The serviced taxi ride from Damascus to Amman was looking to be a disaster. Picture a big-bellied driver, a big-bellied Jordanian riding shotgun, and me in the back riding thigh-to-thigh with two Jordanian men. Throw in a lack of AC in the Middle Eastern sun and a permanent stream of cigarette smoke, the next 3 hours of my life crossing into Jordan were 3 hours I would have paid to skip. The man in the front made no efforts to acknowledge my existence, the man to my right was thinner than me and also seemed glued to his cell phone. After [View Full Entry]

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How I find myself at a 1,500+ year old Christian monastery in the Middle of Nowhere Desert, Syria for 3 nights I’m not sure. I was planning on finally getting to Beirut after the football game, but somewhere between Howie’s portrayal of a word-of-mouth secluded mountain hideaway and Victor’s description of ‘not in the Lonely Planet’ desert adventure, I decided to push Lebanon back a couple more nights and head to the Damascus bus station with them instead. Although our governments would like us to think Syria is a rather unstable and semi-evil country, apparent [View Full Entry]

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A few things about Damascus: - Images of their fearless leader, Bashar al-Assad, everywhere. When I pick up a pistachio croissant in the morning, he’s looking far off into the distance in a bold striped suit. When I walk through the souqs, he’s smiling down at me in a top hat. When I go to the bathroom, he’s got his arms around other militant leaders. - Everybody is smoking sheesha, seemingly more so than in Turkey. People sitting at cafes, smoking sheesha. Old men watching the football, smoking sheesha. Old women in leopard print burkas, smoking sheesha. Bored on a Tuesda [View Full Entry]

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My entire trip to Palmyra cost me 26 USD. - 2.5 hr bus, Homs to Palmyra, 150 SP - taxi from Palmyra bus station to hostel, 50 SP - one night in Citadel Hotel, double bed private ensuite, 400 SP - breakfast, 100 SP - entry to Palmyra ruins, free - entry to Temple of Bel, 150 SP - laundry, 175 SP - taxi from hotel to bus station, 75 SP - 3 hr bus, Palmyra to Damascus, 200 SP Total = 1,300 SP = 26 USD. And I wasn’t even trying to do it on the cheap. Palmyra is in [View Full Entry]

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I’m currently sitting in a bus from Homs to Palyrma next to a woman in a full burka. She and about 7 men around us have been talking and smiling and pointing at me the whole ride. It really is as if they have never seen a foreigner or a laptop but I know that is doubtful. I took out my LP and used a few phrases, but that was pretty limited conversation. The are still having a blast though. One of them took pictures of me with the woman. They pull out their passports and point at line items to [View Full Entry]

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Where am I? Middle Eastern Country 1: I walk down the street and get called out at by about 17 men in 3 blocks. Some ask to kiss me. A plethora of random Japanese words are thrown at me. I think there may be more tourists than local people. I get a random kebab/gyro/shwarma off the street, it is not that great, and I pay the equivalent of a Big Mac meal. I get one square inch of baklava for a dollar. Streets can be very nice and manicured, people are in modern dress - am I really in the Middle [View Full Entry]

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Some people love ancient ruins, some people hate them, some people are ambivalent. I thought I was in the ambivalent category, but today may have converted me. I want to say, “Everybody has that special place. You know, that place that when they first set foot in, they knew they would never forget the feeling of just being.” But for me that would be lying, because before today I don’t think I have ever had that feeling. Somewhere in my first twenty steps at Qala’at Samaan though, it happened for me. Perched atop a hill/cliffs overlooking the Syrian countryside, it [View Full Entry]

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Eventually I get to Antaklya (Antioch) in one piece around 9am from Goreme. From here I am hurried onto another bus for Halep, but first they collect our passports. This is the moment I have been dreading. On my bus are two girls from New Zealand, who also don’t have visas. When the ticket man gets to my passport, he looks and says “American! Oh, you will have to wait very long time!” But that means I get one, right? “No problem,” he says. “But the New Zealand girls will have theirs in 10 minutes. You may be 5 or 8 [View Full Entry]

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Carmen San Diego would be proud. Now who were the Mole People, really? I mean I know thats a term thrown around in conversation usually jokingly, but I actually have no idea who they really were. e.g. "What happened to Jerry, man? Ever since he started dating Sally, he's been MIA." "Yeah dude, he's turned into one of the Mole People... or something." A quick visit to Wiki yields that "Mole People is a term used to refer to the possibility that an unknown number of homeless people live under New York City in abandoned subway tunnels." Well. I have found [View Full Entry]

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Pamukkale is a three-hour drive from Selcuk, the majority of which I sleep right through. I’m not actually sure if the little town with nothing to do at the bottom of the mountains is Pamakkule, or if the actual attraction is called Pamakkule, but honestly I can’t be bothered right now. I start the walk up towards the calcium pools with a stroll (or sweaty hike in the blazing sun) through Heiropolis and its necropolis. OK the ruins are not impressive after what I saw yesterday at Ephesus, but the scenery was nice. Very Little House on the Prairie, except well [View Full Entry]

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