Odeinat Hotel Palmyra

... Bus Station (every city here has a 'Pullman Bus Station', dunno why) about 2km away. There wasnt any buses there and someone told me I had to catch the microbus to Homs and then catch a bus from there to Palmyra. I was a little suspicious as he was working for the microbuses but I took one to Homs anyway. The microbus stopped at the same bus station I saw Craig and Joanne went into. The microbus seemed not to end there though so I quickly got out. In the station, I ...

Palmyra. An overpriced tourist village set on an oasis in the middle of the dessert. They get away with high prices because, well, where else are you going to go? Palmyra used to be govern by a queen and she had control over the dessert and whomever she sided with would have the strongest advantage in many aspects since this was one of the only "layovers" while crossing the dessert. So ...

... behind the haze while it was still well in its yellow colors - the actual sunset was totally lost to our eyes. A bit strange, really, since Palmyra is so deep in the desert you wouldn't imagine much traffic or industry nearby enough to cause much air pollution -- does that much natural haze just build up in the desert of its own accord? In October, no less?<br><br>It also put a damper on our plans to wake up at the crack of dawn the next day to watch the ...

... free public theater spectacle. It featured a 40 foot tall, 42 ton wooden elephant operated by 22 marionettes who could flap the ears, turn the head and aim the trunk to spray water at passers by.<br><br>Riding on its trunk was the same Little Giantess of the Berlin show. At the time I didn't notice the needle and thread in her hands so I didn't understand that the row of ...

... a tout who was going to get commission out of us once we reached the bus station. She was happily wrong, it is a hard thing to remember that the people here are so very nice, the man got off after a couple of stop and instructed our bus driver to let us know which was our stop. <br><br>At the bus station we worked quiet well as a team (strange but true) while Dino distracted all the touts by being pulled from one shop to another, only managing to get the price down to 175 from ...

... to this day).<br><br>The bus was a pretty rickety affair, in a similar overall condition to the service taxis we'd seen in Lebanon, however this one had been decorated like the inside of a Bedouin tent. A curtain blocked out most of the view through the front windscreen, leaving the driver with only a small opening to peer through, and beads and trinkets hung from every lever, hook and rail.<br><br>We soon left the city behind and were greeted by mile upon mile of bone ...

... dark because they are all lit up in the night but we had to wait until tonight because of an unexpected sand storm. Very eerie and you have to cover your face while walking around otherwise you will breath in sand. This is actually the first journal entry I have been able to make from the laptop. Bashar had someone make an adaptor for our AC adaptor to make sure the laptop still worked after it went flying. I must say he is an absolutely fantastic tour guide ...

... surreal - there were even references to King Ric************* Heart (statues, etc). We are currently in the middle of the no where in Palmyra (very well preserved ruins which were commissioned by Queen Zenobia while attempting to establish an empire between the Persians and the Byzintines. A somewhat scary but interesting event occurred while enroute to Palmyra today. Our packs were on top of the mini-bus and we hit a bump and my bag sailed into the air ...

After a longer than planned stay in Damascus, we finally left and made our way to Palmyra. Palmyra is a Babylonian city and has existed since the 19th century B.C. It's an oasis in the middle of a vast desert and was a central spot for a trade route between the Arab Gulf to the Mediterranean. The city went through 400 years of peace and prosperity before (you guessed it) the Roman Empire came through and Emperor Hadrian claimed ...

... to the onslaught of time, it can not have looked much different 800 years ago. The first fortress known to exist on the site was built in 1031 but the Crusader knights around the middle for the 12th century expanded it into its current form. Despite repeated attacks and sieges the castle held firm. In fact, it was never truly breached. Instead, the Crusaders just gave it up. By 1271, when the great Muslim armies marched on the castle, the knights ...