The locals buy the Hezbollah merchandise (incuding mugs, t-shirts, flags, desk-flags, bumper stickers, CDs) so that they get immunity from the police, as Hezbollah is popular with the locals and have lots of guns. The hashish dealers, although officially not looked favourably upon by Hezbollah, are tolerated as they help with the financing and ride around in huge SUVs decked out with Hezbollah signs blaring bomb and gunshot sounds (not even to a beat, just war noises), and Nasrullah speeches. Hezbollah, or the party of god, are very popular in the area, the principal reason is that their activities are generally useful to the people. Lebanon's goverment is almost non existant, and with the heavily damaged infrastucture, Hezbollah filled the gap and built schools, mosques, roads and hospitals not just in this area, but in many Shia area's of Lebanon, financed through "muslim charitable donations" (ie the Ayatollahs of Iran). Along with the religious ties, their supporter base is loyal and large. The police, controlled by the government, are completely incapable of touching anyone affiliated with Hezbollah out of fear.

This definitely added some tension to the air, or perhaps that was our slight worry at the yellow flags with Kalashinkovs on them all over the place. This was not helped when the explosions started, but those turned out to be fireworks. Tourists don't seem to stay in the town at all, and just arrive on day trips from Beirut to see the ruins and go. The ruins were very impressive, as they are huge and well preserved temples to Jupiter and probably Bachus, although no-ones really sure as the iscriptions have worn off. The on site museum and labelling was by far the nicest and most-airconned we'd been to so far, which was a bonus.

From there, we took a minibus to Beirut, through past the many glittering billboards and sandbag and tank reinforced military checkpoints.

Beirut is a shock to the backpacker system, used to small dirty streets, grubby children running around, men sitting on street corners drinking tea, we suddenly fast forwarded into the 21st century. Macdonalds, Dunkin Donuts, and Western culture in general is the way in Beirut, Hummers and SUVs rolling around playing RnB underneath billboard advertisements for holidays in Turkey. Amongst these glamorous things, soldiers, security guards and milita men (depending on whose area you're in) stand around at street corners with assault rifles and tanks. Not all the Hummers are civilian either, with fully armed military patrols rolling past flashy Bulgari shop windows. Barbed wire adorns many of the buildings just like the jewlerry on the nicely dressed women strutting around town. The downtown area, newly refirbished after the war in 2006, is completely closed to cars by military checkpoints, and soldiers stand guard underneath the main Rolex-sponsored clocktower.

But Beirut is not all glamour. As well as being one of the most developed and richest places we've been to so far, it's also the poorest. The city is divided in 3, with the christians to the east, muslims to the west, and the Shia slums and palestinian refugee camps to the south. We went to the slums and camps yesterday, about an hour walk from the centre, into filthy rubbish strewn streets, people living tightly packed in either concrete shells of appartment blocks or corrugated iron housing. We may have heard a single gunshot. These areas seem to be divided as well. The Shia areas are clearly marked with the posters of martyrs along the road, but we were in an area with green flags, controlled by the Amal militia, who before were bitter enemies of Hezbollah. Life looked very hard here, trash strewn streets where it is unclear whether the rubble was cleared after the war or not. We tried to find the Shatila refugee camp, scene of a famous massacre of Palastinian refugees in 1982, and what we found was a few nasty walled off areas, topped with barbed wire, although it seems that there were people living inside, we saw fresh laundry lines over the tops of the razor wire. Perhaps these were the camps. Either way, living condition were by far the worst we've seen on this trip, mangy dogs patrol the streets and syringes litter the grimy pavements.

After that, we went back to the glittering lights on the centre, past the many Starbucks and Costa Coffees, had dinner and wondered whether we were in the same country as a few hours ago...

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Our time in town we mostly spent looking around the old town of one of the most ancient cities in the world, consistently inhabited for the past 6000 years (although flattened in the 15th century by Timur). This still has atmopheric charm, complete with small winding streets, mosques and churches and big souqs.

I liked Damascus. Sure, we had arived out of the desert to by far the biggest and shiniest city we've been to since Kiev, but it definitely is a nice place to spend some time. A faster pace of life, generally marked by the crazy traffic, constant honking and people milling about, although energy levels were visible low because of Ramadan. The Christian quarter was still business as usual though, with it's cafes and kebabis wide open. It's definitely not the most developed city around, but that is part of the charm, with the street sellers hawking prickly pears, socks and other random objects in loud arabic along the big streets in town. Damascus has managed to to accumulate some very nice things over it's history. These included the Umayyad mosque, a large working mosque in black and white smooth marble and well as nice painted designs on the bit where it was built over a Roman temple. This contained the remains of John the Baptist (considered a prophet in Islam), and a shrine to a Imam Hussien (the glass around it filled with Iranian money). Next to this building, the mausoleum of Salah Ad-Din. With the ancient baths and caravanserais and religious monuments, not a bad collection.

We had a relatively hedonistic time, using Benji's knowledge, checking out the best juice bars and ice cream places in town, as well as a very enjoyable hot and scrapy hammam, that cleaned us up nicely. The 'Notting Hill' of Damascus was filled with Syrian playboys driving around in circles in their nice cars, showing off small rims, blaring pop music alond with Europeans chilling in the cafes. Muslim vaules put to once side, hijab factor low, as well as unmarried couples holdings hands, unlike most of the rest of the city, where Ramadan had closed down most of the stores.

Anyway, after a few day trips to christian monasteries nearby, we hit the road again and got on a bus to Lebanon, which we eventually got to, but not before the Syrian sytem bit us by charging 500SYP (10$) for having to leave the country, a system most likely designed to make it prohibitively expensive for many Syrians to go abroad. Anyway, entered we more green and mountainous terrain, with a troubled history....

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Our arrival also coincided with the start of Ramadan, the muslim month of fasting, which has so far turned out to be pretty lame. As an procimation of faith, they all give up eating, drinking and smoking during the daylight hours, and consequently give you evil looks if you tempt them by doing any of these in public. As we're clearly not muslims and thus not expected to fast, but the problem is that many shops, cafes and restaurants are closed as either the owners can't even drink during the day, as well as the fact that none of their usual clientelle would go anyway. One benefit is that the touts are too lacking in energy to bother the tourists.

Palmyra is an ancient oasis town situated along the Silk Road, and has had a very colourful history in that it was independent from the Roman and Persian empires (it was a buffer zone in between) for a long time, allowing it's own unique culture to flourish, until the Romans took it over. This led to an influx of even more wealth and many of the ruins date from then.

The ruins themselves give you an insight into the look and size of the ancient city, but the busloads of tourists are sort of off putting, as are the ticket prices coupled with their direct refusal to accept our student cards. If you ever go, get an international student card', or more like a Syrian monuments discount card. Anyway, we managed to sneak into the main attraction, the mostly standing Temple of Bel (a Palmyaeran deity), by climbing over the wall at the back, which was pretty badass.

