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Tuesday, September 29, 2009

EID holiday ......



Well here we are again back in the UAE after an amazing visit to Syria.

We flew from Dubai to Damascus, which is only a 3 hour flight, and went to stay in the oldest, continually inhabited city in the world. Our accommodation was in Straight Street which was spoken about in the Bible, over 2000 years ago......... As you can imagine history oozes out of the city from the massive Ummyahad mosque in the Muslim quarter to the St. Annanias church where Paul was purportedly baptised, in the Christian quarter. Down every little vine covered walkway you could see glimpses of the past where buildings were dangerously listing and being prevented from falling any further by metal beams connecting to a house across the road. There were covered street souks that sold gold, spices, rugs, homewares, clothes and delightful Arabic sweets. On the streets there were elderly men playing backgammon or smoking shisha whilst pedestrians had the right of way and the taxis tooted their horns trying to move along the pace of this crowded city. There was an apparent French influence to the city with the better class restaurants offering French cuisine, elderly men speaking Arabic or French and croissants being freshly baked each day and sold on the streets. Ron took his life in his hands and decided to have a haircut and shave in a tiny barber shop on Straight St. The barber had obviously been plying his trade for many years and the equipment he was using looked like it had been around in a previous Century. All was fine until the razor came out and he got the shakes. Ron couldn't get out of the chair quick enough .....

In the old city it's popular for tourists to find accommodation in the old Damascene houses. Most have 2 or 3 private courtyards consisting of open spaces surrounded by rooms and containing a water fountain, citrus trees with old gnarled trunks and quiet corners to sit and enjoy the solitude away from the hubbub of daily life outside.

We hired a driver and headed out of the city. Our first stop was at Maalula, a village nestled into the mountains where there is an interesting church and convent of St Thecla. Pilgrims come from all over the world to visit the church as Thecla was reportedly a pupil of St Pauls. Perched on the top of the hill is a Christ statue, reportedly like the one in Rio de Janiero but although large, it's nowhere near on the same scale. It's the only village where Aramaic is still spoken which was the language of Jesus 2000 years ago. From this village we headed on our way stopping at the Bagdad Cafe 66 to enjoy the hospitality of a bedouin family. Whilst there I was encouraged to try on one of their headscarfs and to see what it felt like to have to cover my face. It was an unusual experience and one I think I can live without.

Palmyra is about 200kms northeast of Damascus and it's home to an old Roman city dating back to the 1st century AD. It was an important city on the old silk road route between China, India and Europe. It's now a UNESCO site but it's isolation means that it's not overcrowded with tourists and wandering through the ruins is a relatively peaceful experience. The scale of the site is enormous and we stayed until sunset and perched ourselves on a hill above the ruins where we were able to see the evening glow intensify then fade away before we needed to head back to Damascus. We were a little shocked when we saw signs on the road that said Iraq was only 150kms away but there were no dramas except for a brief police check of our vehicle as we left the site.

I hope this has given you a glimpse of what we experienced so I've put a few photos of our travels into a small slideshow. I hope you enjoy them. 'Til next time............

3 comments:

misslaz said...

Fascinating photos Mum and Dad. Looks like a completely different world!

Unknown said...

Agree -- amazing photos!! And a great post (whoever wrote this one) ... K and I felt like we were sitting there watching the sun go down with you!

Miss ya!

D.
xoxo

Jan and Ron said...

Glad you enjoyed it.......