Escaping Turkey

Day 7 - Antakya - Damascus

I'm writing from a splendid first class seat on the train between Aleppo and Damascus. The four hour journey in relative luxury (tv with headset included as well as executive seats) cost an astonishing 240 syrian pounds - which is roughly the same in English pennies. As I was writing that sentence I was handed complimentary orange juice and some sort of sweet - I like this train! Behind me is a row of boys who are determined to connect with me as best they can (one asked me to take his picture) and in front is an extremely friendly old gentleman who offered to talk me through any questions I had about Arabic on the journey!

This level of hospitality is seemingly commonplace in Aleppo (or Haleb as the Syrians know it). But, I must recap as I have missed a couple of days!!

On the plane to Adana (which put Easyjet to shame for efficiency and comfort) I met a solo American traveler of nearly 50 named Ken who was doing a dash around the world to complement his countless previous travel experiences. Together we headed straight to the bus station of Aleppo to get a bus to Antakya - Biblical Antioc".

Here we found possibly the only pub in the town from where we had a drink and put the world to rights. Ken was a civil engineer by trade but it was his approach to life that was most interesting. He claimed to never have worked for more than half a year as traveling and enjoying "time" was far more important for him. He had never married and has no family so was as close as a man ever comes to being his own person! There did, however, seem to be a tinge of sadness in his voice as he spoke of his solitude.

The next day we got up early to explore the Cave Church of St Peter. Due to its size and shape this could be called the earliest Christian "cathedral" and was certainly one of the first places Christians worshipped. The sheer antiquity of the place along with its unquestionable significance as a seed from which the world's largest religion grew made the cave worth the considerable effort it took to get there! Due to restorations in the middle ages it was hard to imagine founding Christians going about the dangerous business of spreading Jesus' teachings in a secret cave, but the escape tunnel at the rear - that Ken crawled through as far as his nerves would allow - gave some idea of the seriousness of their impending persecution!

I had a bus booked to take me over the Syrian border to Aleppo so I had to dash. Well, I didn't have to dash. I sat on the bus for an hour while it refused to depart, but I thought I was in a hurry!!

After a couple of hours we were at the border. I was decidedly nervous of this crossing. Indeed, it was the first SERIOUS border crossing I had ever had to deal with, and serious it was! Miles of barbed wire and watchtowers reminiscent of the Great Escape eventually gave way to the crossing point where the bus driver took my passport and disappeared. Sitting in no mans land between Turkey and Syria I wondered whether I'd ever make it out as nearly half an hour passed before I saw my driver or my passport again. Thankfully, the system of allowing the driver of the bus to deal with passports actually made everything far easier and if only I had have known what was going on, I would have found the whole thing a breeze!

So, we were through! I entered the country in which I hope to spend the next 5 weeks. I was feeling GOOD! And just as I was getting out my headphones to have a celebratory blast of my music I was reminded that this was, of course, the middle East and nothing would be as simple as it seems… To Be Continued!

---

---