Graffiti and guard towers

I must admit that by the time I boarded the bus for the short trip from East Jerusalem to Bethlehem I had been influenced by the frequent travel warnings about the West Bank that had been flooding my inbox for the past few weeks.

My recent experiences in Syria taught me that DFAT's travel advisories are often based on limited information from events that occurred more than three weeks earlier and are generally ridiculously over cautious. I know that travel advisories have to warn of worst possible scenarios. But given that the advice for pretty much every country in the world now includes the phrase "possible threat of terrorist attack", DFAT may want to consider changing the name of their website from 'Smart Traveller' to 'Scared Traveller'.

That said when the phrase "possible threat of terrorist attack" is mentioned in reference to the West Bank, you do tend to take it more seriously than when it is mentioned in the travel advice for Tasmania. In the end, I decided that the best course of action was just to go there and suss out the situation for myself. If I got to Bethlehem and felt uncomfortable I could just do what most other travelers do and treat it as a day trip. If I felt OK in Bethlehem I could use it as a base to explore the West Bank for a few days.

As it turned out the word that best describes how I felt in Bethlehem was not scared, but rather welcomed.

The constant low level tension that I had felt in Jerusalem melted away in the face of the warm hospitality constantly on display from the local Palestinians. When I was trying to find the main bus station in Jerusalem, four different individuals pretended they didn't hear me, looked straight through me and did not break stride in their haste to avoid offering assistance. When I was trying to find the Shepherds' Fields just outside of Bethlehem, I was offered assistance from eight different individuals including a Palestinian army officer who took it upon himself to stop several passing cars to ask the drivers for directions!

Due to the fact that most people visit Bethlehem as part of a day trip from Jerusalem, there was plenty of room at the inn when I booked into the Bethlehem Star Hotel. The fact that I only saw one other guest in the five floor hotel during my stay made me wonder how the place stays open - but I suspect they might be fully booked around the end of December each year.

Bethlehem itself is a lovely town perched atop a rocky hill and has a skyline filled, as you would expect, with church spires. What you may not expect is that the most beautiful church in town is not the one that marks the (supposed) location of the birth of Jesus Christ. Indeed to enter the Church of the Nativity you don't amble under gilded arches, but rather duck through a small stone doorway. Once inside, stairs behind the alter lead you underground to the Grotto of the Nativity. The Grotto is a small cramped chapel and if it wasn't for the steady stream of tourists I would have had no idea of the location's significance. I think I probably would have felt more spiritually moved in a local stable. I mean would it kill them to throw some hay on the Grotto floor to get visitors in the mood?

Highlight #2467 for my travels so far was seeing the amazing graffiti on the much hated security wall just outside of Bethlehem. The enormous concrete structure that the Israelis built to separate Israel from the West Bank is completely illegal and is also a blatant land grab as it encroaches significantly on Palestinian lands. On the Israeli side the high grey walls are almost completely bare. But on the Palestinian side the wall has become a gallery for local artists and activists to creatively express their rage. The works vary from detailed stencil graffiti to rough spray painted slogans, but the message conveyed is the same. I love the way that the Palestinians have used an intrusive object, placed on their lands to imprison them, into a billboard to showcase their dissent.

I spent a large portion of my time in the West Bank riding in shared taxis as I visited Ramallah, Nablus and Jericho. As we barreled over rocky hilltops and sped through olive groves I kept my eye open for the Israeli settlements I had heard so much about. Before I arrived in the West Bank, I had wondered how I would be able to tell the difference between a regular Palestinian town and an Israeli settlement. I needn't have worried as the Israeli settlements stuck out like a mariachi band at a meditation retreat.

The Israeli settlements that I saw all looked like stepford housing developments with hundreds of identical townhouses huddled together on a hilltop. The main difference between an Israeli settlement and the standard Meriton horror that you see in most Australian capital cities is that the Israeli settlements also have structures that look like air traffic control towers in the middle of them for security purposes. If you somehow failed to notice the walled compound look, the dramatic improvement in the condition of the roads leading up to the settlements would also be a pretty good giveaway that you were not approaching a regular Palestinian town.

I found Jericho to be far more biblically atmospheric than Bethlehem. The Mount of Temptation, just outside of Jericho, is supposed to mark the location where the Devil appeared to tempt Jesus after he had fasted for 40 days and 40 nights in the Judean desert. The view from the mount stretches across the hazy desert to the Dead Sea. It is a stunningly barren landscape. Given that I was close to delirious with heat stroke after spending just 40 minutes on the mount (and that Jesus probably didn't get the cable car to the top like I did) - I can understand why he thought he saw the Devil up there. My temptation did not take the form of Lucifer, but rather an icy pole and a cold bottle of water. And, unlike Jesus, I was too weak to resist.

After nine hectic days, my time in Israel came to an end. I had only one more hurdle to overcome before I could head off on my own pilgrimage to Florida... Israeli airport security.

I won't detail all the components that made up the most frustrating five hours of my life, but I will say this... emptying the contents of a pack that took more than a day to zip up - and then getting uppity when the lowly backpacker takes more than twenty minutes to repack it - is not a way to make friends. The Israeli security staff were bloody lucky that I managed to make my flight. Because if they think they have a problem with the Palestinians - it would have been nothing compared to the rage that I would have rained down on them had their ineptitude kept me from a Harry Potter conference that I had been waiting two years to attend.

Let's go fly a kite!

On my third day in Jerusalem, ever eager to take in more history, I set off to visit two exceptional museums: Yad Vashem & the Israel Museum.

Located amid a forest on the outskirts of the city, Yad Vashem is an incredibly moving memorial to the millions of victims of the Nazi Holocaust. The amazing artifacts, archival footage and audio visual displays combine to overwhelm visitors with evidence that humans are capable of almost unimaginable horrors. The Children's Memorial, with its single candle light refracted through mirrors in a dark room so that its image is projected millions of times to represent the young lives lost in the Holocaust, was particularly moving.

Though I learnt a lot at Yad Vashem, and firmly believe that humanity as a whole would benefit if every person on the planet visited the museum, there was one aspect of the site that unnerved me slightly. The Holocaust museum is arranged in such a way that you weave your way down a literal timeline towards a decked exit that overlooks the forest. The displays at the end of the journey, documenting the zionists struggles to establish a Jewish state at the end of World War II, combined with the architectural design all communicate a very persuasive narrative. Namely that you the visitors, like the Jewish people, have gone  through the darkness to the light. That the only way to begin to redress the terrible, terrible wrongs done to the Jewish people was to give them the state of Israel.

After spending more than three hours vividly reliving the horrors of the Holocaust I'm sure that most visitors to Yad Vashem come to that deck and think "Yeah, you know what - they earnt this land. The least the world could do after all they suffered was to give the 'chosen people' a country of their own". That would have been all well and good had the land been empty. But Palestine was not empty at the end of World War II. As I stood on that deck looking across the tree tops of Israel I couldn't help wondering if the world might take a different view of troubles in the region if the Palestinians had their own memorial museum.

The collections on show at the Israel Museum are so extensive that you could easily spend a week exploring the museum's archeological displays, Jewish cultural displays, art galleries and sculpture gardens. Having said that, there was no way that I was going to fork over the hefty entry fee more than once so I instead tried to take in all that I could in one 4 hour marathon session.

The information and artifacts on offer in the archeological section comprehensively cover the most recent 5000 years of Israel's history, not to mention three floors of the museum, and were a tad overwhelming for someone like me whose formal education in history ended in year eight of high school.

An exhibition in the modern art gallery that I found particularly evocative was called 'Sands of Time'. The artist, Micha Ullman, had covered much of the gallery floor with sand and various sculptures and formations appeared to break through the desert sands to emerge on the surface. After three hours of intense cultural immersion it was a relief to wander through the stunning sculpture gardens on my way to the museum's main attraction.

For a book nerd like myself, a display called the 'Shrine of the Book' is a natural drawcard. The external design of the shrine is architecturally magnificent and appropriately symbolic for the location where the Dead Sea Scrolls are housed. Honestly the only way I could have enjoyed the shrine more would be if they added a wing focusing on 'Libraries Through the Ages' with a special section on the history of the sliding ladder.

After spending the day wading through Israel's history it felt good to take in a bit of modern day Israel in front of the Damascus Gate at sunset. As the temperature cools in the early evening, shopkeepers pack up for the day while families and friends take in the fresh air before heading home for dinner. Orthodox jews, catholic nuns and devout muslims mingle as they head out of the old city, carefully negotiating their way through the multiple soccer games that are underway on the stone terraces that stand between the Damascus Gate and greater Jerusalem. Local arabic boys fly kites overhead and the scene would be quite idyllic if the kites weren't in the shape of fighter jets and weren't covered in camouflage print nylon.  Still I can't help thinking that as long as Palestinian teenagers are still able to fly their kites over Jerusalem there is still some hope for peaceful cohabitation in this troubled country.

A strange place for an agnostic

I've written in a previous post about the fact that an Israeli stamp in your passport prevents entry to many middle eastern countries and that this results in the situation where most backpackers visit Israel last on their travels in the region.

In some ways I think it is unfortunate that most backpackers only visit Israel after exploring countries like Syria and Lebanon. I know that I arrived in Israel with more baggage than just my 20 kilo pack. Conversations with Palestinians in Jordan, NGO staffers working in refugee camps in Lebanon and Syrians with family members forced out of the Golan Heights had left me with a decidedly negative view of Israel.

Further reading on the troubled history of the region, though making me more aware of the amazingly complex interplay of factors that lead to the establishment of the Jewish state, did little to diminish the strength of my belief that the establishment of the state of Israel was a monumental mistake.

One statistic that really struck me was that under the partition of (then) Palestine, passed by the general assembly of the United Nations in 1947, 37% of the population (Jewish) were given 55% of the land - of which they only owned 7% at the time! It is also worth noting that the land awarded to the Jews in the partition consisted of the prime agricultural lands, such as the Coastal Plain and Jordan Valley, while the Palestinians had been left with the comparatively bare and hilly parts of (then) Palestine. In light of all this, it is not hard to understand why the Palestinians considered themselves to be particularly hard done by under the plan.

Like many travelers to Israel I began my explorations in the nation's historically rich and politically disputed capital, Jerusalem. The capital has three very distinct parts, each with its own unique character. The modern architecture and state of the art infrastructure make the Israeli New City (West Jerusalem) easily discernible from the stall lined streets of the predominantly Arab enclave of East Jerusalem. The real drawcard of the city though is the ancient walled Old City which contains some of the most important Christian, Jewish & Muslim sites in the world.

Wandering around the Old City in Jerusalem I was struck most by the veritable melting pot of pilgrims, representing many different religions and at least 50 different countries, local Jews and Arabs that I encountered. All of the pilgrims appeared to be excited and moved to be in a place of such profound importance to them. In addition to the locals and pilgrims, the Old City was full of non-religious travelers like myself who appeared to be excited and moved to be in a place that had been of such profound importance to so many people over thousands of years. Add into this mix a significant number of armed teenagers, in the form of the Israeli military, as well as a plethora of tacky tourist shops selling T-shirts saying "Super Jew" you start to get an inkling of the incredible diversity on show in the old city.

On my first day in the Old City I orientated myself by walking along the top of the 16th century stone ramparts from the Jaffa Gate right around to the Lion's gate. The walk really helped me in identifying the visual differences between the Old City's Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Armenian quarters. Catching glimpses of the glittering gold Dome of the Rock between rooftop gardens, church spires and satellite dishes certainly helped to build my anticipation for visiting the sacred site.

Metal detectors and bag searches are a sad necessity on the approaches to both the Western (Wailing) Wall and the Temple Mount. The last remanent of Judaism's holiest shrine, the Second Temple, the Western Wall was built 2000 years ago as a retaining wall to support the Temple Mount. The area in front of the wall now forms an open air synagogue and is split into separate sections for men and women.

On the day I visited there wasn't any wailing, pilgrims were instead engaging in intense prayer with their hands reaching out to touch the sacred wall. Some people wrote their prayers on tiny scraps of paper and tried to squeeze their missives into cracks in the wall, an act that is supposed to increase the likelihood of prayers being heard. Given that pilgrims have been partaking in this practice for at least the last 40 years, it shouldn't come as a great surprise that those who were successful in wedging their prayers into the wall had to stand on plastic chairs to achieve the feat. It seems that God favours persistence.

As I wandered amongst the cyprus trees in the stone plaza of the Temple Mount I kept oscillating between two opposing thoughts. On the one hand it was lovely to see people of all different faiths rejoicing at walking around the location that Muslims believe is where Mohammed ascended to heaven and that Jews believe is where the foundation stone of the world is located. On the other hand it is staggering to think of how many lives across millennia have been lost in conflict over a, admittedly deeply historic, small piece of land. It is difficult to imagine that God or Allah would be happy with how history has played out in the region.

Come with me please...

When I boarded my flight from Istanbul to Tel Aviv on Sunday, I knew there was a pretty good chance that that the Israeli immigration officials I would shortly meet were not going to love me. It turned out I was only partially correct on that front. They didn't really take the time to get to know me - but they did not love the stamps in my passport.

For those of you unfamiliar with travel in the middle east - let me enlighten you about the visa situation with Israel. Many arabic countries in the region are not very happy with Israel (they actually don't recognise that the state of Israel has the right to exist) and will not allow you to enter their country if you have visited Israel. Countries that fall into this category include Iran, Iraq, Lebanon & Syria.

This means that travellers planning to visit Israel and any of the countries listed above must travel to Israel last, as I am. The trouble is that the ill feeling between the countries listed above and Israel is mutual. Though the Israeli government does not have a blanket policy of denying entry to travellers who, for arguments sake, have visited Syria - they have been known to deny travellers entry to Israel for this reason.

Given the fact that I spent two weeks in Syria, two weeks in Lebanon and then a further four weeks in Syria earlier this year - I was expecting to get questioned and knew that there was a very real possibility that I would not be allowed into Israel. Following the notion that good luck is when opportunity meets preparation, I spent much of the short flight from Turkey preparing my answers for the Israeli immigration officials. I memorised the dates I had visited countries and planned a fictional itinerary for my time in Israel that did not include any visits to the West Bank.

I was quite calm as I left the plane, but when a young man was detained as we entered the terminal I couldn't stop a scene that I had recently read in the autobiography "Son of Hamas" from bursting forward into my consciousness. The Palestinian author was detained for questioning by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) for months on end. To encourage him to talk, the IDF made him crouch on a tiny chair day in, day out with his hands tied behind his back. The author was not allowed to sleep, move, talk or do anything at all except for 5 minutes a day when he was permitted to leave the chair to eat and use the bathroom.

Eventually the moment of truth came as I handed my passport over to a young woman at the immigration counter. That was when the questions started:

"You were in Syria?"
"Yes."

Long pause....

"You were in Lebanon?"
"Yes."

Long pause....

The questioning continued as I was asked what my occupation is and had to explain how I was funding my travels. After more questioning about how long I was planning to stay in Israel there was another very long pause...Then I heard the blessed stamping sound and was handed my passport and a slip of paper as my interrogator said 'Welcome to Israel'.

I was in! Yay! I was still grinning like a fool when I handed my passport to the official at the next gate in front of the baggage claim area. He handed my passport to another female immigration official nearby - who then proceded to utter the phrase I least wanted to hear:

"Come with me please."

I then had to sit on the naughty chair just off to the side of the baggage claim area with the other undesirables. This really was cruel and unusual punishment as while we waited to discover our fate we got to watch all the other travellers casually breezing through the checkpoint before confidently heading off to claim their bags. Lucky bastards.

The woman sitting next to me did not inspire a great deal of confidence. Rivers of mascara trickled down her face as she sobbed quietly. The woman tried to talk to me, but she didn't speak English and I was relieved as I didn't think talking to others (who could be caught up in God only knows what trouble) was a very good idea in my situation. I understood the situation was out of my control and was determined to remain calmly detatched - unless I saw any tiny chairs in which case I had given myself full permission to collapse into the foetal position.

After 10 minutes the officer beckoned me over to a quiet corner of the baggage claim area for round two of questioning. She was far more skilled than my earlier interrogator and was soon trying to trip me up by presenting slightly inaccurate versions of my travels for me to confirm. Two could play at this game - I matched her friendly tone as I calmly corrected her version of events several times. I was repeatedly asked the same questions, including:

"Did you meet friends there?"
"You travelled there alone?"
"You visited Syria?"
"For what purpose?"
"You visited Lebanon?"
"For what purpose?"

After 20 minutes of this she switched to questions about the bigger picture:

"Do you have a particular interest in the middle east?"
"Yes. It is a fascinating part of the world."

"So you could travel anywhere in the world this year (I had explained my year off work with the deferred salary scheme) and you chose, of your own freewill, to travel to Syria?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I enjoy learning about other cultures and seeing Roman ruins. That does not mean I agree with the political stance of their government"
"I understand. We need to collect your bags now so that we can search them."

Once I collected my pack I followed the official through an unmarked door into a baggage search room with a few undesirables I has not seen earlier. A (different) woman was sobbing hysterically and I couldn't help thinking, once I established that there were no tiny chairs in the vicinity, that she was overeating a bit to having her bags searched and tested for traces of explosives.

After my big pack and daypack were x-rayed, I heard the dreaded phrase "Come with me please" again and I was lead to a separate room with a new female officer. I was not looking forward to the rubber glove treatment - but fortunately I just had to walk through a metal detector (something that I would become very accustomed to during my time in Jerusalem).

Finally, 45 minutes after I first handed my passport over to the lady at the counter, I was free to go. I had to restrain myself from sprinting as I headed out into the arrivals terminal. It was only when the shuttle bus I boarded pulled out from the kerb that I began to relax...I had made it...I was in...Welcome to Israel.

Situation in Syria

Though I am certaınly no expert on geo-polıtıcal ıssues ın the mıddle east - and am quıte ıgnorant about hıstory and polıtıcs ın general - I thought I would share my feelıngs and experıences relatıng to the current dıffıcultıes ın Syrıa.

Why waıt untıl now to wrıte about these thıngs? Two reasons really...Fırstly, I dıd not want to add to my famıly´s already consıderable concerns, about me remaınıng ın the country, by provıdıng unsettlıng detaıls about the sıtuatıon whıle I was stıll there. Secondly, gıven the current regıme´s attıtude towards journalısts (or really anyone wıth a dıssentıng opınıon) I dıd not feel comfortable about expressıng myself freely whıle stıll ın Syrıa. Now, safe and sound ın Turkey, neıther of these reasons remaın - so here I go...

I´d lıke to begın wıth the dısclaımer that what follows are sımply my feelıngs and reflectıons based on my personal experıence, as well as conversatıons I had wıth others, durıng my sıx weeks ın Syrıa. It ıs by no means a defınıtıve account as I am not a journalıst and generally trıed to stay away from the actıon rather than wıtness and record ıt.

The recent troubles ın Syrıa began whıle I was stıll ın Jordan and by the tıme I arrıved ın Damascus, on the 28th of March, Deraa was already a no go zone. My (lımıted) understandıng of what happened ın Deraa was that a few hıgh school students wrote some antı government slogans on a wall and were arrested. When theır famılıes and frıends protested about theır arrests, some people were shot. Thıs began the uprısıng and brutal supressıon that ıs stıll goıng on ın the town today.

Though I met travellers who were even then plannıng hasty exıts from the country, when I arrıved Damascus seemed largely untouched by the sıtuatıon. On my second day ın Syrıa there was a huge pro-government rally ın the cıty whıch I wrote about ın an earlıer post. What I dıdn´t wrıte about then was a dısturbıng scene that I wıtnessed on that day.

I was standıng on a large overpass, along wıth many others, watchıng the sea of people shoutıng theır support for the presıdent on the road below. As I was watchıng, a taxı sped through the crowds to a nearby buıldıng. When the drıver started pullıng a man from the backseat I, rather naıvely, thought that thıs man must be ınjured and the drıver was rushıng hım to medıcal attentıon. The passenger was only semı-conscıous and ıt was only when he collapsed on the ground that I realısed that the drıver was not tryıng to help hım. He began to kıck and stomp on the man and was soon joıned by another man who also took part ın the savage beatıng. After a minute or so, the man on the ground stopped movıng and was dragged ınto a nearby buıldıng. I felt very guılty for not callıng out for them to stop, but the way that others ın the crowd had turned theır backs to the scene made me realıse that the men doıng the beatıng were probably securıty forces (a kınd of secret polıce) and there was no way I would be allowed to stay ın the country ıf I made ıt clear that I had wıtnessed the attack.

Gıllıan, the Australıan backpacker I had befrıended, was ın Lattakıa when the troubles there errupted. From her account of gunfıre and panıc I knew that the reports of kılllıngs ın Lattakıa had not been exaggerated by foreıgn ınterests as the government claımed.

I frequently saw plaın clothes securıty servıces men around but when they checked ID´s on buses they waved away our passports wıthout even lookıng at them so I wasn´t worrıed. After two weeks I hopped over the border to Lebanon and hoped that the sıtuatıon would calm down by the tıme I returned. I was hopeful when I read ın Lebanon that the Syrian presıdent had repealed the long hated Emergency Law. But the real absurdıty of hıs posıtıon was revealed when he then commented that now that the emergency law had been removed, there was no excuse for people to protest. At thıs poınt the government was stıll claımıng that armed foreıgners were comıng ınto the couıntry to start these protests and no local people were demonstratıng.

On the bus from Beirut back to Damascus on a friday night, I saw the main highways into Damascus were completely closed by the military after troubles in the outer suburbs during the day. We had to drive around circling the city until we found a road in and you could see where there had been fires on the road so you knew that something had happened. Damascus ıtself had a strange vıbe the second tıme around. Travellers were leavıng the country ın droves and the bus loads of plaın clothes securıty forces and rıot polıce you would see casually parked on sıde streets gave the cıty a bıt of an omınous feel.

Across the country I spoke to people who earned theır lıvıng from tourısts and were despaırıng about the sıtuatıon and the subsequent loss of theır livelihood. But even these people, who had such a vested ınterest ın seeıng calm return, for the most part dıd not thınk the protestors were wrong or should stop theır demonstratıons. Everyone I spoke to ın the country wanted changes but many were happy, at least ınıtıally, for Presıdent Bashar to stay ın power ıf he could quıckly brıng ın reforms and ıf others around hım ın the regıme could be removed. The securıty forces were universally hated and everyone deplored the way they fıred ınto peaceful protests.

In Hama, I had to go to the passport offıce to get an extensıon for my vısa. I was quıte nervous and had to explaın about my job ın some detaıl to convınce the authorıtıes that I was not a journalıst. I was asked about my vıews on the sıtuatıon and I told them what they wanted to hear ın order to get my extensıon and avoıd suspıcıan: that foreıgn journalısts were exaggeratıng, that there was no real problem ın Syrıa and that I felt perfectly safe.

But durıng my tıme ın Hama I was there on two separate Frıdays and each tıme Frıday came around you could feel the tensıon ın the cıty rıse. Usually by Wednesday you began to see more and more securıty forces and rıot polıce massıng ın plaın vıew ın an effort to ıntımıdate the locals ınto callıng off Frıday protests. By Frıday mornıng the streets would be completely deserted except for patrollıng securıty forces and they would block off many of the streets. On my second Frıday ın Hama I watched the maın street from behınd a curtaın ın the hotel lounge wıth several worrıed members of staff. We could see smoke rısıng about a kılometre away from where protestors had set tyres on fıre ın front of the mosque. We could see trucks takıng more and more armed securıty forces men towards the demonstratıon. For a whıle we could here the chantıng ın the dıstance - then we heard sporadıc gunfıre. It was later reported that 6 people dıed ın the protest at Hama that Frıday. I left Hama the followıng mornıng.

