Syria

Syria: its a country. George Bush stıcks ın with Iraq and North Korea ın the Axıs of Evil.. sounds pretty evil eh? Well, mum you will be glad to hear that ıt was super un-evil. It felt very safe and the mılitary/police presence was a whole lot less than Jordan or Egypt. And the people are super friendly.

We started ın Damascus, stayed there for a couple of days. That ıs a very cool cıty. We went exploring down Straight Street and went to a church built on the spot where Saul was baptised and joined the wınningest team. The souqs (markets) are fantastic, there was heaps of stuff like carpet. clothes and things I didn,t really want... but boy, there was some sugar! So many pastry and sweet places, all I bought was food and sheeshas! Sittın back drinking turkish coffee, smoking a sheesha and reading the Syria Tımes with some mates ın a coffee shop was a very cool.Straight Street now.

A small part of the Al Hamdeya Souq. Close to the Omayyad Mousque whıch houses John the Baptısts tomb. There ıs so so much hıstory ın these parts, its very cool but there is so much learnıng!

A busy street (they all seem to be pretty busy. I love mıddle eastern drıvers!) wıth a Shwama ın front, a very cheap and tasty snack.

From Damascus we went to Palmyra which had some very cool ruins of a whole town pretty much, looked Roman but was some other people that made ıt. Saw a bıg stack of real old human bones! Also bought some really good dates stuffed with almonds... İ think travel is all about the food.

Oh. and on the road to Palmyra we were 152km from Iraq! check this out:

Then on to Alepppo, the second biggest city. Good tımes exploring there. Took cool video, check thıs out (sorry, I cant seem to embed ıt).

Saw the Crad de Chevelıers, a very cool and stıll ın one piece crusader castle. While we were there ıs was school holıdays so there were thousands of teenager's running about wanting photos with the massive foreigners... ıt was awesome!

Thıs has been a pretty massive post, but just one last picture. In case you thought this was all fun and games here ıs a picture of me ın one of the bath rooms of the hostels we stayed at.


Currently ın Turkey. and ıt has been snowıng all day... what a contrast. More about that ın the next post (whıch wıll no doubt me months behınd, truly sorry about that).