Baha’i World Centre visit

In the 19th and early 20th centuries people travelled on foot for months or by train and steamer for days to get to Akka or Haifa to visit the Baha’i World Centre. It took me around 14 hours travel all told from the UK. It would have been rather quicker, had the flight from London not been delayed - and apart from the usual pushing and shoving that travel entails (not me, I don’t push and shove - NEVER!) it’s a relatively painless process.

The plane was packed with Jewish families and Haredi men travelling to Israel for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. There were Haredim praying at Heathrow Terminal 5 and Haredim praying against one of the walls of the baggage reclaim hall at Tel Aviv Ben Gurion airport. There were huge amounts of baggage.

The baggage filled up much of the space on the very crowded train from Ben Gurion to Haifa and this was the cause of a high volume argument across the carriage between a Haifa city councillor and an older man, who offered to punch the city councillor. No idea what it was all about, but it was certainly entertaining!

So here I am until early next week.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, travel, Haredi, Yom Kippur, Haifa, Israel, Baha’i World Centre

Related posts:

1. Baha’i World Centre features on AFP website
2. Homeward bound - tomorrow
3. More on UNESCO’s World Heritage listing of Baha’i sites
4. Away for a week
5. Baha’i shrines named as World Heritage sites