Explore ! !

Surprisingly, the company whose trip I went on - Explore - have added a link from its website to this blog.  It has included it in its section entitled "Emerging Destinations" - even though Lebanon & Syria isn't in its list of such destinations !

Perhaps I'll be given an even bigger discount off my future trips with the company ! ! !

At the end of February I'm off to Bangladesh, India & Bhutan with this company on its "Inside the Hidden Kingdom" trip.  I'll try to do another blog covering this trip - the initial work is still work in progress but it will eventually be  here.

As I've put elsewhere, please feel free to leave a comment / feedback here - if nothing else, it shows that I'm not talking to myself.

Photographs 2

I've now finished playing with my snaps and they are now available here .

They are split across several albums as there were too many to be accommodated in one !

A confession !  I've added some photos from my last visit to Syria to fill gaps in those I took this time - the additional ones are usually the ones with blue sky !

Random Terminal Thoughts and Impressions

Just a few random thoughts and impressions from the trip :

• Snow in the Chauff mountains and the hostel in which we stayed (Australia)
• Byblos's town & harbour's character & atmosphere
• Street food : fresh & tasty - a round pitta bread (warm from the cooking stone) filled with meat carved straight off the kebab, a bit of salad and some chips rolled and folded into an overgrown sausage roll with mayonnaise or gravy oozing from the bottom.  All for 20p each - especially good with orange juice squeezed as you watch.
• As ever, the joy of sitting and watching the population flow past. 
• The incongruity of a young girl in a plain fully modest clothing covering almost everything flashing trim ankles supported by Jimmy Choo high heels.
• The privilege of seeing Baalbeck with nobody else there and a covering of snow.
• The chaotic organisation / logic of the local traffic - so many near misses but few actual collisions : we didn't see one in two weeks.
• The ant heap bustle of the bazaar and souks - ranging from the grand vaulted ceiling of the main thoroughfare of Damascus's bazaar peppered with bullet holes to the narrow alleyways just wide enough for two donkeys to pass.  Through small doorways the courtyards of large khans (caravansaries) that hosted merchants plying their trade along the fabled Silk Road.
• Snow on the oranges still on the trees
• The melancholic calls to prayers by the Muezzin - always moving but I wish that they would all synchronise their watches instead of different mosques starting at different times : the resultant competition is cacophoconic !

My next trip is now two months away and, as soon as I arrive home, I must attempt to obtain the two necessary visas.  Both are for countries that are notorious for the inefficiency of their Embassy’s visas sections : Bangladesh and India.  Luckily, there is a Bangladesh Assistant High Commissioner in based Birmingham who say they will issue a visa within five days - without having to resort to the perils of the Post Office.

The Indian visa is made more complicated in that they have now 'out-sourced' the process to a private company and that I need a visa specially endorsed for multiple visits - they now only issue single entry visas with which you are not allowed to re-enter within six months.  To follow this visit, go to my main site, see right hand column.

Across the Desert to Palmyra

Doura Europos

Christmas Day started over breakfast with a few desultory wishes of "Happy Christmas" but not much other evidence of the season of good cheer - but that was, ostensibly, one of the reasons I came on this trip :Bah Humbug !

We drove South to what been the caravan city and great Greco-Roman fortress at Dura Euopos.  During a decisive battle against the Sassanians, the town’s inhabitants piled up sand against the Western walls as a defence against the under-mining of the walls.  Although the battle was lost, the paintings were beautifully preserved and we had seen some in the National Museum - it was here that the synagogue in the museum had been found buried.  Apart from the walls there was little left of this large site - what it did offer was the opportunity to pick over the thousands upon thousands of pottery shards littering the site.  The high vantage point of the walls looming over the Euphrates River gave us an eagle's view of the valley floor and its extensive agriculture - neat little fields bounded by small bunds to contain the water, the regular lines left by the plough, the background rhythmical thump of a pump raising water from the papyrus lined river and small figures walking up & down their fields hand broadcasting seeds or fertiliser.

We then moved on to the royal city state of Mari – once a great trading centre and important for the production of tin, an essential ingredient of bronze.  However, hosted four civilisations over the millenia, there is little there bar some sketchy ruins and a large cover excavation of a palace.  These archaeologists must have vivid imaginations to reconstruct detail of building design & use and everyday life from the barest fragments, shards and degraded walls.  Today my imagination finally failed me and I could see any of the lives and peoples being described.

From Mari, we continue our journey into the one of the towns at the heart of the Syrian Desert - Palmyra - "Bride of the Desert"-  one of the most famous caravan cities in the world.   The bankers of this highly developed oasis financed the camel convoys moving between the East and West, and Palmyra grew so rich that, under the leadership of Queen Zenobia, it became a challenge to Rome itself.   Roman legions razed the city walls in 271AD and carried the spirited lady off to Italy in golden chains.   Its former glory can still be seen in the colonnades, triumphal arches, monuments and temples dyed pink by time and sun (or more mundanely, from the rusting iron oxide in the rock  !).

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYBODY