Day 5 – The Little Town of Bethlehem, Pt. 2
Our experience
yesterday in Bethlehem was interesting, to the point that it gave us a sense of
the innate differences between Jerusalem (Israel) and Bethlehem (Palestine),
but also enjoyed how well they presented Christmas from an overall atmosphere
standpoint, down to seemingly importing a US-based choir to sing secular carols
like ‘Walking in a Winter Wonderland’. We chose, for timing reasons, to not do
any of the main sites in Bethlehem (and the larger immediate surrounding area),
instead waiting to do those today. It gave us a larger sample size of
Bethlehem, and more so, an appreciation of how complicated this part of the
world is.
For once, I wasn’t the
only person in my family fine with getting up at 10am on vacation. We probably
took it a bit too leisurely, when combining coffees and shawarmas, were only
ready to leave to Bethlehem from the Arab Bus station around noon. I mention the
Arab bus station, as only Arab buses can go into East Bethlehem, then across
the dividing line into Palestine. These buses aren’t all that much worse (in
fact, we had a nice coach bus on the way there), and there were tons of
tourists making the journey with us.
The hills of this
slice of Israel/Palestine are truly beautiful, rolling with olive trees and
vines well manicured on all sides. On the cliff sides are various houses and
apartment buildings, though we would later learn that most of these are in occupied
settelements (Israel occupying Palestinean land), so even with these
picturesque sites there was a tinge of drama and sadness.
We reached Bethlehem
and found a cabby (more like picked the most sane one out of the five or six
that found us – and by found I mean absconded on us and all other bus
passengers like feral wolves) that would take us to Hebron – where the tombs of
Abraham, Isaac, Sara, Rachel & Jacob are housed – and back to Bethlehem’s
manger square for an appropriately bargained-for price. There were still some
moments of hesitation on whether or well negotiated price was truly locked in,
but true or not we headed on our way.
The drive to Hebron
took about 45 minutes, which included passing through two cities deeper into
Palestine in HabHoull and Hebron, both less built up than Bethlehem, but still
on the whole cleaner than India or even Egypt. While there is still a stark
difference between this and Israel (at least from what little of Israel we’ve
seen so far), I have to say Palestine (again based on what little of it we’ve
seen) is still better than quite a few 3rd world countries I’ve
visited – security concerns aside.
Hebron’s main site is
a perfect little slice of the conflict writ small, an incredibly important
place for two religions (and through Judaisim, by extension Christianity), that
has now come to a peaceful, if still a bit spiteful and not sensible,
conclusion. The Mosque/Temple of Hebron is built on both sides of the
demarcation line – probably the line was made to go through the temple. The
Muslim half houses the tombs of Isaac and Rebecca, while the Jewish half has
the tombs of Abraham, Sara, Jacob and Leah. The Muslim half didn’t allow
non-Muslims in as it was prayer time when we went. The Jewish half did, but
made us all wear headscarves, made us leave our driver (an Arab) outside, and
checked our passports with moderate scrutiny while the main guard gave us the
Larry David eye when we told him we were Catholic.
In te end, we were let
in, and it was probably my first experience in a Jewish temple outside of
Bat/Bar Mitzvah’s years ago. It was a weird experience. Not the religiousosity
going on. That was fine. It was us (and a few other tourists) hanging around,
taking photos, next to Jewish people deep in prayer. I do obviously understand
this is their house of worship, but at the end of the day, their patriarchs are
our patriarchs as well.
We took the requisite
pictures in front of what we have to believe were the tombs of the people we
were told they were of. There were no signs in English, so there were two
levels of belief here, first that the people we asked were telling us rightly
who was in each tomb, and then that those people were the ones in those tombs.
In the end, it was a pretty amazing moment. Forget about religion for a moment.
These people are pretty well sure to have existed. Sure, they were not some of
the first people on earth, but at the end of the day, billions believe these
are the patriarchs of their religion, their guiding light. That is still special.
The drive back to
Bethlehem was uneventful, and before we knew it, we were bac in Manger square,
a good 20 hours after previously being there, now able to see the place without
an incredible maw – or so we thought.