From the begınnıng of May, every bus I travelled on was stopped at checkpoınts several tımes. The bus would slow down and everyone would grumble as they dug out theır lıcense or passport to show the offıcer who would board the bus. Sometımes the plaın clothes securıty offıcers armed wıth machıne guns had lısts of names that they were checkıng our ıdentıfıcatıon agaınst. It was more frıghtenıng when they dıdn´t. By thıs tıme my passport was not waved away but studıed ıntensely. By the last few weeks I was ın Syrıa I felt that I was regarded wıth suspıcıan by the securıty forces. As vırtually every other traveller had left the country ıt was not unreasonable of them to thınk that those few of us who remaıned were journalısts. On the bus to Deır ez-Zur a young man was taken off the bus at a checkpoınt and the dead sılence that followed made me thınk my fellow passengers were as worrıed for hıs welfare as I was.

Though the dıssent was certaınly spreadıng, there were stıll pockets of the country where ıt was pretty much busıness as usual. Palmyra, Deır ez-Zur and Aleppo dıd not have large demonstratıons when I was there.

In Aleppo the people were not protestıng. But thıs, as the drıver who took me to the turkısh border poınted out, brought ıts own dıffıcultıes. He has a frıend, who ıs also a drıver from Aleppo, who went to vısıt frıends ın Homs. On the outskırts of the cıty hıs car was pulled over and he was severely beaten. It was not the securıty forces, but people from the protest movement who had seen hıs Aleppo number plate. He heard one of hıs attackers say "Don´t kıll hım. Let hım go back to Aleppo to pass on the message that people from Aleppo are not welcome here." It seemed that many people ın the country were angry wıth the people from the cıtıes, lıke Aleppo, where they were not actıvely opposıng the regıme.

Across the country people I met were worrıed and scared. As reports of kıllıngs came from other towns, more cıtıes and towns would joın ın the protests and more securıty forces would be deployed. If a town was seen as too opposıtıonal, tanks would be sent ın and the entıre town would be cut off. No electrıcıty, no outsıde supplıes and then the securıty forces would start the arrests.

I met people who had frıends who had been arrested and taken from theır homes for no other reason than they were male between the ages of 15 and 40. When ıt seemed a couple of weeks ago that the protests had ended ın Deraa, thıs was largely because the securıty forces had arrested almost all of the young men ın town. It was reported that ıf they had a partıcular protester ın mınd that they wanted to arrest, and they could not fınd hım, they would arrest hıs entıre famıly ınstead.

The local people I met ın Syrıa were some of the warmest and most hospıtable people I have met anywhere ın the world. I drank countless cups of tea wıth people who ınsısted on makıng me feel welcome. When I wanted to buy a phone card to call mum and dad, 3 dıfferent people spent more than 45 mınutes walkıng wıth me from store to store tryıng to help me locate the rıght card. Local chıldren ran to pıck me roses just because I stopped to watch theır soccer game. Syrıa ıs a wonderful country fılled wıth amazıng sıghts and lovely, lovely people. I am fılled wıth sadness by the knowledge that many of the wonderful people I met wıll face great hardshıps over the comıng months, and probably years, as theır government uses brutal vıolence and ıntımıdatıon to hang on to power.

NB* Tomorrow I wıll joın a tour group here ın Istanbul and travel around Turkey for the next 18 days. I´m a bıt terrıfıed about the prospect of beıng trapped wıth the same people for 18 days, but lookıng forward to all the plannıng beıng done for me for a couple of weeks! I´m not sure when I´ll get the chance to next update my blog - so don´t worry ıf you don´t hear from me agaın untıl the mıddle of June :-)

All hail, Queen of the smells!

I've had a total of two weeks to kill here in Aleppo and, though it is no Damascus, it is not without its own charms. Many of you might be wondering why, given the current political situation, I am still hanging around in Syria. It is certainly true that I could have completed all the sight seeing I wanted to do in less than half of the six weeks I have spent in this remarkable part of the world. My reasons for spending so long here are two-fold and both reflect key character traits/faults that I fear will be with me for life.

1. I am quite lazy.

Every day of full on sight seeing that I do is usually followed by a few days just wandering around absorbing the atmosphere and reading.

2. I'm a bit of a tightarse with my money.

Admittedly my skills in this area are nothing compared with my sister's natural flair for living off the smell of an oily rag - but I do like to stick to a budget. Syria is by far the cheapest country I will visit in the middle east and to leave it earlier than I had orginally planned would put a serious dent in my ability to purchase my own body weight in Harry Potter merchandise come July.

Apart from the stunning Citadel, the labyrinth of souqs in the old city (which cover more than 1.5 square kilometres) and the outstanding array of locally made soaps - the highlight of Aleppo for me has been the cheap glasses. Ever since another traveller I met in Damascus mentioned that Syria is cheaper than India for purchasing spectacles - I've had my eye out for any stores selling glasses. Imagine my delight when I discovered an entire street full of glasses stores here in Aleppo!

I know many of you are wondering how I can get so excited about getting a bit of a discount on some glasses. But I'm not just talking about a BIT of a discount. Picture this: designer frames, top of the line lenses with anti-reflective coating and the convenience of being able to walk away with your fabulous new glasses two hours after you first walked into the shop. How much would you expect to pay? Well in Aleppo you only pay........$50!!! I had planned to get some cheap glasses in India and would have been happy with anything under $300. But I never dreamed I'd be able to get them for $50 - so naturally I bought two pairs.

The last item I had to tıck off my Syria `must do´ list (not countıng a few places that are no longer polıtıcally stable enough to vısıt) was a vısıt out east to Dura Europos on the banks of the Euphrates. The Euphrates river features sıgnıfıcantly ın both the bıble and the Qu´ran. The Book of Revelatıon ın the New Testament predıcts Armageddon when the Euphrates runs dry and the Prophet Mohammed warned that the rıver wıll dry up, revealıng unknown treasures that wıll cause wıdespread war. Relıgıon asıde, the fact that the Euphrates provıdes water to the growıng populatıons of Turkey, Syrıa and Iraq means that ıts polıtıcal sıgnıfıcance wıll surely ıncrease as tıme marches on.

I was a bıt hesıstant about goıng due to the cost (the trıp ınvolved a prıcey hotel stay and hırıng a drıver for a day), a slıght unease about beıng more than one days travel away from a border should thıngs get stıcky and a fear that the Euphrates (lıke the Rıver Jordan) would be disappoıntıng when seen up close. Ultımately ıt was my desıre for a change of scene from Aleppo that decıded the ıssue and last week I headed east ınto the desert for a few days.

On my fırst full day ın the regıon, I set out early wıth my drıver ın an effort to beat the blısterıng heat. I was a bıt peeved that my $40 dıdn´t buy me passage ın an aır-condıtıoned vehıcle, but gıven my recent experıence ın Aleppo I was just relıeved that thıs drıver dıdn´t seem hell bent on kıllıng us both. By the tıme the drıver ındıcated that we were close to the sıte I had almost completely melted ınto the back seat vınyl and could no longer make out where the rocky desert ended and the sky began as we travelled on through a bıscuıt coloured haze.

When he poınted to a crumblıng wall and small tower barely discernable ın the dıstance and saıd ``Dura Eropos´´ I was not that ımpressed. I had blown my budget and travelled for 2 hours that day ın 38 degree heat for thıs? I started lookıng around wıthout much enthusıasm at the large sıte as the wall and gate were all I could see above ground. I took a half hearted look ınto a few of the large holes contaınıng the remaıns of temples before I caught a glımpse of aqua ın the dıstance.

Just a few hundred metres further along I spotted the ancient cıtadel and the ground dropped steeply away to reveal a gorgeous expanse of turquoise river and lush fields stretchıng out below me. The mıghty Euphrates did not disappoint.

After also visıtıng the 5000 year old archeologıcal sıte at Marı, my drıver and I headed back through the 40+ degree heat to Deır ez-Zur. I was completely knackered when I got back to the hotel ın the afternoon and decıded to have a quıck meal before I showered and collapsed. This was a decision I would soon come to regret. At the restaurant I was so engrossed ın the latest Thursday Next novel on my Kındle that ıt took her cough to alert me to the presence of a young woman at my table. She asked what I was readıng and as we chatted I notıced that her Englısh was very good and that her frıends at the nearby table were watchıng our ınteractıon wıth much ınterest. I apologısed for keepıng her from her frıends, but she ınsısted on brıngıng me back to theır table to meet them.

