The Adventurous Travels of Marcus

Adelaide

2008-05-14T17:13:00.012+01:00

I took the shortish flight from Sydney to Adelaide to meet up with Richie and Vicky. I first met these guys when I was living in Sydney 10 years ago. They're both from the UK but have recently emigrated to Australia. Due to the vagaries of the Australian immigration rules they've found themselves in Adelaide as the points entry system here makes it easier to come to Oz if you're prepared to live in somewhere like Adelaide rather than Sydney or Melbourne.

Richie picked me up from the airport and drove me back to their place. They'd just moved house and were trying to fend off an ant infestation. It was a sunny afternoon so we had a relaxing sit down in the garden. Our peace was soon invaded when one of Rich and Vik's old neighbours who had helped them move turned up. He sat down, demanded beer, swore a lot and told stories of his time of the army then eventually left again. Richie apologised for his presence and said we would make our excuses if he turned up again.

Vicky turned up a little later once she'd finished work and we all caught up on old times. Viks cooked up a rather tasty curry - the first of many top dishes she would cook for me while I was there.

Rich and Viks both had work the next day so it was up to me to entertain myself. There had been some discussions the previous evening as to whether there was actually anything to do Adelaide. Neither of them, Richie particularly, seemed to hold Adelaide in high regard.

I hopped on a bus and took it into the town centre. I made a quick visit to the tourist centre and picked a pile of leaflets on places to go by public transport - which I didn't have much intention of reading at any point. I bought myself a sandwich and a drink, took it to the the Botanical Gardens and had a mini-picnic. After a fairly pleasant walk round the gardens I paid a visit to the State Art Gallery. There were a few pics here I quite liked. After walking round there for an hour or so I'd really had enough excitement for one day. Richie was on his way home from work so he picked me up and we went home.

While we were waiting for Viks to finish work I got roped into the task of helping fill in the inventory form for their new house. This involved going from room to room scrutinising walls, carpets, fixtures and fittings for any wear and tear. Viks got back cooked up some Mexican food and we sat down to a controversial game of Monopoly.

I was left to my own devices again the next day. The weather was pretty miserable so I hopped on a bus to a nearby shopping mall. I killed a little time there then retreated back home in the pouring rain and sat on the net until Rich and Vik got home. It was a Friday so as well as being served up more tasty food we had a few beers and more contentious games of Monopoly.

The next day hailed the start of the weekend. There had been some heated discussions as to what we were going to do over the weekend - most of which I stayed out of. In the end Richie drove me to a big hill to get a good view of Adelaide and the surrounding area. It was grey and cloudy so the views weren't that great - but at least it wasn't raining. In the evening we went round to their friends place for a bit of a party. Their friends were staying in their uncle's rather plush house on the outskirts of Adelaide. The place had a pool table and the biggest flat-screen TV I have ever seen.

The party really was a lot of fun. We all laughed a lot. Richie downloaded a song called 'Hide the Sausage' to play to everyone. I'm not sure what happened next but for some reason we started downloading Chas and Dave's back catalogue. We had all the classics blaring out - 'Snooker Loopy', 'Rabbit Rabbit'... The unquestionable highlight of the evening was the spy toy - a little gadget for the Playstaion 2 console. You fix a camera up above the TV screen then can play lots of games and appear on the TV screen. Who would of thought making cocktails, smashing up tomatoes, doing the 100 yards dash and heading footballs in a virtual environment could be so much fun. We were all rolling round the floor in hysterics.

We crashed on the sofas in the early hours of the morning. When we woke up we were all treated to a cracking cooked breakfast then wasted away the afternoon nursing hangovers and watching movies on the massive TV.

I had a couple more days to kill in Adelaide while Rich and Viks were at work. The weather was wet and grey so I spent them pottering round the house, fixing up their laptop and net surfing.

On my last evening Richie got a bit of a sulk on. "You lucky bastard, Marcus. You're leaving Adelaide." he kept saying. It's probably fair to say I haven't painted a great picture of the place in this entry. I'm sure the Adelaide has a lot more to offer than the few places I visited. Despite that I did have a great time here. My main reason for coming here was to catch with two good friends and that I did do. I was well fed, laughed a lot and thoroughly enjoyed their company.

Richie dropped me at the airport early the following morning. I was heading to Darwin to catch up with yet more old acquaintances.

Sydney

2008-04-23T17:03:00.017+01:00

I hadn't been back in Beirut long when myself and Nia decided to take a trip to Australia. We had been toying with idea of going to UK and even started applying for Nia's visa but then her Australian visa came through - which she had already applied for - and her aunt in Sydney was insisting that she go. So to Sydney it was.

I was in Oz over ten years ago on a one work visa and spent a good ten months of that time living in Sydney where I had a whale of a time so I was very much looking forward to going back and checking out my old haunts. On top of that a good uni friend of mine lives in Sydney, I have two friends in Adelaide who I met last time I was in Oz and another uni mate living in Darwin. So I had plenty of people to catch up while I was there.

After a mammoth 22 hour journey we arrived exhausted at Sydney. Nia was staying with her aunt, but that wasn't really an option for me since as far as her family new we weren't seeing each other so instead I was staying with my old university mate Mark. Mark came and met me at the airport which I thought was pretty good of him considering it was the early hours of the morning. I said a temporary goodbye to Nia and headed out with Mark. It was grey, cold and drizzling - maybe we have should of gone to the UK instead.

Mark dropped me at the flat and went off to work; because our trip had been organised at such short notice Mark hadn't been able to get any time off work. I decided that I wasn't that jet lagged and could probably stay awake for the day. I lay down on the sofa put the TV and promptly went to sleep for five hours. I woke up at 2:30 in the afternoon but according to my body clock it was the middle of night. I knew if I went back to sleep now it would be fatal and I'd be awake all night so I forced myself to stay awake, got out of the flat and wandered down to the beach. Mark lives in Coogee about a ten minute walk from beach, which is one of the nicest beaches in central Sydney. It is also the location of the Coogee Bay Hotel (or CBH) which was the site of many an all night drinking session last time I was here. It was great to see the beach again - it hadn't really changed at all. The CBH meanwhile had had a refurb in the back bar and was looking very bright and clean - not the dark, dingy drinking den I remembered.

My first few days in Sydney were spent taking it easy walking around town and visiting some familiar places. I saw the house I used to live in. My local pub which was in staggering distance from the house and Charcoal Chicken - my favourite eating establishment. In the evening I would go out for a few beers and food with Mark somewhere either in Coogee or nearby Randwick. My stay in Sydney would involve an awful lot of drinking and eating out. I put on a fair bit of weight whilst I was here.

The weekend came and Friday was ANZAC day - a bank holiday in the Australia. I suppose it is a bit like Remembrance Sunday in the UK except here it is another excuse for a almighty piss up - not that the Ozzies really need an excuse. Myself, Mark, Nia and her cousins had some food in the Rocks - a quite funky part of central Sydney up near the harbour bridge. After the food the girls went home to get changed so myself and Mark headed to the Australian pub for a game of 'Two-Up'.

The Australian was ram-packed and had a great atmosphere. There were a few games of two-up going on. This game by law can only be played in pubs on ANZAC day. A referee stands up on a raised platform and someone from the crowd, usually a good-looking girl is called up to toss two coins. Before the toss you can make a bet with anyone in the pub for any amount of money and go with either heads or tails. If two heads come up heads win and if two tails come tails wins. If a head and a tail come up it's a no result and another toss of the coins is required. I took a twenty dollar bet on heads with a guy next me and after four re-tosses I came out victorious. Rather amusingly if the person tossing the coins gets three no results in a row they have to do ten press-ups in front of everyone in the pub. The game is a lot of fun and made for an amazing atmosphere in the pub. Two guys had a 200 dollar bet going on. I was pretty happy with my winnings and we had to move to another pub before I had the chance to squander them which was probably a good thing.

We met up with the girls who tried to get us in into a rather swish drinking establishment. The girls choice of bar was somewhat different to mine and Mark's. The place was for some reason closed on one of the busiest nights of the year so we settled on another bar in Darling Harbour where we drank and danced the evening away. At the end of the evening we made to an establishment called Harry's Cafe de Wheels for the greatest pie experience known to man.

Royal National Park

The next day Nia had some family commitments so after a late start and a hearty English breakfast Mark drove me down to the Royal National Park in his souped up boy racer Ford Fiesta. It was really beautiful here and very peaceful there. We found a pretty secluded beach and had a quick dip. It was really tranquil here. I couldn't believe such a beautiful place so close to Sydney was so quiet on a bank holiday weekend. In the UK a place this would be crammed. The roads in the park were narrow and twisty with little traffic and Mark had a lot of fun driving me round them. We went to a lookout point and I bought myself a nice ice cream then Mark took us back to Sydney.

In the evening we went to Nia's aunt house for a barbeque. Now this was a Lebanese barbeque so I was expecting a fairly grand affair but I was not prepared for the full lamb on spit roast. I was soon put to work oiling the lamb so it didn't dry out with Nia taking lots of photos. After a little while I managed to pass my oiling duties onto someone else and could sit down and enjoy a nice cold beer. The food came out and it was all very delicious and of course there was lots of it. Meat kept getting dumped on our plates. I had been expecting this and paced myself very cunningly. Mark on the other hand was unaccustomed to Lebanese hospitality and was struggling with numerous morsels arriving on his plate much to my amusement.

The following week Mark was at work so I had to amuse myself. Mark was however kind enough to lend me his car on the proviso that I get my arse out of bed in the morning and drive him to work. Having a car at my disposal was a real boon giving me a lot more freedom to visit places that otherwise would have been very difficult to get to. My first use of it was to pick Nia and her younger cousin Rawan up and take them to Manly for a surfing lesson. It was pretty overcast miserable day but at least the were waves small - perfect for learning on. Despite the cold conditions the girls seemed keen and we were soon wet-suited up and ready to go. I assumed the rule of surfing teacher and passed my somewhat limited surfing knowledge onto the girls then we took to the waves. It was pretty cold but we all stayed in for a good couple of hours and had a lot of fun even if we weren't particularly good at it. Once out of the water Rawan was so numb she couldn't pick her board up or hardly even walk. We got changed, had a nice cup of tea and a burger and to warm ourselves up and headed back to Sydney.

The following day myself and Nia did the Harbour Bridge climb. The whole affair is extremely convoluted and takes much longer than it need do. There are loads of health and safety issues to make sure people don't throw themselves off the bridge or drop stuff out their pockets onto the cars and people below. We had to get decked out in very sexy boiler-suits and had to remove anything from our pockets. About the only thing we could take with us was our sunglasses and a handkerchief issued by the people organising the climb, both of which were tied onto our bodies so we couldn't drop them. We weren't allowed cameras even though I'm sure we could have tied these to ourselves - which meant they could then take photos of us and sell them back to us for an extortionate price. Next we were hooked up into harnesses which we would be able to clip onto a railing so we couldn't kill ourselves by taking a jump off the bridge. We then got a lesson in how to climb up ladders. After what seemed like an inordinate amount of time we were finally let loose on the bridge. Our guide Shamus was a wealth of information and told us a good deal about the construction of the bridge. Two teams of construction worker built it starting from opposite ends. The ends were suspended by cables. When the two ends were complete they were lowered till they met and then riveted together - and so they have remained joined together ever since. Apparently there about six million rivets in the bridge. Shamus also had plenty of non-bridge trivia to bombard us with as we made our way up the bridge such as telling us that glacial ice melts at a slower rate than normal ice. I'm glad to say the view from the top was worth the long drawn out affair of getting there. Our descent was a much a swifter affair. All in all the whole bridge climb experience took a good three to four hours and I'm sure we could have done in about twenty minutes. Nevertheless the climb was definitely one of the highlights of my time in Sydney and comes highly recommended. One final nugget of information passed onto us by Shamus was a list of where to go for a drink after the climb we took this advice on board and went to a lovely pub with a roof terrace overlooking the bridge and the opera house.

We went to the opera house the following evening to see some classical music. I believe it was some Schubert and Tchaikovsky. Not something I would normally do but when traveling you seem quite often to do things you wouldn't normally bother to do at home. It was well worth doing. The opera house looked just as awesome from the inside as from the out and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Afterwards we went to the Opera Bar for a few drinks. It's a lovely outside bar on the harbour overlooking the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.

I continued to make good use of Mark's car and took Nia back to the Royal National Park. This time we hired a canoe and made our way along the river. It was so secluded and tranquil. The waters were absolutely still and reflections of it were just totally amazing. I've never seen anything like it. We also used the car for a visit to the blue mountains. We were a bit pushed for time but still managed to see a few sites.

Randwick Races

The other big highlight of Sydney was our visit to the Randwick races. Nia and her cousins were very much looking forward to this event and had got themselves hats and were planning on getting dressed to the nines. So Mark and myself felt we ought to make the effort as well. Now being a backpacker meant my wardrobe consisted of very little in the way of anything that could be described as smart. Luckily Mark was able to lend me a smart pair of trousers and shoes and Nia bought me a tie so I managed to cobble together a vaguely presentable outfit to deck myself out in. Suitably attired we made our way to the racecourse. Being avid race fans me and Mark were there by 11:30am in time for the first race and immediately started on the beers. The girls of course took a lot longer to get ready and didn't turn for a couple more hours. But all the time they spent getting ready most certainly paid off - they all looked tremendous.

I've only been to the races a couple of times and have tried employing a number of different gambling strategies all of which have been equally unsuccessful. I left Mark studiously perusing the form guide and just went on the horses names to pick my winners with the predictable result of me becoming parted with my hard earned aussie dollars. I got bored of losing my money and stopped gambling about four races in. I then started making bets with Mark on the races - the loser having to get the next set of beers in. This was a much more fun way to bet on the races. It was a gloriously sunny day and we all had a great time. After the last race the girls made their way back home and Mark and myself wandered back towards Coogee stopping for a curry along the way and then carried on drinking into the early hours. At about 1am we tried to get into the Coogee Bay Hotel. The bouncer decided to ask me how many drinks I had had - I was obviously looking the worse for wear. I had no idea how many I'd had (counting back the following morning I think I must been about 16 beers to the good by that point) so I cautiously ventured "Errr... three or four?". "Now come on, how many have you really had?" the bouncer replied. "Ooooh about six or seven I suppose". That seemed to satisfy him and I was let in albeit on a warning not to get drunk while in the pub. I took that admonishment on board and promptly went to the bar and ordered two more beers.

The next day Nia flew home so I went to airport to see her off. I was staying in Australia for a couple more weeks to visit other friends I had out here. Having seen her off I retreated back to Mark's to spend the of the day on the sofa with a hangover watching DVDs and playing on the PS3.

I had another week in Sydney and spent it walking around the coastline and went surfing a couple of times. I had a particularly scary incident surfing at Bondi when I caught a wave that was a lot bigger than I had initially thought. In fact the wave was huge and I was plumetting vertically downwards clinging to the board for dear life. There was no way I was going to try and stand on the board. Somehow I managed to ride it out without dieing and made it to shore. An Irish guy had seen this all take place. He came over to me said "Jaysus, what happened there. You were upside down at one point!". I had no idea what happened, I was just happy to have survived.

I borrowed Mark's car again while he was at work and took it up to the Hunter Valley - a famous wine region just outside of Sydney. I had a nice drive round the quiet twisty roads and bought a couple of bottles of nice wine to give to Ben our friend in Darwin whom me and Mark were planning to visit. People round here also have this strange habit of putting scarecrows up outside their houses. It's all rather unsettling. I kept the car windows closed, the doors locked and was stopping for no one.