We easily entered the
Church of the Nativity – much like the Holy Sepulchre, also run by the Greek
Orthodox church. This is the larger church to which the Cathedral of St.
Catherine is attached to (where our midnight mass was the night before). It was
not as astounding as the largesse of the churches in Europe, but had some
amazing details. It housed frescoes and mosaics thought to be from the first
church commissioned by St. Helena (Emperor Constantine’s mother, the one who
uncovered most of the famous places in Jerusalem and Bethlehem). It also
houses, of course, the grotto where Jesus is thought to have been born.
The line for this
exceeded any line we had faced to date. We waited for about 30 min, and then
reached a point where we could ask the security how long it would take. He openly
told us waiting was a fools errand, that at 5pm, they close the church, and
anyone still in line is told to GTFO. Because it was Christmas Day, it was
busier than usual, and we had no shot – it was about 3:30 at this point.
We took their advice,
and went across the hall to the now mostly empty Cathedral of St. Catherine,
unrecognizable to what we saw yesterday. There was also a few grottos, first of
Joseph (Jesus’s father) and St. Jerome, the person thought to be the first to
translate the bible into Latin. It also holds the passage in the cave to the
Manger grotto, which of course is barred at the end. Sadly, we did not discover
a workaround to the three hour wait.
After a while, we
finally took leave of the place, and began our long journey back to Jerusalem,
first with mingling around Manger Square and taking a few pictures in a
crowded, but still far less crowded than yesterday, square, then with a cursed
mission to find a way back to the bus-stop, in the end well overpaying for a
cab to wade through traffic that rendered it no faster than our legs.
The bus to Jerusalem
gave us our first opportunity to experience a border patrol stop at the border.
To this point, we had crossed from Israel to Palestine three times (not
including Hebron) and not been asked a single question. Finally, border patrol
agents entered the bus… and left before getting to us. Given how polarized and
energized this particular border is, and the history, and current drama and
tension, still lead to the conclusion of issues, I was sadly underwhelmed by
how easly we went back and forth.
Back in Jerusalem, we
settled in for Christmas Dinner at The Eucalyptus, one of Bethlehem’s more
famous restaurants. Wanted to have a
nice Christmas Dinner in the old city, but couldn’t get my first choice
Mechanyuda, a fine dining, chef’s tasting menu like joint, but couldn’t get
anything +/- one week of our time in Jerusalem. I ‘settled’ for The Eucalpytus,
probably Jerusalem’s 2nd most famed restaurants.
The Eucalyptus is
seated in a little strip called the ‘Arts Colony’ in the shadows of Jaffa Gate,
a really nice setting that surrounds a really great restaurant. They offer
tasting menus as well, but in our case we could have slightly few dishes, but
focus on the ones we wanted, going a la carte, taking advantage of a truly
varied and great menu. The three of us split three starters and three mains –
not fully, we will be enjoying the meal for day(s) to come – all of which were
good. In reality, there was a backup roster of picks that probably would have
served nearly as good.
Our starters were duck
confit pastille (a refined spring roll of duck with other stuff),
chicken-stuffed dates with a mix of tahini and other sauces, and fish falafel
with an almond and chickpea sauch. All three were very good. Probably the best
was the fish falafel, with the fish just a perfect complement to the chickpea
and fava bean.
The mains were a beef &
eggplant stew, a ‘St. Peter’s’ grilled fish, and a Braised Lamb Muklabah
(essentially an Israeli version of Biryani). Again, all three were great. The
fish was grilled perfectly, just lightly dusted with the spices. The beef and
eggplant was a really interesting sweet combination – the sweetness coming from
quince, a local fruit. The muklabah had such amazingly flavorful rice, it made
up for the fact that the meat was 50% brilliant, melt-in-your-mouth soft, and
50% bone.
Eucalyptus was a great
restaurant, serving as a great Christmas Dinner, but in reality could serve for
a great anytime dinner. There were a good number of dishes we probably could have
ordered instead of the ones we did and had the exact same reaction. Israel has
taken off lately as a food hub, and even if we missed out on Jerusalem’s top
restaurant, getting their silver or bronze medal winner wasn’t too bad at all.
