped and told that, in order to enter this part, she needs a ticket. She knows there’s no charge for a Jewish woman to pray in the temple. However, it takes considerable insistence on her part before the guards acknowledge that she’s right, and let her in.
Their job is to raise money for the excavations, though, in the end, they admit they have no right to insist on a contribution for prayer. Amira is able to go in pray, and she sees the archaeological excavations along the way for free. There’s almost nothing in the world that make’s Amira feel closer to God than “free!”
The Wailing Wall is in the “old City,” a small but central part of urban Jerusalem, surrounded by high walls with seven famous gates.
"Old City" of Jerusalem. Wall foreground. Temple Mount with golden Muslim dome. Modern city beyond
Jaffa Gate, one of seven gates through the walls of the Old City
The Old City Wall
There are different sections for Jews, Christians, and Muslims. When we come out from the Wall area, we we’re served a delicious but rather expensive shwarma dinner in a little Arab restaurant. Though there are more dishes, it is no better than the delicious $2 shwarma we ate in the street Tel Aviv café.
The streets of the old city are too narrow for cars, and are filled with hundreds of tiny stalls selling tourist schlock, endless religious paraphernalia, fine and cheap cloth, clothes, crafts, etc., etc.
Super Jew T-Shirts are a popular item. My favorite t-shirt is “Who needs Google? Ask my wife. She knows everything!”
It takes a little imagination to realize you have never been in a shopping mall this old. Their narrow streets and crowds make me feel a bit claustrophobic.
Perhaps, for folks like me, a new modern mall has been built right outside the Jaffa gate, brought to you by all your favorite multi-national corporations – Rolex, Gap, L’Oreal, Nintendo, Panasonic, Sony, and Vodaphone, etc., -- almost all wares made, of course, in China.
We were on our way to see the Garden of Gethsemane when a young German man, Sebastian, who we had met walking – said he had heard that the steep Mount of Olives was best reached by taxi.
Michael, Amira, Sebastian
When we looked for a taxi, an Arab taxi driver, Sami, offered the three of us a great deal to take us out to Bethlehem, provide us with a guide, and return us to the top of the Mount of Olives.
After a few winding mountain roads and checkpoints, we arrive in Bethlehem in the West Bank, the part of old Palestine now populated largely by Arabs, many in exile from the part of the original Palestine that is now the state of Israel.
A wonderful Arab guide brings us to the holy spots around the birth of Jesus.
He knows the whole story well, and since these places are so very old, they are excavated, and you literally have to go underground to see them. He takes us to the supposed exact spot where Jesus was born.
We go down a narrow tunnel to a tiny underground room. Here we find folks kissing a rock in the ground. Just to make sure that nobody kisses the wrong rock, this rock is clearly marked with beautiful inlaid silver work and surrounded by red velvet curtains, unbelievably ornate hanging lamps, and incense holders.
It is evident that the Orthodox and Catholic Churches are running this show. The Protestants apparently have lost all interest, and they never had a chance to get involved anyway.
On the way out, across the square, we see a tower draped with a large picture of Yasser Arafat. The Palestinians are seeking recognition in the United Nations, and there’s a big banner up saying, “Yes we can!”
We are led to a small shop and served coffee and mint tea while we peruse homemade crafts. The local Arabs are kind to us in every way. Out of gratitude, I put down five bucks for my first ever rosary beads. Here are a few other photos in Bethlehem:
"O Adonai" literally translates "O Lord," and is an ancient Christian names for Jesus.
St Jerome, who spent the last 32 years of his life in a hermit's cell near Bethlehem, translating the Old Testament, other scriptures, and debating theology.
Thjis young Arab boy charged us a few shekels to take this picture in Bethlehem, but it was worth it!
We love Sami, our taxi driver. He tells us his father raised him to be happy and love everybody. He looks happy. He says it helps never to watch the news. He is an Arab, we do not ask what his religion is, Christian, or Muslim, it’s irrelevant.
Sebastian asks Sami to drive us to see the famous graffiti artist Banksy’s work; we go to see the most famous work of wall art, a man throwing not rocks but flowers.
We return to the top of the Mount of Olives and fall in with a group with a wonderful guide, an American Jew from New York who immigrated to Israel. He takes us to the Garden of Gethsemane, to a beautiful church built for international peace, before leading us back into the walled city.
Garden of Gethsemane
International Peace Church in Garden of Gethsemane
Here he keeps up a fascinating and amazingly informed commentary as we see the Baths of Bethsaida, and the traditional route Jesus walked to be crucified, the Via Dolorosa with its “stations of the Cross.”
Inside the Old City
Sign on Via Dolorosa, Way of Sorrow
It is said that Jesus, carrying the cross, fell, and touched the wall of the street here
Jesus of course was born a Jew, died a Jew, and was buried as a Jew in a Jewish burial crypt. It’s odd that I should feel it necessary to mention this, but he is the world’s best-known Jew, and that’s not forgetting other Jews with top billing, like Einstein, Freud, and Marx.
Amira, Jewish, had known this intellectually of course, but it is a major revelation, as she sees the place of the Jesus’ crucifixion and burial, for her really to get in touch with the historical Jesus as a Jew.