As with many of the ruins on Syria from this era, it's very impressive, and great if you love huge columns. Heh. The main collonnade is still mostly intact and spans almost 2 kilometers. The Valley of the Tombs nearby is also fairly impressive, and is filled with mysterious large rectangular structures, which we clambered about for a while. Then an Arab castle, to which we had to hike up a hill in the 50 degree desert heat. Situated in the middle of the desert, the heat was almost unbearable, and we had to sit out the hottest parts of the day in the shade, unable to move.

Soon enough, we beat the heat by getting on a bus to Damascus.

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This was all a rather surreal and dream like experience. The house seemed to be the centre of village life, as many of the locals would stop by for a bit for some tea or to partake in our meals. Although not rich by any means, clearly these oil workers were the most wealthy in this village of farmers, and supported much of the rest of the populace with their earnings, although to what extent I can't say. Many strange characters stopped by during our stay, including one other oil worker, Geologist Naif, but mostly random farmers and villagers, one of whom sang even us a song.

We were served lavish amounts of tea and awesome Syrain homecooking (by far the best food we had in Syria). Being excellent hosts, they made it seem that every wish would be catered for. Having arrived from the desert after an exhausing ride, their unswerving hospitality was akin to finding a lake of fresh ice cold ice tea in the desert.

Perhaps I haven't captured the surrealness of the events. These were very intelligent people and constantly played jokes on us that caught us a little off guard. These ranged from trying to guilt trip us that they won't be able to eat for 3 days because they served us meat to warning us about being eaten by the dogs that wandered around the village, as well as asking us to sing them a song as it was part of their tradition, apparently. Coupled with the host of other characters that popped by, who they described extravagantly as professors of english (to a guy that clearly spoke none), and professional football players (to a heavy chain smoker), this made for a very odd experiance.

Eventually we were led to the roof where Amir was already sleeping, where we immedeately fell asleep under the many visible stars, although not before Khalid pointed out his star, and told us to remember him everytime we see it. That was a little wierd.

We had planned to leave the next morning, but they were very eager for us to stay forever, although Mohammed had left for work that morning. We were served a massive breakfast, and chatted and played chess with an ever increasing group of men until lunch. A huge lunch later, we were encouraged to sleep. Relaxation is something the Arabs do very well, and we followed their lead to a daytime nap. Then, with heavy hearts, they let us go and put us onto a minibus to Dier Ez-Zor, from where we got onto a coach to Palmyra.

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As usual, the level of English was pretty low inside the bus, and we were expecting to get by with the basic hand gestures and simple conversations about where we were from (not always so simple in my case) as well as listing english football teams. But in a strange quirk of fate one of the passengers, Sayid, a pharmacist, spoke Russian, and had spent 8 years all over Russia learning the pharmacists trade. As he had had such a good time in Russia and had been treated so well during his time there, he invited us to stay at his house in the village of Al Mansoura. This was perfect for us as we had no idea where we would stay tonight, and there were no towns with hotels (no towns at all actually) within at least an hour of where we were. This was also a great as it allowed us to communicate properly with the people, so far we'd had pretty basic conversations as our Arabic isn't exactly up to scratch.

Arriving to his home, we were introduced to the men in his family, and the women quickly made themselves scarce. He lived with his brother, Mohamed, and his cousin Sultan stopped by to meet the foreigners. As usual, we were served large amounts of tea, and again as usual the conversation turned onto money. Arab culture is pretty materialistic, they all dream about getting rich, and it seems to pain them that Syria is in such a poor economic position, something they are acutely aware of.
Sayid promptly went to bed, leaving us in the company of Sultan, who seemed happy reeling off common memes, a rather tiring conversation form that Syrian seem to love doing with us when there is no common language. It generally goes like this: "Chelsea... hmm.. yeah... Charles Dickens... hmm, yeah.. Liverpool... yeah... Sherlock Holmes... yeah... Michael Ballack.. hmm... Shakespeare (or Sheik Sebeir, apparently he was an Arab)... hmm.. yeah..." etc. ad infinitum. Eventually after a few games of chess with Mohamed we got to sleep in his courtyard, under the stars, as it was very hot.

Next morning, they opened up their pharmacy and gave us breakfast inside, I think we brought in a few extra customers. Soon enough, they sent us on our way and we were on a bus heading to Lake Al-Assad, a lake created by damming up the Euphrates. We saw a castle on an peninsula on the lake, and we spent most of day frolicking around under a fig tree on the beach by the cooling waters eating melons and generally having an excidingly good time. After a few hitches back, including one on top of an awesome Arab rasta-colour scheme pimped out pick up, racing over the dam, we got back to Al Mansoura, where we planned to hitch across the desert to the other side, against the advice of pretty much everyone we had come across. They were right. An hour of waiting around on a disty road drilled home that no one would be driving through the desert late on a thursday night (friday is the main weekend day), and so we gave up and got on a minibus to Ar-Raqqa, the capital of the region.

Raqqa's main claim to fame is that it houses many Iraqi refugees, and consequently, its a pretty gritty place, at least from what we saw of the bus station. After hours of waiting and waiting and somehow not getting onto buses that seemed to be going even after we had registered our passports, we chanced upon another weary traveler going our way, Amir. He happened to be trainee pharmacist, and consequently, spoke excellent Russian after having spent 6 years there studying. Syria doesn't seem to have any facilities for pharmacy study, and sends its students to Russia. Again this turned out amazingly, as he put us on a bus, even paid for us, and invited us to his home in the small village of Bokros, near the town of Dier Ezzour where we happened to be going.

Weary and amazed at our luck, we accepted....

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It wasn't long before a tucker picked us up for a small distance until he had to turn off, leaving us under a motorway bridge, conveniently shaded from the baking sun. A few minutes later a man in a yellow fiat picked us up, and we raced into the desert. Little did we know this man, Abu Ahmad, was a complete nutter, drinking 13% strength beer (although he insisted he'd quit for ramadan), driving at 140 kmph and racing his friends that drove coaches, bringing us close to death more than once. He would spray himself with cologne to mask the heavy stench of alcohol in case the police stopped him, and asked me to take responsibility for the can if we were stopped. Eventually we got out of the car on a turn off in the middle of nowhere, and he started demanding ludicrous sums of money. We flat out refused, and the yellow fiat raced off into the distance.

This turn off we'd got to led to a place called Ar-Rasafeh, an old roman town that was heavily fortified as it was a defense post against the Persians, as well as a stopping point for caravans on the silk road. It is walled collection of ruins in the middle of the scorching desert, miles away from anything. To get there we had to wait for over an hour at a little truck stop 2km from the turn off, having been given tea by some locals, just waiting for any kind of vehicle to be going our way. Eventually a pick up obliged an we hopped on the back and went down an empty dusty road, amidst a completely empty, beige sun baked landscape.

