From Tripoli we travelled to Hama. Lebanon was humid and it affected our competency... We milled around the central square looking lost and red-faced, waving postcards and saying the words 'stamps' and 'bus station' to bewildered Arabic strangers. In the end a young man in faded jeans enthusiastically lead us to the door of the unmarked ticket office in the building next to the section of pavement serving as an impromptu bus stop. We alighted the bus which Lizzie may have mistakenly described as 'plush' and muddled our way across yet another border, reminding ourselves that silly little girls [View Full Entry]

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I am blogging. I have the will to do nothing else today. Getting here was tremendous effort. The sun, the juice stands, the women in tight jeans and the all-eyes men. The sunglasses stalls and the derelict buildings. This is Tripoli and we have been here two days. Yesterday we ate a lot, including a three course meal in beach front fish restaurant called Silver Shore. We ordered mezze to start: grainy hummus, fatouch, olives and bread and chose our fish fresh from the fridge in the kitchen - after minutes of misunderstanding the menu , the waiter thought it best [View Full Entry]

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Ok, so a brief update I think. Mary has been beavering away at her blog entry for almost an hour so I suspect she'll be done soon - I'll make it snappy. In fact, even better, I'll make it themed. Middle Eastern Food: An Odyessy. Tripoli is supposedly the home of Arabic sweets and this has certainly been a theme of our stay here. After this entry we are heading to Le Palais, a tea-shop with an extensive range of baklava, cakes, ice cream and chocolate. This will be the fourth time we have paid it a visit (though we have [View Full Entry]

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I'm in the same hotel lobby. A film starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Rik Mayall (I'm shocked such a beast exists) is playing. It's been a lazy day today, yesterday we half heartedly decided on the Dead Sea as our day trip, but as with most half hearted plans it did not materialize. The combination of no easy public transport (taxi drivers kept assuring us there were 'no' buses to the sea - why didn't we let them drive us instead?) and the fatal mistake of not setting an alarm meant that at 11 o clock this morning we were sitting [View Full Entry]

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I am writing from the hotel lobby and it's rather hot and rather late. We have been lax with this blog; we've let it fall out of use to the extent that my mother thought perhaps we had died en route to Jordan. No no, we are well. I have been chatting on facebook for the last hour and now I feel all worded out, like there is nothing left to say. Music is playing and now the channel has changed. An arabic cookery program. The television on loudly is obsquring my ability to think. A polyphonic ringtone and man shouting [View Full Entry]

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I am writing from the hotel lobby and it's rather hot and rather late. We have been lax with this blog; we've let it fall out of use to the extent that my mother thought perhaps we had died en route to Jordan. No no, we are well. I have been chatting on facebook for the last hour and now I feel all worded out, like there is nothing left to say. Music is playing and now the channel has changed. An arabic cookery program. The television on loudly is obsquring my ability to think. A polyphonic ringtone and man shouting [View Full Entry]

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He was right: There is no bus to Aquaba so Sharmel Sheik here we come! The guidebook suggests that this is not quite the place for backpackers and we do not plan to stay the night. At nine pm tonight we leave Alex and arrive on the south coast at six am tommorrow - I'm not holding out for a comfortable night's sleep - and we hope to get a boat across to Jordan later that day. I suspect that this will be an ordeal; I suspect there will be a lot of dragging bags around from one dusty carpark to [View Full Entry]

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We arrived this afternoon in Alexandria ('Alex' to Egyptians) after yet another coach journey - having returned only yesterday from the Sahara desert camp where we'd been since Monday. I spent the journey doing ankle exercises as yesterday my ankles had swollen grossly (five sedentary hours on a hot vehicle not known for doing your circulation any good). My precautions paid off and I don't look as though I have the legs of a baby elephant today. Alex feels very different to Cairo, not so big, not so hurried, a bit cooler thankfully. Tomorrow we go to the catacombs and the [View Full Entry]

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Tomorrow we leave Egypt. On a Superjet bus that the hotel concierge tells us does not exist. No routes from Alexandria to Aquaba; No busses to Jordan. We must go back through Cairo. But it says in guidebook, we say. He looks confused; puckers his walnut face into a swarthy frown and shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe. Go to the station and ask." We insist that he tells us how much a taxi should cost and he rolls his eyes and near enough says: I don't care, find our yourself. He is the second concierge at the Nile Excelsior I've found [View Full Entry]

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So, third time lucky. My previous two blog entries have disappeared into the black void of cyberspace but fingers crossed this one will make it. I’m writing this in our hostel, sitting in a very warm room - the windows are open but the shutters are closed. I can hear the hum of Cairo from the seventh floor but I can see nothing. The main feature of this hum is the car horns - frequently, enthusiastically overused by the Cairenes. There are no rules on the roads - in a city of 17 million (the biggest city in Africa) you do [View Full Entry]

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