Blogs from Middle East - page 1056

Sleepy in Palmyra Middle East » Syria » Palmira By ana_be_goodMay 16th 2007Ana So then it has been way too long since I've last written. For that I apologize. And umm we might as well forget about pictures for now, it is just impossible to organize everything. It feels like I've lived out of a pack forever. Our massive yellow Oasis truck is great. We have our own lil storage space and live out of our day packs for a few days before delving into the locker to get more stuff...so if you think I didn't have much clothes with me...now I live off of 2 shirts and 2 pants. Even my skirts do not work here... Syria is beautiful. So is Turkye...again, y... read more

Today is my 3rd day in Turkey. All of my time was dedicated to discover this mysterious city and to overcome my sickness. The flexible Turkish healthcare system definitely helped with the latter: I walked out of a pharmacy with antibiotics that would have required a prescription back in the states. Piecing together random thoughts that surfaced during my numerous tea breaks, I decided to describe Istanbul as a city that one can never get lost in. Brief description of the city layout: it is separated into west and east side by the Bosphorus strait, west lies in the Europe continent and east lies in Asia. I spent half a day covering the typical touristy spots in the older European side of Istanbul, site seeing ancient monuments and artifacts. Then I spent half a day ... read more

Tripoli - Beirut By the end of our first day in Beirut we have found ourselves sat in a tent making polite conversation with alleged terrorist leaders, sharing tea with teenagers while being shown posters of martyrs, watched an Arab megastar filming a Coca Cola advert, passed numerous civil war bomb sites alongside brand new boutique shops, been searched by soldiers with machine guns & tanks, eaten sushi and had a big night out on the town drinking beer & wine and dancing. Lebanon is expensive & Lebanon is small. We planned for no more than a week in the country, perhaps just a couple of days, if that, in Beirut. It wouldn't work out quite as we expected. We began in Tripoli, a Mediterranean city a few hours north of the capital Beirut. Much like ... read more

Why hello all! Now I realise that this diary entry is a long time coming but I have my reasons and you will find out in due course as to why it has taken so long. Now I am writing this from the safety of my home back in NZ as I am back for a few weeks on holiday after actually making it to graduation in Dunedin. The Month of April OK. From what I remember Spain was the last time I made an entry. I got called back from Spain as I was intending on going to India to do an oil pipelay job for a month or so. Oh did those plans change. When I got back there were delays in getting my Indian visa (who would have thought you need a ... read more

Night buses in Turkey are quite an experience. Most people in Turkey travel by bus rather than plkane or train, so they are very nice. First of all you are assigned a seat on the bus; single women cannot sit next to a man they do not know. This might lead to innaporpriate contact during the night. Second, there are no bathrooms ususally (it has been called to my attention that the more well known companies do have bathrooms). The bus makes stops every 2 hours or so. This can lead to issues for some people. The bathrooms at the reststops are usually the typical turkish toilet- a hole in the floor, no toilet paper, and a water bucket along side for washing your parts afterward. I had much fun with these after being woken up ... read more