After living in Syria for over six weeks we finally got round to exploring some more of the country in our holidays last week, when Becka, Everitte and I set off all alone to travel to Palmyra and up the Euphrates to Aleppo. We had had rather a late night the evening before our departure due to meeting up with a couple of English guys we met in Lattakia who turned out to be great company and one of whom, James, worked for a human rights organisation in Serbia and was full of useful information and fascinating stories. We met up [View Full Entry]

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Hi Everyone. No Interent WiFi access so I cant transfer Image and notes frommy PC. This is just a quicktext note to give you a short update. We are in Damascus for 1 more night and then we drive to Palmyra tosee the Roman Ruins and complex,we will camp somewhere near Palmyra. Following that we have 2 nights in Allepoand hopefully I will be able to updatethe Blog then. Cheers and Kisses from David T [View Full Entry]

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Since getting back from Jordan three weeks ago I have been too busy to blog, which presents a dilemma, because it of course means that I have an awful lot to blog about, so will have to try and resist the unnecessary level of detail I usually feel the need to include, and go for a lovely brief overview. We arrived back in Damascus after our week in Jordan on Saturday night and on Monday evening our friend Ali, a lovely half-Arab, half-Pakistani guy from SOAS, who is in the same class as Becka and I, invited us to go with [View Full Entry]

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Met Mike from airport late Friday night. Nothing pretty about Damascus Airport, in fact it was particularly unpleasant. As the great Douglas Adams noted, it can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the phrase, 'as pretty as an airport.' Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. Damascus Airport fell into the latter category. Day 15 (Saturday): Damascus Visited Ummayad mosque in Damascus, putting on Islamic dress in the amusingly titled 'Putting on Funny Clot [View Full Entry]

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On our wedding day, I said that I considered myself the luckiest man in the world as, in my opinion, I was marrying the most beautiful woman in the world. Now it just so happens that having arrived in Syria there are at least 20 million other people that are also of the same opinion. At first I think Dee enjoyed the celebrity status to which she had escalated on receiving her rightful title of the most beautiful woman in the world (from hereon I will simply abbreviate to TMBWITW). But she quickly got tired of the extra attention and just [View Full Entry]

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Hmmm... bit lost for words, maybe because its before dinner time and i know i shouldnt blog before dinner as all im thinking about is shish towuk and garlic and fatoush.... YYYUUUMMMM I hate to say it, but Damascus didn't impress me all that much. I dont know where these travellers get the idea that Syrians are so welcoming and that Syria is a fantastic place to visit. Perhaps its luck of the pot and who you met and what mood your in (i think i was extremely tired in Syria, must have been the walks in Palmyra) But Damascus was [View Full Entry]

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Hmm, thought it prudent to visit the consulate on the way out to the border, got there half an hour to early so took tea with the cops guarding outside, this seems to be a recurring theme, maybe its like donuts in the states. got in to a better reception this time and my forged docs from work helped, he took passport and papers and said return in an hour, another cup of tea later this guy who i kept seeing approached , we did the salam ala cum bit and he asked how i was getting on, the police said [View Full Entry]

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"What time is the bus?...How much?" is pretty much what my life revolves around right now. I was thinking today as i was walking through the desert, i have no clue whats being going on in the outside world! All i care about is .... my next bus trip, what time the bus is coming, where im going to eat, what am i going to eat, do i have enough water for the day ahead, maybe i should buy some more fruit!...Travelling is really a self centered lifestyle ! I LOVE IT! AHAH! Palmyra was in ancient times an important city [View Full Entry]

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As I travel through this part of the world, a region that for most people in the West first and foremost stirs up visions of war, instability, and fighting, I have made this question of violence and safety my foremost topic of conversation with local people. But not in the way that you might think. I have not been asking people, “why is your country so turbulent?” or “why do these streets feel so unsafe”, but rather the complete opposite. What I really want to know is, how is it that I can find myself in the core of what is [View Full Entry]

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Ive crossed borders before in Europe on trains where the customs officers come on the train and check passports and then go. But i have never physically left one country and crossed the boarder on land to another. For the first time in doing this, i picked the Turkish / Syrian Boarder. Without a pre organised visa. I thought i would be in for a long day. Ive heard reports of people not getting the visa, or being interrogated, or the process taking hours! Yet, I left Antakaya at 9am and arrived in Allepo by 12pm! AMAZING! There was no one [View Full Entry]

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