Day Five Damascus

Photo 1 : Ummayad Mosque, Damascus Minaret

Photo 2: Ummayad Mosque, Damascus Courtyard gold mosaics

Photo 3: Damascus Pistachio pastries

Photo 4: On display inside the Azem Palace museum, a 19th Century softdrink bottle, perhaps?

Photo 5: Damascus Roman Western Temple Gate

Photos 2, 3 and 6 from Wayne

Lebanon to Damascus in a taxi. To catch a taxi, one has to wait until the cab is filled before it leaves. So at th taxi area, drivers will shout out there destination. Each seat in the car is worth “x” amount of money and you can buy out the seats and go immediately, though generally the wait for other passengers is not too long. I waited 45 minutes. You can walk around the area as the driver keeps an eye on his customers. I can’t exactly remember how much I paid though it’s a ridiculously small price to pay for what you get.

Getting from Lebanon to Syria meant a slightly organised rigmarole of getting in and out of the taxi on four separate occasions. There’s been tension between Syria and Lebanon in the recent past, though at the moment it has eased off a little. The actual people speak kindly of each other, which is different of my experience in the UK where many Scottish border people have little kind words for the English.
My companions on the trip were four Syrian men and a Palestinian lady. All of them really worked hard to let me feel welcome. These are the little moments that are the real deal and it makes me feel good just remembering the kindness.
I was alike a hot chip to the seagulls when I was dropped near the bus station and set upon by hotel touts.. mind you, this was the only experience of being really hassled for money in Syria. The taxi driver really gave it to the hotel peddlers on my behalf. They backed off.

I walked to the hotel, Al Haramein, a great find off the internet in a little pedestrian alley.
A nice old building with courtyard area.
I had a scour around the town for a few hours. The souks (markets, shops in a covered bazaar setting) are a great place to get look at a cross section of the locals and easily feel a little more part of the scene. I had a kebab and fruit juice (hand squeezed, around 40 cents).

Damasus is the oldest continually inhabited city in the world.
The city radiates from the Ummayad Mosque, built on what was originally an Aramean
Temple 3000 BC. It claims to contain the head of John the Baptist, though so do a few other places in the world).
When I got back to hotel, I started getting the shivers and could not get warm enough. It was coldish though not ridiculous. I put on a kerosene heater, as well as four layers including a fleece and feel asleep, exhausted under a couple of blankets.
My friend Wayne was to arrive from London that night around midnight.
I awoke when he arrived.

The next day we went out to discover more of Damascus, which essentially was looking at the mosque as well as walking the atmospheric streets of the old city and we had a look at the Azem Palace which is old Damascus House built during the 18th century. It has displays of Damascene arts and craftsmanship.
We were keen to move onto Palmyra which was four and a half hours away, so we were at the bus station which was one of the most chaotic places I’ve ever seen. Not a huge place, though a security check line ups, touts all over with a cut throat business mentality; it was absolute madness. Despite all of this, or perhaps because of it, we were on a bus within 3 minutes. This sparked a verbal fight between two touts. We were on our way…hopefully to Palmyra..we were sort of sure.