Notes from trip to Israel and Jordan

Old May 26th, 2018, 07:51 AM
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Notes from trip to Israel and Jordan

We’re back from a wonderful trip to Israel and Jordan. Hubby and I are so very pleased that we finally made this trip - it was very enlightening and gave us a first taste of travel in the Middle East. I want to get this out of the way, as this is a very common question from a lot of people including us when we were in the planning stage: Is it safe to travel to Israel and Jordan. The answer is a resounding YES ! ! ! Do not base your assessment of travel safety to these 2 countries with what you see on tv and in the media. The demonstrations might be happening but for the average tourist, you will not see any of these scenes on tv, they are concentrated insome known pockets of areas that an average tourist would easily know with a little asking around.

This will not be a trip report but just some notes that others considering travel to Israel and Syria might find useful. These are vivid impressions from a first time tourist to the Middle East our flight from San Francisco arrived at 10:30 pm. From all my pre-trip research, I have an idea on our options. But before walking outside the airport, I hit the ATM for some local currency to pay for our transportation. I didn’t withdraw too much because I know I’ll get a better exchange rate from the money changers in town which turned out to be the case.

The first transportation I saw was a Nesher sheroot that’s going to Jerusalem so we took this. The driver will accept our US dollar. The fare is 60 shekels or if we want to pay in USD, $20 per person. I paid in shekels- fresh from the ATM machine. Contrary to what I’ve read previously, the driver did not wait to fill every seat in his van before he could leave. There were 6 of us passengers, with us being the last 2 he picked up, and off we went to Jerusalem. The entire trip was less than an hour. We were all dropped off in front of our hotels. We arrived late Saturday evening, Shabbat would be over. At almost midnight, the streets were full of people enjoying the weekend, most falafel and take out food joints we drove past had long lines. And yes, there was traffic at this time of the evening.

We longingly watched the lively scene from the van window and wished we were buying falafel from this one take out window that had a line that was at least 20 people deep. Our hotel for our first night, Hotel Yehuda, on the west side of Jerusalem was a ways from the action so our plan to walk back to this lively area to sample take out food didn’t happen. Our gracious hotel front desk guy made us some cheese and tomato sandwiches upon learning that we haven’t had dinner. And was quick to add, no charge for the food which I think he made himself from the hotel’s kitchen. I wondered if this is the Israeli “sabra” that I’ve read about as this guy didn’t seem the warm, fuzzy and chatty type when he was checking us in. He did give us a warm smile as he bade us goodnight and get some rest after we nourish ourselves on his sandwiches and milk. He did bring us a carton of milk to wash down the sandwich. Both sandwich and milk tasted good.

Next: Yad Vashem museum on our first day and check out to transfer to our original hotel near the Old City for 5 nights.
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Old May 27th, 2018, 02:44 AM
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Yad Vashem Museum

We decided to go today since our hotel is not too far from it - west of Jerusalem’s Old City. The complex is huge. The main museum building had a very interesting architecture and so do all the other structures in the museum. Every structure was thoughtfully designed using symbolic architecture to capture the plight and struggles of of the Jews, particularly during the holocaust.

The main building is shaped like 2 halves of the Star of David with a cleaver in between the two halves that is highly symbolic of the plight of the Jews who perished during holocaust. Every trip to a museum on holocaust is always a sobering experience including this one. We have visited several concentration camps in Germany and Poland, including the infamous Auschwitz, but the emotional impact remains the same. This museum puts a name on the many victims by telling their individual stories and circumstances. Even so, no museum can capture and tell the story of the 6 million victims. The numbers are just mind boggling.

Inside, artifacts and personal items of the victims are on display. Along with exhibits of the standard Nazi-issued striped clothing worn by the victims in the camps, there are videos and interviews of survivors, and the collage of pictures with names, birthdays and other personal information that filled the one room all the way to the cone shaped top with the skylight hole. We spent 4 hours at the museum and didn’t see everything. We saw big bus groups, IDF in their uniforms, students, independent tourists like us and just about people from all walks of like, I would put this museum at the top of must see list in Jerusalem.