Ar-Rasafeh was worth it though. Lonely and isolated, the church and a few building are still in okay condition. The Cisterns were by far the most impressive thing there though, massive underground vaults, with shafts of sunlight breaking through like lasers from holes above. We were alone for much of the time, until 2 robed Arabs mysteriously turned up, took some photos with us and promptly disappeared into the desert.

Then we got onto the road nearby that led to some sort of inhabited area and stuck our arms out again, throwing ourselves onto the winds of chance. Fortunately, we were soon picked up, and this began our 2 day Syrian Pharmacist adventure... (more to come)

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When we were in Kayseri in Turkey, after being guided skillfully into a carpet shop, and having realized this leaving, we were given a boy to help us out and follow us around as it would help his English. This turned out to be a massive boon, as we were very tired having done a 1000+km hitch in the past 20 hours and hadn't slept much. He showed us where to go, brought us to tea houses and kebab shops, and generally helped out. The strange thing was, that this didn't surprise anyone, and the other people we ran into sort of expected him to do all this.

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We've so far been making our way south from Aleppo down Syria's developed side, and Syria's main north-south artery of Aleppo to Damascus, so far we stopped by at Marat An-Nama'an, Hama and now Homs. But soon we'll venture off the beaten path and bust east into the desert...

The sights so far have been mainly ruins, highlighting that this is an old, old place. Civilizations have come and gone, since the very beginning, and great powers have always vied for the region. We've seen many impressive ruins from all eras, the leftovers of the massive colonnades of the Roman city of Apamea (first built by the Seleucids though), which had enough of a main street left to inspire the imagination to envisage the legions walking in under the eagle banner. The size and solidity of the stones was very impressive.
From the byzantine era, we saw the Dead Cities, large Byzantine towns that were left abandoned for some unknown reason. Although most of the building are ruined, with quite of few of the stones taken by locals for their own houses, there is still a few buildings and walls fully intact, and more than enough to show that there was a proper town there. Again, it was all built out of huge stone blocks, giving the impression that these ruins would be here forever (or until people steal all the stones). The current theory on why they were abandoned are "demographic shifts", people moved out to better places, perhaps to escape marauding armies, of which there have been many.
Personally though I prefer the medieval ruins. Today we saw the Assassin's castle at Musyaf. The Assassins are the stuff of legend, but were definitely badass. Since they were Shia Ismailis, they were constantly at war with the Sunnis, who generally controlled the region. When Saladin besieged their castle, he one day woke up with a cake, a dagger and a note by his bed saying "you are in my power" signed by the Assassins. Obviously, he crapped his pants and lifted the siege. When a crusader came to the castle, the leader, just for kicks and a display of power started shouting at his acolytes to start jumping off the ramparts, which they did until the crusader begged him to stop. The castle itself is pretty intact, and we spent a good few hours climbing around it.

The local people have been pretty nice. There seem to be tourists around, but mostly of the tour-taking variety, so when we take public transport around the place to small towns and villages to see the ruins, we get many surprised looks and mobbed by cute and scruffy children. This is good as we also get invited for tea, but the language barrier is proving quite hard to break through. Some communication is possible though, about pretty random topics. With one old man (who lived in a house in the ruins of an old castle), who spoke no English whatsoever, we managed to "talk" about world war 2 (I got the distinct impression he still though the Soviet Union still existed), and about how he stole stones from the ancient roman ruins nearby to build his home. Somehow, just with our hands and tone of voice, this got through. Although he tried to explain for about 20 minutes how he was a farmer and it didn't really click until he took us into his shed and showed us his plough.

I've also been surprised at how many men still wear the traditional robes and headwraps. The streets are filled with the guttural tones of heavily stubbled men in the red kiffieyeh, hijabied women and street urchins selling bread and shining shoes. There is a lot of heat around too in the cities, not just from the baking sun, but from the streetside kebab shops cooking outside, and men carrying around coals for the nargilehs. A very vivid and intense culture, lots of loud body language, people hawking things on the street, as well as shouts of "hello and welcome" to us as we walk by. Most of the younger people we've met seem to be fixated on leaving the country though, as there a few jobs, and no money here. Money is all important around here, you need to to get a wife (or the bride's family will refuse), to get a house (or you wont be able to live with your wife, or even marry her), to buy your wife jewelery, and all the other usual expenses. One guy who invited us for tea and coffee, Saddam (woohoo!), thought that all Europeans are rich, and a job in Europe would land him a jackpot, but with his level on English I doubt he would have an easy time getting a job.

The Axis of Evil this is not, however they do block facebook...

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Waking up, we had a kebab and some baklava (a local specialty) and took a minivan heading south to a small town near the border, where we managed to get a car heading south to Aleppo, aka Halep, aka Haleb. After some standard beurocracy and waiting around at the border, especially the Syrian side, where we needed to see the doctor, who was inexplicably absent for almost an hour, we crossed over into Syria, and entered a country with yet another alphabet. That makes it the 5th alphabet in the 5th country on this trip, full house.

The level of development immediately got lower, the road got a lot worse, driving standards went from fairly western minus seatbelts to "drive wherever the hell you want at any speed", the amount of donkeys on the roads increased by 1000% (although livestock on roads is waaaay below Caucasus levels). The buildings changed from being quite colourful neat apartment blocks to a monotony of beige and white blocks. The land suddenly lost the irrigation and so the arid scorched grass and bushes were the main feature on the parched landscape, a change from the many fields of green that the Turks had planted what is essentially the same land, still a very far cry from the lush and verdant mountains of Georgia.

From our exploration of Aleppo so far, it is a very mad and bustling city, a trading town since the beginning of time with the souqs (markets) still going strong. A very loud place, with cars honking, the sound of the workmen near the markets still making things by hand, the calls to prayer and the Arab pop music blared out of shops all melding together to create a loud and vibrant soundscape. Amidst all the chaos, the courtyards of the beautiful old mosques somehow retain a stillness and peace about them.

I think we need to wander around the the small winding streets of the old town some more, and drink more of the strawberry and honey juice that Aleppo offers...

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Or on my facebook page.

Enjoy!

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As with Tbilisi, Yerevan has a large statue overlooking it on a hill north of the city, Mother Armenia, defensively holding a sword across her body. It seems Caucasian peoples love mother figures, sort of how Turkic peoples love father figures (Ataturk = Father of Turks, Turkmenbashi = Father of Turkmen). Tbilisi had a Mother Georgia statue, holding a cup of wine for guests and a sword for enemies. The Russians are in on the game too, with the largest of them all at 85m, near Volgograd, holding a massive sword aloft, arm outstretched and shouting. The Azeris, caught in the middle of the mother-father complex, have abstained, perhaps as a mother-father combination statue would be too weird.

