Crossing the Border of Israel

Crossing the border of Jordan and Israel can be both exciting and intriguing. Being one of the most strictly guarded international borders in the world, I would say crossing the border was such a once in a life time experience. I had been imagining how it was like all my life and when the time was finally coming, I could feel the nerves running down my spine like a wave of electric current or something. Bzzzz! Bzzzz! 😀

Of course, taking a group of 45 (mostly) aunties and uncles into Israel was not an easy task. The tour leader had to give a long explanation on all the dos and don’ts in great details. A little bit of spoil would most certainly drag the waiting time to up to a few hours and even days and even worse being denied entry altogether.

Of course taking pictures was a total NO NO which is why I’ve got no pictures to show to you. I knew I was usually sneaky but thinking about all the possible risks that I might face if I got caught, it wasn’t worth the fun.

I mean, I wasn’t just thinking about myself but more for the whole group. I did not want to drag them into any problem created by my own sneakiness (although the temptation was tugging so violently inside. LOLz).

So, leaving Amman behind on our second day in Jordan, the bus took us closer and closer to Israel but stopped at a station which I assumed was the immigration department building located a few kilometers to the border. Of course all we had to do was to stay (and pray. Heh) in the bus while the tour leader did whatever necessary to get the green light from the other side before we could proceed further.

It was long – alright – long enough for me to go to the toilet at least twice. The building was very unkempt and the toilet was horrible – something that I don’t usually complain under normal circumstances but when we are talking about a toilet without a single drop of water to flush anything down AT ALL, I think I can leave everything else to your imagination. LOL.

I think the tour guide (a Jordanian) did quite a good job when he managed to get a green-light before noon – something that was not easy to do according to the tour leader (a Malaysian) himself. Only then we were allowed to head down to the border and hoped for a smooth entry.

I was both nervous and excited. I mean, getting to the border of Israel can pretty much make anybody go nervous – let alone crossing it.

The bus stopped right at the drop-off spot and everybody had to take his/her own luggage near to the counter. The porters were there to take them to the other side of the building (border) but each of them had to be tagged first.

It was a long line of people. Many of those in the line were Palestinians who were heading home after performing Haji in Mecca. They seemed to have a truckload of baggage on each of them so I could imagine how hard it was to handle them (the baggage) with all the crowds and all.

The line was going quite slowly but progressively moving. Some of the Palestinians couldn’t wait so they’d jump the queue as if they’ve been doing it their whole lives. I even saw a couple bribing the porters so that they could do a fast track despite the existence of a big notice board clearly forbidding tipping and bribery. Urghh!

WE had to go to the counter from the queue, hand over our passport and each of us was then given a tagging tape or two depending on how many bags we each had. While we could do the tagging ourselves, it was much faster to just hand over the tape to any of the porters and let them handle everything of the luggage from there.

To tell the truth, it was my first time going face to face with Jews and I have to say I was quite excited. LOL! Having heard so much about them I really didn’t know what to expect. Finally seeing them in person, I remember thinking that they looked more like Europeans to me, white and blonde and modern. Quite naturally, I was mostly excited about finding out how they treat people from races other than their own.

Done with the luggage-tagging, we proceeded to another counter which was more like a counter to check our passports. They’d give each an entry visa – something that you should very carefully keep in your possession right from the moment you enter until the very last step out of the country.

Then we’d go through the usual procedure of body scanning – just like those security checks that we go through at airports. They wouldn’t allow you to proceed further until the scan stops beeping on you. Until then, they would ask you to take off whatever there was to take off (unless your own clothes of course) and return through the scan again.

I managed to get though in one go without a beep so things were pretty smooth for me. Somebody in the group had to be whisked away to the body-search room because the scan kept beeping even after she had taken everything metallic off her body – or at least so she thought. She later found out that it was a tiny metallic button on her cloth that made the scan beep.

Then we proceeded to another counter – an another – before we were allowed into Israel once and for all. Phew!

Well, it might be very tedious and demanded quite a considerable amount of patience but then we are talking about entering Israel here, which is one of the most err, hated? countries in the world for all kinds of reasons.

It is so hated that even Malaysia has no diplomatic relationship with the country. Having so many countries (and people) hating them, the people of Israel wouldn’t take any chance by letting people into their country without making sure that they don’t pose any threat to the security of its people.

Something that I gotta tell you about is that the officials were very friendly. They were very professional although most of them looked very young for such a patience-demanding job (mind to tell you, the Arabs are not easy to handle).

One officer even learned to pronounce ‘satu’ meaning ‘one’ in English – in reference to the number of bags that needed to be tagged. He seemed so amused and happy at his ability to pronounce it correctly which was evidenced by the fact that the next Malaysian in line could understand it. Blueks! 😀

So, it was easier than most of us had expected probably because we were there as Christian pilgrims which bore no threat to the country at least politically (and may be religiously).

So – it took us a couple of hours to get everything done at the border check before we finally made it through. Dashing out of the building with the luggage back in our hands, it wasn’t long before we found ourselves stepping out into the open again.

We were in the Holy Land!