Interrogations and border patrol.

Dear and gentle readers--

Please forgive my unprecedented neglect of the blog. Distraction from present company not withstanding, my travels over the past week haven't let me access the internet with much frequency.

The past 10 days of travel with the esteemed Nodair Razi (see: cheesy facebook relationship status I swore I would never use should I find myself in a committed relationship, but find myself succumbing to in the current state of twitterpation) have had the appropriate balance of beauty and bizareness. Two nights of trekking through the Siwan Oasis, watching the stars come out by oasis pools in groves of date palms and sleeping in the Saharan desert were followed by realizing we were completely broke by the time we go to Alexandria on our journey back to Cairo. A friendly American-educated Egyptian named Mohammad drove us from the bus station to downtown Alex, but it took us a good 2 hours walking through the dark streets with our heavy backpacks on before we were able to find a way to withdraw money and find a place to crash for the night. We almost called Yusef of the crackhouse escapade, but thought better of it...

After a load of laundry and a few hours' sleep in Cairo, we got on the bus with my roommates and some Egyptian co-workers and began to make our way to Dahab, a chill beach town on the Sinai peninsula. I was hoping that Nod would enjoy a little guy time with my co-workers, and since Nod looks perfectly Egyptian (thanks to his half-Iranian blood, which we will return to in a moment), I figured they would take him in as one of his own. 

Taking him in as one of them barging into his room one night at 4am, trying to get him to smoke hash with them, singing bad Arab rap loudly, and pelting him with questions about his personal life, while simultaneously admiring his shaving job that day and calling him their "love." Not quite the male bonding I had in mind, but hey, none the worse for the wear.

After two days of sitting on floor pillows and drinking milkshakes by the red sea, looking at the rising rocky hills of Saudi Arabia just across the narrow strait, we got on a bus and headed for the Israeli border. Dahab is a mere 2 hour drive to the border crossing at Taba. A 5 hour bus ride from there to Jerusalem, we figured that, even with passport control and potential delays at the crossing, we should be in Jerusalem well before prayers and dancing at the western wall marked the begining of Sabbath.

One glance at my Middle Eastern passport stamps and Nod's name and complexion, and the first Israeli security personnel to take our papers got on her walkie talkie. Two other security officers emerged from the shadows. "Follow me," they said, and separated us to begin the first interrogation of the day. I had the easier job of the day--"Why do you have so many stamps in your passport? What are you doing in Egypt? Do you know anyone in Egypt?" (Um, yes, my co-workers? the vegetable vendor?)--questions that were easy enough to answer. 

I could hear the questions float over from where Nod was standing, though--"tell me about your father. What is your religion? who planned your trip? who paid for it?" And on and on. They pulled our bags aside--x-rayed them, searched them, checked our pockets for traces of explosives. We were finally given clearance. Whew, thank God--we felt relieved to be done with all this.

Now, there are some twenty countries or so who don't recognize Israel and won't let you in their country if there's an Israeli stamp on your pages. Israel understands this, and will stamp a separate piece of paper instead, on request. With 5 years left on my passport and a desire to go to Damascus sometime soon, I asked her if she could avoid stamping my actual passport. "Why?" she snapped. She took a closer look at Nod's passport, with his Arab sounding name. "Come with me," she said to him. 

This interrogation lasted even longer, though they let me stay outside for this one, leaving me to devour kitkats out of nervousness as I watched Nod disappear into an empty room and Israeli soldiers pass in and out. This time he was made to draw a complete family tree, defend his ties to Iran (most of which he denied, and was luckily able to get away with), explain his relationship to me for the umpteenth time.

When he finally emerged from the battering ram, we were told to wait for an hour or two while they entered all of his information into some kind of database. Neither of us had eaten for a long time, and the snack counter inside passport control was beckoning. I had yet to change over my Egyptian pounds for shekels, though, but the girl said I was fine to use whatever money I had. 

"How much was the sandwich?" I asked.

"36 Egyptian pounds," she answered after punching some numbers into a calculator, the equivelant of about $7 USD. Yikes-I have never seen a sandwich priced so high in Egypt, even at the ritzy hotels. But, hey, border food is like airport food, and you just have to pay.

I give her a 50 pound note--$10 USD.

She gives me back a few Israeli coins--the equivelant of maybe $2 USD. 

Hmm, I say. That doesn't seem quite right. Whatever--Nod and I go out to sit on this balcony overlooking the red sea and try to decompress after a difficult day.

I should mention that the last time I attempted to cross an Israeli border two years ago, I inexplicably had hundreds of shekels placed inside my passport after it was examined by security officials. Is it to frame me? for sex? I never could figure it out--and I promptly handed the shekels back to the man that had given me my passport. Nothing was ever said about it.

Nod and I had just about finished our Salami sandwich which another plain clothes security officer (one we hadn't met yet--though after going through two shifts of workers that day, we had pretty much gotten to know them all) barged out onto the balcony with money in his hand.

"Here, " he said, handing me the money. "This is for you." He left the balcony as abruptly as he had barged onto it.

77 shekels--about $13 USD. Right. So I paid $10 USD for my sandwich, and got $13 USD back, plus a sandwich. Strange, but hey, I'll take it.

Two hours went by. Nod and I were starting to get fidgety. The sun had set, Sabbath had begun, and we already knew that we had missed the last bus into Jerusalem. It looked like we would be spending the night in the Israeli resort town of Eilat, known for its glass bottom boat tours and "bikini clad bods," according to my Lonely Planet guide. 

Just then, two security officers brandishing their Ak-47s sprinted past us. "Everyone out!" We grabbed out bags and walked out behind the passport control building. Bomb scare. We sat on the curb with a busload of Indian tourists, watching the sun set over the red sea. Hey, what else could go wrong?

As soon as the bomb squad had cleared the building, we went back inside. Nod was finally given his passport back ("Are we done now?" he asked, after 6 hours of interrogations and waiting around. "Oh, sure, go ahead," the guard said nonchalantly, as if anything about the day could be prefaced with an  "of course.")

We walked about 2 miles toward the town until we finally gave up and grabbed a cab. We found the cheapest hotel in the town, where the manager preferred to work out of Room 107 instead of the reception area, and was apparently prefering to spend his evening watching tv pantless and eating bread out of a plastic bag. But hey, for a cheap room and an end to a long and difficult day, we weren't going to put up much of a fuss.

So after 10 days of desert oases, evenings spent under the Saharn stars, relaxing by the crystal-clear red sea, and withstanding the endurance test of the Israeli border crossing, we decided to have a normal, American evening that neither of us had had in months: we went to the hotel room, sipped on a beer, and watched tv. Perfect.

Well, Shabat Shalom, my friends--the country doesn't start moving again until 4:30 or so, which is when we can catch our first bus into Jerusalem. We had planned to make a visit to Bethleham in the West Bank, but our interactions with Israeli security have been so fun, we think we're going to take a pass. It's just tricky being half-Iranian in Israel at this point--in fact, we're lucky that they let us in at all.

I'll keep you posted as I'm able, my friends. Until then, take care.