Most of Armenia's most famous and most visited sights (unsurprisingly churches and monasteries) are scattered around Yerevan, and although we hadn't planned on seeing all of them, our laundry wouldn't be ready till monday so we had an extra day to kill. First on the list was Echmiadzin, Armenia's Vatican, where the head of the oldest chrisian sect resides. Most of the complex is inaccessable to non-Armenian clegy, but the main church is very nice, and by far the most colourful Armenian church we've seen so far, with frescoes decorating the walls, and packed with a large candle lighting brigade. Walking around the small town, we didn't find much else of interest, but met a man who sung us a song, and a woman who wanted who know where the concert was (which one I have no idea) and how much are shoes cost. She did give us a chocolate bar, so I guess shes the good kind of crazy.
Next day (still waiting for laundry, but it had to bedone, seriously) we saw Garni and Geghard, having teamed up with a Mecedonian-Canadian firefighter from our flat-hostel. The first a hellenic temple which is mostly rebuilt, overlooking a nice valley (not much else to add), the latter a church with many acoustically awesome chambers carved into the cliff by which it resides, definitely a 9 out of 10.

We spent a lot of time in Yerevan just walking around, sitting in the many, many cafes that litter the streets and eating shwarmas and trying out wierd Armenian soft drinks (like bright green Feti Cola, Estragon flavour, yum). The cafes and trees lining the streets do give it a slight European feel, but counterbalancing that there were also dogfights in the main central park (by the opera), which were quite entertaining.

As soon as we got our laundry back (I can't stress enough how much it was necessary), we decided to break north and see how far we close we could get to the Georgian border, so that we could cross to Turkey as soon as possible.
Getting the last marshrutka out of town at 8 (no one travels at night because the roads are so bad and there are no lights on the "motorways") and our first marshrutka after sunset, we set out north to the town of Gyumri.
This turned out to be the most epic ride of my life, as we rode on a rickety minibus into the mountains skirting a giant electrical storm. The lightning lit up the arid ground around us every few seconds for what seemed like an eternity (2 hours) and occasionally a huge flash would draw itself starky in the sky. As we kept driving along the storm kept moving toward us, creeping closer from the left side, then it was chasing us from behind, then surrounded us but somehow we managed to bouce along the pothole ridden road just quickly enough to avoid it. I wish I was a better writer to capture the moment, but sufice to say I saw more lighting that night that I have ever in my life before. Also, we had a wicked soundtrack .

We got to Gyumri slightly dumbfounded and were dumped somewhere near the centre. As none of the locals seemed to know any the geography of the town at all (we asked a few), and the rain had finally caught up with us, we took a cab to a cheap homestay somewhere in town. Not planning to stay long, or see the city at all (it was mostly levelled in an earthquake 20 years ago), we got up early and got to the bus station to get on something going to Georgia. As usual we had to wait for a couple of hours, so we got a shotfull of sunflower seeds and practiced our seed eating skills, which are far below that of the average Armenian (that is super-expert, we even saw some who would pop the seed into their mouths and spit out the shells). It passed the time. Eventually we got to another border crossing of shacks, guys with AKs, cows, and stressed out people, although we got through without any problems.

Going back into Georgia the scenery got a lot more green and lush (and the roads a lot worse), and we got dumped off near some Georgian farmers armed to the teeth with knives, scythes and pitchforks (probably planning to kill the local vampire lord), on on a turn-off to the cave-city of Vardzia, the last sight we planned to see in Georgia before heading into Muslim lands. A hitch got us halfway there, as well as lots of apples, and another hitch put us into the open arms of a Georgian tour group from Tbilisi, who drove us to more sights than we knew where there as well as filling us with khachipuri. The cave city was awesome, with hundreds of caves carved into the rock, and long pitch black tunnels between some of them. All of the caves were empty apart form one working church, but it was very fun to climb around. There were also more impressive caves nearby, as well as a nunnery set amidst nice vegetation and ruins all along the canyon, including a castle set on a cliff, controlling the valley beneath.

The tour group eventually dropped us off outside a hotel (probably slightly over estimating our budget) on the outskirts of the unpronouncable town of Akhaltsikhe, but it was late so having no choice we eventually haggled it down to something fairly manageable. Hey, after the next day, all our Georgian money would be completely useless, and we got a nice shower, BBC news and a massive breakfast. Also we met some Mongol Rallyers, who were new to the region and had made the mistake of driving at night, battering their car. Giving them a few tips, we left them making repairs and went to get the bus from the bus station mostly filled with giant watermelons to the border of Turkey.

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Then we had some cross country mountain walking to a large waterfall nearby, which was actually "shut off" because the nearby hydroelectric station was using up the water, so there was only a small trickle down the falls themselves. There was still an opportunity to have a swim in the cold mountain waters in the pool above with some local boys, and some rock climbing to the top of a mountain nearby.

The next day we decided to be adventurous and have a day trip to Tatev, a famous monastery in the region that was recommended to us by a trucker we had hitched with earlier: "If you haven't seen Tatev, you haven't seen Armenia". This was rather daring as there was one bus going there from the town of Goris (further down the motorway from us) and none going back until the next day, and since it wasn't on the main road or anything of the sort, hitching would be hard.
We had this "hitching would be hard" revelation after a few hours of standing along the dirt track that leads to Tatev, being told a few times that we'd have no chance of getting there by passing drivers (some of whom said they'd drive us there for big money, ie. filthy taxi drivers, so we ignored them). Eventually a passing kid confirmed our suspicions and invited us into his house, where we were somehow ushered into a farewell feast for a newly married couple, who were leaving that same day on their honeymoon. Some chess games and shots of homemade mulberry vodka later, they put us on the only (packed) bus going there along the dirt path into the mountains. The jackhammer ride didn't help the daytime hangover, but we made it eventually. After we arrived, some kids laughed at our wishes to get back on the same day, pointing to some local homestays nearby. Deciding to ignore that issue for the time being, we went to check out the monastery that Tatev is famous for.

The monastery was surrounded by a large wall, perched on a cliff overlooking a deep canyon, definitely an epic sight. The building itself was fairly usual (I'm getting quite sick of these monasteries), beige stone, drum and conical dome, carvings of crosses everywhere, orange wax all over the walls from years of candles. After this was done, we had the pressing issue of somehow getting back, which also meant that we couldn't see the other sight of the area, Satan's bridge, as hiking 5km through mountains and back then trying to hitch a ride wasn't really an option since it was getting late.
But one again, luck was on our side, and we managed to befriend some Armenian playboys (the big dog was LSE and MGU educated, with his trophy girl and 2 lackeys) out on holiday and got a ride back in their big black jeep. Amazingly enough, they also wanted to see Satan's bridge and took us there too, which was a natural bridge over a steep gorge (ie a rockfall). You can even go under the bridge, to the place where you'd expect the trolls to lurk, which is an dark tunnel dripping with stalactites and pools of warm spring water, as well as lots of cool rocks to climb around.

