After hearing a lot of positive feedback about Tel Aviv I pleaded with all my friends hoping
to find someone who could be tempted by 4 days in Israel with a day trip to Jordan. Prab
eventually stepped forward and before we knew it we were in the sunshine of Tel Aviv
celebrating their annual White Night event – a city wide festival celebrating arts, music,
food and culture of Tel Aviv. We instantly warmed to the city with it’s long golden beach,
warm climate, relaxed atmosphere and great nightlife!
The festival was fantastic the streets were alive and the atmosphere was euphoric. The highlight for us being the outdoor stage with a DJ playing trance classics and floor fillers! Prab’s first experience of trance music was a memorable one, more so than his first experience of techno which was soon to follow with sizable implications…!
A late night and an early start for our day trip with Tourist Israel, but it was all worth it to see some amazing sights!
- the spot where Jesus was believed to have been baptised
- Dead Sea where we were able to float around trying our best to keep the water off
our faces and out of our eyes! Useful tip: keep a bottle of fresh water nearby!! As
soon as you stepped in from the shore you feel the water pushing you upwards, it
really was a surreal experience! And not to mention the mud baths left our skin
feeling squeaky clean afterwards! - A guided tour of the Old City of Jerusalem taking in the very magnificent Church
of the Sepulchre, Via Dolorosa and Western Wall - Finishing with a quick trip in to Palestine to see the Church of Nativity in
Bethlehem.
That night we got caught up in the moment meeting some locals and with spirits high partied on in to the night with what we thought was a beach day of relaxation that was to follow before our mammoth day trip to Petra on the Monday… 5am came and went in the club and I soon noticed I had a few missed calls from an unknown number, thinking nothing of it we powered on having the time of our lives with our new best friends. We spent the day relaxing once again on the beach. TA has many comfortable settings to rest a sore head, mainly down by the beach in the beach bars or under a sun lounger listening to the gentle waves.
For the evening we prepared for our early start the following day to Petra in Jordan.. as I took out the plane tickets it suddenly dawned! We were supposed to be in Jordan today!! I had messed up the dates and as we danced away to techno music that morning we were supposed to be at the airport en-route to Eilat in the south (the missed calls were from the travel agent). Panicking we called the Tour Operator and with luck there were two spots available for Monday on the tour from Eilat to Petra. Unfortunately, there were no TA to Eilat flights available so with some luck we managed to squeeze on to a very uncomfortable night bus heading south that would drop us off just in time for the day trip! We arrived in plenty of time and decided to head to the airport with the hope of managing to find two seats heading back that night. By now, it was 5am. We sat outside the closed airport before being the first in, we wandered aimlessly trying to find some assistance that was not forthcoming…
I can now see how it might have been suspicious – two foreigners looking for last minute flights that evening after heading in to Jordan for the day, the border of which was closed to Israelis. Alas we found no flights but were advised to try again that evening.
Exhausted we headed for the pick-up point, and after a drawn out border crossing we made it in to Jordan and en route to Petra. The views outside were fantastic and we did our best to keep our eyes open to take it all in! At every toilet stop, we were on the coffee or energy drinks just trying to keep our eyes open to take in the amazing scenery!
Petra itself was fascinating, and we were certainly glad we made the effort to get over to see it! The site was almost empty, some of the locals told us that due to issues in recent years in the north of the country many tourists were staying away and another told us that any tour operators that has American citizens on it has to have an armed guard at all times. At most one local guessed there was less than 500 people on the site, in peak season before the issues in the area there could be up to 10,000 at any one time!
After a long, tiring but worthwhile day we returned to Eilat and decided to try the airport once again as we couldn’t bear the horrendous nightbus back, arriving at the airport we went through the initial security again and started asking around for any one way tickets on the final flights that evening. Coupled with us being noticed and recorded earlier that morning, I can now see why our behaviour was seen as suspicious and we were rightly detained by the authorities for questioning. We were separated, questioned in depth for what felt like an eternity but must have been no more than 15 minutes! Our stories were then compared and we were deemed to be telling the truth, given you couldn’t make up our situation! Things soon became a lot more relaxed and after all that we were told in about 15 seconds the flights were full and we had to leave the terminal immediately! The night bus it was…
The last day in TA was a quiet one; we barely left our beds or the beach. Nevertheless, we made the most of the sun and the warm sea water (for as long as we could bear the thousands of tiny stinging jellyfish).
