Day 5, Tel Aviv, 8 December 2016
Ever since I started frequenting the hotels, it has been an unfulfilled desire – to buy one big, good, soft, bouncy bed for my home – and it is not materializing so far. It is an oft repeated scene in our life, I and Sampoo think of buying a good mattress and visit a shop for that, almost all the beds and mattresses seem to be better than the ones we have at home, but the moment we learn the prices, they lose their appeal and we prefer to continue to lead a contended life. We return with just good bedspreads. I keep consolingly reminding myself, that, with money, you can buy a good mattress, but not a good sleep.
After the morning reverie in the toilet and shower, went down to the restaurant for breakfast. It was as lavish as yesterday’s one and it was time for me to practice, albeit briefly, unmindful gluttony. Enjoyed the smorgasbord very much, finished with a liberal helping of coffee and returned to the room with the obvious look of someone who has eaten far more a human should have in a breakfast.
Today we were to change the hotels, from this super luxury Ritz Carlton Herzliya to Renaissance in Tel Aviv beachfront. As we had time till noon to check out, we decided to do some shopping in the area. On the advice of Ran, the young front office guy, drove to Ramat Aviv Shopping Mall.
Ramat Aviv means Spring Heights in Hebrew. Shopping malls world over look alike and this one is no different. I don’t go to the malls for shopping. I go there to watch people and in particular, fashionable young women, besides practicing car parking in the narrowest lots.
Ramat Aviv means Spring Heights in Hebrew. Shopping malls world over look alike and this one is no different. I don’t go to the malls for shopping. I go there to watch people and in particular, fashionable young women, besides practicing car parking in the narrowest lots.
The basement car park was almost full and I had to park the car in the space marked with a wheel chair symbol. Alighted slowly and lest anyone suspect, walked my way to the elevator with a subtle limp. Inside the mall, it was crowded with young fashionable people and I instantly felt at home.
Sampoo, after an arduous process of selection and deselection, bought a dress. As always, I helped her by checking out the price tags. Hotel manager had forewarned that this mall is said to be Israel’s most expensive one. But he was not absolutely correct. This shopping mall should be the most expensive one in the whole world. (In fact whole of Israel was very expensive, it is not value for money, for an average traveler, you see)
Sampoo, after an arduous process of selection and deselection, bought a dress. As always, I helped her by checking out the price tags. Hotel manager had forewarned that this mall is said to be Israel’s most expensive one. But he was not absolutely correct. This shopping mall should be the most expensive one in the whole world. (In fact whole of Israel was very expensive, it is not value for money, for an average traveler, you see)
After a coffee in the Starbucks, we returned to the hotel and checked out. Ran, the manager at the front office helped me in getting a local mobile phone sim card. He fondly remembered his stay in India and the Enfield Bullet riding trips he had had in Kottayam - Munnar area. Obviously he had been impressed by the rain and greenery, both very scarce things in his homeland. He should have wondered why God allotted Judaean desert (that too with some choicest neighbours) for his chosen people, while he preferred Kerala as his own country.
In fact, every young Israeli I met had been to India. Both men and women. That was amazing and many of them had spent considerable length of time, often a year or two, in India. It was perplexing for me, why, of all the countries, India?
Then I learnt that most Israelis travel shortly after their mandatory service in the army. After two to three years in the army, they want to travel far away from home. They also don´t have a lot of money, since they haven´t started studying or working, and India is cheap. They also want to feel as free as they can after being soldiers- and I believe, India, with its laid-back culture, gives them the sense of freedom they are looking for. Just where else in the world you need not observe queues, traffic rules, basic etiquettes, and things like that? Where else you can lob away trash anywhere and pee everywhere? India is the absolutely free country.
Then I learnt that most Israelis travel shortly after their mandatory service in the army. After two to three years in the army, they want to travel far away from home. They also don´t have a lot of money, since they haven´t started studying or working, and India is cheap. They also want to feel as free as they can after being soldiers- and I believe, India, with its laid-back culture, gives them the sense of freedom they are looking for. Just where else in the world you need not observe queues, traffic rules, basic etiquettes, and things like that? Where else you can lob away trash anywhere and pee everywhere? India is the absolutely free country.
