My sleeper ticket only cost me 2.90. You get for what you pay for! 8 people crammed into a space that could barely hold 6, more vinyl than John Peel and a few dodgy bugs crawling around. It’s only 12 hours of my life, plus I am too drunk to stay awake and worry about things. After a pretty reasonable sleep, considering, I got to chat to my fellow carriage mates. A Russian and 2 Czech guys, all had typical eastern European haircuts (to match mine I guess) and liked their football, which is always a good icebreaker, almost as good [View Full Entry]

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Lame title I know. It was going to be Mumbai, da da Mumbai, do do do do Mumbai, da da doo. Yeah, yeah. But only me and operators would know how I like to twist song lyrics up. Plus I thought I would be normal for a change and try this approach to getting on the front page of travelblog.org, heh. From Doha the plane wasn’t as good as the previous one, but the food and the company was better. I was next to a Russian guy called Alex and his Turkish wife, they were off to India to practice yoga [View Full Entry]

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This has the makings of the worst, shortest and most useless Travelblog ever, but its one for Qatar and I see there are not too many of them plus its a really small red dot on my Travelblog map. My plane ride from Cairo was alright. I had a good selection of music to listen to on the plane and it gave my ipod a rest and it refreshed my mind of the music I forgot to add to it before I left. Food was plane(!) food and the red wine and G & T's went down niceley. Doha airport just [View Full Entry]

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My 13 hour train ride was alright, just a problem with my seat position, right next to the carriage entrance. So EVERY person who walks through it doesn’t close it. It only took 30 minutes for me to move seats. Ramses station was my welcome point for the big city. I always come into town with a few choices to stay without reservation. My first choice was full, my second choice didn’t have change of a 10 Egyptian pound note (10p) and didn’t trust me paying my bill later. My 3rd choice was ok though. Smack bang in the middle of [View Full Entry]

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The 5 hour bus trip to Luxor was alright. It looked like I was going to be sitting on the floor at first, as it was packed. But I paid the most money so I got a seat, how nice! Not much else to do on here so I stick my ipod on for the whole journey. The Luxor bus station had moved from its central location next to the Luxor temple. The taxi drivers must have complained that they were not making enough money out of tourists so they moved it in the middle of nowhere. I had to get [View Full Entry]

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It was a pretty welcoming “Hello” from the Egyptian border guards. I could not wipe the smile off my face, this is one of the big places I have wanted to go. Now I am here I need to get to Dahab. Easier said than done! I decide to get a minibus but I have to wait for it to fill up, I spent that hour sitting under a tree next to the border guard hut, once it was full we were off to the police control hut. They wanted 35 Egyptian pounds just to say hello to another bunch of [View Full Entry]

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Getting out of Jordan required a 1 pound departure tax. Why can't they add that to the visa? After all everyone is going to leave eventually. The border posts between Jordan and Israel are a few meters apart. Territory is king here for access for the Red sea. Leaving Jordan it was a friendly "Thanks for your visit, hope to see you again" from the guard. And then the Israeli female guard said "Hello. Welcome to Israel. Enjoy your stay Mr. Couch" Almost right. Next was Israeli customs control, where another female officer took me aside and asked me all sorts [View Full Entry]

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After leaving Lebanon the same way I came in, within 1 hour of my Lebanese visa running out I was back in Syria, $52 poorer, just for a Syrian transit visa. It has cost me more to get in and out of here then it has being in Syria and Lebanon. Oh well. I didn't fancy a last look around Damascus, so I stayed at the bus station waiting for my 3:00pm bus to Amman in Jordan. Another one of those bus rides that could have been over a lot quicker, with some extra long waits at the borders and a [View Full Entry]

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The bus ride to Beirut was pretty straight forward, a problem at the Syrian departures for me because I didn't have a exit card. I wasn't given one when I left Turkey. I was fined 1 Syrian pound. There was a English/Syrian guy sitting behind me who said he got fined 75 Syrian pounds once for the same thing, lucky me! The road to Beirut was a long winding one, going downhill into Lebanon's capital city. They dropped me off at a random stop on the outskirts of the city. I was officially lost, I got a minibus to the Charles [View Full Entry]

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I arrived in Hatay at 8 in the morning, and almost immediately I was on the bus to Aleppo, Syria. Through border control and a brand new country for pabloq! The crossing was quite smooth in all due to not having to show my face once to Syrian border control. I ad a quick nap on the bus afterwards and thought I woke up in Istanbul. This was Aleppo, the supposedly the oldest city in the world. It's certainly the noisiest. I found my accommodation, the Spring Flower Hostel easily, as the bus driver knew where it was. It was a [View Full Entry]

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