Early to wake up as usual and onto my daily walks around the hotel in Tiberias, this being the last day in Israel as we were to depart to Amman, the capital of Jordan in the evening.After breakfast went to the room and got our luggage into the "Tour Bus" and meandered our way alongside the narrow jordan river and onto the foothills of Mount Tabor, the place where the "Transfiguration of Christ" took place.At the foothills of Tabor mountain we alighted the bus as it could go no further and hence we made the rest of the journey upto the peak by means of a taxi, akin to climbing the "Khandala Ghats" in Maharashtra. On reaching the summit on which the "Tabor Church" was built we met a lot of Indian pilgrims from Mumbai and as i said previously,"Its ultimately a small world" and a few of the pilgrims were from "Worli locality" of Mumbai and happened to know my late mother, Mrs Greta.N.Furtado. My mothers religious practices and beliefs were on the point of pathological fanaticism reasons best known to her and ironically, her son, the "Blogger", was and is a total pacifist .My religious philosophy is "Live and let live" or still better to quote my favourite saying from Emperor Napoleon on "Religious tolerance",quote<>,"I am a Hindu in India and a Muslim in Egypt".
In life there are some people whom you might meet for just a few minutes, seconds or hours and then never again see them in your life-time,but, that one meeting can leave an immortal impression on your mind or memory either for the good or bad throughout your life.
In the courtyard of tabor church stood a imposing huge man with the built of a wrestler facing towards the sun with huge outstretched arms, a kind of "trance gesture" and on a closer look i observed colorful tattoo's all over his body. At 5' 10" of height , standing next to him i felt like a dwarf skeleton, such was the width of his chest and height, besides having shoulder length hair and reasonable good looking, reminding me of "Big Chief", the "American red Indian" who played a key role with Jack Nicholson in the movie, "One flew over the Cuckoo's nest". I happened to see "Big Chief" at Zurich Airport in 1985 on a transit flight to London for just a few minutes but remember him as if it was just yesterday that i saw him, although, i have traveled numerous city's and shipping ports since 1986. I mustered courage and first began a conversation by congratulating the giant on possessing a wonderful collection of "Body Art" and later inquired about his nationality and profession whose reply seemed straight out of a Hollywood fiction movie rather than a plain and visible fact. The giant was of Mexican Nationality and had been recently released from a U.S.A prison and hence had made the pilgrimage to 'Mt Tabor" and the "Holy Land".After bidding the Mexican giant goodbye i made my way into the church and after a brief prayer returned to the church courtyard, viewing the beautiful mountain valley. An Israeli army patrol was stationed on duty in the vicinity of the Tabor church compound and many of the young soldiers resembled school students let alone college grownups and on inquiry found out that many of them were undergoing their "Mandatory Military training" before their college enrollment or further educational study's. After the "Mandatory army conscription" period, individuals with an aptitude for military duty were absorbed for further training while the rest were allowed to pursue their higher education , professional course or a vocational course of their interest. We later returned to the "Tour Bus" and drove to a "Kibbutz resort" for lunch, the "Kibbutz's" having their own unique charm of informal luxury akin to the "Bedouin Hookah tent" in Mt Sinai(Egypt) peculiar to the country of origin. After lunch we boarded the bus and proceeded towards Sheikh Hussein Bridge and later to the "Israeli/Jordanian Border Checkpoint". It was a long wait at the "Israeli/Jordanian Checkpoint" and after an hour our bus moved into the "Customs Checkpoint". We disembarked with our luggage from the "Tour bus" and bid fare-well to Israeli guide Eleizer Gilboa and his driver Yousuf as we had spent the longest stay of our entire "Holy-Land Tour" in Israel. After undergoing the normal "Custom and immigration formalities" at "Hussein Cross border" of Jordan we were met by the Jordanian tour guide Mr Hiyari .Kamal, a young man compared to Mr Eleizer and proceeded towards Amman.The drive to Amman was of one and a half hour approximately and was a steep climb from sea-level to an altitude with the ambient temperature getting cold as Amman is situated at an altitude.In Amman we were accommodated in the "Amaken Plaza hotel" with Stephen and myself being allotted "Room nos 626" which was a "Suite type residence", bigger or equivalent to my Mumbai single/bedroom apartment and complete with a fridge and a kitchen, the best hotel accommodation in our entire "Holy Land tour". Relaxed in the hotel and later Mr Domingo Pereira and his wife who were accommodated next to our room visited us and we all had a small cock-tail party, discussing and summarizing the tour as well as "Its a small World" acquaintances.
