Arriving on the 23rd in Dahab, I spent the next 8 days there, doing very little. I would spend the day either sitting on the beach sipping banana shake while reading, snorkelling in some world-class coral, chatting it up with other travellers or laid-back locals or lazily surf the internet. The evening were spent drinking and chatting with other people, or watching movies at Tota, the famou boat-bar of Dahab. I did very little and I loved it that way. Philip (the quebecer from Petra) joined me on the 24th and we celebrated Christmas together and some people from the Auski [View Full Entry]

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There is only a very early morning bus and a mid-afternoon one going to Amman from Damascus and I missed the early morning one so I had to negotiate a taxi. I found a indian-british guy who was heading the same way so we teamed up and after an hour of waiting managed to get enough people to fill the cab. We made it quite quickly to the border where the driver greased our way through with a little bakhsheesh so we didn't have to wait for the hordes of turks that were ahead of us. Arriving in Amman I managed [View Full Entry]

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Ah Syria. The mecca of the backpacker and the nemesis of our friend W. Everybody I met who went in the country raved about it so I was excited to finally get in. The day started badly though. In Antakya I was dropped by the bus' station servis (van that takes you the bus station when it is on the outskirts of town) in the middle of nowhere and I had to wait for 2 hours in a disgusting pit without any restaurant, stores or places where I could change my remaining syrian currency. Not a great place to be when [View Full Entry]

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Leaving Konya was as painful as getting in. I was determined to use that tram to get out of town but finding it took a long time even though it was only a few minutes walk away. I was told by the hotel guy that I had to take bus so I went to the bus stop in front of the hotel and tried to ask someone but no one could speak english or understand my broken turk, until one man laughed at me and told me to walk before taking off (but not saying in which direction). Trying again to [View Full Entry]

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The overnight bus from Istanbul was smooth sailing. I had heard of the good reputation of turkish bus companies and they certainly lived up to my expectations. Quality buses, no hassle. I'd even say they're a bit boring. Anyway, I got in Selcuk in early morning and quickly found my way to an ANZ hostel, the first one I stumbled upon. I got a dorm bed for a good price after only a little bargaining and even had a good breakfast. I chatted it up with a retired canadian couple backpacking around who were so friendly and interesting. The man was [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Istanbul in early morning and were dropped somewhere in the biggest bus station I've ever seen, and the most confusing. There's no central schedule, there are about 180 companies, all with their own offices and schedule and no one share the information. Crazy. We had some general direction to the hostel we wanted to go to but no guidebook. It was too early for money changing but we eventually found a cornerstore guy who was willing to exchange some euros. We eventually found the way through 2 metro ride to Sultanahmet, the tourist district of Istanbul. We found [View Full Entry]

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The train ride from Bucharest to Sofia was a blast. The 3 frenchies who shared the compartment with me had alcohol and a pack of card! They showed me a new card game which was a blast and the night passed really fast. We were woken up at around 5:30AM and got off the train in one of the most confusing and beaten down train station I've seen in a long time. It seems that the train station's designer thought they were building a station for Moscow and forgot that Sofia is not like 15 millions people. It's way too big [View Full Entry]

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I had an empty train carriage all the way from Belgrade to Bucharest except at one small moment in the night when I woke up to find 2 Roma men on the bench in front of mine, looking at me sleeping. I try not to believe those stories about gypies but they're a bit too common for me not to belive entirely in them and I know for sure that there are other empty carriages so I know that these men are not in my carriage because they have to. I stared at them for a while but I knew they [View Full Entry]

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The bus driver seemed to be under the wierd impression that we liked to sleep under tropical climate so he made sure that the temperature in the bus wouldn't drop below 35C which made sleep not very comfortable/impossible. Fortunately after a few hours of this treatment someone managed to convince the driver that putting the temperature at "sauna" level was a bit excessive afterwhich, a peaceful night ensued. I was dropped in a bus station in Belgrade slightly before 6AM and it took me quite a while to figure out how the tram system worked. In fact I didn't exactly get [View Full Entry]

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I left Dubrovnik at 8 in the morning on the 12th on the way to Mostar. The granny I had been staying with asked me what were my plans and I foolishly told her what I was truly doing. On the bus I met Mic, a friendly english guy whom had some interesting adventures in Croatia. We followed the coast for a while, which was really amazing, and then went inland. We didn't get stamped in and we never really figured out when we entered the country as you could still see croatian flags well into Bosnia. The landscape was beautiful, [View Full Entry]

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