Catch up time!

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Here's a helpful hint to start our first blog update in a month - the next time you're in Istanbul looking for an Iranian visa what ever you do don't try to find it in the Iranian consulate cause it ain't there! And if you should ever bump into Mr B from that consulate (bad form to mention his full name but Kiwis will get it when I say that it sounds just like what everyone gets at the warehouse) flee as fast as you can (but not before giving him a cheery wee poke in the eye from me) before he bamboozles you with ever changing rules and regulations cunningly crafted to make it well nigh impossible to ever enter his lovely country. .

Yup, the visa gods have not smiled too kindly on us this past month. Mr B, an expired Uzbek letter of invitation (LOI) and a Turkmen embassy insisting on the orginal LOI, as opposed to the scanned copy we were sent, all conspired to make the last month wildly unsuccessful in terms of securing the necessary documentation to continue our trip as planned. But fretting we are not as there are many ways to skin a cat (or at least that's what the travel agent we are paying bucket loads of money to organise our LOIs has told us anyway)!

But I ain't moaning too loudly cause whatever the occasional and passing frustrations of being a tourist in this part of the world, taking time out to travel to places you've always wanted to visit and do things you've always wanted to do sure beats the hell out of working for a living!

So, where were we when KP finished her last post and threatened me with any number of unpleasantries unless I got off my butt and contributed to 'our' blog? Ah yes, Aleppo, northern Syria....the 3rd (or is that the 4th?) city we've been to that markets itself as the oldest place of continuous human habitation on the planet. Whatever. Aleppo is yet another highly pleasant place to spend a few days, especially when one of those days happens to be your birthday. True to form my good wife set the tone for the evening by taking me to the famed Hotel Baron for our first beer in well, an awful long time. The Baron is a middle east icon that served as a base for all manner of backroom empire making and breaking deals and other forms of drunken colonial excess back in the days when the French, the Brits and the other usual Euro suspects were competing for influence in Syria around the turn of the last century. Apparently, it was quite the place to be seen and celebs of the day came from far and wide to join in the revellery, there is even an unpaid bill from T E Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia) framed in the lobby! The faded decor may not have been updated (or cleaned?) since Lawrence did a runner but I'm sure many of you (especially you Fatboy and you too Dave) will understand exactly what I mean when I say that relaxing in those ancient armchairs and soaking in the thick atmosphere of that ever so slightly crusty establishment is an exceedingly fine thing to do.

And what better way to follow up the pre drinks than with dinner at Aleppo's finest Armenian restaurant....what? Armenian!?! No, I'd never tried, nor heard of for that matter, Armenian food either, dumplings and meatballs surely? But take our word as confirmed gluttons (especially KP) that if you ever get the chance to try Armenian elbow your mates out of the way and get that stuff down ya as it's outrageously good (so long as its well prepared you understand, obviously if it had been cooked by a clutz like myself then, Armenian or not, it'd still taste like shit). Through clenched teeth (my teeth that is, KP was her normal relaxed self) we allowed the waiter to select a large platter of starters without even asking him the price! This can, of course, sometimes be an invitation to rip off the dumb arsed foreigner but our guy was very straight up and down and so I was soon able to relax. It's Kar Po's job to remember new dishes that we come across and she'll tell you all about what was probably our best feed of the whole trip so far in her special food related post, but I need to tell you now that Armenian cinnammon laced meat roll borek thingees are most definitely THE greatest thing since sliced bread.

Still feeling rather bloated after the excesses of the night before we got up quite early the next day to visit what turned out to be one of the highlights of our time in Syria, the cathedral and monastry of Symeon the Stylite. Symeon was a 4th century monk and would probably be considered slightly eccentric by today's standards in that he chose to live almost all of his adult life atop stone pillars. This was his means of devoting himself to communing with god free of normal worldly concerns (there are some pressing worldly needs that can't be avoided for too long however and I'm not too sure how he dealt with, in such a public place you see, the obvious one that springs to mind....well my mind at least). The problem for him was that as word of his unusual lifestyle choice spread people were soon coming from far and wide to gork at this oddity and/or consult him about matters pertaining to this world and the next. He partially dealt with this instrusion by declaring, wisely some might say, that he would not speak to, nor be approached by, any women! His other solution was to have ever higher pillars built from which he could dispense his wisdom as and when he chose. This culmulated in an 18m tall pillar. The remains of this, his last place of worldly abode, formed the centrepiece of what was at the time the largest church in the world, constucted several decades after his death.

