Orient Hotel Palmyra

Hello from Syria (I caved in and am using a 128kb ISDN connection) We have had a very filled few days with too much time from my last update to fill in everything. I will try to cover a small highlight of everything. Mt. Olympos was very interesting. Quite similar to Northern Ontario actually except that there are the Taurus Mountains all around. The chiamera was very neat (gas which simultaneously combusted when it came in contact with the air) and the area was quite pretty. After Olympos we...

Today is day two in Palmyra. We started the day early to beat the heat as we explored the tombs of Palmyra. We visited two of the normal tombs - the above ground tomb (cannot remember the name off the top of my head but I do have it written down in my journal) and the Three Brother's Underground Tomb (unfortunately no photos were allowed to be taken inside). Our guide then made "special arrangements" (I'll leave it at that without outright stating what I implied) with the security official at...

I new year and a new roman ruin, this one known as a rose-gold city and it was no longer snowing....we had sunny blue skies but crispy cold air..... This city is over 1,000 years old but only had glory for approx 200 years under greek rule. Our first stop was the Towers of Yemliko, where the dead were buried in multistorey burial chambers and the Tomb of the Three Brothers, which is an underground burial chamber which has beautiful frescoes still in tact. Outside was a beautiful white baby ca...

Started today by driving to Palmyra which is out in the Syrian desert - you could tell cos it was boiling hot all day!! After arriving at the hotel we went for lunch at a pancake place that is just around the corner and we were very excited after the great pancakes we had in Turkey - these were not the same. They were kind of like normal pancakes you get back home but really soggy and not as nice. Still not feeling that great either so I wasn't disappointed that I couldn't finish them. After ...

Today we got up and now Terry isn't well, this horrible stomach bug has gone through most of the group now!Today we had this shocking bus from the 1950s that was falling apart take us to the necropolis of Palmyra. This bus doesn't really have enough seats - it is lucky that there are so many people not feeling well, there are metal spikes under some of the chairs and if you put your leg too far under the seat it scratches the back of your leg, there is a m************ in the windscreen, the s...