We we took a taxi to retrieve our luggage left with the hotel’s front desk. It’s now around 1 pm but we were not hungry as we had a big breakfast at the hotel’s included buffet breakfast. Hummus for breakfast can be very filling. Then on to Waldorf Astoria, our hotel for the next 5 nights. WA is very well located just right outside Jaffa Gate of the Old City and behind Mamilla outdoor mall. The hotel rooms are sold out because of the inauguration of the new US embassy in Jerusalem which is scheduled in a few days. We booked our room using hotel points accumulated from all the business travels, otherwise the rooms are selling for upwards of $700 per night.

We settled into our opulent and spacious room and not long after started feeling the call of hunger. We headed out and walked a few hundred meters to take the light rail train with Yahade Mehuda market as our lunch destination. The street where the light rail train runs is pedestrianized and passes through the city hall and many shops and cafes. Fare is 5.90 shekels, tickets can be purchased from an auto dispenser that accepts credit card, located at each of the train’s stop. The ticket vending machine is user friendly and has English language option. We got off at the YM market stop and picked a casual restaurant nearby for our first meal of the trip. Hubby ordered falafel and I had a plated meat kabob lunch for a total cost of around 60 shekels. We have decided on having coffee and dessert in the market
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Old May 27th, 2018, 12:08 PM
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Nice report. One correction. The market is Machane Yehuda ( not as you wrote it)
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Old May 27th, 2018, 10:56 PM
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Elkaz, thanks for the correction. I’ve got it all backwards, lol ! I know I’m able to pronounce better than I can spell and write the name : Makh-neh-yuh-dah

I’m not sure why the rest of the post above was cut off. I will reconstruct the portion that was cut.
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Old May 28th, 2018, 07:35 AM
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Continued...coffee and dessert at Machane Yehuda market....

We bought different varieties of miniature baklava-looking dessert , sold by weight at Zalatimo’s and took it to a coffee shop a few stalls down. We perched ourselves at the counter table with the barstools facing passers by for front row people watching opp. The coffee and sweets were both very good and a nice break from Starbucks. By the way, throughout our 6 days in Jerusalem including the excursion to the West Bank ( Bethlehem ), we did not see a Starbucks. The closest to it that we saw was “Stars and Bucks” cafe in Bethlehem with a very similar round green logo that’s clearly a spoof of the original. We didn’t miss Starbucks coffee as the coffee sold in coffee shops throughout our trip were very good, sometimes even better than Starbucks’, especially the cappuccino.

We strolled and enjoyed the street scene outside after coffee. We planned on taking the light rail train if we get tired but ended up walking all the way back to our hotel. The street scene was
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Old May 28th, 2018, 09:56 PM
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Following along. We have toyed with visiting Jerusalem and Jordan for quite a while, so your impressions will be useful.
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Old May 29th, 2018, 01:52 AM
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Continued... ( my post keeps getting cut off mid sentence, not sure why )

...the street scene was very lively with families and their children doing their shopping and strolling, curious tourists (like us) with their cameras, street performers and people from all walks of life.

We freshened up a bit in the hotel and headed back to the Old City about 3 hours later after a light cheese sandwich and vegetable salad for dinner at our hotel’s restaurant. There’s a big light and music show production tonight and the next 2 days, just right outside David’s tower by the Jaffa Gate entrance “The Celebrations of the Middle Kingdom of the Golden Tooth”, some animated production in David’s Tower that can be viewed outside, performance by a local school’s youth orchestra and lots of dancing. It is a free show in celebration of Israel’s 70th year of independence. We watched a live musical concert on stage before entering the gate. The whole atmosphere was very festive and there were more entertainment inside the Old City. It was around 9 pm when we got there, most of the stores near the gate were still open until we left at 11 pm. We were happy to be part of this festive scene and celebrated with the locals with our cone ice cream. The temp was nippy in the low 60s Fahrenheit. ( my own conversion since they are on metric system. My mind and body relate better to English unit of measure for temp, distance, weight, etc )

