Driving in Syria

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Compared to UK, driving in the Middle East is an interesting experience, to say the least. Military checkpoints, dodgy roads and dodgier drivers were a few of the challenges, but for the most part it was a really fun few days. Here are my favourite memories from our week with a hire car in Syria...

* After collecting the car in the city centre of Aleppo (without a decent city-map), aiming for any road out of the city that is vaguely in the right direction and hoping it's the right one (it wasn't).

* Trying to match town names, roads and distances on the occasional road signs in English (at least they had some, phew!) to those on the maps using a combination of guesswork, a compass, and pot luck. (It was difficult to find accurate maps, they seem to rely far more on finding someone to ask for directions). I wish I could speak Arabic!

* Deciphering Arabic hand gestures when asking for directions, and knowing when to give up and ask someone else 100yards further down the road. I really wish I could speak Arabic!

* Learning to manoeuvre round/over/through super-size potholes and unmarked speedbumps with minimal braking and swerving. (That was only on the small country/village roads, the highways were actually really good and fast.)

* Being stopped by the military and asked lots and lots of questions about who we were and why we were there and what we were doing and where we were going over and over again in broken english. They were very polite and friendly about it though, I genuinely didn't feel threatened at all. I think they decided we weren't dangerous quite quickly and then were just friendly and curious what we were doing driving around in the dark in the middle of the night over their dam. (we didn't know we were about to cross a military dam at the time, but it turns out we were).

* Overtaking motorbikes and scooters with large trees and/or pipes strapped to the back sideways.

* Passing cars going the wrong way down dual carriageways (usually on the hard shoulder to be fair, but I wouldn't count on it...)

* Changing a tyre in full view of passers-by. (without mishap, yay)

* A mother sending her two boys off with us (strangers) in the car to show us the way to the (back door of) ruined city/castle we couldn't find in the dark even with her directions. They also we insisted we sleep at their house instead of in the car (which was very sweet, but we declined so as not to offend them by refusing their undoubtedly meaty food since we are both vegetarian).

* Getting very confused and repeatedly beeped at on roundabouts until I realised I was supposed to give way to people coming /on to/ the roundabout rather than those already on it - oops!

* Being alarmed by a swarm of policemen pouring out of a minivan and convering on the car all at once and opening the doors to look inside without warning. We decided most likely they didn't want us to stay there overnight in case we were up to mischief, so we moved on. They were not nearly as nice as the army men!

...and my personal favourite:
* Picking up hitchhikers accidentally (several times) when we only wanted to ask for directions! To be fair, they were generally very nice and one of them even invited us in for tea when we dropped him off at the end of his road. We just didn't understand what they were saying well enough to know they wanted to hitch with us until they opened the door and got in! I really, *really* wish I spoke arabic!

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