Blogs from Syria, Middle East - page 3

Dear All Greetings from Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city at 2 million people, situated in the north of the country. And what a beautiful city it is, with some great sights and as usual very friendly people. Still having a great time travelling in this fascinating region of the world, and have spent the last days travelling through the Syrian heartland from Tartus on the coast, through Homs and Hama in the centre, to here, Aleppo, my current stop before I head out east into the desert. Will try to upload some photos of the past few days, having been to some amazing places, though this internet café is a tad on the slow side – we’ll see how it goes… Last I wrote I believe I was about to leave Tartus, which was good timing ... read more

Hey all, We were up early (but not too early) on Saturday to enjoy our only day as a group in Damascus, as myself and Jason would be departing the trip the next day. We were taxied in near the old town, and Graham gave us a quick tour of all the important sites, including Syria’s best ice-cream shop! The souq in the old city was amazing, long winding streets lined with tall shops displaying everything from wedding dresses and sweets to brooms and antiques, covered with roofing and housing a bustling atmosphere. We were left to our own devices in the old city so Missy, Holly, JC, Emma and I dandered through the souqs before going to the Umayyad Mosque, an incredibly beautiful and historic mosque. We (women) robed up and took ourselves on a ... read more

Hey all, Our Lebanon trip started with a 6am start; Susannah, myself, JC, Kim and Paul were the only ones going. Susannah and I were on cook group that morning but the others - Joe and Jason, kindly got up and cooked breakfast for us! We had yet another conversion rate to try and work out! Lebanese money is worth so little I ended up buying 33,500 lebanese pounds for just over US$20. Coming from the Syrian/Lebanese border we could already see that Lebanon is a country of contrasts. Beautiuful big Italien-esque villas were literally a hundred meters away from people living in shanty towns. The scenery was phenomenal- snow capped mountains overlooking green fields and vineyards, such a difference from the desert scenery of Egypt and Jordan. First stop were the famous Roman ruins of ... read more

Hey all, Wednesday we were up early yet again (sleep is not a big feature of this trip!!) for our trip to the Dead Sea on the way to Syria. It was a cold couple of hours on the way but warmed up as we approached the Dead Sea- the lowest point on earth. We had beautiful views across to Israel. We stopped at the side of the road to get in, the salt had formed such a hard crust that we had to wear flip flops to ensue we didn't cut our feet! We were expecting to be buoyant but it was still such a strange sensation!! I really had to make such an effort to force my feet downwards and ended up bobbing up and down like a jack-in-the-box!! The water was so dense ... read more

Palmyra On our last day in Damascus almost all signs of the demonstrations the day before were gone and the city seemed to be back to normal. I would find out later that demonstrations and unrest have been continuing in Syria but I never did see anything from the people of Syria that would show any anger towards their president they seemed to be protesting against the security forces and some members of hardliners still in power from when his father was president. After one final morning in Damascus we left in the afternoon for Palmyra and checked out the sunset from the Arab citadel before another excellent dinner where the Mezza (appetizers) are so good that when the main dish came out most of us were fully stuffed. That night we decided to drink at ... read more