Category: Smoke Here

There is the Moab mountain range which stretches from  The Syrian Border down to Jordan and ends at the Gulf of Aquaba a famous site for Israelis on their side and Jordanians and Saudi Arabians right next door to vacation with their hookah in hand. They are NOT Rocky Mountain size by any means, but still nice. I lived right at the Jordanian-Israel border  51 kilometers north of Eilat at the Gulf of Aquaba for 3 and a half years on a communal farm-kibbutz.  These mountains change colour and hue from hour to hour in the pure desert arid air.The evening  sunset is the best when they become varies of pink-purple.I never got tired of watching daily.

The Children of Israel crossed into Israel further north at Gilgal near Jerico. I also was at Gilgal the communal farm a few months prior to the other.

here my brother lives, and my other 2 brothers and I 10 kilometers away, 2 kilometers from Bethleham.

This is where I lived for almost 4 years and married my wife. I was part of the group that planted thse date palms in 1976.It extends much further.

Here is the Moab range accross from the Dead Sea (small sea is barely an American lake!)

more on the farm…

Here is the plot of grass we got married on outside in 1976.

These were  2 foot high seedlings we planted in 1976.this is so far the only half-decent photo of the Moab Range.

(My Wife’s job!)

Dead Sea with mountains behind

Space mapThe Moab range reaches from the yellow most norther Syrian-Israeli border in yellow to the south at Aquaba-Eilat.

There is the M.O.A.B. bomb¬† the “Mother of all Bombs”

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/11/sprj.irq.moab/index.html

“Massive Ordnance Air–burst Bomb” the USA used in Iraq,

I’m not tooting the war horn here by any means, just using the initials.

and Smoking-Hookah.com also has a “M.O.A.B.”

the “Mother of all Brushes” for YOUR¬† hookah cleaning. Hookah products are¬† constantly improving almost weekly!

I have 5 brushes which I bought from Smoking-Hookah.com, use them to clean the hookah shaft, and they sent me gratis- for free a new improved Mother moab brush in my last order. It has wider bristles to clean better and a more sturdier handle.

Here is the old style

http://www.smoking-hookah.com/Products/Accessories/cleaning-brush.asp

new  MOAB mother of all brushes 19 inches long and much thicker

by Hookah 1 (M.O.A.B.)

“Mother of all Babblers”

Smoking right now the “Al-Ouns” mixed-fruit flavour. I’ve had all their flavours often except this one.

They come in 200 gram tins like you see above. This, like all of the “Al-Ouns” flavours can only be bought¬† by Smoking-Hookah.com or their sister companies. They buy it in Jordan, bring to Israel and sell from there¬† but most is shipped to Europe and North America for their clientle.

Al-Ouns is strong in nicotine, lots of glycerine, very ssslllooooooowwwww smoking, a little bit goes really far!The taste is heavenly and I’m always happy when I can get some, since as I said almost all of it goes for export to North America and France.

I would call their “Apple’s Flavour” “Double Apple-Anis”, as there¬† is a lot of licorice in it! Below is your link to purchase.

http://www.smoking-hookah.com/Products/Shisha/perimum-tobacco.asp

Mint shisha. are they all the same? A definate no! And it depends which is your favourite as we all have different tastes. Though “Nakhla” is considered a standard shisha (not the high class premium) it¬† is thought that all of “Nakhla”s flavours are not so-so. I have tasted many brand shishas and have found most “Nakhla” to be strong in nicotine and in taste

While the one problem is a smaller ammount¬† of glycerine that is added to the mix. I think Nakhla is around 22% while most shisha tobacco from the Arab countries have up to 25%. Nakhla is Egyptian.Probably the lower content of glycerine is their way of keeping their price down! I have never found¬† Nakhla to dry out. My second best mint would be Nakhla. First best¬† for me is “Al-Waha” “mint”. Al-Waha has other mint types¬† a mint called “After 9” mint-choco flavour ¬†which I would like to try. If it is anything like Nakhla’s “new” line of flavours which have “Choco-Mint”, I would recommend it as super. You can taste the mint and chocolate taste so well!

