Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to you all! Its now 2:30pm Syria time on the first day of 2006! We are very hopeful that it will prove better than the last 2 days of 2005!

We arrived in Damascus about an hour late and were pleasantly surprised to find our luggage had arrived too! As it was the first off the plane we can only assume it made it onto the plane by a whisker. After an interrogation by immigration (during which Maria didn’t really seem to exist) we made it to the arrivals hall to find that our contact wasn’t there. After giving up on using a public telephone (the only one was being used by a man whom also had a mobile phone in each hand), we jumped in a cab to our hotel. We found out later that the tour company office here in Syria thought we arrived on GF903, 3 hours later than the GF901 flight we were in fact on.

We met our Syrian tour guide, Bashar, at the hotel at 7pm after a quick two hour kip. We have two girls, a Brazilian named Virginia and an Australian named Heidi travelling with us at the moment, and another 5 people who started the tour in Turkey will be joining us tonight in Aleppo. After our initial briefing, we sought out a restaurant recommended by Bashar and stuffed ourselves full of Syrian food (which is basically the same as Turkish food, only cheaper).

When we got back to the hotel we decided to welcome in the New Year horizontally and snoring. We hit the hay about 9pm and stayed there until the alarm interrupted our slumber at 5am. We repacked our bags, had breakfast at 6:15am and the group caught a minibus to the main bus station in Damascus for the journey to Aleppo. We missed the 7am, so we had to wait for the 7:30. The bus was quite comfortable, but about half an hour down the road the fan belt snapped off and damaged the radiator. We therefore waited another half hour for another bus to collect us. We stopped in Hama for a toilet break (the details of which are too horrific for a document such as this which may fall into the hands of children or adults) and continued on reaching Aleppo about 12:30pm.

Having settled into our hotel here, we went to lunch as a group and then went in search of an ATM. Our Virgin cards aren’t working in any of the ATMs here, so we are glad that we have National cards as a backup (yes indeed, the very card I left in Caboolture on day 1). Still this is a hassle as all our cash is on the Virgin.

Incidentally I have bought yet another watch, since the flashy Bolex is garnering far more attention from the locals than I would wish. The new one is suitably discreet and cost me even less than my lunch. Bartering over it was quite amusing however, as it turned into a sort of street theatre for the locals. I’m sure the proprietor was very happy with the attention it brought to his stall!

And so we sit in an internet café in downtown Aleppo enjoying your company. We may go to the museum this afternoon, and tomorrow we visit the souk, the citadel and some mosques. We’ll fill you in as the opportunity arises.

Fletch’s tip for new travellers


It is often said that when in Rome do as the Romans do. This does not always work. The penchant Arab men have of ignoring women is a cultural trait, it should not be tried by an Australian man travelling with his own (forthright) wife. This particular faux pas tends to lead to complications later on (such as internal bleeding). YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!