Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Please email me your Halloween pictures - you know how I hate to miss out on Halloween!

Syria - Share Taxi Ride to Jordan

To get to Amman, Jordan from Damascus, Syria, we took a share taxi. We shared our cab with Mr. Saeed, a businessman from the Kingdom of Bahrain, a small island country on the coast of Saudi Arabia. He buys land all over the middle east (and one time in England), subdivides it and then sells to investors in Bahrain. More interestingly, he has TWO WIVES! Mr. Saeed has a great sense of humor, so I asked him all sorts of nosy questions, like do you all live in one big house, do your wives fight with each other. He has two houses on either side of a pool - each wife with her three children lives in one house but they share the pool. Yes, of course the two Mrs. Saeeds fight, which is why he is careful to divide everything exactly the same between them - same amount of money and use of car; he alternates days between the two houses. Bill looked at him in awe and said 'I don't know how you do it, just one wife is too much for me' and got kicked in the shin by me.

Mr. Saeed bought us Pepsi and snack for the ride, and we talked non-stop during the three hour taxi ride munching on potato chips. He couldn't believe that we have been married for over three years and still have no children. He laughingly told us "in four years, I have six!" He also teased me by saying maybe Bill needs another wife and got the evil eye from me. We promised him we will send him a picture of our son when we have one. I think Mr.Saeed has been talking to my mother.

Mr. Saeed was really nice to us - he gave us his business card and said to call him if we want to visit Bahrain, he will get us tourist visas and put us up at his house. He also had his friend that picked him up in Amman, Jordan drive us to our hotel. People in the middle east are really hospitable - starting in Turkey, people have been giving us food, cigarettes, stopping to help us if we look lost, one random guy fixed my rented bicycle...

Syria - Damascus

Damascus is one of the oldest continuously inhibited cities in the world - Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Mongols, Turks and French were here at one time or another.

Syria must be having a tourism boom - we spent five days in Damascus and had to stay at three different hotels because they all had full reservations. The massive white building below, which we thought was a government building, turned out to be the newly built Four Seasons hotel. Unfortunately, it was not in our budget:

Our first day in the city, we walked over to the old city to go to the souqs - almost all shops were closed! We had forgotten that Friday is the weekend on the Muslim calendar. To be honest, since we haven't worked for over six months, the weekday and weekend distinction has become very blurry for us (sorry).

Here are some items sold at the souqs - it is a shame we can't buy any souvenirs; our bags are filled to the top as it is...:

The camera flashed so you can't really see, but he is barbecuing the meat with a blow torch:

One of the entrances to the souqs is this 3rd century Roman gate:

This is the Umayyad Mosque. It was converted from a Byzantine cathedral, which in turn was built on the site of a Roman temple:

I had thought it would be very quiet in a mosque, but it was actually quite boisterous, especially in the outside courtyard where people socialized and kids were taking advantage of the slippery marble floor by doing the slide.

There are these great fresh juice stands every corner - my favorite is banana and pomegranate:

This restaurant is in the courtyard of an 18th century house:

Historic coffeehouse:

Dinner - fresh mints and peppers are always served with the food:

Syria - Aleppo

Aleppo's big attraction is its covered souqs (bazzar) - we read that in a straight line, it would be 10kms long. I bought a pretty scarf there. You are suppose to bargain, but the price quoted for my scarf was 125 Syrian pounds, which is about $2.5. I just paid. No need to be cheap:

We are very happy to be back in budget travel land. Our cab ride from the hotel to the bus station was $1.5. Our nice and clean hotel room, with TV and air conditioning, is $20:

Our room did have the funky old-style toilet - it's the squatting kind, similar to the old-style Korean toilets. You use the hose to clean the bowl and flush:

Entrance to hotel. Pictures of President Assad Jr. is everywhere!:
This is the Great Mosque - The nice entrance attendant at the mosque told us that we should pray for a baby - he must have been talking to my mother:

The Christian quarter (about 10% of Syrian population are Christians):
Rooftop restaurant:

On a very disturbing note, the internet cafe I am sitting right now is playing Michael Bolton.

Syria - Border Immigration Station

The official rule on Syria visa is that if there is a Syrian embassy in your own country, you must get a visa there. This was not an option for us because the visa is only good for three months and we have been on the road for six. In practice, citizens of most countries have no problem getting a visa at the border. However, with Bill being a US citizen, we weren't so sure.

We got to the Turkish border town of Antakya (Syria map still shows this town as part of Syria, with "temporary boundary" showing the actual border) and asked around. The bus operator to Syria said it was "no problem", which roughly translates to "maybe it is possible."

We decided to give it a try and got to the Syria border immigration station; alas, Bill needs to wait for the infamous "fax from Damascus" approving his entry into the country, which takes anywhere from two hours to infinity.

For us, it took TWELVE HOURS. We read, played card games, drank tea with the tourist office guys (one of them was an aspiring poet - he told us that Arabic language has 10 different words for 'love', starting from a little more than like to the epic, perfect love).

After 7 pm, it became quite informal as the immigration station quieted down and we sat in the immigration police captain's office and watched an Egyptian movie with about six Syrian police officers, including the captain. Then, someone brought us diet Pepsi, I showed around my family pictures and our wedding picture, the policeman with a baby girl showed us pictures of his daughter from his cell phone.

