We had heard so many horror stories about the Israeli interrogation techniques at the borders. There are even entire blogs dedicated to how to behave and what to say when entering Israel with stamps from countries such as Iran, Lebanon and Syria in your passport. However, we didn’t experience any of that. Almost all the border guards at Eilat were very young and relaxed. (By the way you know you’re getting older when you catch yourself thinking “These kids are way too young to wear uniform and a gun”). They must have been stationed there as part of their military training. When we got there at around noon we were told that we were the first people crossing that day. With palm trees everywhere and the sea not far it felt more like a marina than an actual border crossing. What was really funny was that even though James and I were clearly traveling together we were treated totally different. While James had his passport taken away and every corner of his backpack was searched, I was asked to move on without them even looking into my bags and I got my visa stamp within minutes. James had to go through some security check and was interviewed a bit. But they were more interested to get the exact dates of entry and exit of the last few countries we traveled through for the paperwork.

Continue reading An Interesting Time in Israel and Palestine →