Thanks to the joys of facebook I got contacted by an old school friend whom I hadn't seen or heard of since leaving school. He's now living in Manly - probably the nicest place to live in Sydney. I caught up with him one evening for a few beers. It was a lot of fun to reminisce on school days and catch up on the gossip about what every is up to nowadays.

On my last weekend in Sydney we went to the Royal National Park again and hired out mountain bikes. We started off up a very steep hill and nearly killed ourselves. Once up the hill though it was a much easier affair and we had quite a pleasant ride, stopping off by a little river for lunch. We even found time to hire a canoe and went a little way down the river before heading back to Sydney.

I had a great time in Sydney and if it wasn't so far away from friends and family I could seriously consider moving here. But my time here was at an end and I had friends whom I had first met here in Sydney ten years ago to visit down in Adelaide.

Slideshows

2008-04-20T17:14:00.003+01:00

I just discovered that I can put slideshows from smugmug in my blog and I wanted to test it out.

Royal National Park Sydney

Mumbai

2008-03-25T08:44:00.002Z

And so it was time to leave Kamshet and carry on traveling. I’d had a great time here, learning to fly and spending time chilling out on the roof top overlooking the lake, but after three weeks here and with it being so quiet during the weekdays I was happy enough to be on my way.

My original plan had been to catch up with Phil and Merryl and celebrate Phil’s birthday. But with my paragliding course over running I now only had a few days left on my visa and Phil and Merryl were in the north of India. I didn’t really have enough time to get up north so decided instead to spend my last couple of days checking out Mumbai or Bombay or whatever you want to call it.

The traffic was terrible getting into Mumbai and it was certainly a lot hotter here than in Kamshet which was at a higher elevation. After being dropped off in Colaba – the main tourist area in Mumbai - I wandered around to find a hotel. The place recommended in the lonely planet was full so I looked at another place which was a bit shabby so carried on my search. By now a local had attached himself to me in the hope that he could take me to a hotel and get commission. He was pretty annoying and I couldn’t shake him off. Luckily I found a nice enough place and the staff there knew this guy was trying it on and told him to leave.

Having got a room, I dropped my bags, had a cool shower and with night closing went off in search food. It was still very hot and muggy. It’s the main tourist centre in Mumbai and there are loads guys hassling you. I found a nice restaurant and had some pasta – my first European food in three weeks. Afterwards I ducked into an Internet café to avoid the heat and hassle. I had a mail from Phil telling me about Mumbai; he said it’s hot, hassly and I probably wouldn’t enjoy it. That was a fairly accurate assessment.

I was due to fly from here in a couple days and didn’t really have

Elephanta Island

time to go elsewhere so decided to stick it out here and make the most of my time. I took the ferry to Elephanta Island the following morning. I met a Dutch guy on the ferry over called Martin and we explored the island together. There are a load of tombs and rock carvings on the island that were fairly interesting. There was aslo a baby monkey playing with a puppy that I found far more interesting. We got back to the mainland and Martin decided to do a city walk in the afternoon but I was tired so went back my hotel for a nice lie down. I did meet up with Martin again in the evening for a few beers. We got quite pissed and talked about Philosophy and whether god existed and other such weighty subjects. Later in evening in the same bar there was a local couple having a rather amorous snog. They tried to sneak into the toilets, presumably to get even more amorous, but another guy spotted them and was having none of it and stopped them going in. I got talking to this guy and it turns out that the girl in question was his girlfriend and the guy she was snogging was his best mate. He wasn’t very happy so I bought him a beer and commiserated with him.

I woke up the following morning with quite a hangover and that combined with a hot humid climate inspired me to spend the day in bed under the ceiling fan. The next day was my last in India. My flight was in the evening so I had time to walk round the city, see some of the colonial buildings and spent a pleasant few hours sitting in a park watching the locals play cricket.

I’ve spent two months India. My time has mainly been spent lounging around on the beaches in the south of the country and paragliding. I’ve had a wonderful time here but at same feel like I’ve hardly scratched the surface of the place. I haven’t visited any of the spiritual places in the north of the country or seen the most famous sights. I’ll surely come back here at some point to see some more of this amazing place.

But I am booked on flight to return to Lebanon. I met a girl called Nia last time I was here and have been quite taken with her. So now I am going back to Beirut to spend some more time with her...

Paragliding in Kamshet

2008-03-18T12:55:00.000Z

To get up to Kamshet from Anjuna I first took a flight to Bombay - or Mumbai if you prefer. As the plane I came in to land I could see the slums of Bombay and they are truly massive. I think Bombay has a population of around 14 million and half that population live the slums. I didn't intend to spend any time Mumbai just now but did plan to come back after my paragliding course. I came out of the airport and had a pre-booked taxi awaiting to take me to Kamshet. My driver didn't really speak any English but was very friendly.

The traffic in Mumbai was terrible. It was the middle of the day and boiling hot. I was sweltering in the taxi. I was glad when we finally got out of the city, got a bit of speed up and got some air flowing through the car. Once out of Mumbai and on the highway we got up to Kamshet pretty quickly. After turning off the highway I thought we'd be at our destination in a few minutes. We drove through Kamshet out the other side and then continued along a pot-holed road making very slow progress. After continuing along for forty minutes or so Kamshet had disappeared behind us and we seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. I was a little worried as to where the hell we were going but held my tongue and trusted that the driver knew where he was going. And lo and behold a few minutes later it appeared he did know as he pointed out across a lake the place where I would be staying.

I arrived at 'Native Place' - the name of the place I was staying at - just as the sun was setting. They were doing dinner up on the roof top, which consisted of a buffet and chicken cooked in the tandoori oven. I grabbed myself a cold beer, watched the sunset behind the lake and then tucked into some delicious food. It was a Saturday and the place was busy with lots people here to fly for the weekend so I had plenty of people to chat to.

I wasn't due to start my course until the Monday so the next morning after a hearty breakfast I just watched some paragliding videos and sat in on a theory class. I headed out with the other students in the afternoon to the flying site just to watch. Rather than see some paragliding I discovered a different sport known as parawaiting. This is what you do when there is no wind and you can't fly. The site we fly at is a ridge site. In order to get lift here which allows you to stay in the air you need a wind that is blowing directly towards the ridge. If there is no wind or the wind is across the ridge or, for that matter, if the wind is too strong then you can't fly. A paraglider generally flies at 35km/h. This means if the wind is 35km/h or stronger the glider won't be able to move forwards relative the ground. On this particular the day there was very little wind and what little wind there was was blowing in the wrong direction.

The next day my course began in earnest with a 6am start. Had a nice cup of tea and some eggs on toast for breakfast and then headed out to some training. Well unfortunately it was another case of the wind being a load of rubbish and we got nothing done. I was very happy at getting up at 6am in order to do nothing. We went back to Native Place for lunch and then headed out again in the afternoon. This time thankfully conditions were better. Being my first day I didn't get to do any flying; instead it was an afternoon of ground handling. This requires a flat or gently sloping piece of ground where you inflate the canopy by running forward. Once the canopy is inflated and above your head the idea is to keep it there. It's a lot harder than it looks and extremely tiring. I was exhausted by the end of the day. I was also pretty rubbish at ground handling.

The next there was, thankfully no 6am start, so I had nice lie in, followed by the usual breakfast of champions - fried eggs on toast and a nice cup of tea. Then I did some theory with my instructor Steve. Steve is a geordie guy and a pretty good instructor. He is helped out by some local guys who are also very good paragliders and instructors. We headed out again in the afternoon for more ground handling. it was another tiring afternoon. My ground handling was improving but still not particularly great.

As the day was nearing a close and I was weary and slightly disillusioned Steve said to me "Are you ready to fly?"

"Yep!" I replied enthusiastically.

"Well pack up your glider and get up the hill then." And that's exactly what I did. Well actually I didn't pack my glider up. There are loads of local kids who wait for us to turn up at the paragliding site. They will pack up your glider for you and carry it up the hill to the launch area - all for a very small fee.

I got to the top of the hill got my glider unpacked and hooked myself up to it. When learning to fly you obviously have to do all your flights on your own, but you are in constant contact with the instructors the whole time by radio. Steve gave me the following talk before my first flight. "Marcus, when we tell you 'OK you can take off now' we aren't telling you have to fly. That decision is always yours. We are just telling that these are good condition for a pilot of your ability to launch in. If you don't feel comfortable or don't want to fly you have to say so. You'll be in direct radio contact with us the whole time and should be perfectly safe. But if you don't do what we tell you to do, or if you fuck it up in some way then there's nothing we can do for you. OK do you want to fly?"

"Yep!" I replied once again enthusiastically although the butterflies were churning a little. Just then the wind went slightly across the ridge and I wasn't able to fly. I then had what seemed like an eternal wait to see if the wind would go good again. It was awful it gave me plenty of time to think about all the things that could go wrong. The first flight is pretty scary because like Steve said it is up to you to respond to the instructions they give you. When you're out there flying no one can take over if you mess it up or it goes wrong. Finally the wind straightened up and I was good to go. I had a good take off and once in the air my nerves dissipated somewhat. The hardest, and most dangerous, parts of paragliding are the take off and landing. The actual flying bit is pretty simple. You hold in each hand a left and right brake. They are attached by lines to the back of the glider. Pull the left brake to turn left, pull the right brake to turn right and pull both to slow down. Don't pull down to far on them though or you may stall the wing! My flight was just a short top to bottom so no looking for any lift to stay up in the air. I had a short 3 minute flight and landed perfectly. It was a great feeling when I landed. All I wanted to do was run up the hill and do it all again, but the light was fading and we had to finish up for the evening.

From then on the days fell into a bit of a routine. Egg on toast for breakfast. A bit of theory and reading in the morning. Practice a few PLF's (parachute landing falls) and maybe mess around a bit on the climbing wall. After lunch we would usually head down to the flying site at around 2:30 or 3pm. On the Friday - my fifth day of flying - I got my first really long flight in. It lasted for about an hour. I practiced a lot of different things while up there. I did some big ears; this is when you pull in the tips of the glider to make it smaller. This is a way to loose height quickly. You can't use the brakes when in big ears but can still in turn by shifting your weight. I also used the speed bar which pulls the front of the wing down slightly and allows the glider to travel at a faster speed. All in all it was a really great flight. Well that was until I came in to land. There was no wind on the landing area. Usually you land going to wind so your ground speed is slower. In no wind conditions you have to come in quickly then apply a lot brake just before you land. I did the coming in fast bit but for some reason didn't do the applying lots of brake bit which meant that on touching down I went splat into the ground and grazed my knees up rather nicely. Other than that I was fine. That was a mistake I didn't intend to repeat.

Over the weekend lots of people turned up to fly so the wind decided to die down, leaving a lot of pissed off people. On Monday as if by magic the wind came back. Later in the week we ran out of the luck with the wind and I had a good four or five days of turning up to the flying site and parawaiting for about three hours and then going back to Native Place without any flying.

On one evening we stopped off in the village where all the kids who carry our packs lived. There was a birthday party going for a little boy who looked like he was only two years old. He had a big birthday cake in front of him and seemed very bewildered by the whole village cramming into one tiny room. More worryingly he had been given a big knife to play with, although he was being supervised by two four year olds so I suppose that was OK.

As time went on the wind picked up again and I was able to complete my course - although it took me about a week longer than expected. By now I was able to take off, fly and land with virtually no input on the radio at all. I had some really wonderful long flights staying up for over an hour and seeing some beautiful sunsets whilst up there. Added to that Native Place was a really great to place stay with a roof terrace overlooking a lake and fantastic food served three times a day. I had a great time in Kamshet and can't to wait find my next place to go flying.

Goa

2008-02-19T06:03:00.000Z

To get from Cochin to Goa we took an internal flight. It used to be the case that travel in India involved long bus or train journeys of 24 hours or more to get around the country, but the budget airline revolution has arrived in India and you can pick up an internal flight for as little as £30 - or even less if you're an Indian resident. I was a bit dubious about taking an internal flight but the plane turned out to brand new and there was nothing to worry about. We had a very comfortable flight up to Goa.

We took a taxi from the airport straight to Anjuna which is in the north part of Goa. Anjuna was the place to be in Goa in the late 90's when the rave scene was big here. The government has cracked down on the all night raves here and the party scene isn't what it used to be but apparently it's still the place to head to in Goa for a party and with a full moon due in a couple of days it seemed like a good place to start.

We got ourselves checked into a fairly nice hotel near the beach and then went for a wander along the beach. Our hostel was pretty much at the top north end of the beach and we walked all the way to the south end. There was a funky bar at the far end playing dance music. Above the bar on the cliff tops I saw some paragliders taking off. I took a quick hike up to the top of the cliff and got a few numbers of paragliding instructors in the hope I might take some lessons here. I quickly came back down to the bar and joined Phil for a few beers. As the afternoon went on the place got busier. There were people of many different ages and states of inebriation. I've not seen too many ravers in their sixties before. There was one guy who must have been in his mid-forties who was in a little world of his own, dancing to his own music and running around the beach looking up to the sky with his hands in the air. I'm not sure what he was on but it sure looked like he was having fun. Phil and I joked that he was probably a headmaster of a respectable school back home away on a two week holiday of debauchery in Goa. Unfortunately I wasn't feeling the best - still suffering from a dodgy belly - and despite my best efforts to stay out I had to go back the hostel and lie down missing out on all the fun.

The following day we headed down to the flea market that happens every Wednesday afternoon on Anjuna beach. It's a massive market selling clothing and gifts. I saw a pair of shorts I wanted to buy. The stall owner then told me how truly amazing these pair of shorts were, that they were made in Europe and were probably the greatest pair of shorts ever made. All of this was of course a precursor to him charging me an extortionate price for the shorts. I came in at a much lower price, at which point the stall owner felt the need to remind me just how truly amazing these shorts were. We both of course knew that these were a shabby pair of Indian made shorts that would in all likelihood start to fall apart in about two days time, but I couldn't tell the stall owner this without him feigning great insult and thus dragging out the bargaining process for even longer. My new bargaining strategy is to start at a price I think is fair and then not move on my price. So I did just this. A good tactic then is to walk out of the shop and see what happens. I did this after a few minutes of haggling and he finally relented and gave me my price. I paid about £4 for the shorts but still felt I had paid too much. I put the shorts on in the back of the shop and left wearing them. Two minutes later I put my hand in one of the pockets. My hand went straight through the pocket making a massive hole in it. My two day estimate for when the shorts would start to fall apart had been wildly optimistic.

The following morning myself and Phil were preparing to leave the hostel for the day to hire some scooters and head up the coast. The old lady who owned the hostel told us to pack our stuff up and leave. It turns out she had taken a booking for our room without telling us and now we had to leave as there were no other rooms available. I wasn't very happy about this and voiced my dissatisfaction to her. She told me to pay for the room and leave. I don't think the phrase 'the customer is always right' applies in India. After being unceremoniously ejected from our hotel we went to check out a few other places and found one with a really friendly old Labrador dog that kept trying to get into our room.

Finally much later than planned we managed to hire ourselves a couple of scooters and headed north up the coast. We went first to Mandrem which is one the least developed beaches. To get onto the beach we had to take a rather rickety bamboo bridge over a stream. The beach itself was beautiful but even here there were two or three restaurants on the beach and it didn't feel like it would be long before this becomes as developed as some of the other beaches. We made our way towards Anjuna taking in a couple more beaches on the way. We got back to the hotel and were greeted by the friendly dog. Just then a couple of beggars walked past the hotel. The dog turned nasty and ran over to them and started barking like mad. His owners have obviously taught him to hate beggars. It was pretty funny to see such a placid dog suddenly turn so aggressive and it scared the shit out of the beggars.

