The road to Damascus

Friday 24th July
I arrived in antalya minus Nick, who'd travelled via Fethiye to pick up a certain forgotten item... I was picked up by the lovely Kutsi and his Russian girlfriend Jenny. We headed back to his apartment where I met their other guests, Mourat and Doga (pronounced Dough-a) who were father and daughter. Mourat lives in Istanbul and Doga (6) lives in Bahrain with her mother and stepfather. They were really lovely, they entertained me with card and magic tricks that Doga had been learning from her dad. Kutsi then took us all out for a stroll along the Antalya beach front. Antalya's beaches are backdropped by a fabulous mountain range off to the west (the beach is south). Unfortunately I forgot my camera so there aren't any photos!! We had some drinks at one of the beach front Cafes and hung around chatting for a while. We still hadn't heard from Nick so we decided to get some dinner. Kutsi took us to a great open air restaurant where I finally tied the dreaded turkish salted yoghurt drink... and it turned out to be delicious (but I love yoghurt so it wouldn't be for everyone). Just as dinner was served Nick rang! So we ate quickly and then headed to pick him up. Back at the apartment Doga was in the middle of watching 'Prison Break' which we'd managed to avoid watching in Australia but she gave us a whirlwind description of the plot so far then we watched about 4 episodes before bed. I must admit I found it pretty entertaining.

Saturday 25th

This morning we woke to find a freakishly hot day ahead of us, it was about 40 degrees, which we hadn't encountered since India. We had some lunch down by the water then caught the tram to the old town of Antalya. We were so over the heat by then that we decided to hit the Cinema and see the new harry potter movie. It was good, and being in AC was even better :)
We headed back to the apartment and hung out with Kutsi for a while, he was heading over to Side (about 60km outside of Antalya) to where Mourat and Doga had gone to stay in a big fancy resort. He said we could stay for another two nights though which was really nice.

Sunday 26th

We realised quickly that today was another scorcher in Antalya and since we'd seen the old town and the beach already we decided to have a day in watching movies. Kutsi had an awesome DVD collection and so we spent the day on the couch. It was really good, we hadn't had good DVD's and a lounge room to ourselves since we left Australia.

Monday 27th
Today we left for Alanya. Kutsi's business partner came and collected the key off us and we headed for the bus station. We arrived in Alanya about 3pm. I left Nick in the internet cafe and started hitting the nearby hotels looking for a good deal. I found one, with a pool and AC not far from the beach for pretty cheap so we booked in for two nights. Alanya is basically a German-Scandanavian tourist spot. we were told a few times we were the first Aussies in Alanya (I'd say this was a slight exaggeration). People come here in package tours to stay in fancy hotels, lay on the beach and party all night. As a result of this the restaurants are hopeless, they're overpriced and the food is usually attempting to be western and therefore is pretty lousy. We were hoping to find another 'Mosaic cafe' away from the action but we had no such luck. We ended up having a truly atrocious meal at some beach side restaurant.

Tuesday 28th

This was a beach day. We spent a good chunk of the day on the internet trying to book air tickets to Iran, then abandoned that for the beach. The beach was really lovely in Alanya, not wrecked by the thousands of tourists, although there were alot of people there it wasn't as crowded as Oludeniz. Yet again Nick and I swam out past the crowds and hung out the back, Nick on his lilo and me swimming around and sometimes pulling him along behind. It was quite fun. Nearly as fun was watching other people closer to shore getting on and off their lilo's. It was quite entertaining, there was always someone splashing around with their bum in the air.

Wednesday 29th

Today we attempted to find me 'Iran clothes'... its very traumatic. In Iran I have to wear wrist lenght, ankle length, neck height clothes. And they have to be semi-loose. And dark colours. And somehow not too hot so I don't faint in the desert heat. Needless to say, this is a tall order.
You would think however, Turkey being a mostly muslim country, this would be fairly easy to do, but Turkish muslims aren't the same as their Iranian neighbours, they wear ridiculously tigh fitting, colourful clothes that despite the fact that technically they cover everything they leave nothing to the imaginiation. And they look great, but I simply won't be allowed to enter Iran wearing such clothes. So we were searching for a shirt or dress that fit this description of 'Iran clothes' and it wasn't easy. Everything had three-quarter length sleeves, and everything else was brightly coloured or just plain hideous. I found one black longsleeved dress which I can wear with jeans but i'll have to find a scarf to cover the chest bit... then we gave up. I figured I'll find something else in Syria.
That evening we had a bus for Antakya. It left Alanya at 11:30pm and arrived in Antakya (previously known as Antioch for the history buffs playing at home) at 9am. Nick had the brilliant Idea of getting some sleeping tablets so we don't stay awake all night. Neither of us thought about the fact we usually sleep just fine during the day on the bus and we took one pill each when we got on the bus (the pharmacist had told us this was the dosage for 5 hours). Nick was out like a light within half an hour, but after about an hour I got these horrible muscle spasms (caused by the pill I'm sure) and I sat there for an hour involuntarily tensing and untensing every muscle in my body until I finally went out like a light.

