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Published: January 10th 2011
For the last day of 2010, we have chosen Aleppo, the oldest city continuously habited in the world...ok, it may be Damascus, go figure out!
You can go from Damascus to Aleppo by road, between 4 to 6 hours...by plane...or simply by train. Leslie loves night trains...so why not. Little problem with the train, it seems the only way is to book it last minute. They have old sleeper trains, 2 beds per cabin, it is relatively clean and pretty confortable. We booked 2 connecting cabins...for 3 of us, 4 beds, the total cost is around 22usd one way....not per person, but for the four of us! I guess if you really want to save money, you could do Aleppo-Damascus and back every day, would be cheaper than a very basic hotel. The train leaves at midnight and arrive around 6am.
Aleppo is northern than Damascus, and we are losing few more degrees. Not cold, but it becomes a little chiled, specially compared to Jordan.
Few things you have to do in Aleppo. Visit the Citadel...wow!!! Than wonder the souqs. We did it on a Friday morning when everything was closed...and did it again on a Saturday evening
when everything was open. It is actually a great experience to do it when the place is empty.
We also loved wandering around Al-Jdeida. The are is a lot of little streets, many churches too...Catholics and Orthodox mainly...but here it goes further, you have the greeks, the maronites, the armenians, etc...and make sure you ask properly what is what. We were welcomed in a armenian church by a fourth year seminarist. I was shocked by the guy. Very interested to explain to Leslie the Armenian Genocide....but to explain it easier to Leslie, I remind him of the Khmer Rouge Genocide in Cambodia. When I asked the seminarist if he knew about it, his answer was...I don't care about others history, I only care about Armenian history. Ignorance, sadly this guy had no idea that it is because of ignorance that so many have died. I sympathize with his people, but his attitude was so scary...even Leslie understood the issue!
Ok, let's go back to Al-Jdeida. With the Citadel at night, this area my have been our prefered area. We also had dinner around here twice. Our first night here was on the 31st of december...so you may ask
me...and the party?!? Well, on 1st January our taxi was waiting for us at 7am (wait for next entry), and the night before was in the train...so we decided to head for a early night...and skip the celebrations of midnight...no regrets....2011 started pretty nicely...and without even the slightliest of a hangover!
2010 is behind us. If you have followed us, you know it was a pretty cool year. We are currently planing most of 2011, let's hope it will bring us as many good moments!
We are now back home in Bangkok....but not for that long!
Happy new year 2011 with love from Bangkok!
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anonymous
non-member comment
It seems this blog has become somewhat of an obsession for you. I just wonder, if you thought nobody was "watching" what you were doing, what would you do with your life?