Another thing, Israelis like to travel to places where other Israelis travel to. Israel is a small country with a relatively small amount of people, so practically everybody knows someone who knows someone else. So the word of mouth travelogues spread and India becomes an established choice.
From Herzliya, we drove to downtown Tel Aviv. Our destination, Renaissance Hotel, another big brand owned by the Marriott, is right on the beach. Standing shoulder to shoulder with the nearby Sheraton, it is a tastelessly built, 16 Story building. But all the rooms have beautiful views of the beach. The view from my room is still one of my lasting images of Tel Aviv.
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| The tall white building is the Hotel Renaissance |
We checked into the hotel. There was no self-parking, only valet parking, costing 20 USD a day. The hotel’s manager is an Indian Origin Jew who had migrated from Cochin long back. Another cute receptionist, Elizabeth, is also an Indian Jew from Mumbai. Always wearing a cheerful look, I thought, she must be the most efficient hotel receptionist in Israel. Another 50+ man, a bell captain, Joshua Fernandez, is also from Mumbai, having migrated here 26 years back. He has many grand children now and says life has been so kind to him in Israel. (When I spoke to a taxi driver later, in another part of the city, I told him that I was staying at Renaissance hotel, he immediately identified Joshua and remembered him to be an Indian. Tel Aviv is a small city, with a population of 4 lakhs (a little less than that of Erode) living in an area of about 50 sq. km (Erode is double that), so it is like almost everyone knows almost everyone!
We ordered lunch to the room and it arrived after a long delay, superbly cold. After that we rested a while and decided to go to the famed Tel Aviv Art museum in the evening. Upon the advice of the hotel concierge, we took a taxi (40INS) to the King Saul Avenue, where the museum is located. Besides the museum, there is a municipal theatre, Israel Opera, and a big public library, all in the city’s cultural complex there.
One thing strikes you there in the main streets of central Tel Aviv. The city has a big collection of buildings built in the Bauhaus Style. All in some shade of white, this particular architectural style is a defining character of the city and gives it the name ‘The White City’. The Bauhaus design is from Germany. The buildings were designed by Jewish architects who had studied at the Bauhaus School in Germany and escaped from there after the rise of the Nazis. In Tel Aviv, they created a new architectural style, characterized by simple forms and functionality, without any ornamentation.
At first look, all the Bauhaus style buildings look like simple cubical structures. A close observation reveals some characteristic features: white walls, flat roofs, facades with air ways and shading ledges. Imagine a Mylapore residential area with all buildings in the same white color. It is Bauhaus.
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| Bauhaus style buildings |
At first look, all the Bauhaus style buildings look like simple cubical structures. A close observation reveals some characteristic features: white walls, flat roofs, facades with air ways and shading ledges. Imagine a Mylapore residential area with all buildings in the same white color. It is Bauhaus.
Amidst this white edifices stands the Tel Aviv Museum of Art’s unique building, a modern version of Bauhaus style. A landmark masterpiece and architectural icon of the city, the building is made of numerous polished cement panels arranged like an opening envelope. (Designed by an American Modernist architect, Preston Scott Cohen, the building was described by the New York Times as “an elongated Rubik’s Cube doused with bleach”)
Just outside the main door, there was is a dark metal sculpture surrounded by a number of Israli stray cats. All well fed. It gave a surreal look and feeling. Inside the museum, we bought tickets and an audio guide with a headphone. It proved to be very useful in interpreting the artworks, without which I doubt neither of us would have deciphered many of the works.
The museum exhibits many works of both Israeli and international artists. They have a big collection of masters of impressionism and post-impressionism. Permanently on display include the works of Cezanne, Chagall, Dali, Monet, Henri Moore, Rodin, Picasso, Kadinsky - all big big names.
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| Tel Aviv Museum of Art, "an elongated Rubik’s Cube doused with bleach" |
Just outside the main door, there was is a dark metal sculpture surrounded by a number of Israli stray cats. All well fed. It gave a surreal look and feeling. Inside the museum, we bought tickets and an audio guide with a headphone. It proved to be very useful in interpreting the artworks, without which I doubt neither of us would have deciphered many of the works.