Later that evening after some food we wondered down the beach for a drink. It turns out that tonight was the night of the full moon party. We had got our dates wrong and didn't realise it was tonight. We'd missed another party on the beach like the one that occurred the first day we arrived, but after asking around we found there was a party going on in a place called 'The West End'. The place was a little way away and we got in a taxi with two Swiss guys and headed over to check out a Goa full moon party. I'm not sure what I was expecting - maybe thousands of people on a beach with palm trees all going mad. The West End turned out be a club inland playing dance music. It wasn't really what I had in mind. I don't mind listening to dance music in clubs but I'm not really a big fan and have no idea what the difference between techno and trance and such things is. I asked a girl there if she was enjoying the full moon party. She replied that she preferred to listen to forest trance. I didn't how to reply to that so I said nothing. On this evening it was Phil's turn to feel ill and not be up for partying. The full moon party wasn't really what I'd been expecting so I was happy enough to get a taxi with him back to Anjuna. We'd been in the party capital of Goa for four days now and had completed failed to do any partying.

We had a day off to recover from our lack of partying and then hired motorbikes - well Phil hired a bike and I hired a scooter - and headed south for five days to visit the rest of the beaches in Goa. We spent most the day getting to Palolem. Despite plastering loads of suncream my nose still managed to get extremely burnt. Palolem is fairly well developed but it's also a really beautiful beach and the development hasn't really spoiled it that much. I met up with a German friend of mine Nicky while I was here. I met her four years ago in South America and haven't seen her since. It was good to see her again. The three of us had some food and then wandered down to a bar at the end of the beach. There had been loads of music pumping out of a club not far from where we were earlier but it had stopped. We thought the place had closed for the night but it turns there was a noiseless rave going on. Now a noiseless rave for those of you who don't know is rave where all the music is beamed wirelessly to headphones. You need to get a headset to listen to the music. I've never seen anything like this before. It was a lot of fun. There were two DJ's both playing different sets at the same time. A switch on the headphones allowed you to switch between the two sets. You could switch between the two and work who was listening to which channel by the way they were dancing. The strangest thing you could do though was to take your headphones off. It was very peculiar to see lots of people dancing with no music playing. It was kind of a weird experience because when you have the headphones on you can't really talk to anyone. On the plus side when you stop for a rest and have a chat at the bar you can actually hear what everyone is saying.

We spent another day chilling out in Palolem and then the following day headed up the coast with Nicky to Benaulim. We stopped off at a temple along the way. We got shown round and were given Bindi spots. We took a look at Colva beach but it looked a bit too developed so we headed back down south a couple kilometers to Benaulim and found a very quiet relaxed stretch of beach. Nicky just hung out with us for a few hours then headed back to Palolem. Me and Phil spent a couple of days here relaxing.

Phil decided to teach me how to ride a motorbike while we were here. Phil has told me on a number of occasions of the spectacular accidents he has had on motorbikes in the past so he seemed like the perfect person to teach me. I have with me a book on travel health and it has a section on motorbikes. This is what it has to say: AVOID MOTORBIKES: Accidents on (or off) motorbikes are extremely common in travelers. If you don't ride them at home, don't ride them when you are away. WEAR A HELMET: if you ride a motorbikes, have the right gear. Helmets are essential. Open shoes, bare arms or legs may result in nasty gravel rash. Well I carefully considered this advice then hopped on Phil's bike in sandals, shorts, t-shirt and no helmet. I started off a little slowly at first but soon got the hang of it and really enjoyed riding the bike. I'm quite keen to get my bike license when I return home.

After a couple of days chilling out in Benaulim we took the bikes back to Anjuna. We were we stopped off in Old Goa and were going to have a look around but we were both feeling pretty ill, just for a change, so didn't hang around. We did manage to have a quick wander round for Fort Aguada though. We got back to Anjuna and after looking at lots of places to stay near the beach ended up settling for a place in town. We had a couple of days to kill before Merryl - Phil's girlfriend - and our friend Omar turned up to join us.

We spent the days on the beach. The restaurants along the beach have sunbeds with parasols outside them and you can lie on them and have beer and food brought to you - such a hard life. Whenever you ordered food the cows that wandered the beach would come up and attack. They were pretty easy to fend off, but it was funny to see how scared of them some people were. One cow in particular was a long string of snot trailing from his nose. People weren't too happy when he tried to stick his nose in their food. I also got really ill again and spent a day in bed/on the toilet. I took another course of antibiotics and that seems to have done the trick.

The following afternoon we were waiting for Omar and Merryl to turn up. We were sat in a cafe having a few drinks. They were long overdue so Phil popped off to an internet cafe to see where they. He came back 15 mins later looking none too impressed. Merryl had been delayed but would be with us in an hour or so. Omar meanwhile had been deported in Mumbai. He had turned up without a visa. Nice work Omar!

We spent a few more days in Anjuna once Merryl arrived and revisited a few beaches we had already been to so Merryl could see them. We also popped over to a place called Chapora which is where a lot of hippies hang out. We saw three old guys who were in a bit of state. One the guys with his head bandaged up was clearly the worse for wear. I saw him again a little later attempting to ride a motorbike. It gave me a fairly good idea of how he had managed to injure his head in the first place.

I got into quite a fitness regime whilst in Anjuna and most mornings would do some exercises in my room - push ups, sit ups and that sort of thing - and then go for a run along on the beach. On completion of my run and a quick shower I then went to the same restaurant each morning for a very healthy breakfast of fruit salad with yoghurt and museli. Another old guy used run along the beach every morning. I would normally see him run past while I had my breakfast. He took his run to the next level by doing it in a thong. I wasn't quite ready for that level of commitment in my fitness regime.

On one of our last days in Anjuna it was Merryl's turn to feel ill. She turned up to breakfast looking pretty rough. She didn't feel like eating but did order a coke and proceeded to add sugar to it. Phil looked pretty appalled by this. Not long after drinking the concoction she had to go back to bed and lie down. The same day there was another party going at the bar down the far end of the beach. I was actually feeling well enough to go this time and have a few beers and a party. Unfortunately with Merryl being ill and Phil being an attentive boyfirend and looking after her I had to go on my own. But that didn't stop me having a good old shindig on the beach as the sun went down and the stars came out.

I had been trying to sort out some paragliding lessons whilst in Anjuna but was finding it difficult to track any instructors down or get them to answer their phones. By now Phil and Merryl had left Anjuna to have sometime to themselves and I had had enough of wasting time trying to sort out my paragliding course so I booked myself onto a course in a place called Kamshet near Mumbai. I had no idea what the place would be like or what to expect but decided to go nevertheless. This did mean it would complicate meeting up with Phil and Merryl again but I had already spent too much time in Goa and I was keen to get some paragliding in.

Kerala Backwaters and Fort Cochin

2008-02-14T07:17:00.000Z

We had to get up at 6am to get our train to Alleppey to begin our Kerala backwater tour. We booked the trip from Varkala and all our connecting transport to the boat was sorted out for us. Needless to say at 6am neither of were functioning very coherently. We got packed and went outside to wait for our rickshaw driver to turn up and take us to the train station. After a short wait he turned up. I was so tired I left a full bottle of water by the side of the road when I got in the rickshaw - much to Phil's amusement. We made it to the train station just in time to catch our train. It was a two hour trip and we both had a bit of a snooze. We only just woke up in time to get off at our stop. In all the rush and commotion Phil left his full bottle of water on the train - much to my amusement.

We were met at the station and took to boat company's office. We had a two hour wait before the boat trip began so we had a spot of breakfast and then I wandered around the town of Alleppey while Phil went online. There wasn't really much to see so it wasn't long before I got bored and decided to go online as well. Finally we got taken to the boat. It wasn't quite as nice as the one in the photo but it was nice enough. The trip itself didn't really involve much other than just sitting on the boat in the sunshine while it made it's way through the maze of canals and waterways. The scenery was great and it was a very relaxing day. Unfortunately the water looked far too manky to have a swim in. We were fed very well by our cook and in the evening we stopped up by the canal-side in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. Despite the remote location there was the odd house dotted about. Looked like a very boring albeit beautiful place to live to me.

Well the nightlife wasn't exactly kicking here so we had to make to do with a few beers on the boat and played cards to amuse ourselves. The night was very hot in our room and neither of were able to sleep very much. The following morning I managed to get a few cool pics of the sunrise and then had a snooze on the deck before getting back to Alleppey. The boat trip was very pleasant but we paid a lot more to do an overnight trip and we were probably better off just doing a day trip instead.

Once back in Alleppey I hopped on bus to Cochin while Phil had to go back to Varkala to file a police report for his stolen bag, after which he would then come and meet me in Cochin. I got chatting to a guy on the bus and he soon decided that I was his best friend and I would find him a job in a petrochemical plant in the UK. He was a very happy man when we got off the bus and gave me a copy of his CV and references. Not sure what I'm supposed to do with them. On arriving in Cochin I took a local bus to the Fort Cochin area and then found a place to stay and went to sleep for the afternoon.

I got up a little later on and had a wander round. It seemed a lot hotter here without the sea breeze. It's a very quiet relaxed place though. I found the Santa Cruz Church and a look round that. In the evening I had a bite to eat and a beer. They take the whole pretending they are not serving you beer thing to the next level here. You get given your beer in a teapot and then pour it out into a mug. So much more sophisticated than the old hide the bottle under the table routine in Varkala. From now on beer in Cochin was to be referred to as 'special tea'.

Moved hotels the following morning to a nicer place, then started investigating Cochin a bit more. Saw another church then walked along the shoreline. The fishermen have these weird massive contraptions for catching fish. I saw them pull one of these massive things out of the water. It took four or five people to operate the thing. The fruits of there labour where about three pretty measly looking fish. Didn't strike me as a particularly effective way of catching fish. I had a nice pleasant walk along the beach then hopped on a rickshaw to go and the Mattancherry Palace built by the dutch. I had a lot of fun with my rickshaw driver who wanted to take me to lots of shops where he would get a commission rather than the palace. I remained firm and eventually got to the palace without too many detours. The place itself was actually now a museum: there wasn't that much to see but with an entry price of 2 rupees (about 3p) you can't complain too much.

I had a nice walk back to my hotel through a bustling market area then had a lie down and waited for Phil to arrive. When he arrived we went out for a food and then got obliterated on special tea and had a long argument about whether human beings possess free will or just the illusion of free will.

The next day I was too hungover to do much so just took it easy. Saw some kind of elephant festival in the evening. Not sure what it was all about but elephants really are impressive beasts. So huge and yet they seem to walk so elegantly and with very light feet. I started to feel pretty ill later on so just went back to the hotel and had a lie down.

I was still feeling pretty rough the next day but managed to get up and have a look at the Jewish synagogue. I wasn't that impressed by it. Thought it would be bigger. There was a market there as well so had a look round that then got back to our hotel. We had planned to fly the next day to Goa and had already bought flights. We then found out that there was a strike the next day and taxis and buses weren't allowed on the road meaning it would be impossible to get to the airport. We had two options: either get a taxi at 5am before the strike began and then wait all morning in the airport for our flight or move that evening to a hotel near the airport. We plumped for the second option. Getting up at 5am was never really a serious option.

And so we took a taxi to the airport found ourselves a hotel with air-con and tv. The party scene and endless beaches of Goa were awaiting us...

Varkala

2008-02-02T07:10:00.000Z

I had a pretty long day to get to India. First after arriving early at Beirut to sort out overstaying my visa, I had a three hour wait until my flight left to Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. Then another six hour wait before taking another flight to Trivandrum right in the south of India. All in all it was a 18 hour journey from leaving my hostel in Beirut to arriving in India. And what was more I arrived at 4:30 am in the morning. After getting my bags and clearing customs I bought a prepaid taxi to take me to Varkala. The taxi was a set price of 1060 rupees. I paid 1100Rs and waited for 40Rs change. The guy on the stall prevaricated in giving my change saying my taxi driver would give me the change. He then tried to give me 5 Saudi dinars as my change which I thought was quite interesting. Finally after being firm and waiting he coughed up the change smiling all the time and shaking his head from side to side. I suppose this thought of thing is to be expected in India.

The taxi ride from the airport to Varkala was very enjoyable. Everything here is so different from the Middle East. For a start it was hot and humid. There were palm trees lining the roads. Lots of people were out and about on the streets wearing strange clothes. Who knows what they were up to at 5am - it was still dark. I got dropped at Varkala just as the sun was rising. Varkala is on the coast and situated on a cliff top overlooking a beautiful beach. Before looking for some accommodation I sat on the cliff tops and watched the sunrise and saw Varkala come to life. Even this early people were out and about. There were locals and westerners exercising on the beach and doing yoga. A bunch of kids were playing cricket. Cricket is the national sport here and the Indians are mad for it. Despite the long journey to get here it was a really refreshing, pleasant way to arrive in Varkala.

And so I went off in search of accommodation. My preferred option recommended in the lonely planet (aka the bible, aka the book) was full, but they directed me onto a place called Africa house. I went in and disturbed one of the owners. He was a was a West African guy and was having a nice lie down and happily getting stoned on a rather strong smelling joint until I disturbed him. I got myself a pretty decent large sized room and then I was so exhausted I slept for most of the day. In the evening there was a roof top African bongo party going on on the roof of my hostel. The West African guy from earlier was playing with a few other people. They finished up pretty early mainly because Kent (the West African guy) got too stoned to carry on.

I had to hang around here in Varkala for a few days and wait for Phil to join me from Israel and as it turns out Varkala is a great place to just hang out and do very little, which is exactly what I did. I spent the days lying on the beach or walking along the cliff tops or eating fantastic fresh seafood in one the many restaurants here. I also got a healthiness kick going on and started running along the beach.

The hostel I was staying was a bit quiet so I checked into another hotel closer to the beach with a nice hammock hanging outside the room. I enjoyed lazing in the hammock for the first few days, but then noticed there were a load of coconuts in the palm tree the hammock was tied to that were directly above my head when I laid in the hammock. I got worried that a coconut would fall off and smash my skull in. From then on I was only able to enjoy lying in the hammock after I had a sufficient number of Kingfishers (the local beer) to allay my coconut fears.

A few days later Phil arrived, although nothing much really changed to my daily routine of lazing on the beach, going for the occasional run and having a few Kingfishers and great seafood in the evening. The nightlife in Varkala is fairly quiet. There aren't really that many bars. You tend instead to just have a few beers in one the restaurants, although officially the restaurants here don't have licenses to sell alcohol so you get your beer in a mug and have to surreptitiously hide the bottle under the table. We did find one quite cool place to drink in though called 'The Chill Out Lounge' which was very handily a twenty second drunken stumble from our hotel. The guys who worked were seriously chilled out. They were so stoned most of the time they had no idea how many drinks we had ordered and so how much to charge us. It's a good thing myself and Phil are honest upstanding citizens and always paid our bills in full.

The currents in Varkala are very strong and it can sometimes be a tad dangerous to go out in the see. Lifeguards patrol the beach, and on days when the current is strong, they stand on the beach busily blowing their whistles and waving their red flags at anyone venturing too far out to sea. We never saw a lifeguard actually in the sea and did wander if they could actually swim or if ownership of a whistle and a red flag were the sole requisites to become a lifeguard in Varkala. We were assured by a long-timer that actually the lifeguards are very proficient swimmers and have rescued a number of people from the strong currents in the past. Despite the very strong waves and currents we did spend a fair bit of time messing about in the big waves and getting thrown around. One evening after a few too many beers we decided to go for a night swim - in retrospect probably not the best idea. It was however pretty amazing. There are phosphorescent algae in the sea here which light up whenever you move in the sea. Was a really great experience to swim through them with every arm and leg movement lighting up the algae. Had lots of fun until a big wave picked me up and dumped me head-first into the sand. I was sporting a very fetching graze on my forehead the following morning.

