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| "SUNDAY MASS" at the "Mount of Beatitudes". |
As usual, woke up early and had my normal morning walk along the beautiful side-walks of picturesque Tiberias in the cool climate, akin to hill-station
"Ooty" in India. After breakfast boarded the
"Tour Bus" our
"Home-On- wheels" during the entire 12 days tour, crisscrossing different Country's, religions and political doctrines. Sunday Mass was conducted at the
"Mount of Beatitudes', a beautiful church situated on a small hillock where Jesus was supposed to have preached his sermon on the mount. A
"Holy Tour Group" from Singapore had arranged for conduction of a special sermon at a outdoor chapel outside the main church and we, the
"Mosiac Holidays group" also attended the same mass sermon.It had rained at night and the entire pathway had soft mud and the weather excellent.We next visited
Capernaum which was Jesus's second home after Nazareth and then to
Tabgha, all bibilical religious sites. Next we visited the
"Baptimisal site" on the river Jordan, the biblical river that now also forms a part of the border between Israel and Jordan. Waded into the crystal clean and clear waters of the river filled with beautiful fish that relished the feeding by pilgrim tourists. Orthodox pilgrims draped themselves in robes, similar to Sadhus in India and waded into the river baptizing themselves .Manny locals come to this particular leisure as well as religious site foe relaxing and there was a shop selling
"Holy water" and other religious icons.Swimming is not allowed in the river and pilgrims can only wade or have a dip in this holy river.After the
"Baptismal Site" visited
St Peters church of Primacy in Galilee, an ancient archeological ruins site which had a church built over the underground ruins . Ruins of an ancient Jewish Synagogue also existed next to the Church of St Peters in Galilee, a locality having archaeological ruins much before the life time of Jesus Christ. A qualified Archeologist would have had a treasure trove of archeological wonders at this ancient biblical ruins and observing these historical ruins a person gains knowledge as to the extremely difficult task of documenting archeological history. Later, lunch was typical buffet style and then a long journey by "Tour Bus" to the pier of the sea of Galilee. Visited the local souvenir shop near the
"Galilean boat pier", a small mall having a variety of religious and curio souvenirs for sale to tourists. While shopping in the mall came across a first generation salesgirl Jewish g of Indian origin who had migrated from Mumbai and spoke fluent
"Yiddish" as well as
"English" , the first Indian origin Jew that i came across during my entire tour of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Jericho( Palestine,West Bank )and Tiberias. As mentioned before, Israeli society has its own federal form of Jewish residency within a
"Jewish State" with various immigrant jews from various country's residing within their own social communes, speaking their own country of origin language with
"Yiddish" being the national language. Akin to the
"Forbidden City" of China during the Chinese monarchy, Israel was and still is a very closely guarded and secretive Country, foreign tourist travels are restricted, besides, travelers to Israel were banned from visiting other Arab country's, a
"Catch-22" situation for the average tourist, totally disconnected with the politics of the region. Wonder if Sir Paul McCartney will be allowed to perform or visit in some Arab Country's after performing a concert in Tel-Aviv in September-2008 , such is the complicated web of
"Middle-East Politics", where even Sir Paul McCartney walks the
"Political Tight-Rope", let alone the average mortal common tourists
."Holy Land Tourism" in recent years has opened the biblical lands as well as Israel to the outside World and people are discovering the Country and its culture a little better, other than as being a
"Middle-East military superpower" and the root cause of
"International Terrorism".
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| "MOSIAC TOUR GROUP " on the "GALILEAN FISHING BOAT" |
After shopping at the
"Galilean shopping mall" we later boarded a mechanized fishing dhow designed on the original Galilean boats that plied these waters during biblical times.There were a lot of tourists from various country's and we had some few foreigners from Columbia amongst our boat passengers as the
"Mosiac Holidays Group" had an entire boat to ourselves. As the boat cruised along the Galilean Coast , the National anthems of Israel,India and Columbia were recited and as usual everyone was camera happy in clicking photo's. As mentioned previously, Israel has a very
"westernized Culture" and tour guide Mr Eliezer gracefully demonstrated the same by dancing a folk dance to the music being played on the boats music system while we all did our own
"Desi versions" of dance, including the Colombian tourists.It was a memorable evening of pilgrimage and simple leisure and finally we boarded our
"Tour Bus" and headed to our hotel in Tiberias. On inquiries at the hotel and browsing through local tour guide books i came to the conclusion that
"Night-Life" in Tiberias was almost non-existent confined only to one or two prominent exorbitantly priced pub bars. As a
"Mumbaikar", living in a
"Sin City" and having traveled the World and also having seen a lot of other
"Sin City's" , most unforgettable being Bangkok ,the thrill of visiting a
"Disco pub" in either Jerusalem or Tiberias was not a fascination. According to local tourist literature, the city of
Tel aviv is considered the
"Sin City" of Israel, complete, with their own local Mafia's and crime, combination of an American import of the
"Godfather series" and
"Las Vegas" style entertainment.
Watched television on the huge flat screen in the hotel lobby and later crashed to a good nights sleep.
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| A dance on the Galilean boat on the sea of Galilee. |
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