Next: Holy Sepulchre, Via Dolorosa and other Christian pilgrimage sights
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Old May 29th, 2018, 05:50 PM
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We went to Israel for the first time last Oct-Nov. We had a great time. Went up to the Galilee and Golan which are lovely. Mind boggling ancient places.
Will be going back in Sept and checking out the Negev in addition to staying in Jerusalem again
Yes, Israel is relatively safe to go to. Guarantees? No of course not. But when we were in Israel there was a terrorist attack on the West Side Drive in NYC and a school shooting in Texas.
People were friendly and the food! Yowsa yummy.
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Old May 29th, 2018, 09:34 PM
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throughout our 6 days in Jerusalem including the excursion to the West Bank ( Bethlehem ), we did not see a Starbucks.
Starbucks opened 6 branches in Israel about 15 years ago but went bankrupt in less than a year. Israelis refused to drink the brown water they call coffee.
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Old May 30th, 2018, 03:44 AM
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No Starbucks - another reason to go.
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Old May 30th, 2018, 11:06 AM
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Our room came with a free kosher buffet breakfast ( as with the other 5 hotels and the desert camp we stayed at. 7 hotels total for the entire trip! this is the most number of properties we have stayed in one vacation ). Breakfast at Waldorf is a very involved affair. As one might expect, the selection and offerings were extensive - 6 different kinds of fresh fruit juice, bread offerings consist of 1 station with every imaginable local, American, French type of bread, cheese station has more than a dozen type, a variety of salads, hummus. Baba ganoush, tahini is all in one station and so do the fish station and breakfast pastries, about 12 different hot foods and Shaksoukha - eggs cooked in tomato sauce, a staple of Arab/Israeli cuisine. The eggs, cooked sunny side sitting on top of cooked tomato, it looked like lasagna with eggs on top. Hubby tried the shaksoukha ( I didn’t try it for today’s breakfast ). He said it was just ok, eggs cooked in tomatoes and onions is just something new to his palate. It is definitely an acquired taste.


It was past 9 by the time we finished breakfast and a little past 10 by the time we arrived at the Holy Sepulchre church. By then, the big bus tour groups and pilgrims from different parts of the world have arrived and the areas we would like to see - Jesus’ burial site and Golgotha have lines that snaked around many, many times. One of the guys in charge of keeping order in that section of the church said wait time is about 2 hours. Next time I visit the DMV, I will have a renewed appreciation for its “lines”.

Interestingly, different religious orders have custody of different sections of the Holy Sepulchre Church - the Franciscans, the Greek Orthodox, etc. I heard that these various groups can get quite territorial which has resulted in some ungodly skirmishes in the past. It was difficult to appreciate the sanctity and significance of what we came to see with this kind of crowd so we decided to come back very early tomorrow morning, upon the wise advice of the friendly caretaker/in charge, and come back to the hotel for breakfast later. There is a free Sandeman walking tour of the old city that starts at 11 am. We walked back to the Jaffa Gate entrance and arrived just in time for the start of the tour. These tours are led by unpaid volunteers and rely on tips so there’s some motivation on the part of the guides to give a good tour. I’ve read reviews on Sandeman’s that span the range of so-so and excellent. We are lucky because our young, female guide was very good, enthusiastic, and engaging. The 1 hour tour lasted almost 2 hours. Our great guide did very well on tips, I think as everyone seemed very pleased including us. The weather hadn’t been more cooperative either for a walking tour, it was just slightly overcast with intermittent sunshine.

We’re still not hungry for lunch but can use a midday snack. So, we stopped at the Austrian Hospice cafe but not before I purchased a bag of Bamba snack puffs to go with my cold drink. I had orange juice and hubby ordered coffee. Ok, as far as Bamba - I love it !!! For me, it was love at first taste unlike hubby’s breakfast encounter earlier with shakshoukha. Bamba has the subtle taste of peanut butter in corn puff. The texture is similar to Chee-tos in the US. The good part is it does not turn your fingers into bright orange and seems to have better nutritional value. It has fibers ! I might be rationalizing here, but it’s good. You have to try it at least once if you’re in Israel then decide whether you like it or not.

