Good, Very Good

Ok, so in my last post we had arrived in Aleppo. I'll be honest with you, as our internet access has been virtually non-existent, I'm now having trouble remembering what happened a week ago in a totally different country. But I'll try...

As I said, we got to Aleppo via one of the dodgy buses (stared at by cute little Arab kids who probably hadn't seen too many sweaty Western tourists cramming themselves and their very heavy luggage into one of these dusty old clapped out buses) but anyway, we made it. Only problem was, once we arrived, do you think we could read the road signs to figure out where the hostel was? We had Buckley's, I'll tell you...

But this Turkish dude (who insisted on showing us his passport to prove he was Turkish - go figure?) took us to the hostel (we were a bit dubious about that as we thought perhaps the hostel would give him a commission via inflated rates for us but fortunately our fears were not realised). The hostel gave us 2 choices, a small (but airconditioned - and that is important) twin room, or a mattress on the roof. Hmm, now let me think about that one - how about the room? Only problem was the room didn't have bathroom facilities, these were shared, and to be honest, rather dodgy - shower and toilet in one. Now that sounds ok, except for the fact that it was a squat toilet. Smelly, yuckky, no toilet paper, squat toilet. And I'm still suffering side effects of the killer burek... nice. But the room was ok, and had a balcony, and plugs to recharge cameras, so we took it.

The hostel, Al-Gawaher, is one that's recommended in the Lonely Planet. They organise tours so the next day we found ourselves on one to see the Dead Cities of Serjilla and Al Bara, St Simeon's basilica and something else I can't remember. We met some lovely people on our bus, particularly a Dutch couple who were travelling with this French girl. The Dead Cities were good (although I have seen obviously better ruins in Ephesus). Our driver, though, had an interesting grasp of the English language, which basically consisted of him repeating a place / object name 4 or 5 times, then saying "good, very good" a couple of times, then "welcome" - until we could bear it no longer and one of us would go "oh, [insert place / object name here]" and nod emphatically. Then all of us in the bus would do it, and that would be that. It would go something like this:

Driver: Al Bara. [pointing]. Al Bara. Al Bara. [pointing again]. Al Bara. Good very good. Al Bara. Welcome.

Me: Al Bara? Oh, Al Bara! [nodding - then the whole bus nods]

Whole bus: Ah, Al Bara!

Driver: Good very good!

Someone up the back: What's he talking about?

Me: I don't know.

Someone up the back: Oh, ok

Driver: Good very good! Welcome...

So we didn't really learn much about where we were - except from the French girl, Sandrine - who had about 3 Lonely Planets - in both French and English - just in case something was lost in the translation from one to the other. So she lent us the English one.

Anyway, we got back from our very informative tour to find the driver had upped the price considerably, and of course we paid the original price, thank you. We then rushed around trying to see the rest of Aleppo as the next day we wanted to move on towards Palmyra via Crac Des Chevaliers.

We got to see the Citadel, which was particularly interesting as they were setting up for some big performance. Just across from the Citadel were some nice al fresco cafes and we decided to have a coffee (which turned into dinner, as it was just too hot to move) there and watch the proceedings. Boy did the square come alive! First of all, on the rampway up to the Citadel, a load of drummers and trumpeters lined up (plus dancers complete with big machete like swords and full on Arabic dance kit) and every time someone made their way up the ramp to attend the concert, they were greeted with loud blaring music, dancers hopping on the spot, and mad machete waving.

But the other interesting thing was watching Syrian life pass us by. It seemed like the whole of Aleppo was out there in the square. The sun had set, the mosques had blared out their prayers and people were just milling around, selling their wares or wandering about. We saw one young boy, very acrobatic he was, doing cartwheels, running around like a lunatic, wrestling with other boys, and also trying to ride a bike that was 3 or 4 sizes too big for him. Basically, this boy should've been on Ritalin. At one point he picked a kid up and full on dropped him (from height) fair on his head. Then this other bloke (I don't know that he was related to the dropped kid or not) picked up the boy, turned him upside down and whacked his bot. Then the other bloke's mate got a few whacks in too, for good measure. Child abuse?

Anyway, it was a very interesting evening, completed with fireworks from the Citadel (which we could see from our room).

On to Palmyra...