Adelaide

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

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.

Mumbai

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

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

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.

Varkala

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

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

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...