Eventually, after losing the way a few times (iphone GPS doesn't work here) the sleek black SUV dropped us off on the motorway to Sisian, where we quickly found a classic foul mouthed Armenian trucker on his was to Yerevan from Iran who dropped us off at the turn. There we miraculously found another truck home. The hitching itself is very fun, as you get good banter with the truckers in a particular Russian vernacular where every second word is somehow offensive.

A dinner of fresh fruit and bread and quick night at our hotel, and we hopped onto a minivan heading north to Yerevan, the capital, almost completing our loop of the country. But before we stopped at Khor Virap, yet another monastery on a hill overlooking Ararat plain and the mountain itself, another epic location. Obviously it's very picturesque, but it feels quite standard. They need to step it up and build a monastery on an island inside an active volcano or something. Despite taxi touts bluntly saying there's no public transport, we got onto a waiting bus right in from of us to the capital.

Yerevan is a slight shock, a developed city where we don't have to avoid cow pats on the streets, nicely dressed attractive people, neon lights and tall buildings. Definitely a mild "farmer boy in the big city for the first time" kind of sensation, although it soon passed. We shall delve deeper into what there is around...

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The infrastructure and the roads have definitely gotten better (these ones aren't bombed out), we now have hardly any potholes, hardly any cows, and barriers on the sides of roads! Luyks! The economic situation here is not great though, and the crisis really shows, there are no jobs in the towns, and many people leave for Istanbul, Moscow and anywhere else they can get a visa for work. This tourist season also seems to be a record low, we've been alone in all of the places we've stayed at, and we've seen hardly any foreigners at the sights, most taxi drivers and hotel owners we've met have been complaining about how there's noone around (to swindle) compared to last year (when foreigner's money flew straight into their hands). Hmm... comments in brackets must be the Georgian propaganda.

Dilijan is a town famous during Soviet days for being a retreat for the creative socialist workers, which the Armenian tourist machine has audaciously rebranded "The Switzerland of Armenia". Although the forested mountainsides were pretty nice, the Soviet appartment blocks and buildings take something away from the alpine charm, as do the piles of rubbish and building materials. There we did the standard hitchhiking around, which has been amazing to meet funny bored drivers looking for some foreign entertainment, as well as getting us to monasteries hidden away in the forests. We got lost looking for one, and ended up trekking through the forest for quite a long time, knowing that the monastery wasn't there but hoping to stumble upon somthing good, until we found some lumberjacks who told us to turn back "nehuya tam i netu" ("nothing there", but in a style you would expect from a lumberjack).

Today, we managed ventured into long distance hitchhiking, after some transport around the pretty lake Sevan, a fairly large blue lake surrounded by grassy mountains we got onto a bus of middle aged German hikers, a bus which we actually hitched on before, albeit previously without the germans. This was an incredible piece of luck, and I was happy we had more in common with the driver and some random Armenian dude on the bus (who was probably on the payroll but didn't seem to actually do anything apart from chat to us) than with the bourgeois European scum. Yeah. Then after some waiting (we have nothing but time), we fulfilled another dream and got a Kamaz, carrying around 30 tonnes of wet sand to a factory somewhere. Clearly, 30 tonnes is a lot, and going uphill seemed a slow as if I were pushing it. A few painstaking mountian passes later, we reached our target in the southern grass covered mountains: Sisian, in a piece of Armenia wedged between Azerbaijan of 2 sides and Iran from the bottom (lots of Hajji truckers). Tomorrow we plan to inspect the petroglyphs and other cool stuff around here, a welcome change from the seemingly hundreds of thousand-year-old monasteries that seem to be as common here as gold teeth on old ladies (that's very common to the uninitiated into all things Soviet).

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2 days into Armenia we heard the other side from a fat farmer called Fyodor: In Armenia, they are cultured and civilised people, who like to help out foreigners, whearas we should watch out in Georgia and Azerbaijan, as our stuff will probably get stolen.

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There was a little sunshine, in the morning, during which we managed to walk up to a breathtaking monastery on a wind swept peak above the town, it's beige stones standing out against the green grass of the mountainsides. After that, it started pouring down, with no apppearance of subsiding, so we decided to return to Tbilisi.

In the marshrutka, we met a few Georgian students who'd been holidaying in Kazbegi, although they ran out of money and had been boiling grass for food. They took us in as guests and showed us some famous Georgian hospitality. Big thanks to Sergei, Sandro, Pompe, Georgi and the gang.

First they took us to a folk festival, which eventually turned into a rock concert, which wasn't actually too bad, although Georgian conservative values shone through a little: the only people dancing were some drunkards, whilst everyone else laughed at them. Later we went back to Sergei's (decended from Georgian aristocracy, although that doesn't mean much now) for fine wines and dumplings. We had a lot of interesting discussions, and eventually got to sleep. Next morning, we were going to Armenia, despite warnings from the guys that and Armenia is a terrible place with horrible people (they said that Georgians were intrested in wine, whilst all Armenians are after is money)

My impressions of Georgia were very positive. The people are very warm, the hospitality is awe-inspiring (we left the boys with a really nice bottle of wine and a horn to drink it out of), and definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far. The scenery and the nature is amazing (awesome fruit).
The country is a bit of a wreck, but it is changing fast, President Saakashvili has made a lot of positive changes, the boys were especially thankful to him for returning the rule of law. Before, they were "street boys", who lived by what essentially were prison rules, which governed the whole country. They didn't go into what they actually did during the "bad times", but suffice to say it wasn't pretty. The new regime caught and imprisoned all the mobsters and corrupt officials, and almost instantaneously the county returned to law and order.
Georgian people are passionate and can get argumentative in politics, making it hard to reach a consensus, which means that no matter what any politican does, in a free society there will always be some camped outside the parliament building shouting for the downfall of the President. But hey, changes are definitely happening there, and compared to the nineties, it can't get worse.

A few minivans later we crossed the border into Armenia, and after hours of waiting and chatting to people heading to Istanbul on coaches (apparently there are no jobs in Armenia, so everyone goes to Turkey), we hopped on a bus going to Alaverdi, our first stop.
Alaverdi was a Soviet copper mining town in the Debed canyon, where most of the mining and mettalurgical complex had shut down (standard) and now most of the population was unemployed. Well, a very small part of the complex was functional, unfortunately, it happened to be the part that spewed white fumes that pollute the canyon. Surprisingly, this was the first (partially) working factory I had seen in the Caucasus.

