Less than a week has passed since my return from the Sinai, but it feels like much longer. Actually, the feeling of distance began while I was waiting to go through passport control at Taba: there was a huge queue, everyone was pushing and shoving and irritable, the staff was overwhelmed and, as a result, abrasively rude - nearly as rude as the U.S. immigration officials at Toronto's Pearson airport (hey - I just tell it like it is) - and I made the fatal error of turning on my mobile phone while waiting to have my passport inspected.

And felt the muscles in my shoulder girdle tighten as a long series of beeps announced an astonishing number of incoming messages.

Nearly everyone I work with had "forgotten" that I was on holiday - my first break in more than a year - and many had left multiple messages that began with some version of "I'm trying to reach you, where are you, it's urgent, get back to me immediately."

My skin still smelled of Sinai sun, my gut was still churning with third world diarrhea (a legacy from India that I've learned to live with), the flea bites on my face were still red (allright, so I slept outside and wrapped myself in a less-than-clean Bedouin rug to ward off the mosquitoes), but I might as well have been back in the rat race already.

Ho hum.

But oh, those four days were lovely. Jill and I slept outside our shared hut, facing the water. We watched the stars until we fell asleep, woke up with the sunrise and joined our fellow yogis for early-morning sun salutations, as the local Bedouin children gathered to watch and imitate. We sunbathed, read, swam in the clear water, lounged on cushions in the shade and drank sweet tea. There was no television, no radio - in fact, no electricity; a war could've begun, and we'd never have known.

In many ways, the Sinai is like a Utopian version of Israel. Arabs (the local Bedouin) and Israelis lounge around together, chatting desultorily and playing backgammon. The Bedouin staff at the place I stayed at all spoke Hebrew, and many had clearly become good friends with some of the Israeli regulars - many of whom drive down several times per year. Politics and cultural differences were totally irrelevant.

And the atmosphere of total calm and disconnectedness had a remarkable effect on Israelis, who comprised about 95 percent of the guests. One evening I was sprawled with friends on the rugs and cushions that were the only furniture in the wall-less, candle-lit beachfront restaurant, listening to the waves and basically doing nothing, when we decided that we really wanted some of the addictive local sachlab (a milky pudding). So I called out to a passing waiter, and asked him to bring us four. He brought them, smiling, and said, "You know, I don't work here. I'm a guest." He laughed at my consternation, asked my name, and said, "Lisa, there's nothing wrong with giving."

This same guy bummed a ride on my group's chartered bus the day we left. He drove us crazy with his two incessantly ringing mobile phones. His soft Sinai voice became loud and aggressive, and he tried to convince the driver to let him off at a place that deviated from our route - even though we had done him the favour of offering a free ride. In Sinai he was Mr. Zen; back in Israel, he was just an annoyingly inconsiderate being.

So yes, the past week was incredibly busy. And I wish - oh, how I wish - that I could write about all my doings. But I can't. This is the problem when people tell you things off the record; this is the problem when the people you want to write about read your blog, and might recognize themselves; this is the problem when the most interesting experiences happen to be work related.

Tomorrow I'm going to Gush Katif with a journalist from the USA. It looks as though I'm going to be pretty busy throughout "disengagement summer," which is shaping up to be a media circus. Part of me relishes the action; another part worries about getting sucked into the political bullshit and losing perspective.

And in June I will be going to Amman, to attend a four-day workshop for Israeli (Jewish and Arab) and Palestinian journalists. How cool is that?