I arrived in Hatay at 8 in the morning, and almost immediately I was on the bus to Aleppo, Syria. Through border control and a brand new country for pabloq! The crossing was quite smooth in all due to not having to show my face once to Syrian border control. I ad a quick nap on the bus afterwards and thought I woke up in Istanbul. This was Aleppo, the supposedly the oldest city in the world. It's certainly the noisiest. I found my accommodation, the Spring Flower Hostel easily, as the bus driver knew where it was. It was a [View Full Entry]

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Well, I've made it to Syria and have searched and searched but finally found an Internet connection in Damascus. This place is so different you could not begin to imagine. We spent the last two nights in the desert oasis of Palmyra - epic does not begin to describe the ruins there amongst the desert scenery. Slept under the stars until the winds picked the sand up and started stripping away my sun tan and forcing me to retreat into the truck. There are also scorpions to content with - and they're not just few and far between either. Literally, every [View Full Entry]

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I really wanted to use the string "Back in the SAR" as a subject, but it didn't work out. Syria is a very cheap and friendly country. Don't let people (or your government) tell you otherwise. It's also one of the safest countries I've been to so far, way safer than Turkey and about the same as Iran. I haven't seen or heard of any crimes (petty or otherwise) during my 1-month stay here. Surprisingly, there isn't much of a police presence either. DO check out Tartus, it's pretty cool. Also the people in Deir Ez-Zur are pretty hospitable and friendly [View Full Entry]

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Ever thrilled to be back in Syria, I spent my first couple days wandering through the old city and the various souqs and talking to the many people who all want to know where I'm from and whether or not I'm a muslim. I'm beginning to get worried that I'll miss the attention once I go somewhere not-quite-so-friendly. One set of people I met in the fruit-and-vegetable souq sat me down and spoke for hours, asking what I thought about George W. Bush, and explaining how superior Islam is to other religions. One of them described Cat Stevens' conversion, but apparently [View Full Entry]

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The coast was awesome, but all good things must come to an end, and I'm back in the heartland of Syria, seperated from the mediterranean by a range of mountains. I used to think it a bit lame when in geography class they'd talk about how the mountains would prevent the cool weather from the sea from reaching the hinterland... turns out it's true: I was running around the ruins of Crak des Chevaliers yesterday in a T-shirt, and although today the weather was fairly warm, it got pretty cold after sundown (true to desert style). I head a bit south [View Full Entry]

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I finally have pictures. I decided to splurge on the hotel last night, paying $6 rather than $4 for a room with private shower and cable tv. There was a really loud noise emanating from a water pump which threatened to cause hearing problems, but the manager assured me it would be over before 7pm, so I head out to explore. I got back around 1am and the noise was still going on. I asked the guys at the reception to turn it off and they were like "oh, sure, yeah we'll do it right away", so I go back to [View Full Entry]

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Most women in the old city of Aleppo wore some form of veil: the most common being a head scarf covering the hair. Some of the younger girls would cover their hair but wear tight jeans, which was interesting. A more common sight would be long flowy black clothing that sits on top of regular clothing, and commonly referred to as the "chadoor". It is here in Syria where I've first seen women with the entire face covered, essentially with a thin black cloth that gives one the eerie sensation that the person has their head screwed on backwards or are [View Full Entry]

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Aleppo, Syria. This is my 6th day in Syria. Spent the first couple days in the desert town of Deir Ez-Zur, in the eastern side of the country, with the Euphrates river running through the middle of town. I was pleasantly surprised at how friendly people are and how cheap everything is (comparing prices with Turkey, that is). People seeing me walking down the street would make me stop and drink tea with them, communicating with sign language and the few words of english they may know. Actually, the people on the street here seem to speak more english than their [View Full Entry]

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Naturally, we couldn’t wait to get as close to the HQ of the axis of evil as possible. It’s not like North Korea or Iran were in the cards for us! Damascus was much smaller than either Cairo or Istanbul, and did not have the same level of energy permeating from its city core. Good thing to, the road is only wide enough for one car at many places, and one way signs or not followed. See pic. We made it to the street called straight, the downtown mosque (watch your shoes, one pair ended up walking off on their own). [View Full Entry]

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The hotel that we stayed at Al Wadi Hotel overlooked the Crusader Castle Krak des Chevaliers. The hotel was really interesting in its own right. It had exterior castle like presence, feudal interior and probably more luxurious rooms than any other place the whole trip. The hotel had way too tempting sward decorations on the walls. Without too much delay, we found out that they could be taken out of their sheaths and used to chase fellow s [View Full Entry]

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