Blogs from Middle East - page 1063

Qatar Road Trip Middle East » Qatar By Sal GavApril 29th 2007Sal & Gav NewnhamThis weekend was a DOOZIE!!! You should SEE what this country has to offer!!! Words simply cannot describe the variety, beauty and excitement of the landscape of Qatar...... read more

Yes I ran away and I'm in Turkey. Turkey was a pleasant surprise I was expecting the dirt and grime of Cairo to be in Istanbul but it turned out to be a nice clean place considering 16 million of people live there. The disorganisation of the tour was as expected, we arrived at the first hotel only to be told that this was not the hotel that we were staying at even though all the travel documentation said so. But a tip for those visiting Istanbul in the future, cross the Art Otel off your list of places to stay. It was novel in that you could hear someone breathing in the room next door (something to do with the window that formed a wall in the back of a cupboard ???, oh and the ... read more

After spending the night in my hotel room packing the gifts and souvenirs I'd bought, the women came by for a visit to reopen them all over them and interrogate me for shopping information. Alas, after they rampaged through everything, I started to repack as I chainsmoked. Our last visit around Esfahan was to the Friday, or 'Jome' Mosque. This, Seyed explained, was a transliteral error by westerners, for its original name is 'Jame' - 'large, everyone's' Mosque. This Mosque happened to be partially damaged from the bombings during the Iran-Iraq War. JAME MOSQUE - Its entrance marked by the presence of hanging chains, signifying it as a sanctuary for all who seek it. Being the largest and oldest of the mosques in Esfahan, it housed numerous interesting architectural features. For instance, its original columns ... read more

Ok....so I wrote this blog on the 23rd and it's now.....the 29th. But who's counting? :) Oh come on now. Cell phones are killing bees? Bees???. Give me a break. Upon picking up the International Herald Tribune, I came across this ridiculous article. First, people think that talking too much on cell phones are frying their brain cells and it leads to brain cancer. They even made these ridiculous band-aid looking things to attach to your cell phone so that it "blocks" the harmful death rays your cell phone apparently emits. Now that that crazy fad has passed, the newest harmful thing is that we're actually killing nature's bees. They even quoted Albert Einstein (a great Jewish man by the way) when he said that "If bees were to disappear, the human race would follow suit ... read more

A few days after their disappearance this week, the two Sunni youths are found dead on the side of the road near Sidon. There are nervous nights in Beirut. In my hotel lounge, the owner’s watching the news with his nargileh pipe planted between his lips, the smoke piping from the corner of his mouth and a grave look on his flushed features. “Chouf,” he says, gesturing to the screen with his eyebrows. In a village in the Chouf Mountains, men are pouring into the street - not quite outraged, but clearly up to no good. Words are racing across the bottom of the screen in Arabic. For all I know they’re giving weather reports for the weekend - “Sunny and mild in Marjayoun”; “Mostly pleasant in Chtaura” - but on this night they look ... read more