One afternoon whilst sitting in a restaurant overlooking the beach we heard a load of drums being played and a couple of elephants walking down the beach. I went down to investigate. Turns out an English couple were getting married on the beach. Quite an unexpected occurrence but was a pretty cool romantic thing to do.

Whilst in Varkala we also attended a cooking course and learnt to cook hot and sour soup, fish masala, vegetable biriani, another curry the name of which I forget and some Indian bread as well. It was good fun and all seemed pretty easy to make. Looking forward to getting home and trying some of the recipes out.

Lots of people in Varkala are doing yoga courses and it seems a lot of people come here for a spiritual experience. I was also hoping to have a few yoga lessons myself. They did lessons on the roof top of the hotel we were staying in. Unfortunately the lessons were at 7:30am and I never quite made it to one. Yoga, it would seem, is an activity for early risers.

Sadly it wasn't all fun and games in Varkala. Phil had his bag stolen when he was in an internet cafe. I was pretty surprised by that. In terms of petty theft the Middle East is a very safe place to travel around and we've probably both gotten a bit slack at keeping an eye on our personal possessions. I guess it's not so safe here in India. The surprising thing was Phil is sure it was another traveler who took the bag not a local. That's a pretty shitty thing to do someone, just to extend your own stay for another week or two.

That little incident must have got me paranoid about being robbed. The next day I couldn't find my camera anywhere. I turned the hotel room upside down looking for it, then went to a couple of internet cafes I'd visited that day to see if I'd left it there but could find it nowhere. I couldn't believe my camera had gone as well. I went to the room and told Phil my camera had gone: it took him about two seconds to find it in the first place he looked - under the sheet on my bed - doh!

All in all I spent a good 10 days or so doing very little in Varkala. Finally we decided we really ought to leave although neither of us were all that keen to do so. Nevertheless we booked ourselves on a boat trip to visit the Kerala backwaters.

You may have noticed if you've been looking at my photos that I've decided to give shaving a miss while in India and am currently cultivating a beard. I think every man should grow a beard at least once in his life and India seems like a good place to do it. I've had a couple of positive responses so far so I guess maybe it doesn't look that bad. Who knows, I may even stick with it.

Lebanon

2007-12-31T10:58:00.000Z

I had just recovered enough from my cold to head out to Lebanon on the day before New Year's Eve. We met a guy called Charlie in the bus station who was missing a leg. He used to work with U.S. Navy and has quite a penchant for using the f-word. He used in pretty much every sentence he spoke; 'Would like f*cking peanuts', 'Get in this fucking taxi', 'You look like a f*cking yankee' etc etc. Having said that he was very friendly and just there to help. We got in a shared taxi to Beirut. I still had a bit of a cold and a embarked on a very impressive coughing fit in the taxi that lasted for about 5 minutes. I think the guys in the back thought I had some sort of deadly contagious disease.

Immigration and customs were passed fairly smoothly and we took a taxi up to west Beirut. This is the mainly Muslim area and took the biggest pounding during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon back in the early '80s. We checked into a fairly grotty hotel and then headed out to check out the notorious nightlife Beirut is famed for. As we walked through town we were pretty surprised by the large military presence in the city. There were quite a few check points with tanks and a fair bit of barbed-wire and razor-wire about the place. However the guys on the checkpoints were all pretty friendly and waved up through. After a few days the military presence didn't really seem at all daunting - just a part of life here.

After a bit of wondering we found Monot Street - a street full of bars and night clubs. We hadn't really seen much nightlife while in the Middle East and we were like kids in a sweetshop. We visited a few bars and clubs checking out a few places for New Year's Eve. Strangely enough the next morning there were a load of photos on my camera that I don't remember taking.

Most of the next day was spent in bed recovering. Finally got up in the early evening and it was off to celebrate New Year's Eve. The Lebanese certainly know how to party. A lot of the bars and clubs were ticketed and sold out, but after a little wander around we found ourselves a pretty cool place and settled in for the evening. We had a pretty good night - the bar provided hats, masks, balloons, party poppers and all sorts and we partied long into the night and I did some very impressive dancing on my bar-stool.

We did manage to crawl out of bed the following day and see a bit of west Beirut heading out along the Corniche, a long stretch of pavement following the coast round. It was quite a nice way to spend the day slowly ambling along, watching life go by. It all seemed a lot more European here and we even saw a few people going out for a jog - something I don't think I've seen since leaving home. We stopped off in a pretty nice restaurant by the sea had a bite to eat.

The following day we finally made it out of bed before midday so we could check out and look for somewhere nicer to stay. We got a taxi over to east Beirut and checked into the Talal New Hotel. We were immediately much happier with our choice of accommodation. The place had a nice communal area and there were plenty of other backpackers hanging out round here. We headed out for a bite to eat in the evening and found Germayze Street. This was a really funky place with loads of cool bars and restaurants and would cause us to stay in Beirut much longer than we had expected. Our first night here however we couldn't get into any restaurant for food as everywhere was booked out with reservations. We had to make do with sitting in an Irish bar until midnight and then finally we were able to get into a restaurant.

Well for the next few days it pissed it down with rain, so our lives consisted of mooching round the hotel all day cursing our hangovers and the weather and going out on the lash evening to work on getting a new hangover. We met a few cool people in the hotel so we had plenty of drinking partners for the evening.

A few days later we finally managed to venture out of Beirut, only for a day trip mind you, to town of Baalbek. In more recent times Baalbek has become a headquarters for Hizbollah. On entering the city there are large pictures of the Ayatollah and a little further in town an Israeli tank that was captured during the civil war is proudly displayed atop a column. However Baalbek is also the location of one the most impressive and well preserved Roman temple ruins in the Middle East and this was our reason for coming here. The complex consists of three temples, the temples of Venus, Jupiter and Bacchus. Although the site itself isn't that big, you can walk around it an hour or so, it is the scale of the ruins that really impresses - they are huge - and I believe the temple of Bacchus is one the best preserved covered Roman temples in the world.

We were planning on leaving Beirut the following day but in typical fashion after a night out on Germayze street didn't make it up in time for checkout. Instead we embarked on another day trip to Byblos to see yet more Roman ruins. Not as impressive as Baalbek but certainly worth a look. And so finally the next day by some miracle we got our arses out of bed before midday and made it out of Beirut and headed up to Tripoli. We spent a late afternoon and evening here had a quick wander round thew souq that was closing up and had a bite to eat and an earlyish night - no funky nightlife in Tripoli I'm afraid.

The following morning we carried on to Bcharre in the mountains. It was pretty cold and snowy here being at an altitude of almost 2000m. We had a wander from here up the Cedars of Lebanon. The cedar tree is the national emblem of Lebanon and appears on the flag. Sadly there are not too many of these trees remaining today - some of which are reported to be over 1000 years old. The few that do survive are now protected and there is an active program to preserve and regenerate the forests. Although not overly spectacular, it was good to see a bit of Lebanese heritage and the walk up there in the snow was pleasant enough, apart from when a car decided to hurtle past me through a puddle and completely soak me.

We spent the night in Bcharre and were treated by our host Tony to wine and potatoes for dinner. I had grand ideas of some kind of wine-potato casserole, but no we had a bottle of wine and as many plain roasted potatoes as we could eat. The next morning we got up and did some hiking down the Kadisha valley. This is a beautiful place to hike and made for a great day. Rather unexpectedly we stumbled across the Elisha monastery and had a look round there. As the afternoon wore on the weather came in so we headed back into town in time to visit the museum of Khalil Gibran - a Lebanese artist, poet and philosopher. Rachel gave his most famous book 'The Prophet' for and Christmas and having hastily read it the bus up to Bcharre it was good to the see museum, which is also his final resting place.

After the museum visit we took the bus back to Beirut. We finally managed to catch up with Natalie when we got back and also got to see her new place before hopping on a bus and heading back to Damascus to renew our Lebanese visas. We spent a couple of nights back in Damascus and saw Rachel again, it was absolutely freezing. Me and Phil were sleeping in all our clothes including thermals, plus about 20 million blankets and were still cold so we were quite happy to go back to Beirut.

On returning to Beirut we stayed at Nat's place in Dowra. Leah was also staying in the flat as well. We arrived to discover a bomb had gone off in the area an hour or so before we got there. Leah was leaving the flat as it happened: apparently the whole place shook. Leah certainly looked a bit shook up. It made us all feel a little uneasy. But there's not much you can do - well actually we could have left the country - so we just carried on with things.

After a couple of days hanging out in Dowra - it's a really nice area Nat has found to live here, lots of cool shops and little cheap restaurants and the best chicken kebabs in the country - we went south for a few days. We headed right to very south first to Tyre. There are a few Roman ruins about the town and it's a pretty quiet laid back place, but not that much to do so the next day we went to Sidon.

We wanted to visit Beaufort castle, which occupied by Isreal during their invasion of the country. it's now back in Lebanese hands and appears to administered by Hizbollah. We had to get a pass to go to Beaufort castle which was obtained easily enough and we then took a taxi the castle. We got stuck on our way there as there was a big demonstration going on. We weren't sure what it was at first and I felt a little uneasy about it. After about fifteen minutes or so though the procession passed and we got on our way. It turns out it was all related to a Muslim festival - I forget the name of it - but basically people go around cutting their heads and drawing blood from themselves. There were lots of people walking around with what I assumed was red paint all over themselves. I'm fairly sure it was paint and not blood anyway. We got to the castle and had a good look around. There isn't that much left of the castle as it has been bombed quite a lot but it does afford great views over Lebanon and I can see why it would be a point of strategic advantage.

Hizbollah are very popular in the South of Lebanon and it's not that difficult to see why. They are regarded in the prominently shia south of the country as being the only force to defeat Israel and end their occupation of the south country. On top of that they are very well-funded and have used the money to rebuild roads and infrastructure in the south of the country as well as building schools and hospitals which the government are either unable or unwilling to do. On the other hand Hizbollah's critics in the country claim that it was Hizbollah's rocket attacks and kidnapping of Israeli soldiers that was the cause of Israel's bombing of the country in 2006 and that if they wish to be taken seriously as a political force they should disarm. There is currently a political impasse in Lebanon with Hizbollah and it's pro-Syrian and pro-Iranian supporters trying to gain more influence in the government. These moves are being opposed by Christian majority that tends to be pro-western. It is these tensions that could boil over into another civil.

We returned back to Beirut and to Nat's place and did a couple more day trips while based there. One to the teleforique which is a cable car up the mountain. It was a fairly nice trip up and gave good views out to the sea once up the top. We also went to the Jetta Grotto with Nat. This a couple of caves full of stalactites and stalagmites. We went up to the furthest cave and walked through. It looked fantastic. It's a huge place and it goes down really deep as well; you can only walk through a small part of it. We then carried on the lower cave which has a lot of water in it and took a short boat trip through the cave and back again. It really was an amazing place. Unfortunately no camera are allowed in the place so I don't have any pics to show you.

Whilst back in Beirut another bomb went off in the area. This one assassinated the police chief who was heading the inquiries into all the bombings in the country. Again the tension increased in the country. A few days later 8 Hizbollah supporters were shot dead when protesting about fuel and water supplies. It did start to feel like something could really kick off here soon. By this time Phil had already left Lebanon and gone onto Israel. My second visa here was coming to an end so I decided it was time to leave and get a flight out to the sunnier climes of India.

I did have a little spot of bother leaving though. I booked a flight from Amman as it was cheaper to fly from there than Beirut which meant I had to take a shared taxi over the mountain to Amman. On the day I left it was snowing in the mountains and the taxi was trying to charge me extra because he said he needed snow chains to get over the mountain. I thought it was all a load of bollocks and refused to pay any extra. When we actually got the mountain there was a checkpoint where the military were sending anyone back down who didn't have snow chains on. Well we had to stop and put ours on but they turned out to be completely crap and fell off after not very long at all. We struggled on up the mountain and it wasn't long until I and another passenger in the taxi had to get out and start pushing the taxi up the mountain in freezing blizzard conditions. That was lots of fun. After a while we decided enough was enough and turned round and headed back to Beirut. One of the women in the taxi was kind enough to invite us back to her place for a nice cup of tea.

All in all this meant I missed my flight out of Amman and the road over the mountain stayed closed for a few more days so I had to buy a new flight from Beirut. This little kerfuffle also meant I overstayed my visa. It didn't turn out to be too much of problem though - just had to pay a small fine and they let me go on my way. Of more interest at the airport seemed to be the contents of my backpack as it went through the x-ray machine. I had to open up my main backpack. The security guard was very suspicious of my universal plug adapter. Obviously seemed to think it was a bomb or something. He showed it to his mate who gave it the ok. I also had some incense sticks. He was suspicious of these as well. Now I was being suspected of drug trafficking rather than being a bomber. He showed these to his mate as well. He gave them a smell then turned round and looked at me, gave me the thumbs up and said 'Very good!'. He clearly approved and I was free to go and continue on to India.

Christmas in Damascus

2007-12-25T12:20:00.000Z

We got back to Damascus a couple of days before Christmas and after a night staying in a hotel we moved to Rachel's rather swanky flat. Well it was pretty swanky compared to some of the places we've been staying in anyway. We soon discovered much to our surprise that Rachel had volunteered us to cook for twelve people on Christmas Day. Well that was a bit of a surprise. After picking ourselves up off the floor we spent most of Christmas Eve food shopping. Luckily we had done a cooking course in Petra a week or so before and decided to use some of the recipes we had learnt there.

In the evening we went for Christmas Eve drinks at Rachel's friend Darren's flat. There was quite a group of people there and it was a nice relaxed way to spend the evening. We went onto the roof of his apartment which is in the Christian area and Damascus and could see the whole place lit up as people here really got to town with their Christmas lights.

Christmas Day itself began with an early 6am start. I really didn't feel like getting out of bed but had to force myself to attend an 8am Christmas mass in the little village of Maalula. Maalula is about 40km north of Damascus and is a beautiful little village where Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is still spoken. The village is up in the mountains and much to our surprise there was snow on them so we had our first white Christmas in I can't remember how long. Christmas mass was given in a beautiful small church at the top of the hill. With the service being given in Aramaic we couldn't understand a word of it but that didn't take away from a wonderful morning. After the service we were given a guided tour of the church and then invited to drink some local wine courtesy of the priest himself. We spent another hour so walking through the village. There was a canyon back down to the bottom of the village.

We took the bus back to Damascus and after a quick call back home to wish the family a happy Christmas it was back to Rachel's to begin the task of cooking for everyone. I have to admit if I had given this task on my own I wouldn't have had a clue what to do or where to start. Luckily Phil took charge and the day seemed to go pretty smoothly. We made up a few salads and also served up hommos and mutabal (an aubergine dish) for starters. We then cooked a big chicken casserole and some stuffed aubergines for the mains. The food took a little while to come out but everyone seemed pretty happy with the fair and everyone was stuffed by the end of the day. As the evening went on everyone slowly made there way home, leaving myself Phil, Rachel, Natalie and Leah to have a relaxing evening in the flat. All in all I think the day went very well - it was certainly the best Christmas I've spent away from home.

The following day I came down with the flu. It totally knocked me out and I spent three days on the couch in Rachel's flat watching crap telly. It was nice to have a comfortable apartment to hang out in while I was feeling ill. A few days before new year I was feeling well enough to travel again so we took the bus over to Beirut in Lebanon to sample what is meant to be the best night-life in the Middle East...