That was how I came to meet the lovely Noor, her sısters Alaa & Esraa and theır frıend (whose name I´ve unfortunately forgotten). It is really dıffıcult to have decent conversatıons wıth local women ın Syrıa, as they are not out and about ın publıc as much as the men are and they are less lıkely to know Englısh than theır male counterparts. Wıthout any male famıly members present at the restaurant, they were free to dıscuss a wıde range of topıcs, such as theır boyfrıends, polıtıcs, educatıon, famıly expectatıons and careers, wıth me. Just when I thought the day couldn´t get any better, Noor then insisted on brıngıng me back to their flat for a visit.

As we crammed ınto a taxı for the short rıde to theır home, I suddenly remembered what I had been doıng for most of the day and, consequently, what kınd of state I was ın. A quıck glımpse ın the rearvıew mırror confırmed my fears as I was coated ın a revoltıng mıxture of sweat, dust and sunscreen. Nothıng short of a long shower and a change of clothes was goıng to remedy the situation and I decıded that sınce the gırls had already seen me thıs way there was no poınt worryıng about ıt. I met theır brother Mohammed at the flat also and spent a most enjoyable afternoon beıng treated lıke a queen. They seemed almost as excıted to talk to me (and offer me tea, fruıt and sweets) as I was to talk to them and I soon realısed just what an honoured guest I was when other members of the famıly started droppıng round. It seemed that the sısters had been busıly callıng everyone they knew to let them know about theır new Australıan frıend.

Noor translated as an ever changıng array of cousıns, aunts and uncles asked me all about Australıa and my travels ın Syria. Just when I thought there could not possıbly be any more famıly members to meet, Mohammed got off the phone and saıd that another uncle had ınvıted us all around to hıs house for the evenıng. I trıed to back out - I really wasn´t dressed for goıng out - but once ıt was clear that my reluctance would cause more offense than my odour, I agreed and we set off ın another taxı. The doorway to the uncle´s lovely home was full of shoes and I was horrıfıed to realıse that I would have to remove mıne to enter. I apologısed profusely for the smell and hastily asked the way to the bathroom where I was able to at least rınse my feet under the shower.

The kındness and generousity shown to me by the entıre famıly was staggerıng. I was gıven gıfts, complımented continuously, fılled wıth delıcıous foods and made to feel ıncredıbly valued. We vısıted the homes of two more relatıves that evenıng and when I fınally returned to my hotel at 11pm I dıdn´t know which was more full: my stomach or my heart.

All in all, I couldn´t have asked for a lovelier end to my tıme ın Syrıa.

NB* Please excuse any strange letters or punctuatıon ın thıs post. I´m fınıshıng ıt ın an ınternet cafe ın Istanbul and the symbols on the keyboard bear lıttle resemblance to what comes up on the screen.

Met with a chorus of groans

I was the only foreigner on the bus to Palmyra and I really started to feel my appalling lack of Arabic. The entire bus ticket was in arabic so I just showed it to every person I saw and said "Palmyra?" repeatedly until someone showed me to my bus. Some lovely ladies on the bus happily showed me to my seat and even let me hold their small children for a short while. I then got out my phrase book and spent the remaining 40 minutes until the bus left partaking in complex and sophisticated communication that resulted in an exchange of nationalities, names and destinations. I was most proud of figuring out how to say "Your baby, beautiful" but I don't think my language skills are quite up to diplomatic levels just yet.

When the bus finally started moving a guy came round to check our tickets. He was most displeased with mine and I thought I was on the wrong bus until he repeated "police" and mimed stamping my ticket several times. I just shrugged and then he indicated I should follow him off the bus. It turned out that I had neglected to get my ticket stamped by a police officer and a young boy was instructed to accompany me to get this rectified before the bus left. My bus had already started driving slowly off through the depot at this point and I was pretty worried that my big pack was off to Palmyra without me. We had been told to run so we took off weaving through several hundred buses in the depot and after 5 minutes came to an abrupt halt. Thank god I had my young guide with me because how on earth anyone was supposed to identify the rather non-descript man sitting at a table in front of us as I policeman was beyond me. Anyway he roughly stamped my ticket so it now had a blue smudge on it and we took off again to find the bus. The driver seemed very happy with my blue smudge and soon we were heading off through the desert towards Palmyra.

The ruins at Palmyra stretch over an impressively large area and there is no better way to take in the scope and beauty of the sight than by visiting the citadel, high on the hill, at sunset. You can see the vast expanse of sandy desert, the nearby valley dotted with tombs, the long colannaded street of the roman ruins with the Temple of Bel and the palm groves stretching out in the far distance. The situation in Syria has meant that many tourists have left the country and no where has this been more apparent than at locations that only exist to service tourists, like Palmyra. At the citadel I met the most persistent souvenir sellers I have encountered thus far in the middle east. My frequent repetition of "La, shukran" (no thankyou) was met with cries of "No tourists for 5 days" and "Why you not buy? Because I am Bedouin?".

By far the highlight of my time in Palmyra was the excellent company I had from my fellow guests and the host at the Al Faris hotel. The guests were a young frenchman who was living in Latakia with his wife, an older french couple (who are the frenchman's parents in law) and the lovely latvian Kristine and her czech partner Jan (diplomats living in Brussels). The hotel was a recommendation from Barbara and its location, directly opposite the ruins on the road that lead to the citadel, could not have been more perfect. We shared breakfasts and dinners sitting at the communal table in the front garden and enjoyed the entertaining company of our host Mohammed almost as much as his mother's outstanding cooking.

After dinner each night, we relaxed with glasses of arak while Mohammed tried to teach us rude words in arabic and would always challenge any females present to play the coin game with him. The loser of the game would have to dance on the table, which was why our host only ever wanted to play against the females. Mohammed would fold a tissue and place it over the top of a glass. He would then place a coin in the middle of the tissue. The players had to take turns using a cigarette to burn small holes in the tissue, and the loser was the player who made the burn that caused the coin to fall through the tissue into the glass. The quality of a particular game was judged by how many cigarettes were used before the coin fell. The game is very entertaining as it progresses and the players take longer and longer to decide where to place their burns. In the final stages when the coin is held aloft by a few tiny shreds of tissue each new burn is met with "oooohhh"'s and "aahhhh"s from the spectators. I played the first night and won - and despite much protesting Mohammed did not dance on the table (he promised to do so the following night). Kristine lost her match the following night but in the end we all got up and had a great time dancing in the lounge inside the hotel.

The upside of the lack of tourists was that when I set out to explore the vast ruins the second day, I had large sections of the site completely to myself for half hour stretches of time. Palmyra is certainly the largest area of roman ruins I have seen so far, and their location, rising out of the desert next to an oasis, lends them an eerie atmosphere of a city abandoned. I've discovered that whilst I find deserts interesting places to visit, I start to feel a bit unsettled if I'm there for more than a couple of days. Something about the vast emptiness, quiet and lack of greenery unnerves me a bit - and so whilst I was sad to say goodbye to Kristine and Jan, I was quite happy to make my way to Hama after 3 days at Palmyra.

Given that most of the large demonstrations, and subsequent troubles, occur after midday prayers on Fridays - I had planned to arrive in Hama on Thursday, buy some supplies, and hole up in the my hotel for much of Friday. The Riad hotel was the perfect place to execute my plan as it is run by the very outgoing Abdullah (whose Aussie accent is so good I thought he was from Australia) and I managed to get a cheap room with a TV there.

In the end I joined an early tour to the majestic Crac des Chevaliers on Friday and spent a lovely morning exploring the crusader castle and enjoying the spectacular views from its ramparts in the company of a japanese backpacker, an energetic German lady called Irene and a surly South African guy. The South African had been living in the UK and was so overwhelmingly negative and pesimistic that he provided much entertainment for Irene and myself throughout the morning.  Some of  Mr Wet Blanket's pearls of wisdom were:
"I HATE the English. They are all so spoilt"
"Don't bother going to the Dead Cities - they're lame"
and upon hearing from our driver that we would have two hours to explore the Crac des Chevaliers, "Oh really?! (Sigh) I won't need more than 10 minutes."
Of course he was the last of us back to the car after more than two hours and Irene couldn't help but comment, "Gee, that was a long ten minutes!"

