After about 5.30 hours journey from Sharm I arrived at Taba border crossing. There is about 10 min walk from where the bus drops you off on Egyptian side to the Israeli side. Arrived at Israeli immigration at 2.15PM so I felt good that I should be able to catch last bus to Tel Aviv at 5.00 from Eliat.

The first test of how serious (or Paranoid) folks in Israel are about security came when the guy went through about 40 pages of my dive book page by page. I thought he was curious about what all places I have dived, so I asked him do you dive, answer was sten NO. Okay back off buddy. Next he went through my travel diary page by page for about 10 min. I don't know what the fuck he was looking for. That done next stop was the Immigration official, which was really a 18 year old kid. She wanted to know exactly how many days I am going to spend in Israel and how many days in each town. When I said I am going to visit Bethlaham. She immidiatley said stop, why do you want to visit Bethlaham? So I told her why. I had no idea that Bethlaham is one of the forbidden city!! The next question came out of no where, what religion are you? I have been to about 25 countries so far nobody ever bothered to ask that question. Of course I provided her the wrong answer -- I do not believe in God & Religion. What? So I said I am Hindu. I am not kidding she asked me twice what is Hindu religion? Its not like I was traveling on some middle east countries passport I have US passport, Israeli's should be welcoming US citizen and say thanks for all your help, after all few of my tax dollars end up there!
The next question was why are coming to Israel? Do you have any friends in Israel? The tone of these questions were almost like why the fuck are you here, just go away...

Anyway my passport was sent to the higher official, but I was not alone almost everyone that came from Egypt had to talk to this higher official. There were about 10-12 of us and there was just one officer that was going to talk to us. So we all waited and basically went through the same stupid ass questions. Again this officer asked me Why do you want to go to Bethlaham? what is your religion? why do you want to visit Israel? Its very interesting to see how they question you they ask you same question again after 3-4 questions. At the beginning itself this officer had asked me do you know anyone in Israel? I had answered her no. Then after few questions she asked me same question at that point I was pissed and I said look I have already answered that question, next question please. At which point gave the go ahead to forbidden land of Israel.

By this time it was 4.50PM and chance of getting bus to Tel Aviv were slim, I got a taxi from the border and arrived at bus station about 5 min late. The town of Eliat looked okay, found some nice pub and had few beers to cool me off. Met an American-Jewish guy from New York and American who had muslim name, that I had met at the border in that pub they all had the same experience. The guy with muslim name required additional hour. We had few laughs over the stupid questions. Next day took a bus to Jerusalem early in the morning, hoping that rest of Israel is more chilled than the folks at the border crossin.

The bottom line for anyone crossing over to Israel is plan on spending full day at the border. If you have Arabic/Muslim name good luck...