Jordan

2007-12-07T15:32:00.000Z

So after a couple weeks vegetating in Damascus it was about time to get off our lazy arses and head down Jordan. We took the bus to the capital Amman and got here without too many problems although when we got to Syrian departures there was an Azerbaijani in front of us in the queue with about fifty passports to get processed. We were stood around for a short while thinking we were going to be here all day, especially as there was one guy processing all the passports while loads of other officials sat round doing nothing but our bus driver came to rescue and pushed us into the front of the queue; from there on in it was a breeze.

Amman doesn't have the immediate charm of Damascus and as a tourist there isn't a great deal to do. We did spend a morning wandering round the citadel and that was about it for sights in Amman. From the citadel you get a great of the massive flag pole in Amman bearing the Jordanese flag. The flag pole stands at over 120 metres high and according the holy bible - the Lonely Plant Guide - is the tallest free standing flag pole in the world. Only the North Koreans have a taller one, but theirs is suspended by cables, the big cheaters. Amman is also quite a rich city, well in places anyway and we did a visit a couple of quite swanky restaurants whilst we were here.

We used Amman as a base to visit Jersah, the very well preserved ruins of a Roman city. They were very extensive and easily matched the ruins of Palmyra in Syria. We spent a good few hours walking round the ruins. Take a look at photos to get an idea of the scale of the place. The one difference between here and Syria was the number of visitors. There are many more tourists here than in Syria. But having said that the number weren't overwhelming as we're here in low season and it wasn't really a problem - wouldn't want to be in Jordan in high season though. While here we also saw a 'chariot race'. They have reconstructed a hippodrome here and first we saw a Roman legion march and do a few moves followed by some reconstructions of some gladiatorial fights and then finally the chariots came round and did a few laps although they weren't really racing. It was a bit of show for the tourists and a tad silly but enjoyable enough I suppose. We carried from Jerash to the Ar-Rabad castle. Another pretty impressive castle built by one of Saladin's generals when they were fighting the crusaders.

The one last thing we did in Amman before moving on was to visit the Turkish bath. This place is well worth a visit if you ever get over here. The architecture of the place is great. There's a sauna and jacuzzi and you get a good long massage. We also opted for the dead sea mud face pack. A very relaxing way to spend an evening.

So next it was onto Madaba. This is a small town that boasts some pretty well preserved mosaics and is also the launch pad for trips down to the dead sea. We stayed in a fairly basic cheap hotel, with rather eccentric staff. The guy who ran the place seemed to speak fairly good English when he was speaking to us but didn't understand a word we spoke back to him. He told us lots of interesting things such as we needed to get a taxi to the dead sea at midnight and he also seemed to think I had a bicycle with me. We had a quick wander round town in the afternoon and saw a few buildings containing the ancient mosaics.

The next day we hired a taxi through our hotel to take us to the dead sea. First stop before the Dead Sea was to mount Nebo where Moses once looked out across to the promised land. The view from out here across to the Dead Sean onto Israel was great. There is a church here with more mosaics and to my mind these were better than the mosaics in Madaba itself.

And then it was time for a good old dunk in the Dead Sea. Pretty much everything you've heard about the sea is true. It is impossible to sink. You walk out and the water gets to about waist height then you carry on walking and realise you are no longer touching the bottom any more. Trying to swim in the Dead Sea is a lot of fun. Your feet stick out the water and you can't go anywhere. One word of caution if you ever do take a dip here - don't get the water in your eyes. It absolutely kills. And once you get the water in your eyes you can't rub it out because your whole body is covered is salty water. Yes I really can recommend not getting the water in your eyes. After a brief swim and a little rest to let my eyes recover we got ourselves full body dead sea mud packs. Not sure it really did a lot for me other make me look completely ridiculous. From here we popped along to some thermal springs and spent the rest of the afternoon there. There's a big waterfall there with a mixture hot and cold water running off it. You can stand directly under the waterfall and get pummelled by lots of water falling very quickly onto you head. We then watched the sunset over Dead Sea before heading back to Madaba.

The next morning we decided to head off to Dana taking a taxi via Kerak castle. Our driver from the previous day had already left by thre time we got up and there were no other drivers from our hotel or so our mad owner told us. So I popped out and got ourselves a driver from elsewhere. When our hotel owner found this out he went a beserk and threatened to call the police. Quite what he was going to the police I'm not sure - that we were legally taking a taxi to Dana? Well apparently we are not ever welcome back at their hotel which is quite a shame.

We had a nice drive down through Wadi Mujib and a good stroll round yet another crusader castle - Kerak Castle - before arriving in Dana in the early evening. Dana is a small village and the hotel we stayed at is part of a community that helps put money back into the village and conserve the surrounding coiuntryside. We saw another great sunset here and the following morning did a hike down the valley to the next village. It was very pleasant sunny day and a great walk. Once at the bottom of the valley we hopped in a taxi and headed off to Petra.

Petra is the main draw in Jordan and I'm glad to say this place really does live up to the hype. We spent two days wandering round the rock hewn temples and astounding scenery. The place is huge and we could have easily spent a lot longer exploring the area. The first morning we walked through the Siq to enter Petra. This is a tall narrow canyon over a kilometre in length formed not by water but by tectonic plate movements ripping the rock apart. The Siq seems to wind on for ever but finally it opens onto the Treasury. The Treasury is the really famous structure that most people associate with Petra and also featured in the Indiana Jones film which gets played every night in the hotels here. We saw as the sun come over the cliff tops and shine down on the Treasury. We spent the rest of the day walking past the tombs onto the Roman city which looks strangely out of place and then onto the monastery which looks very similar to the Treasury but involves a long walk up a mountain to get there so it's a lot more peaceful there.

On the second day we took an alternative route into Petra via another canyon. We spent most of the day without seeing any other tourists and found ourselves a great vantage point from which to look out across the whole of Petra. You can check my pictures but I doubt they do the place justice. This really is an amazing place and I wholeheartedly recommend Petra to anyone - you won't be disappointed. While in Petra we also did a cooking course and learned how to make a few dishes including hummus and mutabal. Little did I realise at the time that this course would stand me in good stead for Christmas day.

So no rest for the wicked and the next day it was straight onto Wadi Rum - the desert towards the south of the country. We did a 4x4 tour on the first day seeing some pretty cool places but for some reason I just didn't seem that enthralled with the place, maybe because it seemed a bit rushed in the 4x4 or maybe because it just didn't compare to Petra. Anyhow after a night of drinking, music and dancing in a Bedouin tent we did a tour on camels the next day. This was a lot more fun especially as my camel upon whom I bestowed the name 'Bob' was a pretty angry camel and kept attacking the other two camels and Phil and Merryl much to my amusement but no one elses. Poor old Bob, everyone else hated him but I think he was just misunderstood.

So after the rushed exertions of the last week or so we got Aqaba and took it easy. I wasn't feeling that well here and spent a couple of days chilling in my hotel room and watching crap western films. We did make it to the beach on the afternoon of the second day but it was windy and freezing and not a very enjoyable experience.

We headed back up to Amman so that Merryl could get her flight home and also to do a bit of Christmas shopping. I also got a chance to meet with my mate Attila whom I met a couple of years ago in Egypt. He's living in Amman at the minute and was able to take me round a few good bars, getting me into places for free and getting free drinks as well, so it was well worth catching up.

And after what seemed like an action-packed non-stop couple of weeks in Jordan it was back to Damascus for Christmas...

Damascus

2007-11-26T10:55:00.000Z

Well I've spent nearly two weeks in Damascus. Much more time than I was planning to but it has been really nice to kick back relax for a few days and not have to worry about repacking my back pack and heading off to new place. So what have been up to in Damascus? Answer: not that much. Drinking fantastic fruit juices, eating shawermas, dining in great restaurants, smoking nargiles (the water pipes), and wandering the souq but not really buying anything.

OK well I have actually done a few things other than just being a lazy git. On our second night here, we went to see a story teller who sits in a coffee shop and talks away for an hour or so each evening to a rapt crowd. The story is in Arabic so I didn't understand a word he was saying but it's still a great spectacle. He has a sword which he brandishes around every now then and whacks down on the table much to everyone's delight.

We also made a trip out to Quneitra, which is an abandoned town just on the edge of Golan Heights. The Golan Heights were seized from Syria by Israel during the six day war in 1967. They made a partial withdrawal from the area and most of it is now a demilitarised zone administered by the UN. Before heading off to Quneitra we first visited the October War Panorama in Damascus, which gives a rather skewed version of the 1973 war with Israel. We watched a short film about the war in Arabic with English subtitles. It refers to Israelis as Zionists and is basically an anti-Israeli propaganda film. Upstairs is the war Panorama - a huge painting depicting the battle around Quneitra. The Syrians are all depicted as big strong soldiers, the Israelis look small, weak and weasel-eyed. As we watched the panorama a loudspeaker was describing the scene in Arabic so we couldn't understand but I have a fairly good idea they didn't have anything good to say about Israel. The sad thing about it is that there were a group of young school children there at same as us basically being taught to hate Israel. Now I know the Arab world has good reason to hate Israel and I don't particularly sympathise with the Israelis, but it was very depressing to these school kids here and it's very difficult to see the problems of the Middle East being resolved anytime soon, when a new generation is being taught to hate.

So anyway after the panorama we headed up to Quneitra itself. On arrival we were given a guide (member of the secret police) to show us around. Most of the place is rubble, what buildings remain were completely gutted by the Israelis before they withdrew. Anything that could conceivably be of use was taken including the windows frames. So only the concrete shells of the buildings remain. I thought the town was no longer populated, although we were told there are five people still living here, and the place has been pretty left as it was to serve as some kind of memorial. It's a really eerie place to walk around, I've never really been anywhere quite like it. All in all it was fairly sombre experience.

On a slightly lighter note we also took a day trip to Bosra to visit - you've guessed it - yet more ruins. Bosra is home to Roman Amphitheatre. It's actually really well preserved and one the largest amphitheatres that isn't built into the side of a hill. Interestingly enough at a later date a castle was built around the theatre. It was pretty cool to see the theatre contained inside the castle. There are also more ruins outside of the castle of the old city. These are scattered amongst the new buildings of the modern town of Bosra. Bosra made a nice day trip out of Damascus.

Other than that we've just been hanging out in Damascus. We caught up with Rachel, whom we met on our way to Aleppo. So we've spent a bit of time with her and met some her UN work colleagues. They've have some Iraqi friends - there are a lot of Iraqi refugees in Damascus - and they put a contemporary dance display. I've not seen any contemporary dance before and wasn't really sure what to expect, but it was very good and very moving considering the circumstances they have come from.

On the topic of Iraqis, we met a guy called Amar who is from Baghdad. He has seen people killed and lost five of his friends since the war in Iraq began. He is educated as lawyer but now can't find any sort of work in Damascus. Meeting someone like this really does put a human face to the consequences of a completely pointless war.

Well sorry if a few parts of this entry haven't been so cheery, but I would to stress that I've a great time in Damascus and I'm really quite sad to leave for Jordan. The good news we have to come back to pick up our Indian visas so we'll probably be back here for Christmas. Looking forward to that and catching up with our friends we've made here. But for now Jordan beckons...

More Syria

2007-11-16T09:25:00.000Z

From Aleppo we headed out east first to Raqqa. This town doesn't have much to recommend itself but it is a base to visit the ruins of the ancient walled city of Rasafa. We hired a taxi for the day and got driven down to these ruins. It was really nice here, made all the better by the fact there were very few other people around. Our taxi driver seemed to enjoy the place as much as we did and was out taking lots of snaps on his camera phone. There was an underground cavern which was huge, it really took my breath away. From there our taxi driver took us to ruins of another castle called Qala'at Jabar. We've been a bit spoiled for ruins and castles since being in Syria and I didn't find this one so impressive.

On returning to Raqqa we decided not to spend another night here and went straight on to Deir Ez-Zur. This was a really bustling little market town, and a bit off the beaten track. It was a nice place just hang out and watch everything go by. This was also a base to visit yet more ruins - those of Dura Europos and Mari. These sights are right in the east of the country and only about 15 miles from the Iraqi border. Our visit there seemed to raise a lot interest and after quite a long wait in the bus station in Deir, we're fairly sure we had some secret police following us for the day. Anyway we got the bus to Dura Europos and spent a good long while there. At first it doesn't look so impressive, but as you walk towards the back of the ruins it drops right down to the Euphrates and reveals the ruins of citadel on the banks of the river. From here we hitched a lift on an oil tanker to go a further 10 miles or so down the road to Mari. Our driver didn't speak much English but still had a bit of fun with us and joked he was going to take us into Iraq. We arrived at Mari just as the sun was setting so just a quick look round as dusk set in. We returned back to the highway to hitch a lift back Deir. The secret policemen who we had seen a few times in the day pulled up in their car got out and started flagged down all the minibuses heading back to Deir and ushered onto the first one with space on it despite the fact two old ladies who had been waiting much longer than us for a minibus. The women weren't very happy about that and we didn't feel too good about it either, but you can't really argue with secret police.

After Deir it was onto Palmyra. Probably the most famous set of ruins in Syria, it is an ancient Roman city although a temple of some sort existed there 2000 years before the Romans got there. We spent a few days wandering rounds the ruins and I've taken absolutely loads of photos to bore you with. We also met a nice group of other travelers here so hung out with them and a had few drinks in the evenings. I also got a bit of a dicky tummy here that knocked me out for a day or so. I got a few drugs from the pharmacy in town and that seemed to sort me out. On our last day in Palmyra we headed out to the citadel atop a hill which gave fantastic views across the ruins.

From here we headed up to Hama with a German girl Katie whom we met in Palmyra. We did a tour out to Krak de Chevalliers described by TE Lawrance as 'the finest castle in the world' and it's hard to disagree with him. The castle is huge and very well preserved. We spent the best part of a day wandering round it. I can't say much more about it other take a look at the photos to see for yourself.

Although there wasn't that much to do in the town of Hama itself, it was a pretty nice place and we spent a few days chilling out here before heading onto Latakia minus Katie who instead went to Aleppo. On our way to Latakia we stopped at yet another castle. This one was called Qualat Salahdin. While not quite as impressive as Krak de Chevalliers it has a much more impressive setting and it was a beautiful sunny day. In the distance you could see out to the Mediterranean.

Latakia is a small town on the coast. It is a lot more liberal here than other places seen in Syria. Most girls don't wear head scarves and some even have the temerity to walk round in skirts! Latakia was another nice place but we were a bit short on time so just spent one night here and then had a brief visit to Tartus before making our way to Damascus.

We've met up with Phil's girlfriend Merryl here and the three of us will be traveling round for the next three weeks or so. I am really loving Damascus. We've been here for eight days now and plan to spend a few here more before heading onto to Jordan. I'll write more about Damascus a little later. As for now hope anyone reading this is enjoying my blog and that you are well and enjoying life wherever you may be. I am certainly enjoying life at the minute.

Oh yeah one last thing, Merryl has bought a new lead for my camera so I can finally upload photos again - hurrah! So loads more photos of the same thing from about twenty different angles to bore you with! They're all on smugmug under a new Syria category that I've created.

Aleppo, Syria

2007-11-11T14:29:00.000Z

I've been in Syria for a couple weeks now and I've been having a great time. Despite what some people may believe about this country it is actually a very safe and friendly place to travel through.

We first arrived Aleppo in the north of the country after a bit of an epic 21 hour bus journey from Turkey which involved lots unscheduled stops, me losing my wallet and getting it back minus 50 lira and finally being dumped by the side of the road because our bus was going to Damascus not Aleppo and having to get a minibus for the final 20 miles of the trip. On the plus side we met an Australian called Rachel on the bus who is working the UN Damascus so we were able to get a bit of local information from her.