By now, the crowd had peaked in the Old City and we decided to come back in the late afternoon when the crown had thinned out to visit the stations of the cross, following Jesus’ journey carrying the cross to his crucifixion site in Golgotha. Although there isn’t much other than a round plaque marker to identify the stations, (14 total, the last 5 are inside the Holy Sepulchre Church), it is worthwhile for us to follow the path along and put ourselves as best as we can in the holy journey.
We strolled briefly along Via Dolorosa past the many souvenir shops and stores before heading back to the hotel for a nap.

The decision to come back in the late afternoon past 6 pm was a very good one. The crowds are gone, many of the shops are pulling down their shutters, kids are playing in the alley while their parents are closing up the shop, the mini tractors are hauling and delivering stock to the shops - a very local scene. Via Dolorosa and the other small streets in the Christian and Muslim Quarter had that mystical glow as the sun starts to set on the horizon. We started our mini pilgrimage of the 9 stations of the cross near Damascus Gate and in between stations had the great opportunity to interact with the shopkeepers and chat with some locals and take pictures with them without the sea of tourists and pilgrims. We had the place to ourselves.
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Old May 30th, 2018, 09:38 PM
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Shakshouka is a North African dish (Libya).
Israeli children are fed Bamba from age zero, which is the reason that there is almost no peanut allergy in the country.
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Old May 30th, 2018, 10:45 PM
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Thanks mbgg for the additional info. Trader Joe’s sells their own label called Bamba. https://www.eater.com/2017/11/3/1659...nut-corn-snack
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Old May 30th, 2018, 11:40 PM
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After the stations of the cross in the Old City, we went to Yudale in the Machane Yehuda market for dinner. We went without reservation but was lucked out on a couple of bar seats with no waiting. Yudale is very popular bar/restaurant and rightfully so. The food was amazing. Hubby had the beef fillet and polenta and I ordered the mullet fish. We shared a calamari appetizer. My fish was sublime - crisp outside and flaky and moist inside. The beef fillet was also flavorful and done just right. The calamari was cooked to perfection and just as outstanding. We had the cheesecake in a jar for dessert. We liked the bar seating because we can watch the chefs prepare our meal. The place is very busy and humming with activity and definitely not a quiet dinner. Menu is Mediterranean fusion and sister restaurant to equally popular Makneyuda Restaurant which is across the street. Cost of our dinner is a little over 400 shekels, with tip.

next: Bethlehem and the West Bank
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Old May 31st, 2018, 12:21 PM
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Wow, really enjoyed your notes on Jerusalem. I’d love to visit, and I was wondering if it’s one of those places I should scratch from my list because of safety. I’d love to see that museum, and the lack of Starbucks is a definite perk.

looking forward to the part about Jordan. Obviously you aren’t really budget or solo travelers, but is there any portion of Jordan or Israel you would have preferred to do as part of a tour? In terms of logistics or language difficulties?
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Old May 31st, 2018, 04:01 PM
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On my travel horizon one of these days. Thanks for the nice TR.
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Old Jun 1st, 2018, 01:08 AM
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Marvelousmouse: re: safety concerns, I had the same dilemma up until 1 month before we left. Hubby wanted me to cancel or postpone our trip because of 1) news we see everyday on what looked like escalating conflict with Syria and the recent incidents in the Gaza Strip 2) US Embassy’s move to Jerusalem and the ensuing protests from Palestinians. If we hadn’t been watching the news and its coverage of events in Israel, Syria, Gaza Strip - we wouldn’t know that these things. Please click on my name, a month before we left, I stared a thread with the title “To Go Or Not To Go” - I received a lot of good advice on here. The responses I received overwhelmingly convinced me and hubby to move forward with the trip. And I’m happy to report that the advice I received didn’t steer me in the wrong direction. Now that I think of all the needless apprehension before we decided to go, I should have titled this report “We Survived The Trip To Israel and Jordan”. I strongly encourage you to read the post I mentioned.

