Jerusalem, the holy city. Also home to countless religious bickerings, riots and wars. To Christians, Muslims and Jews the old city is an important haven of religious sites. The night before our final day in Israel, Joel, Aisha's cousin from Tel Aviv, sat us down and together we planned a day trip to this controversial place.

Getting to Jerusalem was no problem by minibus. Once there, we navigated our way to the old city via a rough mud map.

The Rampart Walk was a good way to view the layout of the city from a distance. As we traversed the city walls, we could see each religions' residential quarters, and the fairly distinct borders between them.

At the Western Wall, Aisha and I split up. Women could only pray at the south end of the wall, and men at the north end. Both sides were separated by a fairly hefty corrogated steel fence. The cracks in the wall were crammed full of prayers written on pieces of white paper.

Beyond the Western Wall lay the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount is only open to tourists for a few hours a day, so we seized the opportunity when we saw others making their way up. The mount provides a foundation for two mosques, the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa. The mosques themselves are shut to tourists, but Aisha donned her hijab and managed to talk her way into al-Aqsa.

After a bit of hunting, we found the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, supposedly the location of Christ's anointing and burial. Throngs of tourists and worshippers passed through the maze-like church, and we found ourselves swept along by them. It was interesting to see the various chambers, and note all of their differences. Obviously the church had been extended, rebuilt and renovated many times.

Finally, we made our way up to the roof of the Austrian Hospice of the Holy Family, where we were greeted by a panoramic view.

Leaving the old city, both Aisha and I felt relief. Whilst it was incredibly interesting, it was also quite overwhelmingly crazy. Take an ordinary Middle Eastern city, already chaotic by Western standards, split the religious beliefs of the people three separate ways, jam it full of places of immense significance to each of the three religions, throw in a couple of different languages and then add tourists, both religious and non-religious. That is Jerusalem. The troops of guards, armed with automatic rifles, the way everyone tiptoes around everone elses' beliefs, the brutality of peoples' passion for their religion, it is all too much.

The rest of our day was spent eating fantastic homemade pasta at Spaghettim, and wandering through the local fresh produce markets. Oh to have such good produce for such good prices in Perth.

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