Return to Damascus

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The first half of the day was taken up by an uncomfortable coach journey back to Damascus. Previously it had swung from side to side. This one bounced up and down a lot. Fortunately there were no obstacles which tested it.

Having checked into the hotel we started in (albeit in a more comfortable room) some of us went off to an Islamic Cultural Centre to chat with some locals about cultural issues. This was quite interesting, especially when the head of the centre came in to talk with us and mentioned he had been speaking to the Foreign Secretary in the same room less than two weeks ago.

The same chap then invited us to his country villa for lunch and we duly got on a bus and headed out into the suburbs. His house was certainly rather different from the rest of the city, with a swimming pool and garden with barbecue smells drifting across the lawn. We had a rather nice meal and challenged some of the locals to a game on their fussball table. (They won; I guess I'm out of practice and it was their table...)

We then had another chat about cultural issues. This became a bit too rhetorical at times; there was lots of talk about tolerance and the dangers of a biased media - fair enough - but they did not mention fairly recent pogroms of Jews or massacres in Syrian cities. Still it was nice to that we shared common values - particularly the general distrust and dislike of journalists - and there were lots of smiles all around (although on our side I think it was mostly the nice food).

We then returned to Damascus. Since we were all quite tired and there was an Islamic holiday going on there wasn't much to do, so we all had an early night.

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Photos

Our new friends
Important Syrian personages and random nearly-but-not-quite gullible tourists

Comments

[UM]

See the light?
So nothing happened on the road to Damascus?