Dinner was common buffet style and a bit spicy compared to the western food in Israel with the hotel packed with tourists.After dinner, came back to my room and browsed the "T.V.Channels" which had more of "Arabic programmes" and a Hindi movie channel, with no news of the "Indian Stock Market" which was just at the beginning of the "Great stock market crash of 2008/09" which had its roots in U.S.A and later effected the entire World.
In life there are some people whom you might meet for just a few minutes, seconds or hours and then never again see them in your life-time,but, that one meeting can leave an immortal impression on your mind or memory either for the good or bad throughout your life.
In the courtyard of tabor church stood a imposing huge man with the built of a wrestler facing towards the sun with huge outstretched arms, a kind of "trance gesture" and on a closer look i observed colorful tattoo's all over his body. At 5' 10" of height , standing next to him i felt like a dwarf skeleton, such was the width of his chest and height, besides having shoulder length hair and reasonable good looking, reminding me of "Big Chief", the "American red Indian" who played a key role with Jack Nicholson in the movie, "One flew over the Cuckoo's nest". I happened to see "Big Chief" at Zurich Airport in 1985 on a transit flight to London for just a few minutes but remember him as if it was just yesterday that i saw him, although, i have traveled numerous city's and shipping ports since 1986. I mustered courage and first began a conversation by congratulating the giant on possessing a wonderful collection of "Body Art" and later inquired about his nationality and profession whose reply seemed straight out of a Hollywood fiction movie rather than a plain and visible fact. The giant was of Mexican Nationality and had been recently released from a U.S.A prison and hence had made the pilgrimage to 'Mt Tabor" and the "Holy Land".After bidding the Mexican giant goodbye i made my way into the church and after a brief prayer returned to the church courtyard, viewing the beautiful mountain valley. An Israeli army patrol was stationed on duty in the vicinity of the Tabor church compound and many of the young soldiers resembled school students let alone college grownups and on inquiry found out that many of them were undergoing their "Mandatory Military training" before their college enrollment or further educational study's. After the "Mandatory army conscription" period, individuals with an aptitude for military duty were absorbed for further training while the rest were allowed to pursue their higher education , professional course or a vocational course of their interest. We later returned to the "Tour Bus" and drove to a "Kibbutz resort" for lunch, the "Kibbutz's" having their own unique charm of informal luxury akin to the "Bedouin Hookah tent" in Mt Sinai(Egypt) peculiar to the country of origin. After lunch we boarded the bus and proceeded towards Sheikh Hussein Bridge and later to the "Israeli/Jordanian Border Checkpoint". It was a long wait at the "Israeli/Jordanian Checkpoint" and after an hour our bus moved into the "Customs Checkpoint". We disembarked with our luggage from the "Tour bus" and bid fare-well to Israeli guide Eleizer Gilboa and his driver Yousuf as we had spent the longest stay of our entire "Holy-Land Tour" in Israel. After undergoing the normal "Custom and immigration formalities" at "Hussein Cross border" of Jordan we were met by the Jordanian tour guide Mr Hiyari .Kamal, a young man compared to Mr Eleizer and proceeded towards Amman.The drive to Amman was of one and a half hour approximately and was a steep climb from sea-level to an altitude with the ambient temperature getting cold as Amman is situated at an altitude.In Amman we were accommodated in the "Amaken Plaza hotel" with Stephen and myself being allotted "Room nos 626" which was a "Suite type residence", bigger or equivalent to my Mumbai single/bedroom apartment and complete with a fridge and a kitchen, the best hotel accommodation in our entire "Holy Land tour". Relaxed in the hotel and later Mr Domingo Pereira and his wife who were accommodated next to our room visited us and we all had a small cock-tail party, discussing and summarizing the tour as well as "Its a small World" acquaintances.
Dinner was common buffet style and a bit spicy compared to the western food in Israel with the hotel packed with tourists.After dinner, came back to my room and browsed the "T.V.Channels" which had more of "Arabic programmes" and a Hindi movie channel, with no news of the "Indian Stock Market" which was just at the beginning of the "Great stock market crash of 2008/09" which had its roots in U.S.A and later effected the entire World.
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| Amphitheatre in Amman in Jordan. |
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