The description of Ben Gurion airport in this post is based largely on online research as well as information from other travellers and Palestinians. I have only taken into account information that came from multiple sources.

Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion is said to be one of the safest airports in the world. All checked luggage is x-rayed, put into pressure chambers and often searched by hand as well. Travellers and their carry-on luggage are x-rayed and in many cases swiped for explosives’ residue.

In addition to these mechanical measures, travellers are screened with several rounds of questions based on their background. Background meaning travel experience, race and religion (sic!).

Unfortunately, the aims go way past air travel security. Officials are looking for suspicious individuals who have connections to Muslim countries or might otherwise be considered “unfriendly towards the state of Israel”.

Those who are considered worthy of a closer look are invited into separate interrogation rooms for a chat with officials. These chats can last anywhere from an hour to a whole day (temporary imprisonment optional). A friend of mine was detained for eight hours when trying to enter the country. During the interrogation, the suspect is examined via means of google, facebook, twitter and their phones and emails.

Demanding access to a person’s phone or email accounts is a horrible breach of privacy. Hence such behaviour is unthinkable at European airports. The US got a lot of criticism when they started demanding access to electronic devices. However in Israel everything is justified with “300 million Arabs want to wipe us off the earth”. Who needs international law or human rights anyway.

One could argue that access to phones and online accounts wouldn’t have to be revealed. Unfortunately

The Bahai gardens in Haifa are considered the must-see in the city. Off-limits to the general public, except on guided tours, one has only one opportunity per day to get in and see them up close. The English language tour starts at noon and I had a lazy morning with coffee, breakfast and a little more coffee. 12 Shekels! 12! I paid 2 in Ramallah!

The gardens certainly are nice, although I wouldn’t travel all the way to Haifa just to see them. They are only gardens, albeit nice ones. After the tour I got on the local bus, following information from the tourist centre, and travelled up north to Akko. It is an old Arabic port town and is said to have a beautiful old city.

While the old city isn’t too bad, it certainly suffers from tourism. That’s a personal objection of mine though, just can’t stand places where all the infrastructure is aimed at tourists (and thus overpriced and mediocre). In addition,

Tuesday was supposed to be my lazy day. I had extended my 3-night stay in Ramallah to a 5-day one and wanted to spend my last day with doing nothing besides some writing and drinking coffee.

Fellow traveller Nigel got in the way though. He’s working as a journalist and mentioned that he’d join an anthropology student to interview a farmer who’s land is about to be taken away.

His initial invitation I tiredly refused. However came mid-day, my curiosity got the better of me and I told him I’d join him for the trip. Plus Bethlehem is less than an hour away.

Our local contact ran late and so we went on the tourist trail instead. First stop: church of nativity. It’s built on the site were baby Jesus was born. It’s a tourist drag but the locals don’t get much from it as most tours are organised by companies in Jerusalem.

[caption id=“attachment_3089” align=“aligncenter” width=“450”] Stable yesterday, Church today[/caption]

Not having had a religious upbringing, the whole of Bethlehem didn’t have any spiritual appeal for me. It was more of a “let’s have a look around”.

One thing to have a look at in Bethlehem

Time for a delayed trip report! On Monday I followed Hiba’s invitation for a tour around Nablus. The town is about an hour from Ramallah on the shared taxi. I managed to arrive half an hour late by first forgetting my passport (had to return to get it) and then taking the one taxi that got rear-ended on the way.

Hiba showed understanding though and we jumped right into the tour with a visit to an old soap factory right next to the bus station. In Palestine, fresh olive oil is used for food and the old (after a year) left-overs are turned into soap. It’s a handicraft.

We continued with a visit of the old city, which is much bigger and charming than that of Ramallah. It has a lot of

I felt a little sad about having to leave Palestine. In a very short time I had met a lot of amazing people. It wasn’t just the incredibly friendly and hospitable locals but also the travellers who had made their way into the West Bank.

After a last Arabic coffee (cardamom flavoured), I got onto the local bus to Jerusalem. It is always a somewhat cramped experience, especially with a full size backpack between my legs.

Fellow travellers had told me that security checks at Qalandia are arbitrary and can take from five minutes to an hour (more if you’re Palestinian). At the checkpoint military police boarded the bus and checked IDs.

The woman examining my passport told me “you are too young, you can’t stay on the bus”. Well thank you for the compliment, but…???