Aleppo lays claim along with Damascus to oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. It's a really chilled out relaxing place despite its size and I immediately liked the place. Syria feels a lot different to Turkey and it's a lot more like traveling now rather than just being on holiday which is what Turkey felt like.

The immediate joys of Aleppo are the juice bars; they have all sorts of fruits and will whack whatever you like in a blender and make you a massive smoothie - all for just 50p. Coming in a close second was the 15p falafels, served by a friendly bunch of people who kept giving us a complementary falafel on arrival, as if they weren't cheap enough already.

In terms of sights the main attractions are massive souq (market) and the citadel. The souq is a really amazing place. It's a labyrinth of narrow streets, selling pretty much everything you could imagine from sweets and jewelery to bits of string (which I bought four metres of - you can never have enough string I always say) to sheep's intestines (which I didn't buy any of). There are a few guys round here searching out the tourists and luring them into their jewelery shops. We got lured in, and the guy was pretty charming and did a pretty good job almost managing to sell us some, but we were strong and resisted.

The citadel is a very impressive sight. It's built on a hill and is clearly visible from quite a distance away. It's situation atop the hill makes it very difficult to imagine anyone ever being able to successfully lay siege to the place. As you walk up the main bridge there are many holes over head where you can have burning oil spilt on your head. There is also a keep to the left of the bridge for archers to fire on any would be attackers. The main gate is set off to the right when you get to the end on the bridge, placed so to cunningly avoid attack by battering ram. On top of this once through the gate there are a series of right angle turns and about more three more gates to negotiate making attack very difficult indeed. From atop the citadel there are great views across the city.

We used Aleppo as base to do a few tours to some surrounding ruins. We visited the cathedral of San Simeon. This is a guy who lived his on top of an 18 meter high pillar. He had a chain round his neck to stop himself falling off and spent his time giving out advice to the many people that came to visit him. He wouldn't however speak to women, and that included his own mother. He died in 459 AD and was apparently one of the most famous people in the world at the time of his death. The column he lived upon no longer survives but the rest of the cathedral was definitely worth a wonder round.

We also did a tour out to the Dead Cities. I can't actually remember the name of the cities we visited but we spent a fairly pleasant morning wondering round the ruins and then carried onto Apamea. I didn't actually know anything about this place until we turned up there. I was really blown away by the place. It is 2 kilometer stretch of parallel colonnades, stretching as far away as the eye can see. The sun was setting as we walked along it making the scene even more awesome. Far off to one side is huge citadel, and there are ruins of theaters and baths along the way. I've seen a fair few ruins in my time but this was one of the best, made all the better because no one else was there.

From Aleppo we headed out east along the Euphrates to visit some more ruins, which I'll write about in my next post...

Cappadocia Pics

2007-11-05T13:59:00.000Z

Just a quick post to let you know I've managed to upload some of my Cappdocia pictures from my time in Turkey. You can check them out here.

The internet has been really slow here and the Syrian government has a habit of blocking useful sights like blogger and facebook from time to time so I haven't been able to do much on the internet. I should be getting a new lead for my camera shortly so more photos to be posted shortly, and I'll do a post on Syria soon as well I promise.

2007-10-24T18:51:00.000+01:00

Well I have to admit I've been a bit slack on the old blogging front and have now gotten a bit behind. I'm actually now in Syria, just arrived last night in Aleppo. It's a large city but very chilled and I really like it here. Anyway more about Aleppo later; I've done a fair old bit in Turkey since my last post so I'll quickly run through it now.

After Selcuk we headed on to Pamukkale. We met a great couple on the bus Thorsen from Germany and Fatma, living in Germany but actually Turkish, who became our travel companions for the next few weeks. On our first day in Pamukkale we made a trip out to an underground hot spring. It took a little while to get there and wasn't particularly impressive once we got there. The trip was more memorable for the walk back when Fatma discovered a plant with a bud on it that exploded when you touched it. That gave everyone quite a shock. In the evening we had a few beers and bumped into a danish couple Brian and Jette who we first met in Selcuk. Many beers did flow that night and when we finally stumbled home we found we were locked out of our hotel. After a few attempts at climbing the wall our drunk shenanigans finally woke the staff up and we got let in.

The main reason for visiting the Pamukkale is to see the travertines, a bunch of calcium shelves containing pools that cover a ridge at the back of the town. The travertines are also know as the 'Cotton Castle'. I walked up these with a stinking hangover and wasn't enjoying myself very much at all. Luckily however there was a natural hot spring at the top and we spent the rest day soaking in them until my hangover had passed.

We headed onto Fethiye with Thorsen and Fatma, and thanks to their advice we did some trekking on the Lycian Way. This was a mostly peaceful two days trekking in the hills above the coastline of south Turkey. At the end of the first day we descended down the beach and had a very relaxing swim and then stayed in a wonderful pension overlooking the sea. The next day we were up early and carried on trekking. There were lots of beehives all along the way as we trekked which was of great interest to Thorsen who does bee keeping as a hobby. We passed one place where they were collecting the honey and Thorsen marched towards them to see them at work. Despite the bee keepers telling us avidly to stay away we stupidly followed him in. Well the bees didn't like our presence very much and soon myself Fatma and Phil were running away with bees in pursuit. Fatma and Phil both got bees stuck in there hair and I was madly trying to fend a bee off with my walking stick. The strange thing about it is not much fun when the bee is attacking you but as soon as it attacks someone else it suddenly comes completely hilarious. Throughout the attack Thorsen had been inside a tent watching bee keepers collect the honey. We thought he escaped scot-free until we saw come out of the tent running as fast as he could. We eventually got enough distance between ourselves and the bees and they left alone. Thorsen was the only one to actually sustain any stings. He got stung twice but seemed unfazed by it all.

After that little incident we continued our peaceful trek. Towards the end of the day we watched as paragliders flew over the mountains and landed on the beach below and then as light began to fail we made it to the town of Ovicek to get the dolmus back to Fethiye. I was expecting Ovicek to be a little quiet town as everywhere we had trekked for the last two days had seemed so remote and tranquil. In fact Ovicek turned out to be a big British package holiday destination with lots of bright flashing lights and pubs called things 'St George' and 'Harry's Pub'. Quite a shock and a stark contrast from the Lycian way.

We had one more day in Fethiye and used it to make a trip to a local canyon. We made our way up the canyon. The water was pretty cold. After a bit of a walk and climbing over a couple of waterfalls, we made it further than most tourists get. From here on in the water got pretty deep - we walking through it with our day packs held over our heads freezing our bollocks off. It was pretty good fun despite the cold and felt really adventurous.

The next four days were spent taking a boat from Fethiye to Olympus. This was basically a chilled out four days that consisted of lying in the sun on deck, swimming in the sea every now and then and drinking beer. Oh the hardships of traveling. On the last night of the trip we went to ashore to a bar called Smuggler's Inn. This is basically a bar in the middle of nowhere that only exists because people on boat trips stop off here. It was a good blast and surprisingly busy given that it is the end of the season in Turkey now.

After the boat trip we made it to Olympos and stayed in a treetop hostel, although none of the rooms are really in treetops now since it burnt down a few years ago. It was pretty quiet here since it was end of season. We spent a nice afternoon wandering round some ruins by the beach and then doing a spot of sunbathing. We also said goodbye to Fatma and Thorsen here as they headed off to Cappadocia and we stayed in Olympos to do a spot of rock climbing.

The rock climbing was pretty cool. I've done a bit climbing on a wall before but never on a proper rock face. We did a couple of warm up climbs which myself and Phil both did in a doddle. I guess our instructor overestimated our abilities after that and took us onto a much harder climb. I did not make it very far up the climb at all and was soon completely knackered and had no strength left in my arms at all. Phil made a much better crack at it and got farther up. After that our instructor took us to any easier climb but by then we were spent forces and really struggled with it. Despite that it was a lot of fun and something I'd like to try again and get better at.

After the rock climbing the weather turned worse so we headed up to Goreme in Cappadocia land of the lunar landscapes and fairy chimneys. We took the night bus here and arrived early in the morning and checked the Flinstones hotel. We were surprised and pleased to see Brian and Jette here who we had last seen in Pamukkale. The weather wasn't so great here either but I still managed to spend a few days walking around the area taking in the amazing landscape. There really isn't anywhere like this on earth. Tragically I left my lead for my camera in Olympos so you won't be able to see the photos until I manage to get myself a replacement. After a couple days the weather picked up and we were able to do a hot air balloon trip over trip over the area. We got our wake up call to do the balloon trip at 5:30am. This made us very happy as we'd been up drinking late the night before. After the initial shock of being woken up we dragged ourselves out of bed and it was well worth it. The view from the balloon was amazing. A bit of a shame I can't show you my photos right now. The balloon trip will always be remembered however for the landing. For whatever reason our balloon driver (or whatever it is you call a person who is charge of a balloon) decided it would be a good idea to land in a tree. It was very funny and certainly added a little extra to trip that I will never forget. We found time to do a bit more walking round the valleys here also did a spot of mountain biking.

And so after a month in Turkey which has been fantastic, if a little expensive, we decided to head over Syria. It was gruelling 21 hour bus trip to get here, involving lots of long stop overs in bus stations. But it was well worth the journey. I'll write more about Syria in my next post. As for now just know that I'm still having a wonderful time and hope you are all well.

Check my photos on the following links:

Gallipoli and Selcuk

2007-10-18T07:29:00.000+01:00

First stop after Istanbul was Canakkale. We had a bit of fun getting there after expecting to get a midday ferry across the Sea of Mananma. There was no midday ferry so we had to wait until 6pm to get a ferry. The ferry took us to Bandirma where we a short stop for dinner before getting a bus onto Canakkale. The staff in the restaurant we ate at were very happy to have us there, and the chef sent us complimentary cups of tea. When we finished then the waiter decided he wanted to treat us both to cup of tea as well. All well and good except we had a bus to catch so had to leave rather abruptly.

Canakalle is the stop off point to do a tour of the Gallipoli battle field. I have to say I knew next to nothing about this battle other than it took place at some point in World War I. Ask an Aussie or Kiwi though and they will tell you all about it. The first allied landing took place April 25th 1915. This is an ANZAC day and a national holiday in both Austraslia and New Zealand. It was a pretty humbling experience walking through the war fields and learning about the thousands who lost their lives. It seemed really paradoxical to me that on the one hand the soldiers actions on both sides were heroic and inspiring, but at same time the whole exercise they were involved was completely foolish and a complete waste of life to acheive nothing.

Well after that sobering experience we headed onto Selcuk, the stopping off point to visit the ruins of Ephesus. We checked into a hostel with a rather eccentric set of staff, including an owner who couldn't decide if he was Australian or Turkish, a woman who only ever said "Tomorrow", whcih we eventually discovered meant she wanted to clean our room, the cook Simon who only ever blurted out one word answers to our questions and did his best to be as unhelpful as possible, and most disconcerting of all a little boy who ran around all day barking like a dog. We spent a couple of days hanging about in town eating Kofte kebabs, getting drunk in the evening and generally doing very little. Finally on the third day we got off our lazy arses and went to visit Ephesus with stinking hangovers. Ephesus is the ruins of an old Roman town and amazing amount is still intact so you get a really good idea of how the place was laid out. There's a huge amphitheatre there, and some roman baths. The only problem with the place, apart from the guys outside selling 'genuine fake watches' is the fact that there were just too many other goddamn tourists there, but again of course I was one the goddamn tourists making it so busy there. I've managed to my photos loaded onto smugmug so you can check them out there.

After wandering round the sites we headed back into town and got a bus to Pamukkale. More about that in my next post...

Istanbul

2007-10-12T08:14:00.000+01:00

And so I am off on my travels again. My journey actually began in the wonderful town of Luton. Myself and Phil, my travel companion for this journey, decided to spend a night here since our flight was at 6am next day. I can't say much for Luton other than I was glad I only had to spend no more than 8 hours there. After a very early start and an uneventful flight we made it to Istanbul. What should have been a quick 50 minute bus ride into town from the airport turned into about 2 hours when we got stuck in traffic waiting to cross the Bosphorus to get to the European side of Istanbul. When we finally did make it over the bridge it was a pretty impressive sight. The Bosphorus is a wide strait connecting the Black Sea to the north with the Sea of Marmara to the south. As you cross, on what I'm told is the fourth largest suspension bridge in the world, you can see huge mosques and minarets on both banks of the strait. We arrived in Taksim square and after unsuccessfully attempting to get a bus down Sultanahmet, where we are staying, jumped in a cab and took the easy option.

We've spent about a week here and just been doing the tourist things. The highlights would have to be Haga Sophia a huge building that started life as a church, later on becoming a mosque and is now open the public. The building is immense, it's hard to explain how impressive it is. It is quite strange though to see stone glass windows depicting Mary and Jesus alongside Islamic symbols. The Basilica Cistern was also great to see. Anyone who has played tombraider will enjoy this place - an underground cavern with tall columns all very moodily lit.

I was persuaded, by Phil, to go to a Turkish bath and get a massage. This involved getting covered in loads of soap and then being contorted and pushed around by a big fat Turkish man - lots of fun I can tell you.

We've also done a few boat trips, the first southwards to Princes Islands. These are some islands where a Sultan exiled all but one of his sons, so that they would not kill the son he had chosen to succeed him. Although they were exiled they still lived in large palaces and has a pretty good life. We stopped at one of the islands and hired bikes there, spending the afternoon cycling round the island. The other tour we did was up the Bosphorus to the mouth of the Black Sea. It took a couple of hours to get there, we stopped at small village called Anadalou Kavagi and walked up quite a steep hill to some castle ruins. We then had a seafood lunch at the top of the hill overlooking the Bosphorus. The food was great but we got attacked a by a loads of wasps and the largest hornet I have ever seen in my life. The two boat trips we did really gave us an impression of how big Istanbul is, it seems to stretch out endlessly in all directions.

Well Istanbul has been great if a little expensive; the weather hasn't been too great - it's rained a bit which has made Phil really happy - so we're now heading south along Aegean coast in the hope of chasing the better weather.

I am uploading photos as I go along. I'm just been posting on facebook at the moment as smugmug has been too slow to upload to, but don't worry you don't need a facebook account to see them. Below are the links to the Istanbul galleries - sorry I've been too lazy caption to them. I may get round to it due course...

Nairobi

2006-03-15T11:28:00.001Z

I arrived in Djibouti from Eritrea and found a cheap flight to Nairobi leaving the next day. This seemed far more preferable to spending a minimum of seven days on a bus to get to Nairobi and so I took the easy option. I arrived at the airport and got mobbed by loads of touts but shook them all off and got a taxi to very nice hostel. The first thing that struck me was how many travelers there were here, but that was very welcome after meeting very few people in Eritrea.

Within a few hours of being in Nairobi I managed to get myself some work as an extra on a Russian film set being shot in the Shaba national park in the north of the country. We drove up the next day, but our drivers spent ages sorting stuff out in Nairobi and we didn't make to the park in time to stay at the plush lodge and instead stayed an ok hotel in Isiolo. The drivers took two girls with them and we were fairly sure they had stalled us on purpose so they could stay with the girls.

We got to up early the next and made it to the film set and we all got kitted out as Russian soldiers. We were all given guns as well and one guy was handed a machine gun with live ammunition in it. We were then told that we wouldn't be able stay at the lodge in the evening and would have to go back to Nairobi. We weren't too pleased about this especially as we hadn't made it to the lodge the night before so we formed a union and refused to go on set unless we could get accommodation at the lodge and get paid more money. Our little mini-strike worked and our demands were met.

