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So, it has been awhile since I've had the chance to sit down on the internet, but I shall tell you the most I can about our Syrian experience in my allotted time.
We arrived in Damascus on Friday after what was absolutely the most chaotic airport check in experience ever. There were people everywhere getting randomly shifted or just shifting themselves from vaguely definable queues. It's pretty clear that there not worried about the new liquid rules here either, despite the signs, since our giant drink bottles kept getting waved through. Pretty funny. Nevertheless, Mary and Jess were waiting for us when we got out and it was very exciting to see them both!! We made plans to meet up later and the rest of use jumped in the ICARDA shuttle into town.
My first impressions of Damascus were that it was a pretty ordinary place and that I'd never seen a city made up of so much concrete with so little of anything else. All along the road in to town families were having picnics amongst the litter and the few pine trees that lined the highway. We got to our incredibly dodgy hotel, booked by ICARDA, with a view of lovely ageing concrete buildings. While we waited for Mary and Jess we went and had drinks in the Cham Palace, then Mary took us all off to a fantastic restaurant in the old city. We spend the next couple of days actually exploring Damascus, and I have to say that, despite first impressions, its actually quite a nice place. It has quite a spectacular backdrop set into the craggy hills, and it's actually very trendy in many respects. The old city is really lovely, especially its Souqs, and the Ummayad mosque is absolutely magnificent. Jess and I had a really interesting time there (after we put on our Da Vinci Code brown monk outfits). Its courtyard is quite spectacular, but the most interesting thing to see was all of the Iranian pilgirms visiting the Shrine of Hussein and the tomb of John the Baptist.It's hard to explain, but the pilgrims weep and chant against these tombs, and the weeping, prayers and chants echo through the halls in a haunting kind of way. It was also really interesting to see them conduct a sort of service in the mosque - the prayers and verses and responses all chanted, echoing throughout the mosque.
On our last day in Damascus we went down to Bosra to see its old basalt city and its amazingly preserved amphitheatre. Getting there and away was a bit of a drama as we were using standard Syrian transport and couldn't speak any arabic, but we were lucky that, once we got on the bus to Bosra we met up with a group of foreign students studying arabic in Damascus and we were able to travel around with them. We had a great lunch in a "restaurant" out the back of someone's house and a good time looking around the ruins.
On Tuesday we decided to head to Deir Mar Musa, a combined catholic/orthodox monastary in the South of Syria. The monastary is made up of both nuns and monks, and is the last functioning desert monastary in Syria. We caught the bus to the nearest town, where they arranged a lift for us out into the desert and to the monastary. When we got there, in the middle of day and its terrible heat, we had to climp 1.5km up a steep slope with our bags to the monastary. It was pretty amazing, but a very hot climb. We were shown to the dark all female dorm where we were able to sleep the night. We basically had to crawl in because all the doors are three foot high. Then we went down to lunch. The monastary provides for who ever wishes to come, and we had a graet lunch of rice, fava beans, vegetable soup and yoghurt with a few tourists and some local syrians who ha come for a picnic. This was a massive family of about seventeen people, who spent lots of time talking to us in arabic, giving us chips and coke, and ultimately taking pictures of us on their mobile phones. We took pictures of them and it was all very jovial. They wanted to take us home to Homs, but we declined. It was so hilarious, because we just started hearing these mobile phone noises and realised people were standing behind us to get their photo taken near us. Then they just took pictures up close. Very amusing.
That night we went to meditation and to mass in their thirteenth century church, which was really interesting as his homily related both to revelation and comments on that days primaries and comments made by Hillary Clinton on Iran (he gave us a trancated english summary). We then ate an insane amount of goats cheese and tomato and went to bed. It was horribly uncomfortable, made worse by the fact that a midnight some girl let loose with several blood curdling screams which terrified us. We still don't know what it was about but we think a cat jumped on her, as one also jumped on Jess in the middle of the night. Very tired in the morning, I hit my head not less then six times on the stone doors. I still have a very sore spot!!
Very much looking forward to a shower in Aleppo, we successfully negotiated the system of taxis, service taxis and buses required to get to Aleppo, Our taki driver in Homs was so excited to have Aussies in the car he yelled out to all his friends "Australia, Australia" as we drove along.
Alas I have to wind up, but suffice it to say that I am currently in Palmyra in the middle of a horrendous dust storm. The others are in the ruins and I am going to meet them for a shorter time as unfortunately, I may have either had a cold in Damascus, or just terrible allergies to all the dust, but I've now got a very bad case of laryngitis and this is the third day on which I have been totally mute!!! Not really a highlight - we spend our wedding anniversary in a sort of dodgy hotel, with me unable to talk in the middle of a rather apocalyptic looking scene. Oh well, I hope my voice does eventually come back, it would be nice to communicate other than by han d gestures in the midst of all this amazing stuff. It's hard not being able to share your thoughts We're heading back into Damascus today, after a lot of driving around and to Jordan tomorrow. Will be somewhat happy to leave Jenny and Fraser behind, but Jess and I have been excellent travelling comanions and have been having a really good time. Aside from this, we haven't been sick at all (Rohan and Jeff were while we were away), and have been REALLY enjoying our culinary adventures. It's been a major highlight - some of the food here is just really great.
I'll pick this up later, hope you are all well. I'm off to the temple of Bel.
We arrived in Damascus on Friday after what was absolutely the most chaotic airport check in experience ever. There were people everywhere getting randomly shifted or just shifting themselves from vaguely definable queues. It's pretty clear that there not worried about the new liquid rules here either, despite the signs, since our giant drink bottles kept getting waved through. Pretty funny. Nevertheless, Mary and Jess were waiting for us when we got out and it was very exciting to see them both!! We made plans to meet up later and the rest of use jumped in the ICARDA shuttle into town.
My first impressions of Damascus were that it was a pretty ordinary place and that I'd never seen a city made up of so much concrete with so little of anything else. All along the road in to town families were having picnics amongst the litter and the few pine trees that lined the highway. We got to our incredibly dodgy hotel, booked by ICARDA, with a view of lovely ageing concrete buildings. While we waited for Mary and Jess we went and had drinks in the Cham Palace, then Mary took us all off to a fantastic restaurant in the old city. We spend the next couple of days actually exploring Damascus, and I have to say that, despite first impressions, its actually quite a nice place. It has quite a spectacular backdrop set into the craggy hills, and it's actually very trendy in many respects. The old city is really lovely, especially its Souqs, and the Ummayad mosque is absolutely magnificent. Jess and I had a really interesting time there (after we put on our Da Vinci Code brown monk outfits). Its courtyard is quite spectacular, but the most interesting thing to see was all of the Iranian pilgirms visiting the Shrine of Hussein and the tomb of John the Baptist.It's hard to explain, but the pilgrims weep and chant against these tombs, and the weeping, prayers and chants echo through the halls in a haunting kind of way. It was also really interesting to see them conduct a sort of service in the mosque - the prayers and verses and responses all chanted, echoing throughout the mosque.
On our last day in Damascus we went down to Bosra to see its old basalt city and its amazingly preserved amphitheatre. Getting there and away was a bit of a drama as we were using standard Syrian transport and couldn't speak any arabic, but we were lucky that, once we got on the bus to Bosra we met up with a group of foreign students studying arabic in Damascus and we were able to travel around with them. We had a great lunch in a "restaurant" out the back of someone's house and a good time looking around the ruins.
On Tuesday we decided to head to Deir Mar Musa, a combined catholic/orthodox monastary in the South of Syria. The monastary is made up of both nuns and monks, and is the last functioning desert monastary in Syria. We caught the bus to the nearest town, where they arranged a lift for us out into the desert and to the monastary. When we got there, in the middle of day and its terrible heat, we had to climp 1.5km up a steep slope with our bags to the monastary. It was pretty amazing, but a very hot climb. We were shown to the dark all female dorm where we were able to sleep the night. We basically had to crawl in because all the doors are three foot high. Then we went down to lunch. The monastary provides for who ever wishes to come, and we had a graet lunch of rice, fava beans, vegetable soup and yoghurt with a few tourists and some local syrians who ha come for a picnic. This was a massive family of about seventeen people, who spent lots of time talking to us in arabic, giving us chips and coke, and ultimately taking pictures of us on their mobile phones. We took pictures of them and it was all very jovial. They wanted to take us home to Homs, but we declined. It was so hilarious, because we just started hearing these mobile phone noises and realised people were standing behind us to get their photo taken near us. Then they just took pictures up close. Very amusing.
That night we went to meditation and to mass in their thirteenth century church, which was really interesting as his homily related both to revelation and comments on that days primaries and comments made by Hillary Clinton on Iran (he gave us a trancated english summary). We then ate an insane amount of goats cheese and tomato and went to bed. It was horribly uncomfortable, made worse by the fact that a midnight some girl let loose with several blood curdling screams which terrified us. We still don't know what it was about but we think a cat jumped on her, as one also jumped on Jess in the middle of the night. Very tired in the morning, I hit my head not less then six times on the stone doors. I still have a very sore spot!!
Very much looking forward to a shower in Aleppo, we successfully negotiated the system of taxis, service taxis and buses required to get to Aleppo, Our taki driver in Homs was so excited to have Aussies in the car he yelled out to all his friends "Australia, Australia" as we drove along.
Alas I have to wind up, but suffice it to say that I am currently in Palmyra in the middle of a horrendous dust storm. The others are in the ruins and I am going to meet them for a shorter time as unfortunately, I may have either had a cold in Damascus, or just terrible allergies to all the dust, but I've now got a very bad case of laryngitis and this is the third day on which I have been totally mute!!! Not really a highlight - we spend our wedding anniversary in a sort of dodgy hotel, with me unable to talk in the middle of a rather apocalyptic looking scene. Oh well, I hope my voice does eventually come back, it would be nice to communicate other than by han d gestures in the midst of all this amazing stuff. It's hard not being able to share your thoughts We're heading back into Damascus today, after a lot of driving around and to Jordan tomorrow. Will be somewhat happy to leave Jenny and Fraser behind, but Jess and I have been excellent travelling comanions and have been having a really good time. Aside from this, we haven't been sick at all (Rohan and Jeff were while we were away), and have been REALLY enjoying our culinary adventures. It's been a major highlight - some of the food here is just really great.
I'll pick this up later, hope you are all well. I'm off to the temple of Bel.
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