Today all that remains of his final pillar is a large boulder, pilgrims and souvenir hunters having chipped away at it over the centuries. But the church that was built around it is still in excellent condition and KP and I spent a very nice couple of hours exploring the ruins, taking in the views for miles around (it is perched on a craggy hilltop), eating our picnic lunch and playing 'who can spot the biggest most colourful lizard' (a favourite activity of mine in remote locations but not something Kar Po especially enjoys, but that's probably because she never wins).

Strange as he was Symeon was not the most eccentric of the religious ascetics of the time. A couple of his colleagues who lived (probably not quite the right word) a few miles up the road expressed their devotion to god in even more bizzare ways. One chap declared that he would remain standing for the rest of his life (I'm not sure how long this was) and, in an additional twist as merely standing around for ever was apparently not uncommon at the time, he wrapped himself pretty much from head to toe in animal furs with only the essential parts of his face showing, scorchingly hot in the Syrian summer I should think....not to mention pretty fragrant as well (related to which is the same practical concern I had with Symeon's humanly needs....best not thought about in the context of all covering animal furs I reckon). Weirder still was another monk who imprisoned himself for years on end in a cage suspended from a tree. As strange as this might seem it becomes even more baffling when you consider the special touch this chap brought to cage living - his self imposed prison was so small that he was stooped over for the entire duration of his confinement, able to extend neither his back nor his legs. What a wuss bag that David Blane is eh! (Brits will know what I'm on about here).

Sitting below the hill top perch of the church are the ruins of the monastry built to house the pilgrims who came to seek Symeon's advice. Stumbling down the rocky hillside we came across a local family out for a BBQ chicken picnic lunch which they invited us to share with them. They couldn't speak any English and we had about a dozen words of Arabic between the two of us but it didn't seem to matter as they gave us yet another example of the hospitality and friendliness of Syrian people.

Aside from a bunch of boys from the nearby village (more about them soon) we had the whole huge monastry site, just like the church itself, to ourselves. That's the thing about Syria, they have all these amazingly old ruins scattered all over the country and hardly any tourists. Anywhere in Europe a site like this would be fenced off, there'd be dozens of souvenir stalls haggling for your business and you'd be charged bucketloads to get in. But here there's often no charge and even if there is it'll usually only be a couple of dollars, assuming you can even find the caretaker to pay your money to in the first place, and you'll only have to share the place with a few local sheperds and their sheep.

Just to prove the obvious point that there are scallywags everywhere, the local boys that I mentioned decided to show off to each other by trying to get their share of our money and/or the contents of our bags by any means possible - fair or foul. Having been parted from some (but not too much) of my hard earned cash in Aswan, Egypt by a pair of quick tounged and light fingered 12 years olds in an incident far too embarrassing to detail here (other than to say it is pure coincidence, no matter what anyone might say, that this was about the first time on our travels that I had ventured out on my own, without my wife) I was onto this rabble from the start. Lacking the cunning sophistication, the emotive appeal and the necessary props, of their Egyptian counterparts these young scamps didn't have a chance, especially as I employed my two most effective defences against 'taylored for tourists' sob stories and sticky fingers - physical bulk and a scary wife. That threat dealt with we got on with scrambling over more old stones but by then Kar Po had had enough so we made our way back to Allepo the same way we came - walking and local mini buses. We had planned to walk the 5km between the site and the nearest village in both directions but, this been Syria, we'd only been on our feet a couple of minutes before someone stopped to pick us up. Our hotel had offered us their Symeon tour the previous night at a cost of around US$30 per person, by doing it ourselves transportation for the whole day cost us something less than US$1 (between us), and we had much better fun as well. There's another good tip for anyone heading in this direction.

Our final full day in Aleppo and Syria marked the occasion of Kar Po's ascension to fully fledged rock star status. She'd been threatening this throughout our time in the middle east but Aleppo was where her star shone brightest. We spent the day wandering pretty much aimlessly around the old town and the vast bazaar of this ancient city and everywhere we went men, women, boys and girls were practically queuing to speak to, to touch, or just to be near my wife. I should have started charging them! Interested in me, as a white guy, they were not but folk would run through several lanes of fast moving traffic just to say hello to Kar Po. This was fun for a while but thankfully, as we travel through places more accustomed to tourists, Kar Po's star has waned somewhat and we are able to walk the streets (relatively) unmolested.

