Hama to somewhere else

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Our next date with the bikes was riding towards the northern syrian city of Allepo. We said our goodbyes to Hama (and the great Hotel AlRiad- cheap, clean, and great people working there) I said a special goodbye to the toilet and off we went.

Of course we werent going to Allepo the direct way. We planned on checking out some more Roman ruins (horray) and some more ruins the origin of which I really cant rember.

Before we could start riding we had a date with the passport office to extend our visas. We had already gone there the afternoon before and they said to come back in the morning. We rocked up thinking 'how long could it take to get the visas extended'? an accurate answer would be two to three hours. It was as if the passport office was straight out of a bizzare Hunter S Thompson acid trip. We were ushed through a bunch of offices told to sit here sit there, lie here, cough, paid some money, went upstairs went downstairs, went through stairs, had some tea, signed some papers, gave 5 photos, and after enough time for a new planet to form and the artic glaciers to receed 5 metres we were on our way. (But to say a good thing about the experience all the guys at the office were super nice and very helpful so it wasnt all bad!)

Chomping at the bit to go we fired up the legs at set off for Appamea- the fabled Roman ruins that the lonely planet lavishes typical hyperbole praise on.

We got there in the afternoon found some columns, a guy trying to sell us some genuine roman coins- at a good price he assured as, and an ancient street. I was enthralled. After being mesmorised by this Roman wonder of the middle east we started to scope out a place to crash. Finding a nice little corner in the ruins we started to unpack. Sure enough just as we were nearly done the nightkeeper came up saying 'problem, problem' and pointed over a wall to a mound of dirt that looked suspiciously like a grave. He motioned that someone was buired there and we couldnt sleep there. After seeing the grave I was very keen to get the hell out of there. We found another place to sleep rolled out the mats and crashed out under the stars.

Almost up to 1500km today- definately hard cases now.

Next day we motored. Well sort of it was pretty slow going due to the hilly terrain to the Dead City of Serjilla. Riding through random towns was pretty cool and as usual we recieved at least a dozen invites for tea- if we accepted them all I think we would only get about two to three hundred meters a day; such is Syrian hospitality.

So we rode to the Dead City. Was pretty cool. Way cooler than the Roman ruins of Appamea- and there wasn't any dead bodies to worry about. We scoped out the ruins played some marbles with a bunch of young tackers and made camp amongnst the ruins. It was a pretty eeire feeling to be making camp amongnst a town that had been deserted a thousand years ago. While I dont think the place was haunted there seemed to be an energy about the place. I couldnt put my finger on it just a sort of energy and ancient presence that hung around the ruins. Im not usually too aware of things like this but I defiantely think there is some kind of ancient human energy still in the ruins there.

Next morning saddled up got some directions found the main road rememberd the joys of sharing the road with trucks and diesel fumes and rode onwards to Alleppo. We made the 90 or so km's in good time- despite the horrendous poolution that was encountered as the city came closer.

Checked into a dive of a place. Stunk like bottom. Had food and checked out some of the bustling city of Allepo.

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Photos

Eeery ruins at the end of the day
We had the whole place to ourselves. If only we could have organised a rave there!

Digs for the night.
Puts life in perspective knowing that people lived right here a thousand years ago.