Day 13 They are only pictures right?
I am pretty OCD when I travel to make sure I don't lose anything. Every time I leave a hotel or site or cab I look for my camera, passport, FRRO card, my glasses, wallet and camera memory card. Those are the things that are most important and if I check for them every time I leave somewhere I know the last time I saw it. Today was no different. I knew exactly where everything was.
It took an hour and a half to get to the King Hussain border crossing. We had to get out of the cab and transfer our stuff to another cab that is allowed to travel in no man's land. We take the car a tenth of a mile and unload our luggage to get it scanned. Reload our luggage and go a quarter mile. Get luggage out of car pay exit tax, get Jordan exit stamp, get a bus ticket to go to Israeli side. Wait half an hour load stuff in bus go a tenth of a mile. People go through the li e no problem. Not us.
They scan my stuff and ask if I packed my own bag, did anyone in Jordan give me anything to transport, why are am i flying out of tel aviv instead of Jordan (the plane tickets were an extra $750 for that). They tear my bags apart! Stuff everywhere. Why do you have a rug? What are you going to do with it? Etc. Once I got past screening it was ok and the woman stamped a separate piece of paper instead of my passport. Yea :)
We get a cab and we a go a little ways and I do my obsessive check. No memory card. The driver notices I am crying and pulls over and offers to call the border station. I talk to the lady and she said she'd look and call back. So while we waited I went through every single item methodically and checked for it. The driver felt so bad for me he started looking through the car even though we knew it wasn't there. The border lady called and said they didn't find it. I believed she actually looked for it because she seemed sad I was crying. The cab driver said I have memories of his beautiful country in my head and I can't lose those :) I know they are just pictures and I can get pictures off the Internet to show everyone the things I saw, but it isn't the same. I wanted the pictures I took - the way I saw things. And there were pictures of me in front of the Dome of the Rock, on a boat in the sea of Galilee, with my hand in Jesus's hand print on the wall. But. I still have my second card so I have Petra and my camel ride and Christmas eve night in Bethlehem. I guess I will just have to come back to Jerusalem in a few years! :)
We get to Ben Gurion airport and the fun begins.
Why did I come to Israel?
Why did I go to Jordan?
Where did I stay? What cities? What hotels?
What did I buy?
Do I know anyone in Israel? Jordan?
Do I speak Hebrew? Do I know anyone that does?
Why don't I have an israeli stamp in my passport?
Why do I live in Mumbai?
Where did I buy my dead sea salt scrub?
Where did I get my books? Did anyone else read them?
Did anyone ask me to carry anything across the border?
Where did I get my chocolate? Why did I buy it?
What is my father's name? Mother's name?
And probably other questions I don't remember.
Whew. Made it through without a stamp again.
Got to counter. Flight is delayed. Will probably miss connecting flight in Istanbul. Lady said Turkish airlines will pay for hotel in Istanbul and we'll take the same flight tomorrow. So I bought a Turkey guide book and we will see what we can. Even though we are out of money and my suitcase was exactly 23 kg. So i cant really fit anything in it. I worked for an hour last night night to get it under 23. Perfection!
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