Our first stop in Turkey was the smallish town of Gaziantep. During WW1, most of the young, fit men of Gaziantep - or Antep, as it was known then - were off fighting when a force of 2000 Allied soldiers, armed with the best automatic weaponry of the time, snuck around and approached the town unexpectedly. Some 600-800 Turks formed a milita, gathered up what shoddy rifles and handguns they could lay their hands on, and sucessfully defeated the opposing Allied soldiers. I was very impressed by this till I learnt the Allied soldiers were French... did those guys ever [View Full Entry]

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Leavıng Palmyra we headed west, young man, back towards the coast and towards the superlative 11th century Crusader castle, the Krak des Chevaliers. Excıtement levels were hıgh, as thıs was a much antıcıpated venture... and it faıled to dısappoınt. Excıtement abounded even on the trıp up the mountaınsıde, as our mınıbus attempted to navıgate through narrow vıllage streets wıth scant dısregard for the lıves of the t [View Full Entry]

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Okay, you're gonna be seeıgn a lot of typos ın thıs one... that,s because Turkısh keyboards suck ass. There,s an ¨ı¨ın the i posıtıon (between U and O) but ıt,s some form of unıquely Turkısh ı, unsuıtable to us fussy Westerners. Instead there,s a second i key to the rıght of what would be a semı-colon,ö but ıs ın fact a ş. Except capıtal I ıs stıll back on the Turkısh I. Full stop ıs one key to the rıght, comma ıs rıght of the 2nd i (next to the shrunken Ent [View Full Entry]

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Been a while since last post, and falling behind. Haven't had much net access lately. Currently in a net cafe with no ventilation, surrounded by chainsmoking Syrians... not sure how much longer I can stand it so this may be short :) When last we met we'd arrived in Amman. The following day we headed out to visit the fabulous ruined Roman city of Jorash, the highlight of which was a fabulous semi-circular theatre in excellent condition that seats ~3000 people. It was even possible to view seat numbers carved beneath the seats... funny how some things work so well they [View Full Entry]

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We had quite an interesting day following Petra. We head north and stopped first at the ruins of an old Crusader castle called Shobak, built high up on a hilltop, one of several in the Jordanian countryside. The road leading up to it was very steep, single lane with a sheer drop 1 foot off the edge of the road. Amazing views from the top though, of course! The knights used these views to effect, as it's positioned in one of the three main routes running north-south through Jordan, and it allowed them to see anyone moving thro [View Full Entry]

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Today we visited the fabulous abandonded city of Petra. It's set in a large canyon accessible only through a long, tiny crack, about 1.2kms long and between 2 and 5 meters wide, with many twists and turns. Petra started off as a Necropolis for burying the dead - the Nabateans carved holes in the solid rock of the cliff for the corpse, and decorate the entrance with carvings. In some cases, these are fabulously ornate, the most spectacular of which is Al Khazneh, known more commonly as The Treasury. If you've seen Indiana Jon [View Full Entry]

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...andthefinestmerchandisethissideoftheriverJordanonsaletodaycomeondown!!hehe! Well, actually it was Aqaba, not Aggribah, but I'm such a fan of Aladdin I couldn't pass up that opportunity. (Hi Ian!) Sooo, lets try for a shorter post today, I'm falling too far behind. After our exploits on Mt Sinai we continued to the Egyptian coast to board a hydrofoil for the '1 hour' crossing to Jordan. Well, that was accurate, it did take about 1 hour to cross. What they didn't mention is the 4 hours sitting on extremely uncomfortable wooden benches inside customs with absolutely nothing to do, the ~ [View Full Entry]

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When last we met, I was in Cairo. We upped and checked out the next morning, piled into a disturbingly pale lemon coloured bus, and motored off into the Sinai. The Sinai is a fairly barren and largely unpopulated territory of Egypt, a little triangular shaped peninsula connecting Africa with Asia, similar in shape and a little smaller than Tasmania. The Suez canal runs through a stretch of land connecting mainland Egypt and the Sinai and is a one of the world's largest shipping channels, and the largest source of income for Eg [View Full Entry]

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Cairo to Istanbul Decided to save the emailing hassle and try out a travel blog. Seems nice so far... Back in Cairo after another hideous 10hour train ride. We had a free day today. Some peeps went on an excursion to Alexandria, but Mum and I stayed here. Would have liked to visit the sites of the famous Library and Lighthouse, but really needed a rest. Having said that, we decided to visit the Egyptian Museum again, only this time we decided to walk. It's only a few kms away, but we had to cross several busy three lane streets, [View Full Entry]

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Hidey ho!! For the last few days we've been slumming it... sailing up the nile in a 5star cruiseship. Yeah, it's tough for some. It was supposed to be a 3star but we got upgraded. I'm guessing that's not actually all that uncommon though, as there are over 250 cruise boats floating up and down the nile, and i guess a lot of them would be empty now we're outside of peak season. There's still a boatload(HA!) of them floating around though. The Nile is just spectacular to sail along, amazing scenery. In a way it's exactly like you'd picture it [View Full Entry]

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