The scene we were in involved us chasing an imaginary monkey around. It was a fairly short scene but took all day to shoot. I think it may be the most boring job I have ever done. It was however good fun to be on a film set and the in evening we stayed in the lodge and had a swim in the pool and then had great food at the buffet. The best feed I have had since I've been away.

I'm back in Nairobi now where I have caught up with Dan the crazy cyclist again. Dan broke his shoulder in Ethiopia when he a had a crash on his bike. After the crash he was stoned by an angry Ethiopian mob and then put in jail for murder despite the fact no one was dead. He managed to bribe his way out and got his shoulder fixed up in Nairobi. He has been working at an orphanage here, while he recuperates, which I went and visited. Other than that I have just been relaxing in my hostel, drinking Tusker beer and eating well while I decide what to do next.

Eritrea

2006-03-14T05:51:00.001Z

First port of call in Eritrea was the capital Asmara. It's a pretty nice place, the architecture is heavily influenced by Italian occupation and Asmara unlike many other towns in the country avoided heavy bombing in war with Ethiopia so most of the buildings are still in tact. At an altitude of 2300 metres and clear blue skies every day the climate here is perfect.

There isn't a great deal to do in Asmara in terms of tourist attractions, but I spent a couple of days wondering around viewing the architecture and sipping on juices and eating pastries. I wondered over to the railway station to check out the possibility of traveling on a steam train. One had just left earlier that day, but I did meet a very nice guy called Yemane who works on restoring the tracks and the steam engines. Now I'm not really a train buff (honest) but it was intersting to the steam engines; they have four in working order and are restoring a couple more. The only shame is that they hardly ever seem to be used.

From here I took the short bus ride to Keren, a couple of hours away. I spent a couple days here and visited the Maryam Dearit Chapel, a chapel that has been carved out of the inside of a large tree. My plan had been to go from here to Nakfa to visit the underground city that was built to during the war with Ethiopia, but the government aren't letting tourists go there at the moment.

So it was back to Asmara where I caught up with Yemane again, but still no steam trains running, so as I was running out of things to do I decided to pay a visit to the monastery of Debre Bizen. The monastery is a two hour a walk up a moutain from the village of Nefasit. A couple of local kids ran out of school and offered to guide me to the monastery. I politely declined their offers and off they went back to school. Then another guy started following me, imposing himself on me as my guide. He proved a lot harder to shake off. After I told him I didn't need a guide abot two hundred times, he told his long list of woes: his father was 88 and couldn't leave the house, his mother had ovary cancer. When I was unmoved by this he then revealed that he had just tested positive for HIV, and his brothers had been killed in the war. The somewhat incredulous list of mishaps contiued until I gave him 10 nakfa (thats about 30p) and he finally left me alone.

It was a very pleasant, peaceful walk up the mountain once I was finally on my own. As I reached the top the clouds came in, but I was above the cloud level and the monastery looked great above the clouds. I was admitted to the monastery and had my feet washed. I was fed and given drink and showed round the place by a young boy. I gave the monks a gift of some candles, which turned out to be a fairly useless as they now have electricity, and also donated some money for the upkeep of monastery. I was hoping to spend the night here, but for some reason they didn't seem to want to let me stay and I ended up having to scuttle back down the mountain to make it in time for the last bus back to Asmara.

After one night in Asmara I headed down to the coastal port of Masawa. Masawa was carpet bombed in the war and it hasn't really recovered. There were a lot of derelict buildings and the ones that are still standing are riddled with bullet holes. I met up with two Slovenians here, Vesna and Dusan. We had been hoping to do some diving here, but the German dive instructor had just left town the previous day and the costs were a bit prohibitive anyway. The wet season apparently had just started the day arrived, at completely the wrong time of year, so it was dull and overcast for the two days I spent here. The highlight would have to be the Sellam restaurant which served great fish cooked in a fire.

So it was back to Asmara again, after queuing three hours in Masawa to get a bus out of the place, and time to think of something else to do. After a day off, spent eating pastries and drinking juice, I met up with Vesna and Dusan again and we hired a four wheel drive to go to Dankalia, the low lying region in the south of Eritrea. We had to take a driver with us which was a bit of a shame, because he didn't seem to like us and we didn't like him either. We had a brief stop in the vilaage of Foro and continued onto Irafaeli. Not many white people make it here and we were met with a few curious glances. The villagers, apart from a few of the kids, were actually very shy and not very forthcoming - one of the only place been in Africa where no one asked me for money. We continued the same day to Galelo. This was another very small village, but for some reason unknown to us there was a huge hotel and helipad just outside the village. The hotel was pretty plush but had no customers. At just over $10 we decided to stay here for the night.

We carried on the next day to Thio, after a bit of a sulk by our driver because he wanted to return to Asmara. There is an old military base in the village which is littered with rusting vehicles. We had a bite to eat here and were served some coffee by the locals. Before leaving we left them some gifts of salt and sugar which were gratefully received. By this time we had just about enough of our driver, so we decided to cut our trip short and asked him to drive us back to Asmara. Our driver got in a mood about this as well despite the fact it was he who had originally wanted to return Asmara earlier in the day.

After a couple more days in Asmara, I was able to take the steam train to Nefasit and back. I had already traveled by road to Nefasit but it was nice to take the steam train and a more leisurely pace to take in the mountain scenery.

My last trip in Eritrea was to Barentu, a small, quiet, laid back muslim town in the west of Eritrea. If you look on a map it actually isn't that far from Kasalla in Sudan where I was two months, but because both the Sudanese and Ethiopian borders are closed it has been a long trip to get from one to the other. There wasn't a great deal to do in Barentu but it was a nice place just to hang out and sip tea in the shade. I met a German guy here and we took a bus together to the village of Tocambia. I don't think many white people get out here at all, but having said that we didn't cause much of a stir in the village and the people we did approach were very polite and friendly. We walked across a dry river bed to an orchard where they grew crops and relaxed in the shade for a while before heading back into the village for a quick cuppa and then we hopped on a bus back to Barentu.

On return to Asmara I met up with Yemane again and was invited to his house for the coffee ceremony where I also met his family and was treated to the traditional feed of injera.

And that was pretty much it for Eritrea. I'm back in Asmara and will fly back to Djibouti tomorrow, upon which I will have to decide where to go next. I came a little out of my way to go to Eritrea and spent a fair bit of money getting here and wasn't entirely sure whether to come here or not. I can't say my expectations of the place were the same as my what I actually experienced here, and in terms of activities I did a lot less here than I was expecting. But it has been nice to get off the tourist trail and spend time in a country where the locals are genuinely glad that you have decided to visit their country and where there is virtually no hassle. And as with any place you will never know what it's like unless you actually go there.

Ethiopia, Part Two

2006-02-17T11:54:00.001Z

One thing I forgot to mention in my last update was our last night in Mekele. Girmay took us to a local club for some traditional dancing to finish off our Timkat celebrations. We all got up and had a bit of dance, shaking our shoulders in the traditional style. A little later in the evening a local singer came on who was very popular. People kept getting up and sticking money on his head. There seemed to be a bit of competition as to who would stick the most money on forehead. Afterwards a drunk Russian got up and started singing. He was part of a group of Russians who are here training Ethiopians to fly Migs. It was a bit surreal to see a Russian singing melancholy songs at an Ethiopian festival. I got up and stuck 1 birr note to head (worth about 7p) but was outdone by a local who went and stuck an even more worthless coin on his head.

From Mekele it was a two day bus journey to Lalibela. The main draw here is the rock hewn churches. They have been carved out of the rock in the ground, so that the rooves are at ground level and do look rather impressive, especially the chuch of Saint George. Lalibela was also notable for its lack of fruit and pastries. Thankfully there was beer in town though. From here it was another two days on a bus to Addis Ababa, still traveling with Nick. When we first got on the bus there was a massive scrum for seats and a bit of a crush on the bus. As someone squeezed past me something didn't feel right and I realised that my wallet had gone from my pocket. Luckily because the bus was so full the thief wasn't able to get off the bus. I accused him of taking my wallet and then found it still in his hand. I took it back from him and made sure everyone on the bus knew what he had been up to - ha ha!

On arrival in Addis I can't say I was too keen to get on a bus again in a hurry. I worked out that in the previous three weeks, seven days had been spent on buses. I had to sort out my Djibouti visa, which took a few days and needed a letter of recommendation the UK embassy again, at a cost of 40 quid (more than twice as much as the cost of visa). Before coming away I had always thought that one of the roles of an embassy was there to help out its citizens when they are abroad. I now realise that the British ones, at least, seem to be in the business of robbing there own citizens blind.

Other than spending lots of time running round embassies, I also ate well in Indian and Italian restaurants, drank plenty and watched a few games of Premiership football. The locals here are mad for the premiership. I they think televise more games here than they do at home and all the kids can tell you just about everyting you could ever want to know about the league. I've met a few guys who have heard of the mighty Watford.

After Addis I went to Harar and caught up with Nick, who had gone the day before, and Sean (South Africa) and Nave (Israel) who we first met in Addis. There isn't that much to do in Harar so we spent three days doing not a lot. There was a really nice German guy in town who is the brewmaster at the local brewery, which explained why the Harar beer is the best I have had since I've been away. He invited to the brewery and showed us round, then we all got pissed for free.

The real reason for coming to Harar is to see the hyena man, who feeds the hyenas every evening. We all took it turns to feed the hyenas. It was quite strange because they were quite timid and none of us were at all scared of feeding them. It was quite a surreal experience and I had to remind myself of what I had just done afterwards.

Harar pretty much spelt the end of my first journey in Ethiopia (I will be coming back after Eritrea). From here myself and Nick went to Djibouti. Most people have never heard of this place and there's not too much to say about. It's just a necessary stop for me to pick up an Eritrean visa and Nick to get a boat to Yemen. It was actually nice to get my Eritrean visa. The consul at the embassy was really pleased I had chosen to go to Eritrea and invited me for coffee and asked me to call back when I return from Eritrea - I think the UK embassies could learn something from this. I was planning to get a boat up to Eritrea, but got very disillusioned with idea very quickly and took the easy way out and bought myself a flight, said goodbye to Nick, my travel companion of the last month and flew off to Eritrea with my expectations high.

Ethiopia, Part One

2006-02-06T14:05:00.001Z

Well it's been a little a while since I updated the blog and I've now left Ethiopia, temporarily at least and am in Djibouti where the internet is usable again - hurrah! Anyway here's part one of what I got up to Ethiopia.

My first port of call was Metema which is the border town between Sudan and Ethiopia. I don't have much good to say about the place, but had to stop here for a night before moving on the next day. Well the big highlight of Metema was having a beer for the first time in God know's long. It was also my first introduction to injera, a kind of sour pancakey type thing the locals eat served with undercooked goat meat. Well I wasn't too impressed but over the last few weeks injera has grown on me although I do avoid it most of the time. Metema was also memorable for when I woke in the middle of the night to find a rat chewing a hole in my backpack to get at my stash of peanut butter.

I was quite happy to leave Metema, and leaving meant my first introduction to the fun of getting buses in Ethiopia. It doesn't matter how long or short your bus journey in Ethiopia is or what town you catch a bus from, they always leave at 6am. And to be sure of getting a seat you quite often have to be at the bus station at 5am or earlier. Incidentally time works a bit differently in Ethiopia. The days starts at 6am so this for them is midnight, then 7am our time becomes 1am Ethiopian time etc. It can be a tad confusing at first, but you get used to it after a while. They also have thirteen months in the year here and on top of that the year in Ethiopia is actually 1998. So anyway I got to the bus station at 5am (or 11pm if your Ethiopain) and then spent a joyful couple of hours waiting for the bus driver to sell everyone tickets and load stuff on to the top the bus. It all took rather much longer than it needed to. Luckily a local guy looked after me and ensured I didn't get ripped off for my bus ticket. He had also helped me out the night before when some little brat tried to overcharge me for a hotel room and give me a bad exchange rate.

Anyway I finally arrived in Gondar, after the slowest bus journey ever, later that day. Gondar is overrun with kids on the street trying to sell you stuff or "help" you in some way or another, and I met quite a few of them as I looked for a hotel room. I was a bit tired and this was all a bit of a shock after the tranquility of Sudan. I finally got a hotel and after a bit of rest realised that actually the hassle wasn't that bad and some of the kids were actually quite funny and entertaining. I spent five days in Gondar not doing much in particular. I visited the castle and met up with the crazy cyclist Dan again.

I also met Nick (UK) and Carlos (Brazil) here. The three of us headed off together to do a trek in the Simien mountains. You need a scout kitted out with Kalashnikov to trek the mountains just in case a cheetah attacks. As well as this we had a guide, cook, and two muleteers making a rather large entourage of five people for just three trekkers. Now a lot of people's idea of Ethiopia (including mine until not long ago) is of war and famine and desert. The reality is surprisingly different. I'm not sure many people realise there are mountains in Ethiopia and the Simiens are very beautiful. I also got to see the Gelada baboons which for a monkey man such as myself was very exciting indeed.

After the Simiens Carlos went to back to Gondar and I continued round the "northern circuit" with Nick, next stop Axum to see the stelae. The Stelae date back 2000 years and yet they look very modern and don't seem to have aged at all - well the ones that haven't fallen over that is. There wasn't much else to do in Axum, except eat pastries and drink juice or beer, so the next day we continued on to Mekele.

We met a local guy, Girmay, on the bus to Mekele who runs an english school there. He became our guide for our time here - somewhat of a mixed blessing. Now there isn't that much to do in Mekele, except eat pastries and drink juice or beer, but myself and Nick managed to spend four days here. On the second day with Girmay's help we visited a couple of rock hewn churches in the area. One involved a climb up a rockface to get to it (it sounds more intrepid than it was). The priest showed us the church and some humans bones as well - not sure where they came from. The rest of our time was spent in Mekele where Girmay took to his school to meet the pupils and showed us around town and generally wouldn't leave us alone.

We spent the festival of Timkat with Girmay. We ate with his family and drank some kind of alcoholic beverage that resembled pond water, and then had coffee. It was good to spend Timkat with locals and Girmay was very kind to us, even buying myself and Nick a couple of quality Ethiopia wallets when we left.

From here it was onto to Lalibela and more rock hewn churches, but that is enough for now. I will endeavour to complete the story of Ethiopia in due course...

Kassala

2006-01-17T16:30:00.001Z

From Port Sudan I backed tracked to Kassala. It’s a really nice chilled out place. The people here were very friendly even by Sudanese standards and I had most of my meals paid for by people I met in town. I didn’t do much here other than wander round the market and spend one day exploring the mountains on the edge of town. I was in Kassala for New Year’s Eve, and asked around extensively about any festivities that might be going on, but was told everyone would be tucked up in bed by 11pm and sure enough that was the case so I was tucked up in bed myself and fast asleep when the new year came in.

Kassala is my last stop in Sudan before crossing into Ethiopia, and I have to say I have been really struck by the friendliness and hospitality I have experienced here. It far surpasses any other country I have been to, so I will be a little sad leave.

Port Sudan

2006-01-17T16:21:00.001Z

I left Khartoum, early in the morning to take the 5am bus to Port Sudan. After lots of hassle trying to buy my ticket, and a fourteen hour bus journey, exacerbated by a bout of diarrhea I finally got to my destination. It was about 10pm when I finally got to Port Sudan and I had a lot of trouble finding a hotel as everywhere was full. Luckily a guy called Baabood drove by and gave me a lift and after taking me to a few hotels (all full) offered to put me up for the night; a very welcome bit of kindness after a long arduous day.

