Happy New Year!

I'm sure you'll all be pleased to know that the intrepid travellers are back safe and sound from our gallivanting around the Middle East.

Christmas was amazing, although quite strange being in the sunshine.  We had lunch with most of the people left in Muscat which included huge amounts of food and a cocktail competition (sadly, we came joint last) and karaoke (we didn't subject the others to our dulcid tones I'm afraid).  It was home from home with 'Linda McCarney' pies instead of turkey.

We flew out to Syria on the 27th for our brilliant trip.  We left Muscat at 6am and landed in Damascus at 8pm.  A long journey, but it was definitely improved by the day spent in the Dubai Mall, no hanging around in the airport for us!  We eventually emerged from the arrivals lounge once they had decided that we could have entry visas into the cold and our antics began!

Syrian driving makes Omani driving look positively sane and reasonable.  Once you realise that there is some order to it, it's not quite so frightening but the order has nothing to do with any kind of road rules experienced before.  Apparently, it's perfectly reasonable to drive 4 abreast on the motorway if there is space even if there are only 3 official 'lanes' (difficult to make out sometimes given the lack of lane markings).  Also, if someone flashes their headlights, it means 'don't you dare pull out - I am going to drive straight at you if you do'.  All good fun, and we were grateful for the fact that we hadn't hired a car and relied on taxis and coaches to travel the country, although given the number of bumps and scrapes on the taxis we felt quite fortunate that we did not experience any of these first hand.

Damascus is a truly amazing city, with rambling souks (markets) selling everything from socks and spices to hand carved wooden furniture.  Everyone we met welcomed us to Syria and were most helpful.  We ate at a huge range of emporiums (emporia?) from a rather nice courtyard restaurant which gave free chocolate crepes and an enormous fruit bowl (recommended by Lonely Planet, although we didn't know until after we had been), to a spiral cut potato on a stick from one of the street stalls.  Fantastic!

We had a great time seeing the sights including the Umayyad Mosque which has had pilgrims visiting for 3000 years!  (Amy and I had to don rather fetching grey hooded cloaks in order to cover our normal clothes) We also visited the Sayidda Ruqayya Mosque and again had to wear the cloaks.  We gazed in amazement at a group of Shi'a pilgrims chanting in the courtyard before going to visit the shrine.  It was truly like nothing I have ever seen before!

We must have walked through almost every inch of the old city at one time or another.  It's narrow and winding streets seemed to hold no prohibition to the many cars and vans which wanted to drive around them.  On one occasion we saw a car do a many-point turn in order to proceed along one particular street, only to see further along the street that they would have to turn around because it was too narrow!  All very entertaining!  We explored the Jewish Quarter and the Christian Quarter, which proved rather more affluent than many of the other streets.  One of the hotels costs around £400 per night!

A visit to the National Museum was an interesting, if chilly, affair because it is under renovation.  A real shame because it meant that we were unable to see the Synagogue.  Never mind.  I did see some ancient relics from early Syria and learned much about it's history.

We embarked on a couple of trips to cities away from Damascus to see some more of the ancient sites Syria had to offer.  The Roman theatre which dates back to the 2nd century at Bosra was truly breathtaking!  We wandered around the walls and stood on the stage, listened to some people 'performing' and explored the back stage area.  It had been buried under sand for hundreds of years before being uncovered in the last century.  The coach trip was quite interesting - they bring you water and sweets to help you enjoy your journey.  It cost less than £1 for the return trip!  We did have to produce passports before being allowed to get on the coach, which seemed rather unusual.

What would we do for New Year?  When planning the trip, we had planned to visit both Syria and Lebabnon.  We deliberately flew to Syria because you cannot get entry visas for Syria from the Lebanese border, although you can enter Syria from Lebanon if you already have one (all terribly complicated).  So one of the plans was to sepend New Year's Eve in Beirut because coaches were freely available and very cheap.  However, we decided that Beirut and Lebanon deserved it's own trip and there was more of Syria to see than we had time for anyway. So, having survived the coach trip to Bosra, we decided to brave the much longer journey to Palmyra to visit the ancient ruins.  Unfortunately, the coach journey was not anywhere near as pleasant, but definitely worth it, it was an incredible place!  We were able to just walk down the colonnaded avenue, stepping over huge pieces of stone.  The whole city had been devastated by an earthquake and then covered in sand for many years until the 17th century when it was 'rediscovered' by a pair of English merchants living in Aleppo. Renovation work has meant that some of the structures have been reconstructed as far as possible, and makes for a truly breathtaking experience.  The guide books warn against hot weather and tourist groups, but we found neither to be a problem.  Despite the fact that we were there for New Year, we booked the hostel the night before and saw the new year in with a single other couple.  Amy and Antony had gone to bed earlier, leaving us to finish our beers (alone other than the miserable-looking bar man) when they appeared, pleased to find other people to spend the time with!      

To escape from the cold, we experienced 'new Damascus' and watched 2 films back to back - 'Little Fockers' and 'The Tourist'.  A far cry from the Old City, we definitely rubbed shoulders with the 'haves' rather than the 'have nots'.

The end of our stay was spent around the area where our hotel was on the outskirts of Damascus in an area called Sayyeda Zainab which attracted many Iranian Shi'a pilgrim.  We explored the local area and visited the mosque.  Again, an amazing place with pilgrims chanting before vying for a touch of the shrine.  Rather than cart our heavy hand luggage much further, we had a rather nice afternoon tea in the lobby of the posh hotel.  Tea from a tea pot.  How terribly English!

We had one last taxi journey back to the airport and began a rather long journey home back to Muscat.  It felt odd returning 'home' to somewhere other than England, but strangely comforting.  Coming back to temperatures in the low 20s was a definite improvement and we spent the day by the pool to celebrate.

It's been a full week back at work, with nothing particularly to report.  2 late nights (or should I say early mornings...) have resulted in a sleep-filled weekend.  I have now been to a nightclub for the first time in a while, I think since Rachel's hen do in 2009!  It was certainly an experience.  They have a live band playing (parents of one of the boys in grade 2 are among the line up) which is quite cool, although they sing chart songs rather than their own.

Anyway, I will endeavour to update you again soon with our latest escapades!