Travel223
The only time I get to watch TV these days is on the bus from Damascus to Palmyra. We stayed at a very nice boutique hotel in Damscus, the Beit Rose, in the old town and even though you have to put your toilet paper in a trash can instead of down the crapper the accommodations and service were most agreeable. The toilet paper thing is not as bad as you would think, except perhaps for the housekeeper. I didn't tip her enough for that but hopefully the fresh picked Lebanese orange, the delicious banana from last night's fruit plate and the complimentary travel bag from Turkish Air left behind in addition to the small change will relay to her our best intentions. This high fiber Middle Eastern diet is very friendly to one's colon
I thought we were watching on this bus to Palmyra something like the A Team in Arabia but maybe the show changed while I was focused on writing this because the tinny speaker over my head was just now briefly playing some little Michael Jackson riff. In the back of this bus of Syrian's and maybe a Jordanian or two and some Bedouins we are two Americans, three French, and one young Japanese.
Palmyra ostensibly had some kind of temple here before the Romans came and added their distinctive flavor all spread over an area of a few hundred acres at least. Bedouins on 125 cc 40 year old motorcycles zig zag along the pathways offering rides to the further reaches for a fee or extending arms covered in inexpensive beads and with refreshing humor hounding Bernadette and I until I bought not once but twice from him. Those first ones were just glass and plastic he confessd to me. I like plastic and glass I said and after he had hoisted upon me three more "valuable" necklaces to add to the three previous cheap ones bought earlier, and a thrown in hematite necklace and a small silver camel all for only 1000 Syrian pounds (about 20 bucks) I told him ok my friend we have done good business here today but if I see you again before we leave here today I am going run away from you as fast as I can and then showed to his smiling face an example of my speed.
something crawled up inside me and died yeaterday evening so I slept little and feel a liitle upset in the stomach this morning. I told Bernadette to go off to the Tombs without me then I will join her and our hired driver for a visit to the castle above Palymra and then we will venture more into the dessert on thus rainy day, towards Iraq a bit and then north, stopping at a couple of dead cities on the way before bedding down for the next couple of days in Aleppo.
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