Photo-maintainance

Photo-The Jelinskis

40!

We've been travelling with a Family of frenchies recently. It's been nice to have company and also take the strain off having to make decisions all the time; And what a great family. Igor (eegor) the Dad, Rachel (rashel) the Mum, Sarah (saaraa) the oldest, Charles (sharle) the middle and Eleona the littlest and the only one that pronounces her name correctly!

They're on a mad 2 year round the world mission in a Land rover with two roof tents on the top and some pretty amazing organisational skills! They certainly made my birthday a couple of days ago a much more memorable occasion not only because of the Dorset muesli and Cuban cigar but as much for just being with us. Kym had a hard time trying to make it something special but as usual succeeded. Spent the day variously floating in Dead sea, swimming in the pool reading book (in Hammock) and enjoying a fantastic meal overlooking the Dead sea and tctcbn while the sun went down with a bottle of viognier and a fat cigar, oh and of course wearing my new birthday pants!!

So Jordan or the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to give it it's proper name. Kind of stuck between Iraq and a hard place (sorry couldn't resist), but no really it is and the old King gets points for managing to walk the line pretty well in his time. Good trade links with the moustachiode mad man and tying his hardest to convince the Palestinians living in Jordan to talk to the country that cannot be named (here-after known as tctcbn) and vice-versa. In the meantime he had to deal with the fact that Jordans water is running out and they ain't got no oil, oh and since the mmm got hung and his country invaded, alot of people from Iraq aswell as the Palestinian refugies. The good news is that alot of the people fleeing the mmm and invasion we're rich and brought with them a great deal of money the people fleeing the tanks of tctcbn unfortunately do not have much money atall. So his son King Abdula seems to be stepping the same line but seems to be inviting a fair bit of investment here aswell. So there you go. As for the Jordanians, well so far you couldn't wish to meet a nicer bunch of people. First question is generally "where are you from?" followed by "welcome to Jordan" and the offer of tea or coffee. Even a traffic warden in Amman who had let us illegally park for an hour (without telling us first) explained to us when we returned that we shouldn't park here and would we like some water or a coca cola!! Time for some work exchange programmes I reckon.

Photo- Aleppo

Thanks.

Thanks to those of you who are taking the time to leave comments they really lift our spirits so please keep them coming.

Photo- Palmyra

Photo- Palmyra

Photo-Palmyra

Photo- About as close as we want to get.

Photo- Crac

Photo-Crac De Chevalier

Photo- Small but fun.

Surprise

Next day threw up a very unexpected but extremely welcome suprise..... SURF!!! Only small but great fun then later in the day our first glimpse of Crac De Chevalier the crusader castle that's appeared in so many movies. Camped outside and went in in the morning and it didn't dissapoint. Later East in to the desert to Palmyra, I'll let the photo's do the talking, wow.

Then back to Damascus which was so hot poluted and busy we quickly beat it to Bosra where we had the fantastic fortune to bump into John and Linda and their 5 star luxury motorhome complete with bathroom, dishwasher and great hospitality which thank goodness Kym managed to repay with a haircut. Thankyou guys. On to the Jordanian border which was a breeze.

Photo-our first Luxembourgie-Charlie

Syria. A little trouble

South West to the beach which we got to too late at night and couldn't find access to, eventually a track looked to be heading the right direction so we headed down it only to be thwarted by a chain across the path and a very noisy person running flat out towards us with a bloody machine gun!! I swear he couldn't have been any more than 15. I very quickly killed the engine and the lights and shon the torch in our faces shouting "we're English!" God knows how many red bulls he'd had but he was not a happy bunny and kept screaming at us and of course pointing the gun at Kym who he thought was driving (steering wheels on the right in our car). At last reinforcements came who were obviously in their late teens and far more grown up, Kym politely asked if they could tell the jack russel with the gun to stop pointing it at us and they did. El' Capitan eventually shows up and thank goodness someone who was a little older 20 at a guess and we reckon on his 10th red bull or he's got friends from Bolivia. He gave us permission to leave and we gratefully got the hell outta dodge!!! Proper scary, freaked us both out and not something we want to happen again so definitely finding campsites before dark from now on.

Photo-Aleppo Citadel

Photo-Mary?

Photo- Clement who we rescued from Erzurum.

Wayhey we're back!

Syria for some reason didn't like our blog or facebook or youtube or google earth etc etc.

Anyway.. 6 hours at the Syrian border a lovely pasta supper lot's of laughter and tea and we were in!!! Although the longest it was def the most enjoyable border crossing yet. First town Allepo and imideatley introduced to Arab hospitality. Lovely lovely people with no secret agendas (well, not always, funny how they all seemed to have a shop in the end! But seriously never any pressure.) Awesome souk that is by far the most authentic we have visited yet, all the locals do their shopping here too so it's not full of tourist tat. Met a Luxembourgy person called Charlie who had trouble getting into Syria 'cos they couldn't find Luxembourg on any maps!! and went to the Baron hotel which was opened in 1909 and has hosted such guests as TE Lawrence (who's bar bill is framed in the bar) and Agatha Cristie who began writing Murder on the Orient Express there. It hasn't changed a bit!! Really felt like stepping back in time and cold cold beer aswell.