Anyway, we stayed in another homestay, this time in a gritty Soviet flat (it seems that many flats are abandoned in the town as many people have left to seek out work elsewhere). I wont describe further in the hope that time will erase this memory...

The way we travel also had to change in Armenia, since all the moasteries are scattered in various lonely places throughout the countryside. Taxis are too expensive to be an option (it seems like the default job for anyone with a car, so predatory taxi drivers are everywhere), we hitch around and walk a lot to reach these places, which were specially built to be hidden away so invading armies (Arabs, Persians, Turks, Mongols, Russian etc.) wouldn't find them. These churches (especailly Hagpat and Salahin) were very beautiful, but seem a lot more sombre and austere that Georgian churches, made from a dark stone and without coulourful frescoes inside, just lots of intricate carving work. They have a solidity about them that seems to express their timelessness. They are very, very old (Armenia was the first christian kingdom), and will probably be around for a lot longer that I will (although maybe not, since I may live forever).

Finally we leaft the post-industrial wasteland, for the forested mountainsides of Dilijan.

Georgia (Sakartvelo) to Armenia (Hayastan) remains copyright of the author Antonxiii, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Wandering aound we got a good feel for the town, walking along the leafy, boutique lines Rustaveli we reached the Parliament Building, where the street became blocked off by white boxes labeled with "Cell" and a number, which are where the prostesters to the Saakashvili government currently reside. There are about 50 or so of these boxes surrounding the government building, most empty, but a few groups of die hard protesters are still holding out for change. There is also a large podium directly in front of Parliament with a massive banner reading "people for the resignation of Saakashvili".

We chatted to some of these protesters to get the word on the street, and were pointed to their "starshiy", the elder of the group, a large man with a huge beard sitting on a bench. He spouted a lot of rhetoric, some sensible, but a lot of nationalistic ramblings. They say that both America and Russia want the take over Georgia (they seemed to dislike America more as Russia is an orthodox country), but do not care about her people, and naievely that they want Georgia to be a neutral country trading their wares with the rest of the world. They dislike Saakashvili as he is not religious, or nationalistic enough. They wanted a lot of change, but didn't seem to offer up any ideas. A few months ago there were apparently millions out in the street demanding change, but recently the protests have died down, wih only the die-hard remaining living here for the past 3 and a half months.

The next day we saw Tbilisi properly, especially the old town, which is nice but still very run down with a surprising amount of abandoned building which we broke into and climbed around. After some more walking, st seemed that most of the centre was suddenly flooded by busloads of police, police armoured vehicles which began clearing the streets of people. Biden was in town, which also explained the US flags flying around the place. The police were fairly polite though, unlike during the Shavernadze years, as some locals recounted, when they'd used to beat and extort people for fun. This hampered our exploration of the town somewhat as it shut down all of the centre until tomorrow, but there was wtill a lot of interesting things to see, like a market which consisted of old people selling off random stuff, like plates, knives forks and heaps of Soviet trinkets from their homes to make ends meet.

Anyway, I have little time now, but more to follow... Tibilisi is very nice, but tomorrow we head back into the wild mountains along the Georgian military highway.

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The sights were pretty nice, we saw the first of many ubiquitous churches and monastries (all with the seemingly standard bleating goats) that dot the hills and mountains of this country, complete with bearded, black clad monks in funny hats, incuding one mafiosi looking one in sunglasses driving a blacked out jeep. A long walk accross the hills and we saw another, this time on a dramatic clifftop overlooking a valley. The walk seemed to be through fairly average Georgian countryside, but it was packed with a variety of fruit and nut trees. Everything seems to grow here in abundance (except bananas, accoring to Suliko), and walking along almost any road you can pick blackberries, plums, cherries, pomegranates, grapes and nectarines off the trees.

One striking thing about the cities here is the proto-capitalistic bazaar culture,with people selling all sorts of random stuff of the pavements, mainly large piles of fruit (including amazing watermelons). The bazaar of Kutaisi neems to sprawl through most of the centre of town, with old ladies and men sitting around spitting sunflower seeds hawking random wares (none of which seem any good for trading though).

The utilities infrastructure are also an issue here. Is our homestay, there was no running water in the evenings, and here was he occasional blackout (as well as one in the internet cafe halfway through a blog post...), and this ass seems very standard in Georgia, although they all seem to cope by having massive water tanks they fill up during the day and candles. Apparently, it used to be much worse before, as Suliko and Madiko recounted, and it seems they spent most of the early nineties by candlelight.

Some more random walking around and eventually getting stuck in an internet cafe during a huge downpour of rain (the central square filled with almost half a meter of water), we eventually got back to the homestay for more delicious home cooking and homemade wine.

Next stop was Gori, famed for the most famous Georgian of all time ever, Iosif Vissaronovich Jugashvili, better known as Joseph Stalin. He's still pretty popular in Georgia, with many streets named after him, but Gori was a particular Stalinfest, with many statues including a huge one in the main square (obviously Stalin square) which the russians avoided bombing when they shelled the town last year (there's a large Georgian half-rebuilt military base nearby that was their main target).

The Stalin museum is a temple like structure built next to the wooden shack where he was born which is now encased in a superstructure over it, the roof of which is covered in an assortment of stars, hammers and sickles as a sort of temple to communism. The museum is even stranger, containing hundreds of photos and paintings of the man, charting his course from childhood to death, portraying his as a heroic revolutionary who kicked Hitler's ass so hard Hitler could taste the shoe polish. It also proudly displays a room full of his personal items like his pen, his cigars, pipes, a watch he gave his mum, and his entire office from the kremlin. There is also a room dedicated to his bronze death mask, which lays in the middle of the circular pillared room, creating a definitively religious feel.

After a quick overview of empty ruins of a castle (apart from some AK toting guards) and some cheese pies, we were quickly shoved into a packed taxi heading to Tbilisi.

Into Georgia Proper remains copyright of the author Antonxiii, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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What struck me about Georgia is the amount of abandoned buildings and ruins, a third of Poti was in ruins and empty. According to some locals, it was much more bustling and full before the war last August, but then many fled and have not returned. Since Poti is the site of the main Georgian naval base, the Russians bombed it last year, and it definitely has a wor-torn atmosphere, although there is no danger now. The town of Zugdidi was packed full of people, standing around and doing nothing. Being the closest town to Abkhazia, it has taken in many Georgian refugees (The Abkhaz were ethnically cleansing the Georgians) from that conflict. The separatist conflict was in the early nineties, and what these refugees are currenly doing and how they are managing to survive is unknown to me, standing around doesn't seem particularly profitable.
Another thing about Georgia are the animals, especially cows, on the all the roads we've seen, just eating grass by the side of the road, or just sitting in the middle of the road. Combined with the giant pot-holes and other cars, driving along the roads involves a lot of swerving, obviously at high speeds.

