A Border

Is the above not a cool picture. King Hussein and Yitzhak Rabin, but it's the cigarettes that catch your eye. Its like a Marlboro ad. This picture hangs in the Israeli side of the Beit Shean border crossing. It took more than two hours to cross the border from Jordan today. Besides that though, I had a great time at the conference and met some great people, more on that over then next few days.

We left Amman at around 10am. The V.I.P. taxi service picked us up in their spiffy little bus and we zoomed off to the border. Gazing out the window at Jordan flashing by is a little less heartwarming than say driving through the highlands of Scotland. The view from the window is at best, something like this:

We got to the border around 11:30am and after paying the 5 Dinar we waited for the bus to take us the 200M to the Israeli side. You cannot walk. You have to wait for the bus or be shot. "Ten Minutes" said the ticket dude. After half an hour, it became "Five Minutes". Finally the bus arrived and the six of us plus multiple Jordanians of all shapes and sizes elbowed our way on board (lots of oldish women with lots of colored bags). The 200M ride took another half an hour. I am still not sure why. I think the little Israeli soldier girl who looks under the bus with a mirror on a stick, was having her army sandals polished, and that cannot be rushed. We struggled off the bus, collected our bags and waited in line. And waited, And waited. One person (a particularly miserable border guard, must have Russian blood) looked at each passport and questioned each person in English. Not very effective as the only English any Jordanian knows is a sincere and smiling "Welcome! Welcome!". Once past this linguistic Spanish Inquisition, your luggage needs to be run through an X-Ray machine that was likely made in Kazakhstan to specs that could only have been dreamed up by an Iranian torturer. The ramp leading up to the machine was so steep that any piece of luggage with wheels, came rolling straight down. Adding to the confusion, each time anything untoward passed into the machine, it spat the offending item out the front causing all the cases on the ramp to roll down. Excellent system.

A bus of Italian tourists with pictures badges of what I think was Jesus but could have been Jerry Garcia, arrived. The rent-a-cop guards decided that in order to get these poor fools into the terminal, instead of actually making a zig-zag maze out of the barriers already in place, they would just move the Jordanians behind us in the line, ahead towards the scowling border guard. This was just the opportunity the masses needed. Smiling, shrugging while all the time repeating "Welcome, Welcome" the hoard moved in front of us. My Israeliness finally burst out after three days being camouflaged in Americanism, and I let rip into the rent-a-cop and border guard and everyone else who would listen. I stared so malevolently at the Jordanians who had pushed in, reminding them who won the six-day war, that they backed off timidly and we were finally through.

Next you then need your passport stamped. Big fun this. A bored young girl took as long as was humanly possible to enter your passport number and make sure you were actually you. I went off to pick up my 3 bottles of duty-free single malt from the James Richardson window which was very closed and shuttered. A sign above a gray intercom claimed that if I push the button someone will take care of me. On pushing I heard what could only have been something in Uzbekistani. Another 10 minutes and the duty-free person appeared and once she had established that I was indeed me, I was given my three bottles, each packed into its own huge duty free box that ensured carrying would be a uncomfortable. On the way out I asked one of the border guards milling around why it was all so horribly inefficient. She looked at me, shrugged, and deciding that I was obviously an idiot, reminded me that this is a "sensitive" border. After a final customs (and passport) check we were out. Free at last, Free at last. We set off homeward in the school van. On my way out, I snapped the above picture of the smokers, assuring yet another security guard that I would not dare compromise Israeli security by photographing anything "sensitive" in the terminal. I can understand why they would want no one to know what goes on here.

Epilogue: We got to the school about an hour and a half later. And Neville in his haste to unpack the van dropped one of my duty free boxes. A few seconds later the delightful smell of Glenlivet wafted up from the liquid seeping sadly out the bottom of the box. Sigh.