Christmas always brings to mind memories of my visit to Israel, courtesy QE2.
Cunard invited Dominique and I to join QE2 on a leg of her 1999 World Cruise.
It was our fourth QE2 cruise, as Guest Chefs, specifically as curry specialists. It was our first WC and our contract was for us to perform four passenger demos and two Guest Chef days, always done when at sea, of course. We embarked in Mumbai in March 1999 and disembarked 15 days later in Haifa, Israel. Flights were paid by Cunard inc 80kg of equipment, flown out and back. The port days were amazing for the memorable tours of Dubai (huh), Ababa and Cairo, (we paid full price for tours; they were expensive but worth it.) In addition there was the wonderful on board experience of a Suez transit.
On arrival day in Haifa (since we were not due to disembark until the next day) we took the tour of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Apart from the incredible sights, tours nearly always produced a secondary enrichment, that of people watching. Our Israeli tour didn’t disappoint, as much with the antics of fellow passengers ashore as with the visible tensions and differences between Jews, Arabs and Christians.
The tour began with the usual dockside gaggle of coaches and no shortage of red-umbrellas, held up by Cunard tour leaders, each trying to board their clutch of passengers in the right buses. One local guide was provided for each tour bus. Ours was a portly middle aged man whose attitude said "don't want to be here", confirmed by an almost total absense of commentary on the eight hour tour.
One of the few things he did tell us was that he was an Israeli Jew.. He seemed angry from the start. When asked questions from passengers on the coach eager for explanations, for example about Palestine or Christianity, he virtually denied the existence of both.
Though he took us to see Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall, walked us up the Via Dolorosa, showed us the Church of the Sepulchre, and took us to the Mount of Olives he had little to say about anything so we got no explanations about these sights.
After lunch the coaches set off for Bethlehem, a few miles away, to visit the Church of the Nativity which stands over Jesus' birthplace. Bethlehem had only four years before (1995) been handed over by Israel to full Palestinian administration. Our Guide failed to explain why the coaches were being stopped for checks at heavily armed border check points. He failed to warn us that we were crossing into Palestine. When a few bolder souls asked him to verify this he, brushed off the checks as routine Israeli security activity.
On arrival at the Church he vanished, leaving us tourists to try to understand it all by ourselves. Amongst fellow Cunard tourists was a young Australian female. Despite all the shipboard pre tour warnings about dress code, she had turned out in the briefest of mini skirt, skimpy top,, and the tallest platform shoes ever seen. It could not have been less appropriate.
As she tottered over the cobbles, another Cunard tourist got off the coach. He was a smartly be-suited German of about 65. Blue eyes, once blonde hair now silver no excess weight, upright and clearly very fit. We could hear him muttering remarks to his wife. Then our attention was averted to an Arab hawker squatting near the temple and selling keffiya, the Arab black & white check head scarf, made famous by the then alive Yasser Arafat. The trader hissed and croaked at the girl and pointed to her legs. It was obvious what he was saying, obvious enough for her to say "what’s up mate?”.
The Arab spluttered out a few more croaks, and this was enough for the German Cunarder. “You stupid girl” he barked and marched towards the Church, his wife fussing behind.
Not surprisingly the girl’s confidence collapsed as she looked uncertainly at the pointing Arab, at the German who flashed her a further disapproving glare as he stalked into the Church, and at me and Dominique, who said “why don’t you buy his scarf to wear as a skirt.” The Arab got the drift. It was clearly not the first time he’d been called upon to ‘save the day’. “One dollar” he rasped, holding out the keffiya. After rummaging in her purse the girl produced a five dollar bill. “All I’ve got” she stammered”.
“No change” lied the Arab, with a back-of-the-throat rasp, and a take it or leave it look.
With a little more hesitation, she took it. Her five dollar bill disappeared into the folds of his robe. Indeed the Arab himself had disappeared when we emerged from the Church some time later. In his place, our guide had reappeared to accompany us in silence on the 80 mile journey back to Haifa and a welcome final evening in the real world of the QE2..
We disembarked next morning and never saw the Ausi or the Germans again.
Departure from Israel's Tel Aviv airport lived up to its reputation with the most stringent interrogation carried out over the course of an hour and a half by two heavily armed Israeli policewomen, who repeatedly asked me why I had visas recently stamped in my passport from Egypt, Jordan and Dubai. They claimed not to understand what the QE2 was, nor my explanation that I was on a cruise, nor that I had entered Israel in Haifa.
But that’s another story.
