Articles from this Category
8 July 2010
Today is the reason I came back to Syria (apart from the fact that I had expiring Emirates Skywards miles to use up). I wanted to re-visit Crac de Chevalier, which is the most impressive crusader castle! The Riad Hotel organised a trip for SYP1100 (about EUR17) for nearly 11 hours (including waiting) use of a […]
7 July 2010
Tasty Start I started the day with breakfast in a hole-in-the-wall cafe … Turkish coffee, OJ squeezed in front of you and the most beautiful croissant. It was warm and not too buttery or flakey, with a cavity inside that had been filled with salted butter that’ been melted away. Being the pig that I […]
6 July 2010
This morning I took the bus up into the hills and the Qadisha Valley, which is the stronghold of the Maronite Christians. The bus was meant to be a fraction the price of the shared taxi but as the driver was on the phone when I boarded, I couldn’t confirm the price … so he […]
5 July 2010
The other Tripoli This morning I moved up the coast from Beirut to the second largest city, Tripoli (Trablous) … which bears the same name as the one in Gaddafi-land (Libya). The coastline is very built up along most of the way with high-rise apartments, beach clubs, factories etc. One thing I’m certain of is […]
4 July 2010
This morning I took my third trip to Baalbek … yes, it is that good … it is the most impressive Roman ruins I’ve been to (not that I’ve been to that many). The Lonely Planet says it outshines any of the Temples built in Rome itself. This has always been a poor and conservative […]
3 July 2010
Early Start I woke at about 4:30am due to my body clock being on Colombo time (2.5 hours earlier). I messed around until about 7am and took a sustaining breakfast of fuul at a nearby cafe … the Lebanese version here is different from the Yemeni. For a start, the broadbeans are mixed with chickpeas […]
2 July 2010
Bad start in Colombo I woke nice and early and showered for my 2 flights, the first being Emirates at 1005 to Dubai and then connecting to Beirut. I couldn’t find a taxi to the airport so took a tuktuk … which took 1 hour. It wasn’t hot but it was the early morning traffic […]
17 November 2008
I was pleased to see the back of Aden and its humidity … give me the cool dry highland … I love Sana’a at 7000 ft. On the road from Aden back to Sana’a it was interesting to see how men should pee in Yemen. Well, I had known this before but had somehow forgotten. The […]
16 November 2008
On paper (or in a guidebook) Aden may seem to have quite a few attractions but there’s not much to see apart from the Aden Tanks. Of course, there’s beer (which isn’t quite me) and the beach. Text continues after this gallery. For some reason we chose the difficult way to go swimming […]
15 November 2008
Above: We bought three seats at the back (3rd row) for the both of us. So there were only nine people including the driver in the Peugeot estate. We took a shared taxi down to Aden in the afternoon … the port city was part of the British empire and has a very different feel […]