We got back to Hama just before midday and the streets were so deserted that I half expected to see tumbleweed. Thankfully there were no serious clashes on that Friday and I had a very pleasant afternoon enjoying a picnic of bananas, nuts and chocolate on my bed as I watched the Royal Wedding on BBC World.

In the days that followed I relaxed walking by the river and sitting in the lovely gardens in the centre of Hama. Everywhere I went I was met with a chorus of groans from the many norias (giant wooden water wheels) that line the river in, and around Hama. The norias still operating in Hama date back to the 12th century but in the museum I saw a mosaic from the 4th century which depicted a water wheel - so it seems as though they have been a feature of the region for quite some time. The mournful groaning sound comes from the friction between the wooden wheels and the blocks they are mounted on and my favourite times of day occurred when the groans from the norias battled for supremacy with the calls to prayer from the local mosques. The largest of the norias is more than 20m in diameter and on warm days I saw that the cool water and the thrilling height lured a few local teenage boys who climbed into the wheels, rode around to the top and jumped off into the river.

While based in Hama I also took a day trip to visit the citadel of Shayzar, Apamea, the dead cities of Al-Bara and Serjilla as well as the mosaic museum. Given my usual snail pace for sight seeing (visit a single sight, then rest up for 3 days) this schedule was a bit full on for me but in the end price and convenience won me over and I joined the tour with two swiss ladies and a russian gentleman.

Prior to getting in the car that day, I had not even heard of the citadel of Shayzar and was rather shocked to see how gorgeous the remains of this 10th century fortification were. The citadel is perched on a rocky hill and towers over a small town on one side and a stunning river gorge on the other. The ruins were covered in wildflowers and the surrounding landscape, not to mention the presence of thousands of flowers that bore an uncanny resemblance to the scottish thistle, brought back wonderful memories of the highlands.

The scenery at Apamea was no less striking, as these roman ruins are located high on a grassy moor. On the day we visited we had the entire 2km of Apamea's cardo (colonnaded main street) to ourselves. Looking out through the columns at a sea of red poppies in the surrounding fields was a sight that will stay with me always. Contrary to the surly South African's prediction, I also loved wandering around the abandoned buildings and tombs of Serjilla and Al-Bara. I loved that the ancient tombs were dotted around rocky olive groves, vinyards and apricot plantations. The houses, inns and hammams in Serjilla are in remarkably good condition given that they haven't been inhabited for some 15 centuries! Our only company at the site was a local family and, after hearing where I was from, the father took great delight in getting his children to show off their English to me by reciting the alphabet and counting to 10 several times each. My clapping seemed to extend the performance, rather than end it, and I'm not sure how I would have made a polite exist had our driver not started honking the horn indicating that it was time to leave.

Our last stop for the day was the mosaic museum and it did not disappoint. I was particularly taken with an enormous animal scene mosaic, in which the animals all had very detailed facial expressions. Being able to clearly depict a look of utter defeat on the face of an ox, using only the medium of tile, must be a rare gift for an artist. As with the last three museums I have visited, we had the place to ourselves which meant that each room had to be unlocked and the lights turned on before we could enter. My visit to the museum in Hama had obviously interrupted someone's morning tea as turing my head, even momentarily, away from a particular display resulted in the lights being immediately turned off by the impatient curator at the door!

Souqs, spit and storytelling.

As the political situation heated up in Syria and DFAT changed their travel advice for the country to "Do not travel", I decided I could only really afford to spend a few more days in Damascus before I should move on to see the the rest of the country.

Much of my last 4 days in Damascus were spent wandering down winding alleys and through bustling souqs in the old city. The narrow roads and overhanging second stories of buildings make much of the old city look so perfectly authentic that it could be a movie set. The old city in Damascus is quite large and whilst getting lost in its alleys is half the fun, I quickly learnt that using mosques (with the exception of the towering Umayyad Mosque) as navigational landmarks was not a partcularly effective tactic as there were mosques on almost every second corner. A couple of times I gave in and dug out the compass from the general debris lining the bottom of my daypack, but usually 15 minutes of continued wandering saw me come across a shop, sign or street that I recognised.

The rather unimaginatively named 'Straight Street' is more upmarket than the rest of the souqs and its many shops selling paintings, ceramics and ornate wooden furniture inlaid with mother of pearl are targeted at tourists with deep pockets. The spice souq was one I frequently visited as I loved looking at, and smelling, the open sacks of dried rose petals, ground coffee, cumin and the assortment of tiny glass bottles of perfume on offer. The nut sellers had the most effective marketing strategy as they would run out of their stalls to meet you with a bowl of pistachios to sample as you walked by. Many a time I entered the old city with no intention of purchasing nuts only to leave with small bags of smoked cashews and, my newly discovered favourite, lemon roasted almonds mmmmmm...

The main souq 'Souq al-Hamidiyya', is a 400m long arcade covered with a curved corrugated iron roof. When you look up you see many small birds flying around (one of whom made its presence apparent to me via a lovely gift it dropped on my head - to the immesnse amusement of local shop keepers) and bullet holes made by French planes during the nationalist rebellion of 1925. In this souq there is a plethora of dress shops, with designs and beading so garish that a beauty pagent contestant would be embarrassed to wear the dresses displayed in the windows. The floor in the middle of the souq was mostly taken up with people selling plastic battery operated toys and kitchen implements that I'm pretty sure were sold by demtel in Australia 10 years ago. I felt quite sorry for the guys selling the implement that carves vegetables into bizzare shapes as although it looks impressive, I suspect a basket made entirely out of a single cucumber is not a high priority on many shoppers' lists. Fabric shops, gold ornaments stores and people selling stuffed birds are all also part of the mix in the 'Souq al-Hamidiyya' - but by far my favourite store in the souq (and perhaps in all of Syria) is Bakdash.

Bakdash is a large ice-creamery that does a roaring trade with locals and tourists alike. As you walk past the glass storefront you can see the white uniformed workers stretching the delicious ice cream that is made on the premises from sahlab (a tapioca-root flavoured drink). Sitting in the packed restaurant, with the chinless visage of President Bashar scowling down at you from every wall, you can just make out the murmur of conversations around you over the rhythmic thumping of the ice cream being beaten with huge wooden clubs. Most of the locals go for plain vanilla, but I elected to try the bowl of four flavours: vanilla, strawberry, chocolate and mango all coated in Bakdash's trademark generous layer of crushed pistachio and cashew nuts. I had been saving my trip to Bakdash as a treat for the end of my time in Damascus, and honestly after tasting that ice-cream I very nearly stayed another month. And, as if beng divinely scrumptious wasn't enough of a lure for me, the generous servings at Bakdash were also cheap: my four flavours bowl cost me 50 SP (or $1.00).

Many other specialty souqs branched off from 'Souq al-Hamidiyya'. There was the gold souq, the children's clothes souq, the cosmetics souq, the haberdashery souq, the kitchen supplies souq and the hardware souq, to name but a few. The surprise that registered on the shop owners' faces when I wandered into the plumbing souq made me think that it is not on the itinerary of most tourists in the old city. Amid the hustle and bustle of the spice souk is the wonderful Azem Palace. The palace was built by the governor of Damascus in 1749 and is one of the largest and most beautiful examples of traditional courtyard homes that I have seen so far in my travels. The stunning courtyard garden alone is worth the entry fee and many of the rooms contained gorgeous carved and painted wooden ceilings, ornate furnishings and displays featuring some of the least life like mannequins I have ever seen. Seriously, the features of these mannequins looked like they had been painted on by a 3 year old.

