RANSVESTIA

a few ounces of plastic explosive I'm surprised that they didn't require a vaginal examination of the females. After all that “private pocket" could easily be (and has been) used for secreting contraband so why not explo- sives? That would really have blown it wouldn't it. Wonder what the tour group would have said to my "revelation." Well, I was cool about it (in spite of the Jordanian sun) and would have carried it thru.

As we finally left the customs center and drove toward the Allenby bridge crossing (temporary as the original bridge had been destroyed in the 1967 war) we noted the machine gun emplacements, barbed wire, for- tifications etc. all along the heights. Little did we realize on this day Thurs- day Oct. 4 that war would break out just two days later on the 6th. For- tunately for this area Jordan had sense enough not to open this front too. I really think that Hussein and Jordan could get along very friendly with the Israelis and be very useful to each other if the other Arab countries didn't bring pressure on them. Of course Jerusalem and the west bank of the Jordan had been in Jordanian hands until the 1967 war which is a big bone of contention. But then the Arab Legion (Jordanian) had captured it from the Jewish inhabitants back in 1947 when Israel was founded.

On the way to Jerusalem we stopped at the ruins of Jericho which have been excavated down to a depth of about 30 feet to the original city whose "walls came tumbling down" at the time of Joshua's assault. There isn't much to be seen except the excavation holes and the various levels but it gives one a certain feeling of awe to be in the presence of such recorded history. We finally reached the Jerusalem International Hotel on a hill overlooking the old walled city, a very interesting and beautiful view.

I don't want to bore you with a blow by blow description of all the places we visited but we spent the next 3 days covering Bethlehem, the old city, Garden of Gethsemane, the temple, Wailing Wall, Church of Nativity and the rest of the tourist places. It was naturally all very interest- ing but to me vaguely disappointing and disconcerting. I'm not very reli- gious by this time in life but I went the Sunday School route as a child so I have a lot of programming in my head. One sets up some imagination about these places and then doesn't find them to be as imagined and it is something of a letdown. Being herded (that's the right word) into a build- ing or church thru narrow corridors and down winding steps to be shown some "spot" under glass or behind fencing where Jesus was born, sat, talked, was buried or whatever is pretty disillusioning. Then when you find that the Roman Catholics, Greek Catholics, Armenian Catholics and Protestants have literally cordoned off parts of these holy places as

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