Crossing the border into Syria
Trip Start
Jun 04, 2006
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23
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Trip End
Sep 04, 2007
Aleppo,
Syria
Sunday, June 18, 2006
The border crossing was a quite a new experience to both Steve and I. It went quite smoothly, at least on the Turkish side! On the Syrian side, I ran into a couple of little problems. Firstly, because my name is Samira on my passport which is also an Arabic name, it confused them alot. Then as I was about to cross the border, the man standing and checking the passports, asked me to go back to the office, as they forgot to stamp my passport
Anita and Tony and us at the Armanian Quarter
! But all in all, it was fine.We arrived in the hotel in Aleppo yesterday afternoon and decided it was too hot to go and explore the city, so we had a rest instead.
This morning we had a quided tour to St. Simon's Basilica. The Basilica looked very impressive now, so I can only imagine how spectacular it must have looked when it was built during Byzantine period. The Basilica was built around the tall column, on which St.Simon had decided to live, after leaving his people. It was a way of showing respect to St.Simon.
Aleppo is Arabic is pronouced as Haleb. It was a name given by the people during the time of Abraham, as he used to go to this town to milk his cow. The verb milking in Arabic is Halebe. Hence the name! This town is the international centre of Islamic culture. It is not a very conservative town, not like Urfa, but you don't see many locals without their Islamic cover. This town is very rich in agriculture. They produce mainly cotton, and have thousands of Olive trees. Generally it is much cheaper here in Syria than Turkey, and it is very different. The way of life, style of living and conditions. Turkey seems to be much more westernised
Enterance to the Basilica
! And people here, deffinately have a death wish, judging by the way they drive!We have 4 more poeple who joined our group yesterday. They are: Tony from Texas, Anita from Lichtenstein, Russel from Holland and Nick from NewZealand. They are all very nice.
After the visit to the Basilica we went back to the hotel. Me, Steve, Anita, Tony and Nick went to see the Mosque. This is the Mosque at which Zakaria (father of John the Baptist) was buried.
Afterwards we went to the Armanian quarter and had a few drinks and had a very good time chatting and getting to know each other. Later this evening the whole group went back to that place and had dinner, which was very tasty and quite pricy!
