haifa.10

Haifa Fornightly(Editor--Huzefa Mehta) 10th edition 15/3/93 Happy Holi, Id-Mubarak and Happy Guddi Padwa I find myself lagging behind writing this newsletters....I am not overloaded with work just lazy. And no the FBI has not contacted me as a prime suspect for any bombing incident..(psst though I might hold a clue) although I fulfill most of their requirements, am an Indian muslim supporting the Palestine cause, have been to Egypt last month, have been in Israel for the last 5 months and have US conections. This weekend we went to Sinai again. Taking the bus in the night is convenient. Reached Eliat very early in the morning and camped on the Red sea beach. Then we trekked over to the Egypt side and took the shared taxi to Mt. Catherine(about 3 hrs). We met a British guy and a chinese girl biking their way from Beijing to London. After their entry into Israel they would take a ferry to Cypres and then to Turkey. The Sinai is very colorful with its very colorful dry peaks and cobalt-blue Red Sea at its shores. We reached Mt. Catherine around 4pm. We had our lunch/dinner and slept till 2 am. It was really freezing. After about half and hour we reached the start of the trail. Mt. Sinai is around 2500 m and is second to Mt. Catherine which is about a couple of km's north of it. Mt. Sinai also called as Mt. Moses was the mountain where Moses stood and heard a voice from the burning bushes and was delivered upon the 10 commandments. The touristi thing here was to see Sinai as Moses saw it at sunrise. There were some people on the way.. Lots of bedouin boys saying "Chaameil". Took us about 2 hrs to get to the top. The view was good. There was a chapel at the top and of course some people selling biscuits and coffee till we waited for dawn. We returned back later on during the day. Visited Catherine Monastery still occupied by some Greek Monks. Left for Israel the same day and took the bus back sometime in the afternoon. We visited couple of interesting national parks. I don't remember their names because they are in hebrew. One was a pre-historic caves national park and another was a cavern(similar to Carlsbard caverns though much smaller). Situation in the Occupied terrotories are tense and politics of the land here is very complicated. It is impossible to provide a fair judgement to this kind of situation because for about 20 years every wrong has been done in retaliation for another wrong. Viewing each incident out of context is unfair. We leave for Turkey this Thursday for 11 days. Istanbul and the Turkey Reviera..maybe one of the Greek Islands for a couple of days and trek around the eastern part of Turkey. Lahit rahot