Syria

Day 11 - Fri 8 Dec 06

Up for breakfast at Baron's, the usual middle eastern affair - black tea, bread,cheese and jam. Then out to scout another hotel - I can't afford to stay here for the entire time I'm in Aleppo. I find the Handai near the clock tower and just around the corner from the Baron. I can have a big room for $20 and a smaller room for the rest of my stay for $8. Bargain, so I head back to the Baron to checkout - got chatting to the lady running the place and got an old postcard of the hotel.

Grabbed my stuff and walked down to my new hotel, by this time the price for the room had dropped to $10! The main thing I need to do today is get my train ticket out of here for Tuesday.

I took a walk around the old town, but it being a Friday just about everything is shut. I got to the big mosque and had a good look around, and then headed up to the Armenian part of town, where I found a bakery and got a stack of flat bread for 10SYP.

There's some interesting parking around here - a guy in a battered old Merc reversed into and knocked over a concrete bollard, he then moved off and tried again only to hit a metal parking sign, on the third attempt he made it.

In the afternoon I headed off to find the railway station on foot, but the LP map seems to be a bit 'out' and I got a bit lost. I hailed a cab and five minutes later and 15SYP I was dropped at the front of the station - I was quite close to it really. Trouble is that I can't buy a ticket today. "Try tomorrow".

On the way back to the hotel I pass an Internet cafe, 50SYP gets me an hour, and I check my e-mails.

I seem to be the only guest in the whole hotel, and the guy behind the desk is very keen to be my guide to the city of Aleppo tomorrow (for $20). So I think 'What the hell', and agree!

Blue Healers is on prime time TV here!