A Jaffa photo gallery



I guess this is the first day of my journey home. I stayed last night with my friends Ben and Avi in Jerusalem, packed up my stuff, dropped into the yeshiva to say goodbye and caught the little minibus to Tel Aviv. It was sad seeing the familiar sights of the city disappearing behind me but the melancholy was tempered somewhat by the most irascible driver I had ever encountered - and in Israel that's saying something.


He yelled at us all to give him the ticket money as soon as we climbed aboard - usually it's done as a kind of graceful passing to and fro of notes and change up and down the van. He short changed an Arab woman and was deaf to our entreaties to give her the 10 shekels her owed her (in the end, almost at Tel Aviv, he relented). And, in between sitting loudly and constantly on the horn, he made numerous, high-volume calls on his mobile. Eventually a man sitting at the front, who I had taken to be an American tourist (he was reading Patricia Cornwell's 'The Book of the Dead') barked at him in perfect Hebrew to shut up and drive properly. And then he was as quiet as a puppy.


I have booked into a backpaker hostel in Jaffa rather than Tel Aviv itself. It's more mellow here and relaxed and away from the sometimes frantic partying of the city. There's a lovely roof terrace (below) where I am now, which, until about 30 seconds ago, was an oasis of calm. Then an Israeli guy, oblivious to the fact that I was writing my blog, insisted on talking. And, when he found out the type of yeshiva I had been studying at, he started berating me loudly about it (he was an Orthodox Jew). He was particularly upset that women and men prayed together and said my father would be ashamed of me. At that point, luckily, my Hebrew ran out, though an expletive or two would have come in handy.


I am here till early Friday morning when I go up to Haifa for my boat. Opposite the hostel is a huge flea market, which will be good to explore tomorrow, and just round the corner is Israel's most famous bakery (run by an Arab family and open 24 hours) and a restuarant called Dr Shakshuka, which is also renowned for its cheap and good Middle Eastern food. So I guess I could eat my way through the next 48 hours.



In the meantime, these are just some pictures from a little walk I took this evening (the cat was obviously away when they handed out nice coat colours).