A day at a desert mountain spring

Lots have things have made me happy since being back home in Jerusalem, but one specific moment stands out, so I thought I should write about it.

Last Saturday a few friends and me decided to head down to Kfar Adumim for some nature-style fun. When I got in the car I realised immediately that something was amiss...We were 4 girls. No boys! No one playing a bongo with one hand and a wooden flute with the other whilst changing the radio station, singing, smoking and driving. In fact, no one playing any instruments at all, and both the drivers hands were firmly on the wheel. This was a new one. Feeling safe in a car in Israel.

However the 100% Girl-Power thing wasn't to last, as the last stop on the pick-up route was the one lucky (or unlucky...) male that would be joining us that day. Big relief. We were about to start blow-drying our hair in the car, and talking about shoes and furniture! We needed to be stopped!

We arrived at our destination without incident, and my heart was even beating at a normal speed having not seen my life flash before my eyes on the road even once. As we parked the car I realised that, yet again, I had been unwillingly taken to the spot with the most hardcore hike involved to get to the (admittedly most beautiful) spring. It's always worth it, I know that, but it was Saturday morning, we'd had a late night on Friday, and I really couldn't be arsed.

But then... the most amazing thing happened. We realised something... we didn't HAVE TO DO THIS. We had more girls then boys! And that's when our fearless driver, and my new hero, spoke up... saying (rough translation) ... 'NO! We're GIRLS! We don't want to hike! I can't be bothered, WE'RE DRIVING DOWN!' Never have more glorious words been spoken. I didn't even know it was possible to drive down! So long had we been bullied by the boys to do all this physical exercise, we'd forgotten what it feels like to take the gloriously easy option! We all cheered as the car moved on, deep down into the valley, where we would only have to walk for about 20 minutes (instead of an hour) to get to our beautiful mountain spring.

And beautiful it was indeed... And so much more so knowing that when it was time to go, we didn't have an hour of uphill to get back to the car!

Down at the spring we kept up the girls day vibe... and I'm almost ashamed to admit we did some nail painting whilst out in nature! Sadly our poor male companion is probably now part female as a result of said day... but hey. We're always outnumbered so we got to have ours for once!

And that, my friends, is the story of the day the girls won!

Return to Zion

An excerpt from my musings on the way back to Jerusalem:

'Wow what a day! And it's far from being over... Got up early [in my hotel in Bangkok] and had my buffet breakfast out on the Garden Terrace. Decided to employ consequentialist ideology and eat cheese. It was there anyway - my eating it or not eating it wasn't going to make any difference. Couldn't bring myself to put milk in my coffee though - silly silly... Headed out for Lan's Day of Bangkok Fun!

Tried to find some local markets that I'd heard about but got nabbed on the way by a Tuk Tuk driver who said they're closed on Mondays. Allegedly it's 'Buddha Day'. Gotta remember to Wikipedia that one. Next thing I know I've agreed to what I thought was a very reasonable price (60 Baht) to get to the Grand Palace. Little did I know, this price included about 5 stops at different over-priced factories full of mainly ugly bling jewelery. Something about the driver getting a free can of gasoline if I bought something....? I dunno. Managed to get through it all only spending 180 Baht on a jade Chinese Buddha pendant which I quite like. Wasted 1 1/2 hours though...

The whole morning and most of the afternoon I was really enjoying the whole traveling by myself thing, thinking I should really start making a plan to do some proper traveling by myself. South America maybe. Asia. Must admit I'm also feeling very inspired by a movie I watched on the plane last night - Into the Wild. Soundtrack by Eddie Vedder. Brilliant movie. 'Cept for the dying in the wild by himself bit. I really like the idea of my life not being entirely based on my interactions with other humans. Relationships. Having said that, when he gets scared and lonely and realises he's going to die alone he does decide that happiness is only real when it's shared. Anyway - I digress.

Finally made it to the Grand Palace and got to rent a fugly shirt to cover my shoulders. Definitely should have gotten someone to take a photo of me - I looked damn funny! Paid 250 Baht to walk around and look at some pretty buildings and shrubs and statues. Saw an Emerald Buddha and made sure to point my feet AWAY from the Buddha as the sign instructed me to do (Buddha's apparently not into feet!). It's funny - up until I saw the sign regarding foot direction, I was actually feeling quite warmly towards Thai religious beliefs. Buddhism in particular I suppose. It's not that weird I guess... Buddhism does tend to be fairly inoffensive, I just haven't been able to keep up any level of tolerance for religion these days. It all just seems to be straight up ridiculous to me. An insult to human intelligence. Anyway so the foot thing put me off and as I saw more people burning incense in front of stone elephants and the like, it all tumbled into the same category as all the rest. Fairy-tales. Pointless ceremony. Believing in something, as it were, rather than taking the time or making the effort to think about the logic behind it. But enough about religion...

A couple of hours of 'pretty' was enough for me so I legged it back into dirty, smelly, humid Bangkok for some more play-time. Wandered around some cool markets then, deciding against taking my life, my money and my precious time in my hands, jumped in a cab instead of a Tuk Tuk. Fluorescent pink no less. Next stop, the famous MBK. Shopping time! Time to waste money that I can ill-afford to waste! Buy more material possessions to weigh me down! Fun!

This place was a trip, that's for sure. I don't like shopping centers even at the best of times, when they're at their most British and organised... this place was just freakin' ridiculous! It's crazy what such displays of mass consumerism can do to your brain. I started thinking 'Ooo... maybe I should buy an iphone?' 'Upgrade my mp3 player?' (I've had mine for THREE months and I love it!!)... 'Maybe I should buy FURNITURE and SHIP IT HOME!!'. Brilliant. It's the prices that do it though - they really are ridiculously cheap. Anyway I spent all the cash I had fairly quickly on some DVDs, clothes, shoes, bags etc. Didn't even buy that much really - I was quite impressed by my restraint despite the crazy capitalist thoughts flashing through my head and the little pile of money I know I've got sitting in my bank account from working in Sydney. Obviously logic dictates that this money should be saved for things like ... I dunno... rent and food, but then logic and money rarely fall into the same sentence when it comes to me eh? I digress again...

Accidentally spent the money I'd put aside for airport tax on an awesome 1 hour massage, so I hit up another ATM and it informs me that my card's f%*ked (in nicer words of course). B'seder, I decide to give my Israeli card a go and waddaya know, stupid evil orange machine EATS IT and won't give it back! Awesome. Aussie card randomly not working despite having been fine a few hours earlier, Israeli card eaten by evil anti-semitic machine. Awesome. I certainly didn't foresee having to deal with a Thai BANK in my 24 hour stay! Well, I should say trying to deal. Useless mofos. Clearly opening the machine for me tomorrow morning is going to be useless if I have a flight out of the country tonight!

Walked back to the hotel very grumpy and kinda starting to freak out. Very worried that not being able to pay for my bottle of water from the mini-bar or the airport tax would result in me having to live in the wild after all. The wilderness of Bangkok. FOREVER. How lame would that be??

I tried my Aussie card in a couple of different ATMs along the way and I guess I have to admit something here. It seems old habits die hard. I accidentally subconsciously prayed to God that it would work. Food for thought. Maybe I should have pointed my feet away from the ATM! Maybe that was the problem.

Anyway long story short is that Daddy came to the rescue by sending a credit card authorisation to the hotel so they could give me cash and cover my crazy water-drinking habits. Sorted it all out in time to get my transfer to the airport with literally only about 4 minutes to spare.

The guy who drove me to the airprot (apparently his name was Oz), didn't speak any English so I got to chill out which was nice. About half-way though our journey he pipes up with 'Hello fliend! Do like Thailand?', to which I responded 'Yes, very nice!'. And he said 'I cannot speak Engrish' and that was the end of that.

Sick of writing now... at the airport with ages to kill. Thought I couldn't check in for another couple of hours but I've just glanced over and seen the El Al security chics doing their thing so I guess that'll be my next mission.'

.... Pretty long excerpt I know, but it was a crazy day. Back in the Holy Land now and couldn't be happier. Updates to come.