Blogs from Damascus, South, Syria, Middle East - page 7

As I was asked to leave the women’s area I whispered to Annina “I am sick and tired of being repressed.” I was inside one of the Muslim worlds most important buildings. You know if you look at all my travels this year. And take the whole believing out of the equation, I’d be a very good Muslim. I have made many unknown pilgrimages to important places in the Muslim world. None more important than Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. Damascus is Syria’s capital and was my last stop here but in the centre of the country Syria has some real gems. Most of the major sights outside the two big cities are in the middle of the country so a good base and base that most travellers choose is Hama. Hama is a conservative city that ... read more

So once again I've been a little lax with updating this so apologies for that. At the end of February, Anja and I headed off to Lebanon for the 3rd and probably last time this trip. We actually managed to get further out from Beirut than I have managed in the past which was good. First stop Tripoli, which was a lot more like Syria than the rest of Lebanon I had seen previously but still nice. We headed back via a picturesque port town called Byblos and had a fish dinner at a restaurant that was frequented by the rich and famous during the 1960's before the troubled times began. After an eventful night that saw me locked in a bathroom for an hour at Anja's friends house in Beirut (it needed a Lebanese guy ... read more

On Sunday, headed out for the 10:30 mass at the church Maurice recommended. The streets were packed with people, including a bunch of little kids in white dresses and tuxes - so cute -- and people holding olive branches, which are used here instead of palms. Somehow, we walked right past the church without realizing it, and wandered around for a while, and then went in some other catholic chuch, which was not Roman Catholic but some other kind. We tried to stay for the mass but it was not only in Arabic, but really different than the masses we're used to - so we left about halfway through because we felt weird. Then we spent the rest of the day just wandering, hanging out in cafes, and enjoying old Damascus, which is very easy to ... read more

Dag 246 - 249. Fredag morgen pakket vi, og sjekket ut fra hotellet. Vi praiet en drosje rett utenfor, og ba han kjore oss til togstasjonen. Da vi kom fram saa det fullstendig tomt ut, men vi satset paa at det var noen inne i bygget. Eirik betalte sjaaforen, vi gikk ut - og da vi skulle til aa aapne baggasjelokket, for aa ta ut sekkene vaare, begynte sjaaforen aa kjore. Sjaaforen hadde helt tydelig glemt at vi hadde sekkene med, og saa uforstaaende paa oss da vi veivet etter han. Heldigvis at han saa oss - det hadde vaert nesten umulig aa klare aa spore han opp igjen. Med baggasje intakt, gikk vi inn paa togstasjonen - hvor det satt 2 menn i hver sin billettluke. Det virket som om det var litt tidlig paa ... read more

Polarity - the Human talent for finding differences in everything. Black - White. Friend - Enemy. East - West. So it was that some guy named Bush lumped a country called Syria in with some 'Axis of Evil', perhaps as opposed to some 'Axis of Good'. And overtly or sublimally, Syria has been dubbed anti-West, with its personality being associated with military and religious 'extremism', and hanging out with good mates like North Korea and Iran, not to mention Hamas and Hezbollah. Making a last minute decision to enter Syria only because it looked like we would be let in, we went for it. Being unprepared with useful things like history books, we were fresh and ready to meet Syria first hand without much of that baggage of being on one side. And once we got ... read more