http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/simjam/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from simjam en-us Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:05:45 UTC Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:05:45 UTC Petra is something else altogether a beautiful city carved into and out of the rocky outcrops of Wadi Musa the Valley of Moses and which was the capital of the ancient Nabatean people. It is also an area replete with Biblical associations in which it was known as both Seir and Sela. The most famous Petran was King Herod he who lopped off John the Baptistrsquos head. Earlier the Cainites http://www.travelblog.org//Middle-East/Jordan/North/Amman/blog-237645.html To make up for the delay in managing to get the last post up I've knocked up another quite quickly. I've also included some photos of us for those who've been asking that cover the last three weeks or so through Syria and Jordan enjoyAnd so on to Jordan. We eventually crossed the border from Syria after a good two hour delay as the border guards proceeded to search every single vehicle http://www.travelblog.org//Middle-East/Jordan/South/Wadi-Rum/blog-235943.html Damascus is one of those cities that conjure up images of far flung exotic locales its name itself seems to evoke something magical like Timbuktu or Mandalay. Today Damascus is a thriving buzzing metropolis centred around the magnificent Old City. As mentioned earlier it shares the title for the oldest continually inhabited city in the world with Aleppo and everywhere you turned some key s http://www.travelblog.org//Middle-East/Syria/South/Damascus/blog-235284.html Well wersquore currently in Palmyra in the middle of the desert amongst wonderful Roman ruins and an oasis filled with date palms that surrounds the town.Unfortunately we both seemed to catch one of the local bugs in Aleppo and have been feeling a little worse for wear for much of the last week. On the brighter side itrsquos provided us with an opportunity to experience a lot of the local http://www.travelblog.org//Middle-East/Syria/East/Palmyra/blog-232601.html Well a very Merry Christmas to you all from the ancient town of Aleppo in the north of Syria.We ended up staying in Istanbul for longer than originally planned but had such a wonderful time that we really were loathe to leave at all. It was just lovely wandering around jumping on and off ferries and trams as we crisscrossed the continents and explored the myriad of fascinating palaces churche http://www.travelblog.org//Middle-East/Syria/North/Aleppo/blog-231040.html Istanbul. Almost Australiarsquos entire population crammed into a bustling vibrant metropolis encompassing two continents. Itrsquos funny we were chatting to a bloke in Tehran who lives in Basel in Switzerland and we found it amusing how he used to go over the border to Germany to do his grocery shopping. Well last night we left our hotel jumped on a ferry and had dinner in a different co http://www.travelblog.org//Middle-East/Turkey/Marmara/Istanbul/blog-228261.html Well wersquore back from a brief sojourn again to the northeast in the small town of Qazvin a previous capital and apparently the butt of all Iranian homosexuality jokes. Although I must say that the women here are among the most attractive that wersquove come across thus far so I reckon that the fellas here play along with it to keep them all for themselveshellip We finished our time in http://www.travelblog.org//Middle-East/Iran/North/Tehran/blog-226818.html Well wersquore sitting here looking out over the snow covered mountains and town of Zanjan as the sun slowly sets everything shrouded in the white of recently fallen snow turning what is quite likely a fairly nondescript concretish town into something altogether quite pretty. We caught the train up at the crack of dawn yesterday morning and the snow started about halfway here a constant an http://www.travelblog.org//Middle-East/Iran/North/Zanjan/blog-225647.html Well wersquore currently sitting on a carpeted platform divan sort of thing and sipping tea in the central courtyard of our hotel in Yazd. Itrsquos a beautifully restored house in the middle of the old city covered by a huge tent which diffuses the light and protects the central pond and cluster of bougainvillea banana and orange trees. If there was a setting for Persian opulence and dec http://www.travelblog.org//Middle-East/Iran/East/Yazd/blog-222789.html Tehran Esfahan Tehran. Twelve million people crammed into a city carved out of the desert and ringed by towering mountains. The only city Irsquove ever visited where you literally canrsquot see the ground as the plane taxis into land due to the intense hackinducing mouthdrying pollution. You can actually see the dense hazy layer hovering just above the buildings...And the traffic. Havin http://www.travelblog.org//Middle-East/Iran/West/Esfahan/blog-220990.html