About eight days ago, Natalia left me here to fly home and I had ten days to chill out here for a bit and then go and check out a bit of Israel, which is just a three hour bus journey to the north. The Sinai peninsula was actually part of Israel for fifteen years, from 1967-1982 - after the six day war, when it's territory almost doubled in size. It was handed back over to Egypt though and since then the two countries have signed a peace accord, leading to an uneasy truce between the sides. The stunning coastline from here to the border is lined with beach camps which used to be frequented by young Israeli soldiers mainly, in search of a bit of r 'n r, but which now lie sadly empty because of Israeli paranoia about kidnappings and bombs. Anyway, I decided to go and check out the country despite its reputation for paranoia and strict control, mainly to see the fabled city of Jerusalem before leaving the Middle East. Travel in this part of the world is made extremely complicated because of what's known as 'the Israeli stamp stigma' - which means that if you want to visit Syria or Lebanon and Israel, you have to do it from north to south, coming through Syria/Lebanon first and Israel last. Why? If you have an Israeli stamp in your passport, you are simply not entitled entry to those two countries. In fact, one of the questions they ask on your visa application is "do you plan to visit occupied Palestine?". A positive answer to this question will also preclude you from going there.

Not that entering Israel with Lebanese and Syrian stamps in your passport makes life easy. In my guidebook, it said that Israeli border guards are "rather circumspect" about seeing them. In reality, this means a 30 minute grilling by an (admittedly pretty, young) border guardess on every aspect of your trip, where you plan to go in Israel, what you do, who you know and for how long you've known them. They then proceed to inspect everything in your bag with a fine toothed comb, look at what books you are reading and even read your diary. A couple of books on travel in the Middle East (especially one on Iraq and Afghanistan) caused more than a raised eyebrow and several more minutes of questioning. In all it took three hours to cross the border. As a result, I missed my bus to Jerusalem and was stuck in Eilat, a coastal town with all the attraction of Las Vegas by the sea. Full of ziggurat-like hotels, malls, expensive bars and arcades, Eilat is a million miles away from the laid-back ambience of Dahab. I and a German guy I met on the bus attempted to hitch-hike out of there, but cars were choc a bloc with families and possessions, making their way home for the holy day of Shabbat. I didn't feel too happy about this, and was even less so when I discovered that the religious holiday of Yom Kippur was coming up - which meant all public transport would be off and the border closed, necessitating an early exit and further shortening my stay in Israel.

An uninteresting and expensive evening in Eilat followed (beer price in a bar - 8 dollars) and a stroll along the glitzy, mall-lined promenade did nothing to raise the spirits, so an early night was in order.The next day, a visit to the bus station revealed that no buses would run until 4.30pm to Jerusalem because of Shabat, and so I hopped on one to Tel Aviv instead. Once on a bus, you get an idea of the military control of Israel; there were four armed soldiers sitting on the bus in their distinctive kharki uniforms, looking tense and nervous. To enter any bus station in Israel (except Eilat for some reason), you need to go through an airport - style check in with your bags and have a body frisk to check for guns and/or bombs. The journey to Tel Aviv was slow and through arid, desert country - it passed through some non-descript small towns and one particularly large, ugly place called B'eer Sheva. The atmosphere on the bus was strangely tense - not just because of the soldiers (and on my part anyway the vague thought that if a bus-bomb was to occur anywhere on this trip, it would happen here), but because of some restive Arab Jew youths who appeared to want to cause as much disruption as possible, winding people up playing their phones too loud, smoking and arguing with other passengers. Strangely, the soldiers did not get involved. One thing that seems to divide Israeli society (one of many) is the difference between the European Jewry and those who moved there from other Arab countries in the region (often to do construction work) - they obviously form an underclass there. It was a relief to arrive in Tel Aviv mid-afternoon.

Tel Aviv has a lot in common with Beirut, just up the coast in Lebanon. Western-facing, European / American in character, it is populated mainly by high buildings, wide boulevards, large hotels and lots of people rushing around trying to get somewhere fast. It's a new city, entirely built in the (mainly late) 20th century to house and administer all the incoming Jews after the creation of Israel. It's more American in flavour than anything, like Eilat, and clearly designed along the lines of a Florida or Miami style city by the sea - unusual in European countries to have capitals which double as beach resorts. It's main tourist attraction, in all honesty, is it's beach and marinas with bars and beach-side cafes. There is some moderately interesting art-deco and bauhaus architecture there, but aside from that, it's not a place to hang around - it's also very pricey - so I got the bus out of there and to Jerusalem later that evening - a mere 90km down the road. I'd have liked to have sampled the famous night-life there, but at the end of a long trip, pushed for time and money, I just didn't give it much of a chance.

