Orient House Hamah

... it will take about 2 and a half hours to get to Hama but in fact it took an hour less. I almost fell asleep when the bus pulled off the highway and went into the city. I wasnt sure at first if it was Hama but I saw some signs directing to 'Hama Train Station" in English. Learning from my mistake in Turkey, I double checked with someone in the bus and he confirmed it was Hama. So I arrived pretty early.<br><br>The bus stopped seemingly out of the town ...

... is a world that I do not understand. And I can only take in through the filters I have in place. At least for now. <br>The people are kind despite their cutthroat desire to sell. Some of the children have learned all the wrong english words and use them in all the right ways. "**** you, you disgust me!" has never seemed so bad ass or deserving of a punch in the face than when coming from an 11 year old boy sitting on the back of a bicyle with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.<br><br><br>

... of 9th grade history (the only truly memorable bit of that class was Lindsay asking without a trace of irony -- "so Mr. Herring, wait ... is the pope Catholic?") I exposited on the underpinnings of the Crusades at a social (primogeniture inheritance of aristocratic land meant a glut of unemployed knights -- European Ronin?), theological (holy war is a lot easier for the Pope to sell when the Bible isn't available in vernacular for laity to read ...

... main square, with the puncture of their nail guns and their hammering, but it just wasn't that atmospheric. <br>Crac des Chevaliers is known to have been built be the Emin of Homs in 1031 AD, but it was the Crusader knights who largely expanded it in the middle of the twelfth century. It was able to hold 2000 people and store enough suppliers for 5 years, despite repeated attacks and sieges the castle was never breached.<br><br>With an extra night ...

... then. <br><br>The Syrian guy at the Sarah hotel was first of a number of very strange people we met in Hama. As we came through the front door, the reception was very dark and the TV was blaring in the background and we were met with a scowling faced young man. When we asked the rates, he spat his words at us as if he wanted to sling us out the door, when we asked if there was a low season rate he slowed his words down so each could be venomously felt stab by stab. When we said we would ...

... octagon. The entire structure is around 5000 sq metres. At the other end of the site is the baptistery. And to the left is the monastery home for around 500 monks. Clearly the Orthodox Catholic Church thought a lot of the man ...

... and it was our first really green castle, although I could not find the cave or club of Hercules. After a quick picnic lunch, supplied by the tour guide and the bus driver, we wormed our way down another series of switchbacks as hair raising as the ones in the vans. Olive, orange and apricot groves, perched on narrow terraces all the way down the hill. Of course, absolutely nothing was in season. This is what happens when you follow spring around ...

... Hama was a welcoming sight. Hama is "famous" for its norias (water wheels). However, the River Orentes has been dammed to irrigate other parts of the country and the water wheels lay motionless above a small trickle of river. We used Hama as a base for a trip to two castles: Musyaf and Crac des Chevaliers. The view from Musyaf Citadel was nice, there are a series of sharp, grey, spiked rocks that jut right out of the ground. Some are big enough that people ...

... Homs I had to get a bus to Hama but the bus terminal had moved so taxi drivers were trying to get me in their car finally one agreed for 50 rather than the 100 he was trying for, the trick is to at least half what they are asking for as they are never honest, taxi drivers in all these country's are bandits! Anyway about 2 Min's into the journey his car run out of petrol so he claimed, I could sense something was not ...

... particulier dans les rues d'Hama, étonnamment vides, donnant à ma ballade une dimension étrange, très agréable. J'ai regagné Homs tranquillement. 5 jours restent avant la fin de mon voyage arabe (cette formule venant de me foutre le vertige). Je pars pour Palmyre demain mercredi matin, où je resterai une nuit avant de ...