Blogs from Middle East - page 1091

It was a genuinely sad goodbye to our hosts this morning. Kahleed seemed pretty bummed that we couldnt hang about and eat and have tea. And I reckon I would have obliged if we werent so keen to get to Turkey and onwards to Iran. Rode towards the border. Stopped in a small town and had some fellaffells with our last Syrian pounds. Sure enough we were invited to have tea. Of course we obliged. Got to the border. And here the fun started. After some broken communication I was told that I couldnt cross the border to Turkey as my visa had expired and they didnt issue visas at this border post. Faaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrkkkkkkk! Our goal was a mere 60kms away and we were thwarted by the lack of a little sticker in my passport. FFFFFFFaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrkkkkkkkk!!!!! ... read more

I am going to be so happy when i can put another location other than Jerusalem. I love the city and there is still so much to see, but i am ready to see the rest of the country as well. But for now, i am still blogging about Jerusalem because this is where we went on wednesday as class. This time however, it was for a New Testament walk through the city. We left on tuesday night and stayed in the city again. But in a different hotel this time...not the gloria. sad. It was called the Knight Palace or something like that. I really enjoy the over night trips because we are able to get away from the Moshav and stay somewhere else. What i dont like is the rain. it poured on and ... read more

One of the crosses I had to bear in my role of heading up the trading desk for Queensland Sugar was that I was expected to make regular presentations at International Sugar Conferences, which usually occurred every couple of years. Yes, I know, dirty job but someone had to do it! My final such stint, held some 6 months before I took early retirement from QSL, was held in Dubai. Now they tend not to go too down-market for these conferences, and this was no exception as it was held at the extremely comfortable Park Hyatt complex. This luxury hotel is situated very centrally in Dubai, on the banks of the renowned Dubai Creek (and trust me, a ‘creek’ in Dubai bears little similarity with your local suburban creek!), which even had its own golf course ... read more

As we woke the pump was definately there! Nice blue sky and no wind. Saddled up and in about twenty minutes the clouds came in. Dang. Rode on and on crap headwind to contend with and the occasional patch of rain. Well I spose we had had a good run. Pulled over for an early lunch and by the time we finished you wouldnt believe it....the sun was out and our enthusiasm came back! Cycled on and on. Flat road, sun was out and we were aiming for Turkey. As the day drew to a close we had a chat and formed a plan. To try and get a home stay for the night. It would be a great way to end Syria and would save putting up with each other in the tent. And boy ... read more

Dubai is in the midst of the annual 45 day shopping festival . There are people here from all over the Arab world shopping for everything from private airplanes ,gold,diamonds,silks and satins ,cars and ALL things that are found in malls ,and entertainment. The city has been compared to both Hong Kong and New York visually and for the goods it has for sale. In addition to shopping there are cultural activities including the Heritage Village which we explored last night that has many demonstration sites , food creation ,arabian horses , pearl diving ,traditional clothing design and music and dance. I especially enjoyed the bagpipe/drumming group and regret that we didn't get to see the brass band preform. Earlier in the week we had gone to the Global Village which is llike a worlds fair. ... read more