A Grand Entrance
elyobo — Sat, 20/06/2009 - 5:06am
The first step was to obtain a visa for June. Wait, actually the first step was to determine whether it was necessary to obtain a visa for June. Although they have several phone numbers, it doesn't appear that it's possible to speak to a person at the Israeli embassy in Amman - the phone numbers just direct you to a complicated machine that always ends up telling you the wrong information but will never let you get through to a human. It told us that they accepted enquiries from 2 to 4pm on Sundays, for a start - you still can't call them, and when we turned up to enquire in person they were closed.
We arrived again on Monday and quickly penetrated the dispirited looking crowd of Jordanians and Palestinians hanging around outside. Yes, you need a visa, June was told. But come back tomorrow - we can't do it today.
So we came back on Wednesday, after taking some time to consider instead a trip to Wadi Rum. Fear of brutal temperatures down in the desert drove us back, in the end, Wadi Rum was too scary at this time of year. So we arrived at the embassy at opening time, 8am. The crowd had more energy at this time of the day and was pressing up against the police barrier outside the embassy, trying to convince them to let them in. We pushed through and got our names onto a sheet of paper, but couldn't get inside.
A few people did manage to make it in, slowly, although no explanation as to their selection process was clear. People in the crowd told us a few stories; one man that had a brother currently scheduled for heart surgery here, who had been coming for the last six days without managing to get in to the consulate. Another who was Palestinian, but had a Jordanian husband, who was trying for the last 10 days to obtain a Palestinian identity card for her five year old son; the citizenship here is determined only by the father's nationality, no such thing as dual nationalities here!
It seems that foreigners have better luck, however, and we made it in after only a couple of hours of waiting. After shuffling from one queue to another for a few hours we made it into the consulate itself. Well, June did - they kept me outside so that they could give me a quick cross examination on our travels to Syria and Iran. It didn't seem to phase them, however, and after another hour or so of waiting we were let back out with the knowledge that a visa would probably be ready on the Thursday.
A phone call was received later that day saying that the visa was fine and that we should return at 1.30pm on Thursday to collect. Knowing that it wouldn't really be ready on time, we turned up then anyway and eventually got the visa at 2.30pm - sooner than we feared anyway.
As the closest border crossing to Amman, the King Hussein Bridge (aka Allenby) crossing, has insane closing hours (if travelling from Israel to Jordan, 8pm, but if travelling from Jordan to Israel, 2pm) we travelled north to Irbid and, using a combination of busses, taxis and minibusses, made it to the border itself. The Jordanian side was simple, but slow; after getting stamped out we had to wait for more than an hour to board a hugely overpacked bus to the Israeli side. After stopping to have the bus inspected for bombs, we went through the standard procedure of x-raying the luggage. After that, however, things started to slow down. Once they'd discovered our visits to Iran and Syria we were told that we'd have to wait; and wait we did. After providing more information (dates, reasons for visiting, what we did, where we went, who we met and so forth), both at separate windows so that our testimony could be compared, we sat down again. Luckily we had a game of scrabble available, which kept us going through the waiting.
Eventually we were let out; unfortunately after all public transport from the nearest town, Beit She'an, to Jerusalem had finished. The border police told us that the "official, government rate" for transport was 50 NIS to Beit She'an (it's about six kilometres - that's about AU$17 for six kilometres) - side note, this is apparently bullshit and there's no such thing as official rates, but as there's no public transport, you're screwed anyway. Anyhow, our taxi driver, once we'd found one, convinced us that we could take a bus from Afula, about 40km away, to Jerusalem at 11pm (border formalities having taken us about five hours, all up). The fare was officially set at 200 NIS, he claimed, and we believed him after the bullshit which the border police had told us. We knocked him down to 170 NIS, however, which is still over AU$50 for a 40km ride, and not too bad I suppose. Unfortunately the bus he promised us did not exist and we suddenly found ourselves stuck in the profoundly unexciting town of Afula.
Then good luck hit us, in the form of a couple of crazy girls in a convenience store. One was drinking straight vodka as she worked behind the counter, but upon hearing that we wanted to go to Jerusalem she flew into an animated (read: yelling) conversation with a friend, who picked up a phone and started making calls. Almost no English was spoken (and on our part, no Hebrew past shalom) but they managed to convey to us that a bus existed and that it was stopping at a petrol station somewhere reasonably close - another 50 NIS taxi ride would take us there. We still weren't clear, however, so we got them to call a friend of ours, Lee, who was waiting for us in Jerusalem. Through Lee's translation we were able to get the full details and were hustled into a taxi, our new friends waving wildly and jumping up and down in the convenience store, down to the service station at which the bus would stop.
One bus was there already, and ours pulled up less than a minute after our arrival. The scene was, for us, somewhat bizarre. Although thoroughly acclimatised to various forms of hijab and chador, the hordes of ultra-conservative Jews piling out of the bus were something new again. Black coats, wide brimmed hats and super long sideburns were abundant. Adding to the picture were the muscle tee wearing boy racers with their thumping music and the half-uniformed army boys and girls, no older than 18, wandering around with their semi-automatics hanging casually off their backs and kissing in the shadows.
The bus trip was anticlimactic in comparison, as the scenery isn't exactly spectacular in the early hours AM. We were picked up by Lee and her boyfriend on our arrival at 1am (thanks guys, you're the best!) and taken to grab some pizza before a quick drive through the old city and up to take in the view from a nearby hill. After that, quickly to bed out like a light (taking a few minutes to spam Facebook).
Forgot to put that last shot up there before, so tacking it on the end here.