My plan for Port Sudan was to do some diving, but it soon became apparent that it was going to be difficult to sort this out as the dive centre in town had shut down. After a few days of phone calls trying to sort things out I decided to give diving here a miss. I stayed at Baabood’s house for my whole stay and was very kindly treated by his family. I also got pretty ill here and spent a night in the toilet with vomit coming out of my nose – very pleasant! I’m feeling much better now though. Baabood’s son and nephew, Mohamed and Ahmed, took me to the salt plant outside of town and I spent a very pleasant day there doing some fishing. This also meant that I did at least do something in Port Sudan other than get ill.

Khartoum

2005-12-26T14:50:00.001Z

Khartoum, where the Blue Nile meets the White Nile to form the river Nile. You can walk out to the White Nile bridge and see the two rivers join, although it's not that great sight to see I'm afraid. I have spent over a week here in Khartoum not doing a great deal, hanging out with Jonas and Ghazala, and James and Ben two English guys I met here and Dan the cyclist, who actually claims not to be a cyclist because 'cyclists are gay'. Although it is nice enough here it isn't a particularly special place.

The highlight of my stay here was going to see the whirling dervishes in the northern part of the city. They follow a Sufi branch of Islam. Everyone gathers round in large circle and then the dancing begins in the middle, with a loud drum beat and lots of chanting. It has much more of an African feel to it than an Islamic feel if that makes any sense. The dancing and fun continues long into the night and by the end we had been dragged into the centre for a good old shindig. It was a lot of fun although pretty tiring as the dances seem to go on forever, and you are expected to chant at the top of your voice, not so easy when you're completely knackered. Well the locals there were really very pleased that we had turned up to see them, and we got to meet the head Sheik and went into the mosque afterwards for a quick pray. I will never forget how friendly and happy everyone was that we were there, definitely a big highlight of my trip.

And so came Christmas eve, and after a lot of fear that it might be a dry a Christmas Jonas and Ghazala came up the goods and managed to procure three bottles of vodka from the black market. So Christmas eve was spent in our hotel room getting wankered. At about 2am we ventured outside and found a marching band with a big drum and we walked with them for a while, then back to hotel to pass out. Oh and if anyone was worried that I might be going without any presents this year, don't worry I got a giant water melon and some cotton buds for cleaning out my ears.

A large part of Christmas day was spent in bed recovering. I did get up and have a roast chicken dinner, followed up with a snickers bar for dessert. Not quite the same as Christmas lunch at home but near enough. Now it is boxing day. I've sorted out my Ethiopian visa, and got my travel permit for the rest of Sudan (more time, money and Sudanese bureaucracy), so assuming I make the 5am bus tomorrow I will be off to Port Sudan for some diving and then should be in Ethiopia in just over week.

Meroe

2005-12-26T14:07:00.001Z

Just a couple of hours outside of Khartoum are the ancinet pyramids of Meroe, the remains of a royal cemetery from the Merotic kingdom, dating back to 300 BC. Although not as grand or imposing as the pyramids of Giza in Egypt, the advantage here is that when you turn up no one else is there, well apart from the four people I traveled up there with; Jonas and Ghazala who I have traveled down from Wadi Halfa with, and James and Ben from England who I met in Khartoum. Unfortunately about 100 years ago a French guy turned up at Meroe and knocked the top off all the pyramids in the vain hope he might find some gold. It's really annoying actually because the pyramids would have been even more beautiful if still intact. But despite that the peace and quiet makes the experience a far more pleasant one than Giza.

We arrived in the late afternoon and watched the sun set behind the pyramids. Once the sun was down we set up a camp fire and spent the night in the desert and saw all the stars come out. First thing the following a morning a bunch of guys on donkeys turned up and started setting up a little market by our camp. We hoped they might have bought some tea and breakfast, but alas all they had was crappy handicrafts. We spent a bit more time around the pyramids in the morning and then hopped on top of a lorry and went back to Khartoum. All in all a very pleasant little excursion.

Wadi Halfa to Khartoum

2005-12-24T12:27:00.001Z

Well I finally left Egypt a few weeks ago, via the port of Aswan to take the ferry to Wadi Halfa in Sudan. As I went through security on the Egyptian side an official saw a penknife in my back pack and apologized but said I could not take it on board the ship and confiscated it. Well I was a bit pissed off but walked through without it. On telling another traveler what had happened I was encouraged to go back and demand it back, which I did. Upon doing so the guy gave me the knife back without any argument. The cheeky fucker was just trying to nick it! Well perhaps that was a fitting send off from the country of scams and hassles. Good riddance I say.

We got on the ferry at 10am but it was another eight hours before the ship was finally loaded up and ready go. We went up on the top deck found a patch floor and put our sleeping bags down. There were just a handful of tourists on the boat, including a German couple who are biking down Africa, and an English guy, Dan, who is performing the ridiculous task of cycling from London to Cape Town. You can follow his progress, if you wish at http://www.londontocapetown.co.uk. The rest of people on board were mostly Sudanese and very friendly.

After a gruelling trip we finally got to Wadi Halfa at 2pm the following day. There really isn't anything in the town, but it was peaceful and I spent the evening sipping tea (there is no alcohol in Sudan) on street corners meeting up again with some of the locals from the boat who refused to let us tourists pay for any of the drinks. Despite there being nothing here it seems like paradise compared to Egypt. The atmosphere is just very laid back and friendly.

The next day was my first introduction to Sudanese bureaucracy, when I was obliged to register with police as all travelers are. The process involved toing and froing between different offices getting an array of stamps and signatures, handing over passport photos and, of course, coughing up money. This was unfortunately an experience I have had to go through a number times of since, on arrival at new towns and when applying for travel permits onto other towns or permits to see archeological sights.

The other little niggle with Sudan is the money. They used to have the Sudanese pound but the government, in a misguided attempt to curb inflation, divided the currency by 10 and renamed it dinar, so 100 pounds becomes 10 dinars. All the locals still quote prices in pounds and to make matters worse seem quite happy to add or remove of few zeros from the number when quoting a price, saying 2 when they mean 2000 for instance. It's a good thing everyone seems pretty honest as there is a lot of scope for confusion when you first arrive.

From Wadi Halfa I traveled onto Abri on the top a lorry with a Swedish couple called Jonas and Ghazala. There isn't too much to say about Abri, it is a quiet little town with not much going on. I ended staying an extra day because there were no buses running, but it was still nice to just to hang out and chat with locals at the hotel. We did get taken on a boat to go crocodile hunting Steve Irwin style. After being initially skeptical about our chances of seeing a croc or that there actually were any in the Nile I was surprised to see a huge croc slither off a bank and disappear into the river. No swimming in the Nile for me.

After Abri I took a Toyota truck, still with the Swedes, to Dongola. This was another long journey and our driver clearly he thought he was Colin McRae, as he sped down the desert roads terrifying us all. Dongola was another quiet laid back town. I spent a day walking out to the ruins at Kawa and then it was another long bus trip to Khartoum. It has been quite a long haul from Wadi Halfa to Khartoum, so I will spend a little time here resting and more than likely be here for Christmas.

Sudan

2005-12-22T17:41:00.001Z

Just a quick post to let you all know I'm now in Sudan. I'm in Khartoum at the minute where I plan to spend christmas, although it's looking like it may have to be an alcohol-free christmas with Sudan being strictly muslim. I'm having a great time in Sudan, the people here are the friendliest I've ever met and I really mean that. Well I will post more details when I get time but for now I just want to wish everyone a happy christmas wherever you may be and all the best for the new year.

The Western Desert and Goodbye to Egypt

2005-12-11T12:42:00.001Z

Assuming all goes well at the Sudanese border tomorrow this should be my last post from Egypt. I am now back in Aswan awaiting the ferry that will take me up the Nile to Sudan.

Anyway after a few relaxing days in Dahab, I went back to Cairo to sort out my visa for Sudan and was pleasantly suprised to receive my visa very quickly and efficiently in just a couple of hours. I wasn't quite so pleased at the US $100 it cost me though. I had given myself a few days to sort out the visa and now found myself with a few spare days on my hands and rather than spend them in Cairo I made a trip out to the western desert and the oasis of Baharia.

Baharia itself is not such an exciting place, one the attractions being a hot spring, which is actually just a petrol powered pump spurting out hot water. I'm not entirely sure why this is thought to be a tourist attraction. But Baharia is the base to do a trip out into the white desert and spend a night under the stars. I set off with my guide Ahmed in a rather dilapadated 28 year old 4x4. Somehow the jeep made the journey into the desert and as I watched the sun set Ahmed cooked us a great meal. After dinner over a shesha he told me his tail of woe; his wife has been ill for six months. This in itself didn't seem to upset him too much, it was more the fact that in all this time he wasn't having any sex. After the sun went down the stars came out and the desert looked great lit by a half-moon.

The next day I made the journey back to Cairo and then straight onto the night train to Aswan. I have enjoyed my time in Egypt, but have to say it can be hard work at times putting up with the hassle. It seems to slowly wear you down. It is a shame that, although there are only small number people in this country trying to hassle or scam you, they are the ones you seem to meet most. I have been told that this will not be the case in Sudan so I look forward to leaving tomorrow with a sense of relief and excited expectation.

Feluccas, Luxor and Dahab

2005-12-04T11:32:00.001Z

After three days confined to my hotel in Aswan, I was thankful to be feeling well enough to get out of the place. I hopped onto a felucca for which I was to spend the next two days and nights. Also on board a couple of chilled out Aussies and a Kiwi (Attila, Stu and Jenny), a grumpy German couple (names not important), our rather mad Felucca captain Mohamed, and his mate who funnily enough was also named Mohamed. In actual fact about every second bloke you meet in Egypt is called Mohamed (and I'm not exagerating) and the ones that aren't are generally called Ahmed.

The two days on board the felucca were very peaceful and relaxing, Mohamed cooked us great meals and in the evening we set up fires by the riverside while bongos were played the shesha was passed round. On the second day we pulled up by the riverside and I was entertained by a bunch of kids given their donkey a wash in the Nile. The poor donkey lay down and played dead as the kids dragged it down the bank into the river and then dragged it back out of the river back through all the mud again.

The end of the felucca trip seemed to arrive way too soon, and for the next couple of days we were ferried around a bunch more temples in Kom Ombo, Edfu and Luxor; you can check out the photos if you're interested. By now I was suffering from what is known as temple fatigue and didn't take in the grandeur of the magnificent ancient monuments, the one exception being the Karnak temple in Luxor which most people seemed to agree was the best of the lot. I spent one night in Luxor and have to say it as unpleasant as Aswan and I was glad to get the bus and head to the backpackers Mecca that is Dahab.

The overnight bus to Dahab was an event in itself taking seventeen hours, in cramped uncomfortable conditions, to get there. The journey would've been much quicker except for the numerous ID and ticket checks that went on. There are lots of checkpoints on the roads in Egypt, and Egyptians are very restricted as to where they can and can't travel in their own country, with very few being allowed into Dahab. Although this is not so good for Egyptains, it is good for the travellers as it means Dahab is not full people hassling you and trying to rip you off.

Dahab, on the Sinai coast, seems like paradise after the bustle and hassle of Cairo, Aswan and Luxor. I have the spent the last three days chilling out relaxing and doing plenty of scuba diving. The diving here is great and with it being low season the dive sites at some locations have been deserted. This is a great place to hang out and do absolutely nothing, which is exactly what I intend to do for the next few days.

Aswan

2005-11-25T08:21:00.001Z

Only a week into my trip and already I have managed to fall ill. My own fault really as I wasn't being particulary fussy about where or what I ate, and came down with a bout of the trots. I was due to leave Aswan a couple a days ago on a felucca (an egyptian sail boat) but didn't really fancy the prospect of having to hang my arse over the side of the boat every five minutes so I have spent the last couple days recovering in Aswan. Luckily there is a pretty good hospital in Aswan with english speaking doctors and I have got some medication and am well on my way to recovery. With any luck I will be on my way again tomorrow. Getting ill is generally part and parcel of going away on a trip like this, although I had not expected to fall ill quite so soon. It can be a pretty miserable experience at the time when you are on your own in a foreign country but it usually only lasts a couple of days and once you get better you pretty much forget it ever happened.

As you have gathered I've now left Cairo and took the overnight train to Aswan. I have visited the Aswan Dam which wasn't particulary exciting and the Philae temple, which was fairly interesting. The next day I had to get up 2:45am to join a convoy escorted by armed police to make the three hour drive to Abu Simbel. I'm not sure why this convoy has to leave so early or indeed if an armed convoy is that necessary since once we were on the road it was every minibus for himself and if you were too slow you got left behind. Abu Simbel is a very impressive temple with four large statues outside and lots wall carvings inside. The temple was actually submerged under Lake Nasser when the Aswan Dam was built, and I have no idea how they managed to fish it out and plonk it an island. Anyway I was very impressed with the temple and for my money it was better than pyramids.

In the evening I returned to the Philae temple for a "sound and light show" which I went to with rather low expectations and was pleasantly surprised. The temple complex looked great lit up at night. You can see the photo above; click on the photo to see more pictures.

With the sights done there isn't much else to do in Aswan, so it has been a pretty boring place to be holed up for the last two days. The hassle here is a bit worse than Cairo, and you have to haggle for absolutely everything including such things as buying a bottle of water or getting internet access. I must say I won't be too sorry to leave.

Cairo

2005-11-20T13:09:00.001Z

I have been in Cairo for four days and have to say despite the hassle, congestion and pollution and I have really enjoyed it. I arrived at the airport late in the evening and after breezing through immigration got a cab into town with a complete psycho of a taxi of driver, although to be fair to him he was driving just like everyone else. Getting a cab Cairo is quite a scary affair. You really do fear for your life at some points as lane markings and traffic lights appear to have no significance whatsoever and road users appear completely oblivious to any other traffic as they tear around at 80 mph.

The people seem to be genuinely friendly and welcoming here. In fact you can't walk ten meters down the road without someone saying "Welcome!". You do get a bit of hassle, well quite a lot of hassle, as I was expecting but I have to say it's not really that bad and if you say no a few times they do leave you alone and don't get at all aggressive or nasty as I have experienced in other countries.

I have of course been to Giza and seen the pyramids which were spectacular. They are right on the edge on Cairo and the smog filled city does make for quite a strange backdrop. I also visited the Egyptian museum which is literally packed with artifacts but unfortunately also packed with visitors and noisy school children. They have some mummies on display here, it is quite eerie to see bodies that have remained intact for thousands of years.

I have spent today discovering the joys of trying to get a visa in Africa. I need to get a visa to visit Sudan. On visiting the Sudanese consul I was told that first I would need a letter recommendation from the British consul. Luckily the British consulate was just over the road so I spent two hours queuing here to find out that the British consul doesn't issue letters of recommendation but for a small fee of 200 Egyptian pounds (thats about 20 quid) I could get a letter from them saying they don't issue letters of recommendation and apparently that would do the trick. By the time I had finally gotten this letter the Sudanese consulate had of course shut. I'm booked on a train to Aswan tonight but it looks I may be returning at Cairo some point to continue this saga...

Daisy

2005-10-29T13:12:00.001+01:00

Another non-travel related blog to announce the birth of my niece Daisy, pictured here with my sis Frances. She was born at 1am on 27th October weighing in at just under 6lbs, and very cute too!

Cornwall

2005-10-14T14:14:00.001+01:00

Well going to Cornwall isn't particularly adventurous, but it means I get to post my first blog. Pictured is a view from the cliffs near Polzeath, where I stayed for a couple of weeks after finishing work. Click on the picture to follow the link to my photo galleries at smugmug. More interesting blogs will follow, I promise, once I finally get off my arse and leave the country.