Today I went to Palestine. Bethlehem is officially in Palestine so I had the cross the border into the West Bank and therefore into Palestine. I thought I could not go on my own so I did another tour. As it turns out you can go alone and I wish I had and stayed a night. To get there I had a bus to Mt Scopus then change bus to the West Bank, then change bus and pick up a Palestinian Guide to Bethlehem. At Bethlehem we get a new Palestinian guide and one of them has to stay with us at all times. I don't understand why cos I could have gone up there on my own and the only difference would have been tighter checks at the border.
Anyway, we have our guide and we go to the Milk Grotto. It is a cave where Mary stopped to feed Jesus and dropped some milk and all the limestone turned white. (fancy that) Of course there is a church there now as well, and the place overlooks Shepherds field, where the shepherds watched their flocks etc. There is also a cave there where the shepherds lived so we got to look in there, and the shepherds field, you know where the shepherds watched their flock at night.
Manger Sq is nothing like I was expecting. It is just the town square with heaps of junky old cars parked on it. I would have liked to look around but we had more pressing things to see.
Church of the Nativity. It is very drab from the outside and looks like nothing. The inside is owned by three different groups. The Greek Orthodox own the biggest and by far the most impressive section. The Armenians seem to own a piece of the floor and not much else and the Catholics own the new building next door, where they broadcast the midnite mass at xmas and easter. They are doing renovations on the Greek section so the was a huge letdown to see the place full of scaffolding. There were were sooo many people we had to go round them and get to some places and then come back. Under the church is a cave where Jesus was born. I know, like me you thought he was born in a manger in a stable but we were in the exact cave where he was born. There was a limestone wall and it was right behind there. We then went through another tunnel where someone interpreted the bible from greek and Hebrew to latin. In another section of the cave we found the exact spot where Jesus was born and we know this cos there is a star on the floor and the people there were just going crazy and pushing and shoving just to lie down and kiss the star. It was bedlam down there, even worse than first day at the Myer sale. On the way out we got to check out the cool mosaic floor from the original church.
I think we might have set a record for the fastest tour ever cos we virtually ran around and didn't get much time to look at stuff but we did get ALL the bible references.
Last stop of the day, and by far the longest, was at Johnny's Souvenir shop. It was all Christian icons and double the price of anywhere else.
Overall it was an OK tour but not worth anywhere near the money they charge. Bethlehem is a very clean town, which is surprising cos they are mostly muslem. The streets are very winding and narrow and the steepest in the country.
Back in Jerusalem they dropped us at a hotel just down the road so I knew my way around. I helped a couple of Phillipino girls find there way to the Marmila Mall so they could get to the Jaffa Gate and a Costa Rican couple were going back to Tel Aviv so I showed them how the get to the bus station and how to catch the train. I now have a new contact in Costa Rica for next year.