Hi, Alyssa here again.We're on our way to Baalbek from Tripoli in Lebanon right now but I'll start off from where I left off on the last blog entry…

Well we paid a ridiculous amount of money for the train to Bayeux last Friday, but it was definitely worth it.It is such a cute little town, I would love to live there, it's really easy to walk around, there is an amazing cathedral and lots of beautiful shops and nice cafes and restaurants.We stayed at a nice B&B for a couple of nights near the main street.On Saturday we visited the Bayeux Tapestry which is really amazing, it is a 70m long tapestry made in the 11th century depicting the Battle of Hastings in 1066.After sharing a baguette and wandering around the farmers market we joined a small tour group to visit the D-day beaches.We visited a museum and a couple of the beaches and some of the sites where the German garrisons were, it was really interesting.That evening we had our last amazing French meal of local seafood and of course the beautiful bread!!

On Sunday we spent most of the day travelling, we got the train back to Paris and had the whole carriage to ourselves, then took a train from Paris's main train station to the airport that was so crowded, we had to let a couple go by before we could fit on with our luggage and even then we were so squashed!!At the airport we were going to try and get an airport shuttle to our hotel for that night which was near the airport, what a mission that was!We got there in the end and were very glad to leave the following morning back to the airport for our flight to Abu Dhabi.Another empty flight, a lot of the flights we've been taking since we left London haven't been full, on this flight business class was practically empty, we were hoping for an upgrade but no such luck!

On arrival in Abu Dhabi we got a bus straight to Dubai which took about 2 hours, then a taxi to our hostel.We had booked a double room but ended up in a room with a bunk bed and a single bed, it was quite nice and warm in Dubai which was a nice change from freezing France, but they had the air-con in the room on so high that the room was freezing and we couldn't turn it off as it was a communal system, I had to sleep with my beanie on and Greg had to wear his hoodie and we shared a single bed we were so cold!!For the next night we made sure it was turned off and it was much more pleasant.So on Tuesday in Dubai we took a bus down to Dubai Creek which is the old part of Dubai where the city began as a trading port.We wandered around the old souqs and along the waterfront and took a dhow (boat) across the river to the other side, it was so nice to be somewhere sunny and warm!It was National Day that day and they had a huge parade of boats going down the river with UAE flags everywhere and a helicopter and microlites flying above with flags hanging from the bottom.We had been noticing the flags everywhere and people waving flags out of their cars and were thinking how patriotic everyone must be, then when we saw the parade we realised it was a holiday!!

On Wednesday we went to Dubai airport and took a flight to Lebanon with Oman Air, and had the best airline food we've ever had!!Had some good views of the Gulf, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon during the flight which was about 4 hours long.On arrival in Beirut Greg was convinced we could get a bus from the airport to somewhere right near the hotel we'd booked, so we followed the signs to the buses only to be told by one of the numerous army men that there are no buses.So we decided to walk to a main street outside the airport as taxi fares generally halve once you're outside of the airport and hail a cab from there.So we ended up walking for ages along what was quite a busy road and extremely difficult to cross!Eventually we got a taxi but even then trying to find the hotel from where they dropped us off was a real mission!Finally made it to the hotel after a lot of walking!We had a nice room with a balcony overlooking a busy road, the port and a bit of the sea.The lady who ran the place was really welcoming and called Greg her cousin when she found out he was half Lebanese.

Beirut was a pretty chaotic city, the traffic is insane, people speed so fast in their cars and there don't seem to be any traffic lanes, people just drive where ever, and at any corner all you can hear are the screeching of tyres because people drive around them so fast!Attempting to cross the street is a huge undertaking, it takes ages to find a gap and when you do you have to run fast because the cars coming towards you generally speed up when they see you rather than slow down!We've had a couple of polite people stop and let us cross when its just been impossible to find a gap, but other times you just have to walk out into the traffic to make them stop or you will never get across!!There are some buildings in Beirut that look like they would have been really amazing once but are now half rubble and there are a lot of rocks and bricks and the like laying around everywhere.Another major thing we noticed was the amount of army people everywhere, they are literally all over the place, you can't go five minutes out on the street or in a bus or taxi without seeing them.It's hard to know what they're doing, some of them are travelling somewhere on their own in a bus or service taxi (a shared taxi), some are just sitting outside buildings in a small group, others just wandering down the street, or even shopping with their wives, apparently they're there just to be a presence and they're all on duty.Whatever they're doing we try and steer clear of them anyway!

