Masada Guest House, Israel
Having booked my flight to Israel on Tuesday, I arrived at the El Al check in at Heathrow on Thursday ready for the inevitable heavy security. There were more British police there, at the point any bad guy would be spotted, than I’ve noticed for any other flight, which made sense. I managed to be singled out for the classic ‘single guy travelling on his own’ profile, which the male and female Israeli security people wouldn’t let rest. “You don’t know anyone in Israel, why are you going there?”- “Because it’s warm, interesting and small enough to see in 10 days,” and “How much do you know about the problems in the middle east?”- “Probably more than everybody else on this plane,” (humble to a fault). Then “I’m a Platoon Sergeant in the British Infantry, I have been to Iraq and Afghanistan, I have got 3 weeks before I start training to go back again, I am seriously not the terrorist or peace activist you are looking for... now tell me a decent bar to go to in Tel Aviv!” Eventually they satisfied themselves that I wasn’t actually off to wage Jihad, and told me Mike’s Place on the waterfront is the place to go.
The flight was only notable for the outstandingly attractive El Al stewardesses, compared to BA, American Airlines and Emirates. I slept most of the way on the 5 hour flight which is just fractionally further than flying to Akrotiri in Cyprus. At this stage I thought it might be wise to memorise an address of a hostel to give at the other end, although I hadn’t booked anything, so I had a glance at the ‘Lonely Planet’ and got the name and address of a hostel, near the beach, near Mike’s Place, on Allenbey St. However, the most interesting thing I discovered in Lonely Planet (which I generally hate) was that Hamas, the ultra-lunatic Palestinian terrorist group that runs the Gaza strip, is the descendent of a gang set up in the 30’s to wage Jihad against the British there- and whose founder member was shot dead by British soldiers. Perhaps El Al at Heathrow could do with reading that.
We landed at about 10 PM and my first impression of Tel Aviv airport, which they won’t thank me for, is that the smell of Body Odour reminded me of the Afghan Army bases.
I decided to get a cab to Allenbey St to find somewhere to dump my kit, and the cabby was telling me his experiences in the Yom Kippur war in ’73 as a tank driver, which was all interesting. My alternative plan to a hostel was to find the Tel Aviv version of Inferno’s (called ‘Cats and Dogs’ BTW), and, er, ‘back myself’ to find some nice Israeli bird to accommodate me, however I discarded that idea as I couldn’t be bothered dragging my kit to a bar. I eventually found a decent hostel, 1 block back from the beach, and checked in about 1130PM. Before I’d even got to my room I was drinking beer with an interesting crowd of young guys in the foyer.
These were guys from the ‘Diaspora’ of non Israeli Jews, who’d come here from the US, South Africa and elsewhere to voluntarily join the Israeli Defence Force, the IDF, and they were a great crowd of guys. I had a couple of things going for me in their eyes- my own military experience, and the fact I’d gone out, years ago, with the cousin of Joel Stransky, who was not only the Springbok ’95 team’s version of Jonny Wilkinson, but is also from a prominent Jewish family in Johannesburg.
The other person sitting with us was also interesting, in an entirely different way. She was a non-Jewish, Norwegian teacher who had come out here with her ideals of saving the Palestinians from the Israelis... and after 2 months in the West Bank she utterly despised the Palestinians, and was much happier to be getting drunk in Tel Aviv. She appreciated my favourite definition of a conservative, as being a liberal who has been mugged.
Thursday night saw a couple of us going to Mike’s Place, watching some American Football game there, which kicked off at 3.30AM, and then proceeding to drink until the sun came up about 7. Definitely a good first impression!
Friday started slowly, and after a couple of hours on the beach (it’s 23C here) proceeded to another all night drinking session, so on Saturday I felt I had to make an effort to get more than 500m from my hostel. After walking off to find an ATM in the mid-afternoon I then got on the water front and headed South towards Jaffa. Without being flippant, Tel Aviv is like a cross between Miami Beach and Basra, which shouldn’t be as surprising as it may seem as Basra is another Middle Eastern port city and is only a short, F16 flight away across Syria- as Saddam Hussein’s own nuclear workers outside Baghdad discovered in the early 1980’s...
After 20-30 minutes walking among the Israelis enjoying their ‘Sunday’ Sabbath, I got to the old city of Jaffa and had a wander round. Jaffa is the ancient city, which Tel Aviv emerged from, and it was interesting to read an abridged history of who’d controlled it, ranging from the Persians (Iranians) to the Romans to ourselves. There’s some reference to ‘The British destroying buildings to allow armoured vehicles through’ in the 1930’s- well we were in charge, we could do what we liked...
After a Saturday night that started with watching the ‘soccer’ between England and Spain, it then deteriorated to once again drinking all night, at Mike’s Place. This is the place that a ‘British passport holder’ from Bradford or somewhere similar walked into and blew himself up, several years before the July 7th bombings in London, although they were all from the same gang. The staff generally sound American, although they will slip into Hebrew with some customers, and it reminded me of South Africa where everybody is bi-lingual, in terms of understanding, but will generally speak English or Afrikaans as they prefer. One of the managers was an older guy, from Toronto, who’d been a sniper in the IDF in the early 90’s, while the younger one, from New Jersey, had been an infantryman, but had been wounded by shrapnel in Lebanon in 2006. Interestingly, we met 2 girls of the right age to be doing military service, and 1 was about to start, while the other was a ‘refusenik’ who was dodging her service. While there was some talk of ‘her choice’, the older IDF veteran said “Right, and it should be our choice to deny you health care, the vote, etc...” No strong feelings there, then.
An all nighter then having to check out of my hostel at 11AM is always a good combination. I got the local bus up to Tel Aviv bus station, then on to Jerusalem bus station, which is about an hour’s journey. In Jerusalem I spent a couple of hours on the internet, waiting for my bus to Masada and saw dozens of Israeli soldiers going to/ from duty, but carrying their weapons and magazines, which was like being back in a yank ‘chow hall’ in Afghan. They actually looked far scruffier than the average British or American soldier would ever look, although I think you can tell which ones are in the infantry and which ones aren’t, like anywhere else. Unlike anywhere else, you also see civilians going around with M4 assault rifles, which is probably reassuring.
My bus to Mesada at 4.15PM, went out of Jerusalem and straight into the West Bank, which surprised me- and made me wish I had an M4. It was a commuter bus and just stuck to the highway, going past Jericho and heading south, via various ‘Settlements’, dropping off commuters as it got dark. Once we got to the Southern end of the West Bank we got to an IDF checkpoint where the bus was boarded by a very attractive Military Policewoman, before we were sent on our way. I’d asked the bus driver to let me know when we got to the ‘Masada Guest House’, about 20 k’s South of Ein Gedi, on the Dead Sea, and 2 hours from Jerusalem.
We pulled into the side of a road and he told me it was my stop, so off I jumped, with my raging hangover, into the night, and as the bus left I was just on my own, in the pitch dark with no clue where I was in relation to anywhere. I spotted a light at a checkpoint and after walking over to it I was pointed in the direction of the actual guest house, and prayed it wasn’t fully booked, otherwise I was in for a memorable night! Fortunately there was a spare bed, and I got my head down ready for this morning’s trip up to the old fort of Masada...
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