Our UAZ Soviet jeep up to Mestia in Svaneti was no exception, the road was a dirt track, populated by mountain cows, who seem completely oblivious to the cars driving dangerously close to them. The road led deep into the mountains, with spectacular views of forested mountainsides, rivers and lakes, untouched by human hands (except the occasional Ex-Soviet abandoned building by the side of the road). There were 8 people in total in our jeep, including Avtandil and a slightly drunk Gurgen, who had amusing sounding banter in a highly enunciated but completely incompresible Svan language (same linguistic family as Georgian, so, unlike eveything else). On one of our many stops (the jeep kept breaking down) they introduced us to hospitality Georgian style, lots of booze, and lots of toasts.
We arrived very late to Mestia, and Avtandil even arranged a homestay for us, with lovely woman called Anna, who lives with her mother-in-law and her 3 kids. Highly recommended if anyone's in the area (I'm going to start diversifying into travel recommendations now):

Anna's Homestay,
Senaki Street 1
aniuta_76@mail.ru
899-420-437
(35-40 GEL all inclusive)

Anyway, having arrived we were immedeately sat down and fed with excellent Svan cheese, bread, and watered with hot milk and chacha (a local grape liqueur) made by the mother-in-law. Our first day we spent hiking around the area, and deciding to push ourselves to the limit, pointed at a nearby snow-capped mountain and decided to climb it. This involved 9 hours in total, walking many arduous kilometers, hanging on to small ledges, and being breathless from the altitude (it was probably around 2500m near the top). The views and the endorphins were definitely worth it though, we saw the glaciers of mt Ushba nearby and the whole of Mestia and the Svaneti mountains around it unfold beneath us. We even had a snowball fight. We just made it down in time before sunset, had it been dark it we my have broken our necks as there was no path and it was very steep. Completely worn out, we stumbled back to Anna's for a heartly Svan meal (and of course chacha), and fell into a deep, deep sleep.

Waking up sore the next day, we decided to take it easy and wandered around town with the aim of getting into one of the Svan towers (big, old, stone towers that every family house used to have) that litter the town. after some wandering we ran into Paata, who I can only describe as a lovable mix between the village idiot and violent drunkard.
It was around 11, he shouted at us and waved us into his house, where it seemed that his sister had locked him in his bedroom (although he escaped through the window and managed to down a bottle of vodka). He was a very proud man, and loudly proclaimed that he was the only jew in town (he did actually live in Tel Aviv for a few years, but said that he didn't feel at home there). He was a sargeant in the Red army, and insised that he is very strong and would never die, he would even kill his enemies from his grave.
We had a variety of adventures with him trying to get into one of the towers which mainly involved going into peoples houses so that Paata could fill up with more booze. Eventually we got into one of the towers, where he embarassed his sister who also turned up leading a very official group of tourists by shouting drunken "truths" at them, which were apparently painful but necessary to hear. There truths were that the Svan towers were created as instruments of death and hatred, and that the Svan, although never invaded by the Mongols, have been killing each other since time immemorial. I guess there is some truth to that. Eventually, after more hilarious ramblings like that he would kill, choke or crush anyone that would give us any problems, that all non-believers in Jesus Christ should be killed we shared some vodka with him and he left us, having found some out of town women to harass.

That night it was also Anna's birthday and we were invited to the festivities. A Georgian feast is really a sight to behold. There is a tamada (a toastmaster) who leads the drinking with long and eloquent toasts to pretty much anything. The wine, chacha and congac drinking was interspersed with some food too. We chatted and danced long into the night with Anna's schoolfriends, and my memory of the occassion gets very hazy...

Next day, with our sore heads, we went into the main square of Mestia to try to find a ride out of Svaneti. A few hours of sitting around and haggling with random drivers we finally managed to get a ride back, agaist all expectations. Another stunning 4-hour drive through the mountains and we found another marshruka going to Tbilisi, which dropped us off at the ancient Georgian capital of Kutaisi, our current location (although we got ripped off a little, but we had no choice).
Getting around has definitely been easy, it seems the old adage needs to be adapted somewhat:
Where there's a will and a wallet, there's a way.

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The boat was an interesting experience nonetheless. It seemed that we crossed the Europe-Asia divide when we reached the ramshackle port building in Illichyevsk in the Ukraine, complete with Georgian truckers squatting, smoking, and displaying their fat hairy bellies. The port building was surrounded by token Ex-Soviet industrial buildings that served no obvious purpose apart from creating a post apocalyptic atmosphere. In a Tarkovskyesque attempt, I photographed a few of them, but was immedeately shouted at by some woman, screaming things like "do you want your hands broken?", "do you think you're smarter than us?" and generally implying that the customs officials would rape me (to put it nicely). Nothing came of it.
Anyway, after hours of waiting for the customs officials to arrive, then waiting for the head customs official to have a 3 hour cigarette break, we were driven just to the stairs leading up to the giant MS Greifswald, and then we had to wait (this time in the rain) for them to open the door. The Greifswald is a Northern European (Danish I think) build ferry which took on trucks, trains and a few passangers. The signs on the ferry were in Danish, German, English and Lithuanian, with some paper Russian signs taped over. Clearly it was built for the Baltic, how it ended up ferrying Georgian truckers I have no idea.

There wasn't much to do on the boat. We had 3 meals a day of filling Soviet canteen style food, read, played chess, played capoeira, and slept a lot. The other passengers seemed content chain smoking huddled around the TVs watching terrible Russian programmes (all about crime) or even worse Georgian programmes (a bunch of people talking gibberish) with a light smattering of static. A small group decided to have a backgammon-fest, playing for pretty much the entire time. There were also some Russian and Ukranian truckers on board, but they kept to themselves, the Georgians dominated with their hairy exposed bellies.

Eventually we docked after hours of manuever, to another post apocalyptic Ex-Sovet port. This time with even more rusting piles of scrap metal, abandoned industrial complexes, and even half sunk rusting ships. Amusingly enough there was also a shiny white marina with a gleaming yacht in the middle of all this. Now, Georgia awaits...

Poseidon Ruins the Party remains copyright of the author Antonxiii, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Central Kiev, we arrange for an overnight train to Odesa for that night, which gives us a few hours to kill looking around the oldest Slavic city there is. Kiev is nice, more european than Moscow in my eyes, tree lined boulevards, cafes, quaint old buildings that definitely look their age. Of course, this quaintness is surrounded by giant generic Soviet blocks and more modern buildings with shine plastic windows, but who would have it any other way? Although it seems Kiev has managed to throw off it's bad memories of the past.
As it was a weekend, the main thoroughfare is all pedestrianised, there was a mini anti-drugs techno rave, complete with 3 ravers, and all manner of vaguely entertaining street performance, like a man trying to cycle with no steering.

