Into Israel

Of all of the border crossings that we are doing on this trip, I was expecting the entry into Israel to be the tough one because of the necessary security. However, it turned out to be a breeze. We left ourselves almost 3 hours to get processed in Jordan, but due to checking in online we were able to avoid the queues, dump our baggage on the belt and move on to customs and security. We've seen people taking flights to Israel from other airports go through the whole 9 yards of pat downs, x-rays, wanding and removing various articles of clothing, but in Jordan it was just the standard process. It all meant that we were sitting airside in Starbucks about 30 minutes after we arrived with several hours to kill.

However, the flight was rather unusual. Amman and Tel Aviv are so close that it's only a 20 minute flight. The flight attendants handed out a juice carton to everybody before we took off, and that's the last we saw of them. They didn't even get out of their seats - there wasn't time. We cruised at 8000 feet, which meant that we waved at the cars below us. We kind of took off, skimmed the trees for a while and started gliding in to land.

We didn't need visas for Israel, and having been primed to ask the immigration staff not to stamp our passports (as some arab countries will deny you entry if they find an Israeli stamp), we were politely told that they don't stamp any passports anymore. Instead they gave us a small bar-coded business card, which we used at the turnstile further on to get into the country, then put them back in our passports to use in the turnstiles on the way out.

Arrival went like clockwork. The greeter was there with our name, and the driver was waiting outside for us to emerge. We were chauffeured to the hotel in a Mercedes with leather seats if you don't mind. The contrast was immediate. There was green about - grass and trees. Pretty much the first we had seen for a couple of weeks. Houses have tiled roofs instead of flat concrete, and there was blond hair walking down the streets.

After checking in, we grabbed a map, and walked all afternoon down through the markets and back streets of Tel Aviv to the Old Jaffa district. Two things immediately alerted us to the fact that this was an expensive country - beggars, and two minute noodles in convenience stores - the universal indicators. And expensive it is.

We have a new winner in the most expensive Big Mac competition. Looking back at our trip to Geneva a few years ago, our previous most expensive Big Mac Meal there was $12, while today in Tel Aviv we topped that with just over AU$13, about double the cost of home. For lunch, we settled on the cheapest meal we could find - a personal size pizza at $17. Everything is about double what it costs at home, and we aren't cheap by any means. Compared to $3 meals in Jordan yesterday, it's excruciatingly expensive. As another example, our hotel room is $330 per night.

It wasn't my finest hour as a tour guide. We didn't get lost I need to point out. However, the provided map only has the tourist spots in approximately the right location, but when you are actually walking, none of the buildings have any english names or signage, so I don't actually know if we saw any of the sights that we were meant to, though I know that we saw Bialik's house, the old Jaffa railway station from the time the British controlled Palestine, and the Suzanne Dellal Centre, which is Israel's foremost dance school, as they all actually had English signs.

Late afternoon saw us taking in the skyline of Tel Aviv from the Old Jaffa fort at twilight, which was lovely, and giving St Peters church the once over, then walking back to the hotel along the Mediterranean seafront as darkness fell. There were brides everywhere, all dressed up like meringues having their photos taken, and all with shivering attendants.

Dinner was a bit surreal. We chose a Dim Sum shop for cost reasons, and so there we were eating Gyoza in a Chinese restaurant in Tel Aviv while listening to Dusty Springfield songs!

Our hotel is lovely. Lovely is defined for us in fairly modest terms. It's a room with a kettle and more than one power point. But our hotel exceeds all expectations. It has a Shabbat elevator! A Shabbat elevator is an elevator which works in a special mode, operating automatically and stopping at every floor, a way to circumvent the Jewish law requiring observers to abstain from operating electric switches on Shabbat. They are mandated by a law passed in 2001, though the electric elevator was invented way back in 1880. Glad that their legislature is up with the times. Just wait till they hit the digital age.