To understand that, for the first three or four hundred years, the vast majority of Christians were also Jews, was a revelation too. Like most Jews, what she mainly knows about Christians is the Catholic Church, anti-Semitism, the Inquisition, and the Holocaust.
Of course, she had come to an appreciation of Jesus separate from Christianity early on. Yet, understanding things like how Jesus had, by Jewish law, to be buried quickly on Friday night before Shabbat, makes the Jesus of history being Jewish much more real to her.
Our guide is excellent on all these kinds of details; his lucidity and knowledge of archaeology and history is a great gift.
Narrow street in Old City
The most important site on the tour is the church built over the place where it is believed that Jesus was crucified and buried. Of this holy of holies, Mark Twain wrote, “One naturally goes first to the Holy Sepulcher. It is right in the city, near the western gate; it and the place of the crucifixion, and, in fact, every other place intimately connected with that tremendous event, are ingeniously massed together and covered by one roof -- the dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher."
Where Jesus was crucified
Jesus being taken down from the cross.
Painting of Jesus being prepared for burial
Where Jesus was prepared for burial
The place archaeologists believe Jesus was actually buried, a crypt hewn into the stone. This spot was originally outside the city, no burials were allowed within the city walls. Eventually the city expanded to include it.
This is the spot inside the crypt where Jesus body was put. There's just enough room for one person lying down.
The entrance to the crypt
Before the crypt was excavated, the Coptic church believed their church to have been built over the spot Jesus was entombed
This territory has been exactly divided up with a portion for each Christian group -- the Armenians, the Greek Orthodox, the Syrians, and the Catholics. (The Protestants came too late, nothing for them – with usual Protestant austerity, they probably don’t much care.)
Fisticuffs and riots have been known to occur in cases of trespass. In the name of peace, the State of Israel turned the whole thing over to the Muslims to keep order, and that’s how it is today. That’s it. Don’t ask!
Our favorite people in Israel are Eugene and Carolyn, a couple from Maryland who we meet at our hotel breakfast buffet. We hear them speaking English with an American accent, and strike up a conversation. We are having a bit of a time finding friendly folks with smiles; we enjoy meeting them and sharing our experiences.
They are Christians who have come to see the Holy Land, and like us, are finding the whole experience of Israel somewhat strenuous, and jarring. A vacation it is not.
The day after the four of us met, Eugene and I find one another in the lobby. He said, “Michael, if you have a moment, I just need somebody to talk to about my day.” He looks like he really needs to talk, albeit with a bit of a comic puzzlement that suggests detachment.
He says he is flustered by how unholy the Holy Land was for him that day. It seems the price of the trip to Bethlehem -- or was it the Dead Sea? -- tripled somewhere along the way, and working that out was no fun.
Then, due to the gender division at the Wailing Wall, he and Carolyn got separated. For quite a while, they couldn’t find one another. He was wailing for his lost wife at the Wall!
Eugene uses a cane, and trying to get through the unmoving crowd of Jewish men praying in the underground section of the Wall, he felt ready to use it on somebody. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth before they were reunited. Eugene was in trauma recovery!
We sit down in the lobby. Amira and Carolyn show up. We all relish the chance to talk. Our experience of Israel has been similar to theirs, and we need to laugh about it. Amira decides that the perfect medicine for the tension, stress, and pain is to tell her Mother’s favorite Biblical joke:
“Can you name the five most constipated men in the Bible?” One: Cain – he wasn’t able. Two: Solomon – heaven and earth couldn’t move him. Three – David -- He sat on the throne for forty years. Four -- Moses -- He took two tablets and went into the mountains. Last, but certainly not least, is Noah – he was on the Ark for forty days and forty nights, and all he passed was water!
We make a date to have dinner together with them just before they leave. At dinner, Amira shares the only question she asked our guide during the Jerusalem tour:
“Would Jesus have had brown skin and kinky hair -- not blond with blue eyes and white skin?”
The guide says, “Absolutely! He was a Middle Eastern Jew, that’s how he would have looked”
To which Amira adds, “Eugene! He would have looked a lot like you!”
Eugene laughs, smoothes his kinky hair a bit, turns to Carolyn, and says, “Yeah, Baby, I told you that you were hooked up with somebody pretty special here!”
We have a lot of fun laughing together. Later, we both email that we were each other’s best experience in Israel!
ON TO INDIA
We leave Israel the day after they do, and fly to India, to Thiruvananthapuram – that’s right! It has taken me a long time to remember how to spell or say it -- it’s the capital of the state of Kerala at the southern tip of India.
We spend a week in the romantically named Venus Hotel in this, noisy, colorful, dirty, friendly, diesel-fumed city. Then we find a lovely country house to rent near the beach in a coconut jungle. Kerala, by the way means “Land of Coconuts.”
It takes skill and courage to get the coconuts when they are green and at their tender best.
As this post goes to the blog, we have been in Kerala almost four months. We’ve never gone further from our house than Thiruvananthapuram, half an hour away, a trip we make every week or two. We may actually get in the mood to travel again, but for the winter, we are enjoying just being, right where we are.
Looking forward to telling you all about our new friends and adventures here in Kerala. For now, must say, “Penay Kanam, Namaskaram!” That’s phonetic Malayalam for, “Good-Bye, See you later!”