The museum exhibits many works of both Israeli and international artists. They have a big collection of masters of impressionism and post-impressionism. Permanently on display include the works of Cezanne, Chagall, Dali, Monet, Henri Moore, Rodin, Picasso, Kadinsky - all big big names.
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| Museum Entrance, Cats are real. |
But I must admit that I have a certain problem in appreciating an abstract or modern art. Deeply entrenched in formalism, I do not go beyond liking the impressionists. Though they say, ‘all art is meant, but all that meant is not art’ – I strongly doubt whether the artists themselves do even know, or care, what their work means.
This museum has a big collection of Picasso. All his figures were cross-eyed, with long, thin and crooked noses and had hair growing on the faces, they sidestepped meanings and descriptions. All beyond my little brain. I appreciated the large scale graphite on paper artworks by some Israeli artists exhibited there very much instead.
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| I particularly liked the large scale graphite pictures |
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| The museum had a separate hall for fake paintings |
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| Central art district by night |
The case of Ethiopian origin Jews is a special one. They are called Beta Israel community and about 120,000 of them are in Israel now. They are believed to be the descendants of King Menelik I, the First Solomonic Emperor. He is believed to be born to Makeda, the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon, when the Queen of Sheba visited the later in Jerusalem. The famous Haile Selassie was the last Solomonic Emperor.
Beta Israel or the Ethiopian Jews were living in the northern Ethiopia, in about 500 small villages, alongside the Muslims and Christians. Between 1888 and 1892, civil war and four microbial species inflicted havoc on northern Ethiopia resulting in a devastating famine. The microbes that caused the calamity are rinderpest (that killed all the cattle), aided by the cholera and typhus bacteriae and the smallpox viruses (that killed half of their population). The resultant infamous famine forced the Beta Israelis to seek refuge in camps in Sudan, where they were subjected to inhuman treatment by a partial administration.
This prompted the Israeli government to mount some covert and dramatic rescue airlift operations. The rescues were brought out by Israel's national mission to gather all the Diaspora Jews and bring them to the Jewish homeland. Stories of Operation Moses (1985) and Operation Solomon (1991) are very inspiring and have been made into a cinema (Live and Become). While the first operation (8000 rescued in 30 flights) was a covert, risky one, six years later, Israelis became wiser and paid off a ransom of 26 million USD to the Sudanese dictator and did it in a much safer way (14,000 rescued).
This prompted the Israeli government to mount some covert and dramatic rescue airlift operations. The rescues were brought out by Israel's national mission to gather all the Diaspora Jews and bring them to the Jewish homeland. Stories of Operation Moses (1985) and Operation Solomon (1991) are very inspiring and have been made into a cinema (Live and Become). While the first operation (8000 rescued in 30 flights) was a covert, risky one, six years later, Israelis became wiser and paid off a ransom of 26 million USD to the Sudanese dictator and did it in a much safer way (14,000 rescued).
Though there are proven accusations of racial treatment towards the Beta Israelis by the other Jews, they have become an integral part of the Jewish nation now.
After reaching the room, we thought of going out for dinner in a nearby restaurant. Took the car and drove to Manta Ray, a trendy seafood restaurant in the nearby Alma beach. The settings were very nice, just on the Mediterranean shore with both indoor and outdoor seating. Because of spousal thermal intolerance, we went inside and got a table for two. As with other trendy Tel Aviv joints, this too was full, crowded by locals and tourists. Wooden interiors kept us decently warm. We had the shrimp with spinach and mango, baked sea bream with rosemary and olive oil and wine. It was good but on the expensive side. The waitress suggested (in a rather demanding tone) a 15% tip. Remembered Barbecue Nation, where after all that great service and fantastic food, the guys would politely refuse a tip.
We returned to the hotel after paying 20 Shekels the parking lot. It was late in the evening, big beach with plenty of space for parking cars, yet they had preferred a parking lot with automated machines and tickets. Hell with the system.
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| Manta Ray Restaurant |
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