Damascus

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

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

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

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.