On my second last day in Damascus I was fortunate enough to bump into the extremely well travelled Barbara whom I had first met back in Beirut. Barbara too was planning on spending only a few days more in Damascus so we decided we had better tick a major "Damascus must do" off the list and visit the  hakawati (professional storyteller) in the Al-Nawfara Coffee Shop. Hakawati have practised their trade in coffee houses in Syria since the 12th century, but the art is dying out and the last remaining storyteller in Syria is Abu Shady. Barbara and I had just settled in with our cups of mint tea when Abu Shady enetered the coffee house and took his place on the storytelling throne. Even without the throne, Abu Shady would have been pretty easy to spot costumed as he was in an embroided waistcoat with a tarboosh on his head. Before he began his tale he scanned the room and I'm not sure if it was our blonde hair or the fact that we were both wearing pants with zip off legs but somehow Abu Shady managed to spot Barbara and I as foreigners. He asked where we were from and a family sitting nearby seemed to take particular interest in the fact that I said I was Australian - but more on that shortly. As the entire performance was, naturally enough, in Arabic it was hard to maintain a genuine interest after the first half hour. Having said that, Abu Shady showed himself to be a passionate orator who used tone, volume and the banging of his large stick on the table to keep the audience enthralled. Throughout the performance though, many of the locals carried on with their own conversations and Abu Shady himself stopped mid sentence a few times to drink his tea and talk to the owners sitting near him. It was during one of these breaks of his that I turned and asked Barbara about her day - well the proverbial hit the fan then and we were sternly, via nearby patron who translated, told off and instructed to not speak and pay attention by the old storyteller. Apparently tourists are expected to sit in silence during the entire hour even when the storyteller himself is chatting to locals!

After the performance the man at the table next to us turned around to confirm that I really was from Australia. Tammam Sulaiman then introduced us to his family and informed us that he used to be the Syrian Ambassador to Australia. He was very glad I had ignored the travel warning and stayed in Syria and I discussed with him the fact that the biggest impact of DFAT's advice on me was the worry it would inevitably cause to my parents. He then  insisted on giving me his official government card and private mobile number so that I could contact him if I should ever need any help during my time in Syria. Obviously it pays to visit the right coffee houses in Damascus if you want to make connections!

On my last day in Damascus I enjoyed one more serve of Bakdash ice-cream and wandered around the old city taking all the photos I had neglected to take over my earlier two weeks in Damascus, when I had not wanted to seem too much like a tourist. I was getting a bit misty eyed over leaving my new favourite city, as I took a final stroll down the 'Souq al-Hamidiyya', when I was abruptly jolted out of my reverie in a most unpleasant fashion. It seemed that one of my fellow shoppers had thought a crowded souq was an approprite location to clear his throat and his enormous mouthful of spit and yellow phlegm had landed on my arm. I immediately swore loudly and he then had the audacity to look offended at my swearing. I got no apology as I pointed to the mess on my arm but, as my limited arabic did not extend to phrases such as "For fuck's sake watch where you are spitting please!", there was little I could do except wipe the mess off with a tissue before coating my entire arm in sanitising gel.

Ultimately I decided that the universe was sending me a sign: perhaps moving on to Palmyra and was not such a bad idea after all!

Basalt & Baklava

I've been soaking up the atmosphere here in Damascus for nearly two weeks now and am seriously in danger of never leaving what has become my new favourite city in the world to visit.

One of the thousands of things I love about Damascus is that almost everything is within walking distance of the backpacker hotels. This means that you become more familiar with the local sites, stores and people and can (kind of) start to feel like a local. I love that as I walk to the old city I pass my favourite falafel place, the place that sells the best lemon and mint juice mmmmmmm...the stall that sells the best quality bananas, the glass storefronts filled with towering, glistening pyramids of baklava and so forth. If you are detecting a common theme of food and beverages here that is because Damascus has an amazing array of deliciousness on offer at every turn. It has been a real challenge not to turn into a complete blimp during my stay here! I think I will have to do a separate blog entry later just on foods to do it all justice.

In the heart of the old city lies the stunning Umayyad Mosque. I knew the mosque was big and the LP said that it contained some nice mosaics so not long after I arrived in Damascus I paid my 50sp entry fee and donned what I liked to think of as a wizard robe - but in actuality was an ugly grey cotton dressing gown like garment with a large hood.

I had just tied my shoes to my backpack and entered the courtyard when I looked up and was completely gobsmacked. I was facing a wall about 4 stoires high, the top half of which was covered in stunning gold mosaics glittering in the midday sun. It was so beautiful I felt like crying. This is why you are here, I thought - this is something you have to experience in person because no photos will ever do it justice. No photos can capture the calm and peace of the enormous white stone courtyard and the surprise you feel when you walk under the cool archways lining the arcades that frame the courtyard, look up and see that even the undersides of the arches have been decorated in glorious patterns of golden mosaics. I felt all that - then took about a million photos anyway just to remind myself of the place.

Mosques really are the centres of communities and nowhere is this more apparent than in the courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque. Couples, familes and travellers recline under the cool arches and indulge in some welcome respite from the busy hub bub of the old city streets and souqs around it. You see some people talking, some people napping, some people praying and children chasing each other as they run in and out of the archways.

The mosque was built around 700 AD and its awe-inspring gold mosaics include a 37m long wall along the western arcade that depicts what Damascenes believe is the paradise that the Prophet Mohammed saw in Damascus. I wandered around enjoying the tranquility of the lovely, richly carpeted and enormous southern prayer hall and marvelled at the fact that the locals just got on with their prayers despite the many tourists taking photos and craning their necks to see the tiled magnificance of the underside of the domes. You do really notice that here - that islam is a religion but is much more a culture and just part of daily life. Locals go to the mosque to pray and to socialise. You will often see a store closed for just a few minutes as the shopkeeper either unrolls his prayer mat, turns to face Mecca and prays right there in his shop or quickly ducks out to the local mosque or prayer room to do the same.

I also visited the Iranian -built Shiite Sayyida Ruqayya Mosque in the old town. This mosque is dedicated to the daughter of the martyr Hussein (who was the son of Ali) and is a fascinating example of both religious devotion and gaudy interior design. The internal walls, ceiling and dome of the main prayer hall are covered in so many mirrored mosaic tiles that it actually hurts your eyes when they turn the chandeliers on. After recovering from the over powering glare I made my way to the women's section and sat on the thick carpet to observe for a while.

The women were kneeling and facing an ornate silver cage like structure which I think holds the remains of the daughter of Hussein. This is a site of sacred pilgrimage for Iranians and it was evident from the widespread weeping and wailing that most who visited it were truly overcome by the experience. It was really quite moving to witness such unguarded religious fervor...I think the daughter of Hussein may have been an infant when she died as many of the women, after kissing the silver structure and wiping their tears onto it, threw small dolls on to the top of her shrine.

I have always found when travelling alone that most of the time I adore the complete self-indulgence of the experience. Plans can change on any whim and no one complains when you stay in reading for a day because the book is just that good. But there are times when you feel a bit starved for conversation. Not lonely, just aware that somehow you have gone 3 days with the only phrases spoken being arabic for "hello", "Australian", "how much?" and "thank you". I was feeling just this way about a week ago when who should stroll across the courtyard as I ate my breakfast but Gillian - the Australian nurse I had met in Amman. So since then Gillian and I have been getting together for outings every second day or so and often chatting over our shared love of chocolate, nuts and all things kindle (and our despair that you cannot download any new books in Syria - damn American sanctions!).

It was with Gillian that I explored the National Museum. The great highlights of which for me were the lovely garden filled with statues they couldn't fit in the museum and seeing the tiny clay tablet showing the alphabet of Ugarit. The tablet contains 30 cuniform signs or letters of the Ugaritic alphabet, is from the late bronze age (1400BC) and is the first complete alphabet known of in the world. Thinking about how the development of a written alphabet changed the world really is mind blowing.

My first day trip out of Damascus was on Sunday when Gillian and I headed off to check out the Roman ruins at Bosra (see Elia I told you I would go there!). You could develop a serious case of roman ruin fatigue in this part of the world but thankfully that has not happened to me yet. Bosra contains a lovely theatre dating back to the 2nd century AD as well as some other ruins and colonnaded streets. The thing that makes Bosra different from the many other ruins in this part of the world is that the theatre, and indeed the entire town, was not built of limestone or sandstone but rather the easily available local building material : basalt. The black basalt lends the theatre and all the ruins a brooding atmosphere that is quite striking.

We enjoyed exploring all the dark, back corridors of the theatre but my favourite sights of the day were those instances where local practicalities met with ancient monuments. I love the fact that as the handful of tourists present were wandering and taking photos of the basalt columns, the colonnaded street was suddenly filled with sheep as a local sheperd moved his flock to find more tufts of grass poking up through the paving stones that are more than 1500 years old. A few times I lined up the "perfect" shot of the colonnaded street with the theatre in the background only to have a curious chicken wander into the foreground of the shot.

We also met another aussie, Craig, at the corner store in Bosra and ended up meeting up with him for some entertaining conversation and excellent food back in Damascus that evening. Walking through the main souq in the old town on our way back to the backpacker disrict, Craig was being followed by some fairly persistant toy salesmen. Gillian and I enjoyed the cultural norm that meant we were ignored and all sales enquiries were directed to our male friend. At least we were enjoying it until Craig deflected the salesman's attention back onto us by insisting that he could not make a purchase without first clearing it with his "wives"!

On Thursday Gillian and I again headed out of Damascus, this time with a driver and car, to visit the town of Qunietra. Qunietra was part of the Golan Heights before the six day war in 1967. It was occupied by the Israeli forces until 1973 when a UN brokered ceasefire saw the Israelies withdraw and the town was again back under Syrian control.

I really enjoyed the hour long drive to Qunietra, partly because I got to see the farmlands in the most fertile part of Syria, but mostly because Gillian and I got to pick the brain of our driver Ramis about his views of the current political situation in Syria. It is very difficult to find out what locals really think about the government as they can be jailed for expressing any anti-government sentiment. But the seclusion of the car allowed Ramis to explain some of the different social and political forces at play in the current situation. Ramis did hasten to add that once we arrived Qunietra, and would be joined by a member of the local security forces (they have to accompany you so you don't wander into a section still riddled with landmines), we would have to stop asking our questions otherwise he would get into lots of trouble.

The Syrian government has elected to leave the town of Qunietra untouched since the Israeli forces withdrew and it now serves as an excellent PR exercise to heighten anti - Israeli feelings amongst locals and visitors alike. As we drove through the town we saw that every single house had been destroyed. The roof sat on the remains of each house -  indicating that they had not been hit by bombs during the fighting (as the Israeli forces claim) but rather systematically destroyed with dynamite. According to the terms of the ceasefire the Israeli forces were supposed to withdraw peacefully from Qunietra and instead, they destroyed every home in the town and used the church, the mosque and the hospital for target practice. The sight of the 3 story hospital riddled with bullet holes was particularly arresting.

Our local security forces guy also took us to the UN patrolled observer zone that now exists as a 100m buffer zone between the border of Israel and Syria. It should be noted that at the time when the Israeli forces were supposed to peacefully withdraw from Qunietra, they got some of their captured soldiers back from Syria. These soldiers reported having suffered terrible torture at the hands of the Syrians and these reports no doubt influenced the Israeli forces actions at Qunietra. For his part, Ramis thinks the Syrian government could leave a couple of the building as monuments, whilst still rebuilding the majority of the town. This way the excellent farming soil would not be going to waste. I am inclined to agree with him. But in a region where who did what to whom first is almost impossible to prove - the Syrian government is naturally reluctant to part with such overwhelming evidence of Israeli brutality.

Roman ruins & the road to Damascus

On my last day in Jordan I headed north to visit the Roman ruins at Jerash. I couldn't have picked a more perfect spring day for wandering around an ancient city, as the clear blue sky afforded plenty of sunshine and the weather was a lovely 20 degrees.

I knew before going there that Jerash was reputed to be one of the best sights for Roman ruins in the Middle East. The Roman city of Gerasa was established about 60BC and reached its peak around the 3rd century AD when its population was estimated to be more than 15,000. What I didn't expect to find, however, was that it would be a complete city nestled on a hill carpeted by grass and yellow wild flowers.

In other places, like Amman, you may see the remains of a temple, or a theatre. But Jerash has the entire city complete with south and north gates, triumphal arches, a hippodrome (where chariot races were held), a huge 90m long oval plaza/forum lined with columns, two temples, many churches, two bathhouses, two theatres - and it is estimated that 90% of the city still remains to be excavated!

Jerash is not Pompeii, but as I wandered along the cardo maximus (800m long colonnaded street) - and saw the grooves in the limestone pavers made by chariot wheels more than 1700 years earlier - I was transported to scenes of Caeciliuis translated from my Latin textbook in high school. I could see Caecilius meeting a banking associate in the forum, Metella (his wife) walking to the Temple of Zeus and Quintus (his son) relaxing at the baths. All in all, a lovely day and a great finish to my time in Jordan.

Early Monday morning I boarded a bus headed for Syria. Alas, I did not experience any "road to Damascus" revelations when I was on the actual road to Damascus - unless you count my unfortunate realisation that the bus did not have a toilet on board (as promised). This situation that was made all the more dire by the fact that I drank more than half a litre of water in the first hour of the trip.

The traffic in Damascus is horrific. Several times on our way into the city, on what I can only assume was a major arterial road, we encountered roadworks and were diverted off the main road. It appeared that our coach, along with several lorries and petrol tankers as well as many cars had been diverted down someone's driveway. Given that during these diversions we had to inch past fences and stone walls, whilst simultaneously destroying the over-hanging branches of several trees in the home owner's gardens, I'm not surprised it took us an hour to reach the bus station from the outskirts of the city. Central Damascus is quite modern and overrun with swarms of honking yellow taxis. I am not exaggerating when I say that at least 80% of the vehicles on the road are taxis.

The backpacker's part of Damascus where I am staying is made up of tiny winding streets and alleys that are really only accessible by foot. This gives it a lovely village atmosphere that is extremely convenient as many cheap restaurants, falafel stalls, bakeries, chemists and internet cafes are within a 100m radius of my hotel. The winding alleys and old town feel of the place reminds me a lot of Varanasi in India. I can see that I am going to be very happy parking myself here for two weeks.

Before travelling to Syria I had heard of political unrest and violent protests in Deraa and Lattakia. BBC world was estimating that at least 60 protestors in these locations had been killed by government forces. I wasn't too worried though and just decided that I'd be careful, monitor the situation and ask for local advice before heading anywhere out of Damascus.

Yesterday breakfast in the sunny courtyard of my hotel was interrupted by the sound of helicopters overhead and the excited hotel worker moving the tv into the courtyard so we could all see the huge protests. As the channel was arabic it took a while to figure out that these were pro-goverment demonstrations and that a huge one was happening today in many cities including Damascus. After getting vague directions as to where the demonstration was likely to be moving to, I grabbed my camera and backpack and headed out to see what it was like for myself.

Emerging from the alleys near my hotel onto a nearby main road I was met with a sea of people waving Syrian flags and posters of President Bashar. There was a real carnival atmosphere in the air and after watching from the alley for a few minutes I decided to head to a nearby overpass for a better view. Many roads were closed to traffic as thousands and thousands of Syrians old and young, male and female marched and chanted in arabic "God, Syria, Bashar - that's all!". There was no anti-government sentiment whatsoever and as most of the city had turned out to passionately express their support for the President - it seemed like an impressive show of national unity.

The people demonstrating seemed to be there of their own free will - but as (I later discovered) schools, goverment departments and many other workplaces were closed for the day "to allow people to demonstrate" it seems like it was at least in part orchestrated by the government. Very difficult to get unbiased reporting within Syria - but by speaking to locals and monitoring the international news websites I think I will be able to keep abreast of developments.

Today I moved hotels to a cheaper and better option that, despite the political unrest, was booked out until today. The Al-Rabie Hotel where I am now is so lovely I'm not sure I'm going to be able to leave. The hotel is a converted 600 year old house complete with stone walls and stain glass windows. The rooms face onto a gorgeous tiled courtyard featuring comfortable chairs clustered around small wooden tables, trailing vines, an orange tree and a fountain. It has amazingly retained its character despite the convenient additions of many mod cons  - including a retractable glass roof that makes you feel a bit like you're eating on centre court at the Australian Open :-)  No wonder LP refers to it as the best backpacker hotel in all of the Middle East!

On a final note for this post - the restrictions on internet usage in Syria mean that I cannot view the actual blog myself from here. It appears to be letting me edit and publish posts, but if someone could drop me quick line to confirm that this post actually appears on the blog that would be great.