(Again), I’m rating mint only here.¬† Al-Waha mint is my favourite mint only, with tons of dripping¬† glycerine and probably food colouring that isn’t necessary. But taste wise its my first pick. Recently I recieved a pack of “Al-Fakher” mint , which I’ve had a few times in the past, and wasn’t satisfied at all, like every time I’ve smoked it.While I’ve bought almost every flavour of Al-Fakher in 250.00 gram¬† packs, and found a lot of them terrific, some flavours of Al-Fakher to me were so general that I experimented with them once and prepared ready-made bowls of like fruit flavours without marking them, put on the aluminum foil, the holes and put in 3 plastic bags. On some flavours I couldn’t tell which was peach, melon ,plum or mango!I loved their¬† cherry, strawberry, banana, grape, and pinapple plus the higher class “Al-Qemach” line was wild!

Again, depends on what you like personally. DON’T LET ANYONE TELL YOU¬† what is good for YOU. I’m stating my preferences and experiences as rule-of-thumb that you may use.

I made an experiment and blended the¬† 3 mints :Al-Fakher,Nakhla, and Al-Waha which I am smoking now.¬† Its only nice. I’d rather¬† have either mint Nakhla or mint Al-Waha right now instead. It is a nice mix of the 3 though.

Don’t forget to try the cho-mint of Nakhla which is great.Or the “After 9” choco-mint by Al-Waha. Mint Afzal is great and super strong nicotine like all the “Afzal” flavours. “Al-Sultan” mint is wonderful like all their flavours .

You may get all these mints at “Smoking-Hookah.com”

Choco-mint “After 9 Al-Waha”

mint al-waha

“Al Fakher “mint¬†

That     is  a  weird                  narghilah

“Al-Sultan” shisha : couldn’t find mint photo

“Nakhla” brand shisha mint :Choco-mint “Nakhla” brand is great!

AfzalAll on this site of smoking-hookah.com

In the last¬† post I brought you a few music videos of¬† “The Idan¬† Raichel Project” which is¬† classified as “World-Ethnic Music” , and is made up of Israelis¬† who were born in Israel from¬† Eithiopian Jews, Tunisians, Polish,Yemenite and a terrific Arab Moslem singer. The music has as its target to promote understanding between cultures and in Israel has a gigantic fan following of so many including yours truly, this forum-blog author! I’ll put here some more of their songs which are usually in¬† Amaharic-Eithiopian language, then shifting to Arabic and then Hebrew back and forth. The “Idan Raichel Project”¬† has certainly done a lot to acheive its goals here in Israel where we have a population of people from every country in the world except Saudi-Arabia and the Vatican-City for¬† obvious reasons! Name a country and we have people here born from there.

http://www.idanraichelproject.com/en/index.php

Here’s some of the music :

“Ayal Alaye” its all in Eithiopian Amaharic. With Jews from Yemen, Eithiopia,Tunis, Israel and Arab woman singer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAJODuLLstY

“Come to me”

It starts in Hebrew and goes into Eithiopian chant and back. The¬† singers are saying ” come to me.Don’t ask about where we will go, give me your hand, don’t ask for riches, they will come like rain when they come, don’t ask for a home, when we have a

home the blessings will come like rain”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y66Pay8fRz4

“If you go”

Check out the amazing cave drawings that start to move!

Starts in Hebrew and then I think either Ladino (which is Spanish-Arabic-Hebrew) or Tunisian-Moroccan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0EKUMbTJ30

“Come back to my home”

Starts in Amaharic-Eithiopian, then Hebrew

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOuHcTA4jeQ

“Words more beautiful than these”

starts in an Hindi Indian language and goes to Hebrew

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPlG8MSPE4w

“From the very depths” from the “Song of Songs” by King Solomon , mostly in Hebrew, photos of modern Israel culture-mix!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyvSOOivIlE

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