Cham Palace Damascus

... told me to call him if I needed any more rides around Damascus while I was there. The guy really knows how to get customers!<br><br>The cab also provided my first test of my planned answer for when people asked my nationality. Having grown up in a country that warns travelers against travel to Syria and designates the country as a &#8220;state sponsor of terror,&#8221; I couldn&#8217;t decide if I wanted to say I was American or some European ...

... welcome', but then walked away again. I also thought alot about what happened earlier with the shoe shine guy, I could have given in and let him shine my boots, if he had not grabbed my ankles the way he did. He must have been really desperate to start acting the way he did. <br><br>When it turned dark, for the third time I walked into the old city, this time to find a restaurant to eat. Although I wanted to use up the rest of my money, I was still hesistant to go into ...

... from Minneapolis who returns to Damascus for few months every year and can often be found holding court at a bar owned by a friend in the Christian Quarter of the Old City, tells it convincingly. It's good enough that I'll bet at least one of you will recount it at some point down the line (albeit with strong caveats), or at least look it up in Wikipedia.<br><br>Over bottles of Almaza imported from Lebanon (only Reuben could tolerate the ...

... Arab countries. It's like the original shopping mall dating back to antiquity. So take our shopping mall, age it a few hundred years, darken it and add in anything and everything possible that could be sold. I loved the noise, the crowds, the energy. It was like some rundown unsanitized version of Lenox Square or Perimeter Mall on Islamic steroids. Raw, real and full of character. Just awesome. <br><br>Turning a corner brings me from one ...

... literacy issues of our driver (ahem),my repetitive cursing (similar to my driving tureets as diagnosed by Dr. Mauro Galvan), Friends/Penguins/Bitreeqan, "this is our culture" (usually said my Mohammed about the most ridiculous/hilarious things), "this would be a good place to stroke you" (said on the side of the Syrian highway much to my continued amusement since the word that was actually supposed ...

Our border crossing into Syria was very bureaucratic (to put it nicely) although we were lucky enough to avoid paying baksheesh (a bribe) to get through as one guy we have met had to. Several people (mainly bloody taxi drivers) tried to rip us off on the way, which we expected, so we did our best to bargain. At the end of the day, Syria is pretty cheap so it wasn&#8217;t a whole lot of money to start with and of all the border crossings we have to do in the Middle East ...

... traveling and the diversity of people I am to meet over the next five months, then I really cannot wait! On arriving at Damascus International Airport, I was greeted by the Cheshire Cat-like Takeshi Rowan Stokoe (one of my best friends), and he drove me back to his house. Ok ok, so my very own Road to Damascus wasn't perhaps as spiritual as Saul's in the Old Testament, but it certainly felt like the beginning of something enlightening and amazing! The next morning we set off on a ...

... we knew of 4 places 3 out of the 4 were full and one had a dorm free so we got a bed at least for 500 Syrian pound which is about 9 British pound so not that cheap. The area the backpackers is in is really lovely cobbled streets with Cafes and lots of people sitting around. We bumped into the Aussies who we meet earlier and grabbed some lunch together of Fala, Hummus and some other kind of dip, the food is really good in Syria and the people are really ...

Not long after the last trip, I was headed off again. After a wonderful Christmas day, we headed off early on Boxing Day to fly to the oldest and longest inhabited city in the world....Damascus. First impressions driving from airport, old and run down, busy, poor.....but it did have charm. Checking into the Al Famia Hotel, we chilled out for a bit, as it had been a big couple of days and then hunger pangs.....Martyr's Square was only ...

... to cover the entire courtyard, but they and the mosque have been ravaged by invading Mongols, rocked by earthquakes and gutted by fire. Inside the mosque, the decoration is not as elaborate as others in the Middle East for the same reasons. The most intriguing thing is the shrine that contains the head of John the Baptist. The original Byzantine Church was built to commemorate this relic and as he is also revered by Muslims ...