Author archive
7 November 2025
Complimentary breakfast It’s Friday today and the only day of the week that Abdullah has a sleep-in. But he came in early to bring me breakfast, as I’m a very old repeat guest. With so many guests over the 23 years I doubt if he actually remembers me but he was putting on a good […]
6 November 2025
Aleppo Citadel After breakfast at the hotel, I packed up but kept my room, and headed out to visit the Citadel. Getting there at 0855, I had to wait till 0910 before visitors were let in. I walked up the steps to the first gate-tower and then into the second tower which led into the […]
5 November 2025
Damascus to Aleppo Today, I move from Damascus to Aleppo. I had received conflicting information on which of the several bus stations to catch the bus from. The last time I did it, it was from Baramke but that was nearly 20 years ago. And on the remaining visits, I did the journey in reverse […]
4 November 2025
Maaloula & St Thekla I wanted to make an excursion to the village of Maaloula, which I visited in 2002. It is well-known as one of the last areas where Aramaic (specifically Western Neo-Aramaic) is still spoken on a daily basis. That language is believed to be the closest language of Jesus, which was Galilean […]
3 November 2025
Return to Syria Today I return to my favourite country after 15 years, having visited in 2002, 2004 and 2010. Since my last visit, parts of the country have been to hell and back: Over 40% of Syria’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed. Some cities lost over 70% of their housing stock. 13 million+ […]
2 November 2025
I started the day with burek from the bakery across the road, and an instant coffee in my room. Today, I’m moving to Istanbul, staying near the airport at the Arnavutkoy area in preparation for a morning flight to Damascus tomorrow. I left the hotel by Uber at 0915 for the 1000 bus to Istanbul […]
1 November 2025
Uludag cable car The only thing left in Bursa I wanted to do was go up to mountains near Uludag, accessible by cable car. After a burek for breakfast, I took a 5 min shared taxi ride to the cable car station to find it deserted at 0900. The signs indicated that opened at 1100 […]
31 October 2025
Getting started After about 7h sleep, I got out of bed around 0600. I had woken up around 0400 but had fallen back asleep. Despite a 44h day from a rural Fujian tulou to Guangzhou, Kuwait, Istanbul and finally Bursa, I couldn’t sleep any more due to the time difference. I had some tea and […]
30 October 2025
Above: Kuwait Airways spacious Boeing 777 with 9-across configuration. Leaving Guangzhou My Kuwait Airways flight to Kuwait departs at 0440 so it was a pleasant surprise that check-in opened at 0100. I joined the queue 20 mins before opening and was surprised by the number of people already there, each typically having two large suitcases […]
29 October 2025
Temple Dennis, Swee and Chen came to our accommodation for breakfast at 0700 and we set off at 0830 to the temple the pretty village near the entrance to the Nanjing Scenic Area. Text continues after this gallery. My tentative plan for the remainder of the day was to call into another tulou […]