The churches in Kiev are definitely worth seeing, golden domes glittering under the blazing sunshine, it was very photogenic. We even managed to catch an orthodox service, the trance inducing harmonic chanting and incence was very awe-inspiring. A quick capoeira session on the square and meal later, and we got onto our overnight train heading south to the seaside, sharing a cabin with 2 Ukrainian Babushkas going on holiday.

Odesa is a nice town, very atmospheric old world buildings with the paint peeling off. I kept picturing in my head a story about my great-grandma, who lived here as a little girl. Apparently when she would go to the theatre with her father, he would always carry a pistol with him, just in case. Odesa has a huge network of tunnels underneath it, which have traditionally been the hiding place for all manner of brigands and pirates, giving a reputation of the black sea pirate capital during the Tsarist era.

Now it is a tourist haven, packed full or tour groups taking in the sights and the sun (although there has been a huge thunderstorm and rain all day today). We spent most of the day in a cafe, and fortunately stumbled upon the office of the ferry company that would take us to Georgia. Everything has worked out incredibly well, perfectly to plan. The boat is delayed for a day, so we can get on tomorrow, we found the offices 10 minutes before they shut, bought the tickets and now we're ready to go.

We have raced through the Ukraine in search of places more wild, and tomorrow we get on a 40 hour boat to Poti, Georgia, finally leaving Europe. See you on the other side .

Adventure has begun... remains copyright of the author Antonxiii, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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For this trip I want to make full use of the blog and internet resources in general, so I'm opening this as a platform for any suggestions and tips for the trip.

One of the reasons I thought up of this trip is for the cultural changes we'll see along the way. From Slavic Ukraine to the mountains of Caucasian Georgian and Armenia, culturally unique in their own right with their own alphabets and languages, but still Christian and ex-Soviet.
Then descending from the Caucasus Mountains we will get into Eastern Turkey, and enter the lands of Islam, although still with scattered ancient Armenian ruins. Then onto the Arab lands of Levant, its baking deserts and plains having seen mark of human civilization from the very beginning.
It should be very interesting to see the gradual change of cultures and peoples along the way.
A lot of ground to cover in one and a half months, but it should be managable.

One cool idea we have for the trip is trading: We'll buy some small Ukranian trinket, and try to trade it for another object in every other country and see what we end up with at the end. Yes, it's likely we'll get ripped off by pretty much every merchant, but it's worth a try.
Also there are some ghost towns (due to ethnic cleansing in the 90s) in Abkhazia that look awesome to climb in and photograph, but as a separatist state it's fairly lawless and dangerous (bandits in the mountains), we'll decide if it's worth going when we know the situation on the ground. Also, we can do some amateur journalism with the local people there to get some view of what's going on there.
I have recently learned how to use my camera properly too, so of course I will try to step it up with my photography skills.

Anyway, if you have any other ideas for our trip, I'll be glad to hear them, so leave a comment or email me.
This promises to be a good one.

PS: Check out the Georgian and Armenian alphabets:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_alphabet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_alphabet

The Road Awaits... remains copyright of the author Antonxiii, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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From Kiev I shall try to get to Beirut over land and sea, going across the Black Sea, through the mountains and valleys of the Caucasus, into Eastern Turkey and eventually the baking deserts of the Levant.

Here is a preliminary map of the trip:

Once again, I will be blogging, this time with another friend of mine, Chuck.

We've got lots of interesting ideas and plans for this trip.

A

I am firing up the blog again! remains copyright of the author Antonxiii, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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Pingyao At Night

Some kind of warning?

Ravaged Buddhist Rock Art At Longmen

Approaching The Shaolin Temple

China - Pictures remains copyright of the author ameurice, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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That wore off after a while. The city wasn't particularly exciting. For the "Uighur Capital" it didn't have many Uighurs. The Han Chinese have moved in, and are now in the majority, getting all the good jobs and living in high rise appartments that have popped up everywhere. There's even an expat community, and a Curacaoan Restaurant (Curacao is a random island in the Netherlands Antillies, that's even more random than Urumqi..).

Our only reason for going to Urumqi was to meet up with Max, a friend of ours who would be travelling with us down to Shanghai (and provide help with the Chinese).

Anyway, after a little shopping and time wasting, we jumped on a bus to China's hottest place: Turpan (of Tulufan to the Chinese, who can't pronounce most Uighur names).
It was hot. Very very hot: 45C. Ouch.

In Turpan we signed up for a tour to see the sights, which was a huge mistake. The Chinese 'style' of tourism seems to be this: Hop into a minivan, get driven to a crappy and expensive attraction (places that are "symbolic" to the Chinese people, as all the real attractions were trashed in the cultural revolution, so basically there's nothing there except for a modern building), and then pay a fortune for this "privelidge".
We saw a hill, a empty cave, a grape farm, some modern buildings, and some mud. Great. Actually the mopsque wasn't too bad.

The next day we did our own thing. We rented bikes from John's cafe (legendary along the Chinese silk road), and cycled around. I got pretty sweaty in the heat, but we saw a lot more of Turpan. We met a Uighur grape farmer who showed us around, and even gave us some of his grapes (sour, wrong season).

Even Turpan is very "Chinesefied": the Uighur old town is reduced to the southern part of the city, and horrible dirty modern Chinese buildings are everywhere (they are white tiled, badly constructed and are never washed).

We moved on.

Urumqi and Turpan remains copyright of the author Antonxiii, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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The warrens and back-alleys of the old town were genuinely atmospheric - once we delved deep enough behind the multitude of tacky tourist shops - as was the Id-Kah mosque overflowing with worshippers during Friday prayers. The Chinese presence can, however, be felt in the exorbitant ticket prices required simply to walk up some of the old streets, and less subtly with the giant statue of Chairman Mao (one, if not the, biggest in China)... We entertained ourselves by shopping around for the ubiquitous Uighur knives - which every man carries - and which are sharp enough to completely remove the hair on one's arm, as the stallholders were always happy to demonstrate!

The real highlight and purpose of our visit to Kashgar was the Sunday Market. Supposedly 50,000 people descend on Kashgar from all of Central Asia to trade horses, goats, sheep and cows as well as a multitude of goods - however since most of Central Asia lies hundreds of kilometres west of Kashgar beyond the Tian Shan and Pamir ranges, the crowd was almost exclusively Uighur and Chinese...

The next day we boarded the Kashgar-Urumqi train - a 23 hour, 1500km journey which turned out to be extremely comfortable despite being forced to eat a whole, raw cucumber for breakfast by a very generous fellow-passanger!

Kashgar (喀什) remains copyright of the author ameurice, a member of the travel community Travellerspoint.

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