A long edition this time as the internet café in Hama was on go-slow(er)!

On Sunday I left Palmyraat 6 a.m. to avoid the heat on thejourney to Hama. I was the only foreigner on the bus, which was full to bursting - there was even a garden chair in the aisle. The ceiling was covered in blue & gold carpet, there were blue and gold curtains and tasseled pelmets, and decorative chrome handrails. A video was playing of some kind of concert in a mosque, with lots of footage of the all-male audience and dates being handed out. The worrying thing was that there was also a small screen in front of the driver! At first the landscape was desert , then it became greener, with olives, cereal crops and polytunnels. From Homs I took a taxi the rest of the way to Hama - I got a good deal as the driver wanted to visit his sister there.

The hotel was on the upper floors of a commercial building in the centre of town; I stayed on the 4th floor, overlooking a busy road junction, with constantly hooting horns. But I could also hear the hundreds of swallows swooping around, and had a visit from a large magpie-like bird. Also got a good view of the sunset. It was just a few minutes walk (across 2 horrendous roads) to the Old City, river and the enormous ancient waterwheels for which Hama is best known. Sadly, most of the Old City was destroyed in 1982, when the Muslim Brotherhood attempted to assassinate the president and the government retaliated by shelling the city and killing 10-25000 of the 350000 population. There are just a few cobbled alleys left, including the 18th century Ottoman Azem palace, a smaller and prettier version of the one in Damascus (Azem was a governor who was promoted from Hama to Damascus). An officious man followed me around to make sure I didn't take photographs, which was a great pity as the rooms are beautiful, with ornate painted ceilings and stained glass windows.

The waterwheels date from the 14th century and used to scoop water into aqueducts for irrigation. There are now only a few left, and they are ornamental. They are huge (up to 21m diameter) and incredibly noisy - the guidebooks say they moan or creak, but I think they hum, with a varying pitch.

Hama was a good base for trips by shared taxi to other places in the area. I went to Krak des Chevalier, a vast Crusader castle perched on a mountainside. It's very well preserved, and you can walk round the battlements (which scared me silly) and see for miles. He next day I went across Bedoiun country to a Byzantine military base/palace/church called Qasr Ibn Wardan, in the middle of nowhere. It's built of sandstone and black basalt, very striking. We were shown around by a lovely old man with very little English, obviously very proud of the place. The vaulting was fabulous - I enjoyed it more than Krak. Hard to believe it was 1500 years old. There were salamanders everywhere and we saw a hoopoe swooping low over the ground as we arrived. We went on to visit a village of beehive houses built of mud, with stones sticking out to make for easy climbing when repairs are needed. Most of the houses are just used for storage now and there are breezeblock houses (with satellite dishes) dotted around, but we were assured that the family we visited still use theirs for eating and sitting. It was whitewashed inside with coloured baskets and pictures of the president on the walls (his picture is EVERYWHERE and it makes me giggle because I think he looks a bit like John Cleese). We had to sit on purple plastic chairs and look at lots of photos while glasses of tea were prepared, and the women had to put on embroidered velvet coats and have our photos taken. On the way back to Hama the driver stopped whenever I wanted to take a picture, including some stripy field landscapes. The Portuguese couple I went with asked where I live in England - don't we have fields there?!

Then there was an early morning (avoiding heat and crowds) trip to 2 of the Dead Cities, built in the 5th and 6th centuries AD from local limestone. The communities were well off - they produced wine and olive oil- until the trade routes changed and they abandoned the cities. The ruins are substantial, often 2 storeys. Sarouj is set in wild moorland and had an almost eerie atmosphere. There were well-cared for goats and fat-tailed sheep grazing there. A little boy came and presented me with 2 yellow flowers and we looked at maps and pictures in my guide book, then I thought he was asking for money, but he wanted (and got) my pen. He does it all the time, must have quite a stationery store! The other city we visited, Al Bara, has become part of an olive grove, so it's harder to imagine what it was like, but there's am I,pressive pyramidal tomb there. On the way we passed plantations of olives and pistachio and a charcoal burning site. The driver taught me a few words of Arabic, but I can only remember two of them.

Yesterday I came by taxi to Aleppo with an Australian couple I'd also met in Palmyra, and we stopped off at a museum of beautiful 1000-year old mosaics and at St. Simeon's citadel, built where the saint sat on top of a stone pillar for 36 years. There's not much of the pillar left as thousands of pilgrims have hacked bits off it! It's high on a hillside with lovely views and surrounded by pine trees, very beautiful and peaceful. I spent a while trying to photograph metallic green and gold beetles on cardoon flowers and a magnificent butterfly, not very successfully.

I'm staying in a really nice hotel here - my big luxury of the trip - in an old house around a courtyard with a lemon tree. I love the marble shower room and the breakfast buffet, which also fills the pockets for an evening picnic meal! (Didn't like arriving to be told that I had no reservation, despite an email confirming it, but it meant I got a double room for the price of a single in the end.) Aleppo is a very big city (4m people) sprawling around the Old City and souk (the hotel is tucked behind the souk). I've explored a bit and bought some olive and laurel soap (the town's famous product) and have just had lunch in a courtyard restaurant, sharing a table with an Australian woman whose grandmother came from here - good food and interesting conversation. I've got another day to wander around here, then on Saturday I'm off to Lebanon -a 5 hour bus to Tripoli for 1 night, then a few days at Byblos, an ancient fishing port that sounds idyllic - really looking forward to that. Need to swop some books so that I've got something to read while I sit in the sun by the harbor!