All above activities were interjected with processing of other unusual visas in the captain's office, laughing discussion in Arabic, angry discussion in Arabic, a policeman talking to his girlfriend on his cell phone, four policemen comparing their shoes, and us sitting around a table with about six Syrian policemen making small talk in pantomime.

Finally, a young handsome policeman who is studying at the university (and thus spoke English) took pity on us and called the Damascus office. Either that or they wanted to get rid of us. At any rate, we finally walked out of there at 11 pm with visas in our hands. Yay...? We looked around - we were at the border no man's land, our bus had left us eleven hours ago, all other buses had stopped running since it was so late and we saw no cabs.

A guy approached us and said he had a car and could take us to our destination city of Alepo, 45 kms away. We generally don't take suspicious unmarked cabs (or in this case, a minivan), but we had no choice. Fortunately, he was not a serial killer, but he had some suicidal tendencies in his driving, using the horn instead of the break and passing cars only at the most dangerous moments.

We got dropped off at the hotel we had picked out from the Lonely Planet around midnight. It was full. At this point, Bill and I lost it and got into a fight.

What a day!

Turkey - Cappadocia

As the bus went around the bend into the valley, we couldn't believe our eyes - we were in Smurf land! Huge stone hills have eroded into mushroom-like shapes, into which houses and churches were carved:

A church carved inside the mushroom rocks, from 10-13th century AD:

Many of the cave houses have been converted into hotels. We declined, since I knew the novelty would wear off for me in about five minutes and I would begin to wonder why the heck I was sleeping in a cave.

We also visited the Derinkuyu underground city, dating back to 7th century BC, but developed fully by the early Christians who hid there. It had seven levels, complete with churches and wells, and people could live there up to six months at a time:

This rolling stone door was used to block off the narrow tunnel roads from the enemies:

The cook making lunch at a restaurant:

Bonus Items 1 -Vagabonding life...

Self-laundry:

Believe it or not, all this stuff fits into our two backpacks!:

Waiting for the bus:

Bonus Item 2 - The global Korean scheme. This Korean sign says "10% discount for Korean travellers":

Turkey - Olympos & Konya

Olympos:

We spent the Bayram holiday (the end of Ramadan) in the town of Olympos. Olympos has a pretty beach, behind which lies the ruins of an ancient city of the same name. It was filled with young Turkish people on vacation and had a New Year´s Eve type vibe. It was definitely the ´party´ portion of our trip - we went out every night with the people from the cruise and the new Turkish friends we made, dancing to Turkish house music.

Lounging at the hotel:

Ancient Olympos, built by the Lycians around 2nd century AD. It was very Indiana Jones, with ruins half hidden by vines:

Chimaera fires - some sort of gas seeps out from these mountain rocks and supposedly there has been these flames here for over two thousand years:

Konya:

We were told that the western and southern (Mediterranean) part of Turkey, which borders Greece, is more 'westernized,' and the eastern part of Turkey, next to Syria and Iraq, remains more traditional. After the cruise and the partying, we were ready for some cultural sightseeing, so we took a long bus ride to Konya, the founding place of whirling dervishes, a mystical sect of Islam.

Whirling dervishes (picture courtesy of the web):

We were walking around the historical part of Kornya, with cold air jolting our system (Kornya is much colder than where we have been before), and the mosques and pilgrims giving off a calm, spiritual air...wait, is that a guy peeing next to that tree? Due to the unfortunate viewing of the public urination, the mystic atmosphere was ruined for us, but the Melvana Museum (former lodge of the whirling dervishes turned ınto a museum) and the adjoining mosque were still an impressive sight:

Inside the mosque:

Lunch - Turkish pizza (pide) and tea (çay). There are crushed red peppers at every table - I put it on everything!:

Turkey - Blue Cruise

We took the four days - three nights gullet (traditional Turkish wooden boat) cruise from Fethiye to Olympos. We would wake up to the breakfast bell, have breakfast, swim, cruise to a beautiful cove, have lunch, swim some more, have dinner & drinks, then go to sleep under the stars on the deck. (Except Bill and I woke up at 3am each night to go back to our cabin - too damp and cold outside!)

Lycian ancient city - an earthquake in 2nd AD caused half the city to sink under the ocean:

The Titanic shot:

The ice cream boat:

The group consisted of three crew members and fifteen passengers, ranging from early twenty-something party girls to a family with a ten year old, from various parts of the world. There was more drama than day time soap on the boat and the boat captain had the flu and was seen passed out sleeping everywhere, but it certainly was never boring and I had a great time! (Except for when I got seasick.)

Highlights: The fabulous Juliet from Australia braiding all our hair and showing us yoga moves; party girls Alena from Czech Republic and Mia from Australia sneaking off in the middle of the night in the small motor boat in search of a better, more fun boat and us older geezers watching the progress with binoculars; going to Smuggler's Inn, a bar reachable only by boat, and dancing the night away; the outrageous Swede Robert's crazy political reform ideas, including free hard drugs for anyone over sixty.

Bill, the life of the party at Smuggler's Inn: