Monday, August 3, 2009

Road to Damascus

I took a bus on 17 June 2009 from Aleppo to Damascus with Lisanne, the Dutch archaeology student. The journey of nearly 200 miles took 4 and a half hours and the views along the road were just amazing, saw loads of mountains and overloaded trucks carrying apricots.
On the bus trip from Turkey to Aleppo I didn't want to take any photos at all, I thought it might be frowned upon. You know you can read some real crap on the internet - I saw somewhere that you should be careful what you take photos of in Syria. Well that's wrong - it's like anywhere else in the world, you just need to use your common sense. The people are welcoming and don't mind being photographed as long as you're not messing around or taking the piss out of them.
Ahmed, from the hostel in Aleppo gave us the name of a hostel in Damascus - so we went there when we got to the bus station. The hostel was great, in the heart of the old town, near restaurants and cafes and all. Our roomate, Ben - an American archaeology student was able to show us around the city and it was really good to meet him - just like having our own tour guide. He had traveled all round the region because of what he was studying and it was very interesting to hear some of his tales.

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