Jerusalem, when I arrived, didn't look anything out of the ordinary. The new town is like any new town, and from it's bus station I hiked down the main drag - Jaffa Road- which was being dug up to make way for a tram line. I made my way to east Jerusalem - the Palestinian quarter and to the cheapest hostel in town (Faisal) which is famed on the backpacker scene in the Middle East for it's feisty political atmosphere and common room which is an arena for heated middle eastern debate. Murals of Rafa city under seige and declarations of Palestinian solidarity decorated the walls, which was a statement of its political intent - I wonder how long a similar hostel would last in Jerusalem supporting the Israeli side. When I went to the common room though I was disappointed to find there only an over-eager Canadian gap-year student, desperate to impress people with all the amazing places he'd been. I retired to my bunk-bed before going out briefly for some falafel. I later got talking to a grizzled old guy from Germany who had been travelling continuously for seven years and who was convinced of the presence of evil spirits in the hostel. Another guy, Swiss, who was walking around with a profound limp had been living in the hostel for three years. He was an expert on the Eurovision song contest, and was genuinely surprised when I told him that all Britons treat it as a joke. He filled me on some surprising news however that Cliff Richard is currently in court trying to get a positive verdict on the 1967 competition when he came 2nd with 'Celebration' - the Spanish entry had been voted for by Germany on political grounds or something and therefore won the competition ahead of him.

I discovered over the next two days that Jerusalem is probably the most interesting and possibly the most beautiful city I've ever visited. It oozes history at every corner, and you get a tangible sense of the drama and spituality of the place, even when you are an unbeliever as I am. There is a well - known psychological condition known as 'Jerusalem Syndrome', and this accounts for a small but not insignificant number of people who come to the city, apparently sane, and go away (if they are allowed out of the asylum that has been built for them), believing they are Christ, or the new Messiah. They are, it is said, overcome with the significance of the whole thing, you know, walking down Via Delarosa, sitting in the Garden of Gethsemane or looking down on the city from the Mount of Olives, and they go in to some kind of trance. This condition only lasts a few days on average, and people who have it go away and don't usually suffer any further psychological trauma in the future. A minority persist and are taken care of. I, happily, did not find myself believing I was the resurrection, but I was hugely moved by the city. Watching the devout orthodox Jews praying at the Western Wall, climbing Temple Mount and moving around a city which has endless labrynthine alleys and side streets to explore, you can't help but feel a little overawed. One of the great things about the city, and it's something which has probably been said many times before, is how it embraces the three monotheistic religions and allows mutual tolerance. The Jews who pray at the western Wall are just a stone's throw from the sacred Muslim place of worship Haram ash-Sharif (and indeed the mosque is built on the site of an ancient Jewish temple), and if you go a couple of blocks through the Arabic quarter, you are in the Armenian and Chritian quarters, which contain some of the world's oldest and most venerated churches - the Church of the Holy Sepulchre being the main one, built on the site of Mount Golgotha, where Christ is said to have been crucified. The queues of religious pilgrims stretched out of the gates of this place, and there were many in stunned disbelief or tears.

The best view of Jerusalem is from above, and this can be done from several vantage points - the best ones being the Mount of Olives, Mount Zion, or the city ramparts, from which you can march around the tops of the city walls and see it from all angles. Hearing Muslim Muezzin calls, church bells tolling and wailing Jews at the western wall in one moment is an experience you can't get anywhere else in the world - and it's without doubt the most spiritual of experiences I've had on the trip. The inevitable crowds of tourists on pilgrimages do slightly spoil the effect, but nevertheless - well worth it. Without sounding too hippy and idealist, I came away from Jerusalem hoping there could be a solution to the Palestinian problem, because from what I saw, these people can live together. Whether the extremists in the West Bank and Gaza, and the Israeli hard-liners can ever come to any peace agreement in government is another thing entirely.

I may not have done justice to Israel, and we certainly spent more time in other countries on the trip, but if there's one unmissable place in all of the Middle East, Jerusalem is it.