Thursday 30th

We got off the bus, having just woken up at 9am. I could barely speak I was so sleepy, and my brain could barely function enough to get into the taxi. Nick was fairing slighlty better and had enough alertness to tell me to wake up, thanks but I actually can't! I managed to not fall asleep in the taxi on the way to the hotel. We got to our room and with no thought of food or drink or showers we crawled directly into bed and didn't wake up until about 6pm, then we went back to sleep until 9pm... SO MUCH for 5 HOURS! that one damn sleeping pill had made us both incomprehensive for almost 24 hours... I vowed to never touch one again. Nick was trying to figure out how much you could actually take for just 5 hours... maybe just lick the tablet? I had planned to spend the day shopping in conservative Antakya, but those ideas were out the window.

Friday 31st

We dragged ourselves out of bed at 9am (still a bit drugged I think), showered, packed up and headed for the bus stop. Our bus to Damascus left at 11:30 supposedly but didn't actually go until 12. We were at the border in an hour. Despite being told by other travellers to expect a 3 hour wait and that no bus will wait for you- we had it pretty easy. There was a fellow on the bus who's job I think it was to help the people who didn't have visa's yet. There were a few hiccups... the guy behind the counter thought he said we were Israeli's and his eyes almost popped out of his head (and ours probably). Then we were ushered into a back room and some dealing was done, however, head honcho guy decided that because we should've gotten our visa in Australia (because we have an embassy) that we had to pay in Australian Dollars... say what? Never in my wildest dreams did I expect them to knock back both my Euros and my US dollars and say I needed our dollar... So, the guy ran up to the exchange office where they fumbled around for ages putting him off continually and helping other people. It became clear they had no Aussie dollars (suprise) and he managed to convice them to give him a reciept for the Us Dollars paid as if he had paid with Australian dollars.. Arghhh! That was all good and now we just needed the plebs behind the counter to stamp the passports, easy right? NO. The guy stamped Nicks, then decided before he would do mine he was going for a Cay break. And do you think anyone else behind that counter would touch that passport? no way. We had to stand there begging the nearby tellers to pick up the passport and stamp the damn thing and they flatly refused. We ended up having to wait until the guy got back from his tea break. I seriously couldn't believe it. Another guy next to me was apologising for them saying he was ashamed that Syria was a muslim country and we were treated like this. He was from Azerbajan. We finally got the stamp and the squiggle that said I could stay in Syria for 15 days (well it said 'he can stay for 15 days') and it cost me another 5 turkish lira in baksheesh. Border guards, more evil than any other beaureacrat/military officer combined.
Nick, counting his American dollars... there weren't many left after that border crossing!
We finally arrived in Damascus, a city for more than two thousand years and vying for the title of longest continually inhabited city in the world...




Our Hotel in Damascus, all the rooms surrounded a central courtyard.

This is a view of the lane our hotel is in... note the collapsing walls and roofs, and this isn't even the old town!!

Saturday 1st August

First order of the day was to hit the old town of course. We bought a map and headed in. If your entering the old city from the east you pretty much have no choice but to enter through one of the fabulous old souq's (bazaars). They are covered by massive arched old iron roofs that are starting to crack so random shafts of light pierce down into the semi gloom of the souq. Damascus's souqs had that more authentic feel that Istanbuls Grand Bazaar seemed to lack. The souq is noisy, filled with the sound of diesel generators, people haggling, and shopkeepers yelling out to customers. You can literally buy ANYTHING in Damascus's various souqs, along with the usual souvenirs there are clothes, shows, kids toys, beach towels, gold, silver, soap, plastic everything, birds, spices, nuts, cherry juice, tea, coffee... really anything you can think of. We saw the Omayyad Cammi (mosque) which is the biggest in Damascus, and next stop was Annanias Church which is in the house of Annanias. Annanias was the Christian who baptised Paul when he turned up in Damascus. We spent the rest of the day perusing the old town, there were several interesting churches, hamman (baths), kahns (old inns) and many, many shops.





Eating tabouleh and fattoush! yum


see? told ya you could buy anything, omo anyone?
one of the Souq's

sunday 2nd

Today Nick was sick. So I kept him company for a few hours then I headed out to see some more of the old city. I looked around the souqs we hadn't seen the day before, there was one almost completely devoted to sweets and a vendor gave me some candied orange after I took a photo of his stall :)
I found myself near one of the city Palace's which just happended to now be a museum so I went into have a look. The houses in Damascus are usually centred around a main courtyard which all the rooms come off. Each room was decorated extravagently and dedicated to one part of 'life' in old Damascus.
The door of an old Inn (Kahn).
Backstreets in the old town
This may be the meal that made Nick sick. Check out the olive oil imprisoning my hommous under it...
Monday 3rd

Today we hit the National Musuem. It has heaps of antiquties from around Syria including Ugarit which is a city dating back to like 4000 BC. There was also an interesting art exhibit in the foyer which was probably the best thing in the museum. We had a delicious lunch in the old town and finally had some Fattoush (A delicious salad from this region of the world) which we'd been looking for everywhere. We had another stroll around the old town for a few more hours, you really can't get bored of the old town there is always something interesting to look at
Annanias's place
Cay anyone?
Old Roman stuff, that is the entry to the biggest souq and opposite is the mosque.
The sea of people
The restaurant where we finally found Fattoush!

The Palace courtyard