On joining group tour or going on our own: there isn’t any part of the tour both in Israel and Jordan that I would have preferred to do as part of a tour group. Our touring style is more of independent, DYI travel and joining local walking or guided tours. Some places or sights such as the Tower of David in the Old City of Jerusalem, the Old Yafo area in Tel Aviv, Jerash, etc are better appreciated with a knowledgeable guide to explain the significance of what we’re looking at - otherwise some of the important sights or artifacts look like just ancient rubble to us. There are also some sights where you don’t need a guide explaining what you can read or listen to from an audio guide such as the Yad Vashem Museum. My advice is pick and choose your guided tours wisely by checking guidebooks or researching in the internet if the sights have good written or audio explanation. Also if you’re not averse to using current technology, check if there are available podcast on your chosen sights.

Yestravel: glad to hear Israel and Jordan are in your list. Now that we have been to these 2 countries, I realize that we should have gone long time ago. We have never seen anything like Petra and Wadi Rum. I think whenever I’m planning for our travel destinations, Middle East subconsciously conjures images of conflict, danger and unsafe and that’s why Israel and Jordan were never in my list. Our friends who joined a pilgrimage tour through their church gave us the idea that placed this destination in our list.
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Old Jun 1st, 2018, 01:37 AM
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Marvelousmouse, re your question on language: a lot of Israelis speak English and those that say they “speak a little English” can very well communicate in English. Also there are a lot of Americans and former US residents who are now living in Israel - we encountered many of those. The road signs are written in Hebrew, Arabic and English, very driver and pedestrian friendly You wouldn’t have any language problem at all. The only thing I noticed that’s written in just Hebrew with no English translation is the store and restaurant receipts. Maybe it’s a paper space thing. mbgg might have an explanation for this.

Logistics: easy to plan once you get past the hesitation on the destination since both countries are small in terms of land area. My 2 should’ves In hindsight: We should have rented a car and should have downloaded the Gett App ( Israel’s version of Uber ). I brought my Lonely Planet guidebook , 1 for Israel and the Palestinian Territories and another for Jordan. If you’re just visiting Israel and Petra in Jordan, the Israel guidebook would suffice since it has a chapter on Petra. I saw a lot of tourists carrying the LP guidebook in many different languages, it seems to be the most popular. While reading up on the destination, I also used Insight Guides and read TRs and questions asked here on Fodors Middle East forum,
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Old Jun 1st, 2018, 07:38 AM
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Bethlehem

Having spent 3 days in Jerusalem, we have become comfortable with our surroundings and somewhat familiar with the immediate area around our hotel and are now confident tourists that we usually are. We originally planned on joining a local tour to the West Bank but over dinner last night, decided we will go on our own. We felt very safe in Jerusalem ( and the rest of Israel and Jordan )- safer that some of our travels in Europe and Asia. Not to say that throw all common sense and precaution out the window but we felt more relaxed - for one I need not be so hyper vigilant about my belongings that my purse has to be attached to my body at all times. There were a few occasions when I embarrassingly realized and told myself how I have become this don’t-trust-anyone, hypervigilant American tourist. I will share these few incidents asthey come up during the next week and a half of our travels.

I had some hummus and olive bread today, fresh squeezed OJ, Belgian waffle and a small slice of halva - a dessert served like a bundt cake on steroids and 2 orders of cappuccino. Hubby had scrambled eggs, chicken sausage, baked tomatoes, sautéed mushroom, olive bread, hummus, watermelon, cantaloupe and washed it all down with some mixed fruit juice and coffee. I was hoping there’ll be some Bamba in the cereals section but no luck there. Yes, it is a gorgefest but we didn’t feel guilty because we will burn all the calories from all the walking today. This will be the breakfast scenario every morning for the remainder of our trip with some slight variation in the selection. I’d weigh myself in the digital bathroom scale every few days, I even lost a little over a kilo.

Mental note to myself: The Israelis I’ve encountered during this trip seem fit and I don’t remember seeing anybody that’s morbidly obese. Most of them also have good, clear skin. Maybe it’s the hummus?

After breakfast, we walked to Damascus Gate to take the Arab bus that goes to Bethlehem. We saw a bus depot somewhat near and across from the gate. I got all excited when I saw a bus with the sign Bethlehem at the front and pointed to hubby “ there’s our bus!” We rushed over to the bus without checking the bus #. We confirmed with the bus driver that he’s going to Bethlehem and he said yes. Sweet! We sat in the first row, passenger side for the best views.

Indeed, the bus went to Bethlehem. We reached our destination in about 30 minutes but were dropped off about 200 yards from the checkpoint. The Arab bus that we meant to take goes past the checkpoint and would have dropped us off in Nativity Square. It was still ok, we were in Bethlehem just not steps away from the Nativity Church. As we alit from the bus, a taxi driver approached us offering a tour of Bethlehem. He spoke good English, showed us a laminated scroll of pictures of the sights he will take us to for approximately 3 hours, for about $70. After some short negotiation, the price came down to $50 and off we went.

First stop was the Shepherd’s Field - this is where an angel appeared before the shepherd to announce the birth of Jesus. As with most sites where there’s a significant biblical event that took place, a church has been built upon it. The taxi waited while we explored the site for about 15-20 minutes. Next stop is the Milk Grotto - same scenario, taxi driver waits while we explore. After the second stop, he says he has a friend who owns an olive wood workshop and factory. It didn’t take a second for hubby and I to realize that he wanted to take us to a FACTORY TOUR! We told him we are not interested in buying anything, he said he needed to pick up something quickly and also needed to wash his hands and we didn’t have to buy anything and we can have some free tea also. We thought this poor guy probably gets credit if he brings tourists to the factory if even if no purchases are made. So we agreed with the understanding that our stop wouldn’t take longer than 5 minutes.

After all these years, we know all about the factory tour routine but we tried to go along to help out our driver, if he gets credit for the stop. We were offered some tea and cookies which we took a pass on, toured around, shown a demo of how they cut the olive wood, shown some of the finest pieces on sale and clearly hoping that we will make a purchase. The factory owner/manager was a nice man - he wasn’t intimidating or impolite - he just wants to sell merchandise. After about 15 minutes in the factory ( we were the only ones there besides the employees ), they perhaps realized too that we are not going to buy anything so we bade each other goodbye and the owner in a gesture of goodwill or whatever one might call it, gave us a couple of souvenir keychains as parting gifts. Another reason why we didn’t want to buy anything is we have still have to go to Petra, Wadi Rum and Amman and we didn’t want to be weighed down by our luggage packed with presents and souvenirs for folks back home.

We move on to visit Nativity Church and the Manger Square. We are among the rest of the pilgrim and tour group crowds so it was very crowded. Our driver told us to enter through the side door instead of the main door for shorter line. The wait to see the spot where Jesus was born ( at least according to Christians ) was a mere 30 minutes. Not bad in relative terms if compared to Holy Sepulchre. Most of the other places of interest, including the Omar Mosque and Stars and Bucks Cafe I mentioned earlier, were around or within short walking distance from Nativity Square. By now our 3 hours with the driver is up and he is going to take us back to checkpoint 200. We told him to drive us to the souk instead and we’ll go to the checkpoint ourselves. We wanted to have lunch at a restaurant before we leave, and do a little bit of our own exploration - it was only around 2 pm, still too early to go back to Jerusalem. We’ve come a long way in the area of confidence considering just a few weeks ago hubby wanted to cancel the trip.

To to be continued, have to go to work...
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Old Jun 1st, 2018, 02:07 PM
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Excellent trip report. We are also considering this particular combo, so not only is your TR a fun read but extremely educational as well. Looking forward to much more.
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