Hama and Palmyra ... The ruins run continues!

Arrived in Hama after a day’s travel taking in the Dead Cities and St Simeon .. checked into an ok hotel, Hotel Riad, budget of course but clean and respectable (im sounding like the fucking lonely planet). I unfortunately fell down a step and twisted and quite badly hurt my knee on the 2nd day I was there. Not a great time to do something like that on this trip, just before exploring serious ruins of palmyra, petra, and onto Egypt for the pyramids etc. Hama was a fairly uneventful stop, aside my little old lady fall, they have however these massive wooden wheels called Noriah’s, which are around 20 metres in diameter! They are mounted on wooden blocks and because the wheels themselves are also wooden (and wet) they make this beautiful groaning noise as they turn. There have been Noria’s in Hama since atleast 4 A.D, the ones that I saw in town were built in the 13th century. Really mesmerizing to watch and listen to them. Since Syria is so small in comparison to home (most euros think its quite big!) and you can get across the whole country in 7 hours or so, I decided to do a day trip to Palmyra on one of my days in Hama .. the rose-gold ancient ruins are one of the highlights of the middle east. Its about 3 hours into the desert from the capital Damascus. Palmyra (the city of palms) is mentioned in tests discovered at Mari dating back to the 2nd millennium bc. It was a hugely important link in the old silk route from China and India to Europe, and the city prospered greatly by levying heavy tolls on caravans passing through. The Romans expanded it after the Assyrians and Persians held it for hundreds of years, and it remained a powerful medium between the two super powers, the Latin realms to the west and the Parthians to the east. We managed to find ourselves with this dick head from Belgium who was school privately in England … and also managed to bump in to every tourist who decided just because it was hot that it was also appropriate to wear strapless singlets with short shorts … ummm look around assholes, the local women cover from head to toe, literally, including gloves, a face cover and stockings. HAVE SOME RESPECT YOU PACK OF ASSHOLES. God, its no wonder that the west is seen as we are .. as a bunch of idiots with no respect, no ethic and with very lose ideas of right and wrong. It was INCREDIBLY hot however, and I considered that I may have post-traumatic stress from my camel safari because I thought I might literally die this day. For real! So .. spent another day in Hama after this epic day in the desert heat (it got to 47) to relax and rehydrate and then decided to head down south to Damascus. Starting to feel a bit homesick .. just missing the comforts of home that I so take for granted.

Just a warning - I would strongly recomment people never ever use racist language around me about Muslims, Arabs, anyone from the middle east ever again .. if you thought I was feisty before, you got NO idea how feisty I'll be now! I have never met such peaceful, caring, welcoming and generous people .. period .. so look out! haha

Pictures - The top 4 are of the Noriah wheels and one with me not looking incredibly impressed, which isnt the case, its just VERY glarey and I broke my only pair of sunnies (yes folks Im only travelling with ONE PAIR, can you beleive it!).

The next 3 down are taken from the roof of my hotel in Hama, just shots I liked looking out over the city and the nearest mosque.

The next one is of some bee houses I saw on the drive to Palmyra and the next shot is of the desert on the way there also.

The next 3 are of Palmyra and the 2 after that are from the castle overlooking the sight of Palmyra, shows how extensive the ruins are and how fucking far I walked in the 47 degree heat!

The last 2 shots are of of Bedouins grazing and milking their goats - there are still a huge amount of nomadic Bedouins caravaning around the middle east... their tents and animals are scattered all over the desert .. love it.