The excitment of it all soon passed however as we had to get up at the ungodly hour of 4am the next day to catch the 5am bus to Antakya, Turkey. The buses in Syria are normally very good but on this occasion what should have been a straightforward 2 hour trip turned into a 7 hour marathon. An attendent on each bus is supposed to keep passengers fed and watered throughout the trip, and as our bus had several attendents we thought we might be in for a good thing. But alas no. Aside from telling us all to move to the front of the bus whenever a customs post came in sight our chaps were not in the slightest bit interested in the welfare of their customers. Why? Because they were busy cramming every nook, cranny, orifice and empty space on the bus with contraband picked up at our numerous stops on the way to the border. One guy even had a power drill so he could remove the floor panels and access those 'tricky to get at' spaces below. And what was the henious cargo of this nortorius international smuggling ring? Drugs? Booze? Porn? No, something far worse - paper towels and tea bags! Hundreds and hundreds of boxes of them picked up at (seemingly) every supermarket between Aleppo and the border. Paper towels and tea bags!?! I guess you can sell them at a healthy profit on the Turkish black market? Guards on both sides of the border were obviously in on the deal as we saw several palms being greased throughout. One (Turkish) official apparently didn't get what he thought was his due though as he hauled one of the attendents off the bus, bet him around the head a few times and dragged him off for further interrogation. His mates didn't seem too bothered though as they drove off without him! God knows what happened to him (he was probably picked up on the way back) but I'm afraid to say that after all the delays and shennanigans of that long morning we were none too sympathetic.

That was it for us and Syria then. Despite our circus like exit it was (and still is) our favourite of country of the trip so far, in fact it's right up there with Nepal as our most favouritist place we've ever been. So if you ever get the chance, don't dally now....just go for it.

I had intended to bring our blog right up to date with this post but have failed miserably - so many footy and cricket scores to catch up on and so little internet time. We are now in Iran (further to my helpful hint above, get your visa in Ankara) having already spent 3-4 weeks in Turkey. Keep an eye out for more posts over the next week as we try to bring things up to date before hitting Turkmenistan.

To finish here's the first in an occasional (i.e. it's most likely a oncer) series entitled "does anything eat wasps"? (especially for Ainsbury, if he is still tuning in). The media in Turkey reports that the president of Turkmenistan, the great Turkmenbashi, has recently decreed that anyone who reads his latest book 3 times will be guaranteed a spot in heaven! Apparently, he had a direct line to Allah when writing it. Now I can't vouch for the validity of this claim, not having read the book myself (or died for that matter), but, rather fortuitously, we'll be in Turkmenistan next week. So why take a chance I say! We accept all major credit cards - stocks are limited so get your orders in now.

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Photos

Dinner at Beit Sissi - top nosh
See bottom left for the taste sensation known as Borek roll thingees.

St Symeon's Pillar - what's left of it
Overzealous pilgrims have reduced what was once an 18 metre tall pillar to this mere boulder

Curious children
We were the bigger attraction for these kids at St Symeon's

View from village to St Symeon's
The track leading from the monastery down to the village is meant to be part of a longer pilgrimage route which leads all the way to Antioch (modern day Antakya in Turkey)

Genuine Byzantine carving?
...or the handiwork of someone who thought it might be a good joke?

Nice kids
When these kids ran up to us we thought cynically, 'Here we go again - what do they want?' Turned out all they wanted was to say hello and give us some chewing gum.

Big brother is watching you...
...even the street lamps have eyes!

Olive oil merchant, Aleppo
Much business revolves around the humble olive in this part of the world

Spice shop, Aleppo
Fancy window dressing

Olive soap merchant, Aleppo
This is serious business - people come from all over Syria and neighbouring countries to buy this stuff by the sackloads

School boys, Aleppo Bazaar
Like 14 year old boys the world over - cheeky, full of beans and a little funky smelling

Comments

[Jing]

Superstar ***
Whao! Pearly and I must have been darn lucky, having your Superstar wife as our ex-flatmate, Rob! Keep posting your travelogues. Enjoy reading them. -Jing-