On Thursday we took a minibus to Byblos which is a town just up the coast from Beirut, it was nice to get away from the terrible pollution and crazy traffic of Beirut.The drive along the coast was really pretty, Beirut stretches out along the coast for ages and the Mediterranean looked so sparkling blue and inviting on the left, and on the right, lush green hills rose up steeply with white buildings scattered all along the coast, it all looked very much like a Mediterranean city!

Byblos is an ancient port town with a crusader castle from the 12th century and old roman ruins from the town.It is one of the only places in the world where there is evidence of the ruins spanning every single age from the Bronze age to the 20th century.After a beautiful lunch of falafel shwarmas which were the best falafels we had ever eaten, we spent the afternoon wandering around the castle and ruins.There are no gates or fences that stop you from walking anywhere so you actually walk right through the ruins and we practically had the whole place to ourselves, there was hardly anyone else there, it was really nice and peaceful, we couldn't help but think if this place was in Italy or Greece with beautiful weather like we had it would be completely packed with tourists, so we appreciated all the more being there by ourselves.We spent that night in Beirut, and because we hadn't booked for 2 nights, we'd only booked for one and had only decided that morning to stay an extra night, we didn't have a room reserved and had to stay in a dorm room.It was Greg's first experience in a dorm, and the first time I've done it again for at least 3 years, we have got so used to having our own room all the time it was funny to think we might have to share.By 9pm Greg was convinced that no-one else was going to be in the room and so we got all cosy in our pyjamas watching our favourite Bollywood movie on the laptop when two girls walked in with the manager of the hotel to stay in the extra bunk bed in our room, it was a bit embarrassing cause we'd hung up our clothes and towel all over the place to dry them and try to air them out because everything stunk of cigarette smoke (everyone smokes here, except us).The two girls just dropped their bags off and said they were going out for some dinner, we felt like real old people because we were in bed by 9pm and they were just on their way out and didn't come back until 3am, and then one of them snored!!Greg was up first thing in the morning and ready to go, by the time I got out of the shower he'd disappeared completely from the room!!Well now he's got that experience behind him at least I know we won't be staying in any more dorm rooms on this trip!

So on Friday we took a bus to Tripoli, it took about an hour and a half on a nice bus, we got here really early because we'd left so early that morning.We walked around for awhile to find our hotel, it is really difficult to find things here because half the streets don't have street signs and if they do they are generally in Arabic so it's very easy to get lost!So far pretty much every time we have been trying to find somewhere, whether it's the hotel, a restaurant, the bus station, anything, we have got lost!Eventually we found the hotel here, the guy who runs it was really friendly and gave us a discount, his mother was the one in charge and after chatting to the guy and telling him that Greg has family in Zgharta which is where he was from then his mother said that we deserved the discount!We think that we must stand out a lot here, as soon as we stepped off the bus we noticed how much more we were getting stared at than in Beirut, people are really friendly though and a lot of people that we've just walked past on the street will ask us where we're from and how we like Lebanon. Even the local Tourism minister stopped by us when he saw us on the street and welcomed us to Lebanon and said it was good to see tourists here again!

After dropping off our bags we grabbed a kebab thingy from a street stall which was incredibly good (the food here is just amazing!!!) and sat in some public gardens on a park bench.Then we wandering around the old town and the souqs and past some very impressive mosques, it was really interesting just to wander around and look at things, the souqs were quite impressive with lovely looking fruit and vege stands, and then the meat and fish section which doesn't look as good with animal carcasses hanging from hooks and men slicing off bits of meat with massive knives.The alleyways through the souqs were really narrow and mostly covered and walking down them was really crazy, the men who had stalls in there were all yelling at passers by trying to get their business and sell their products, so it was really noisy in there, and lots of people all squashing past each other, quite an experience!

We got totally lost again, it is impossible to know where you're going when you're in there, but eventually made our way back to familiar territory with the help of a local boy.The only thing we brought from any of the stalls were some sweets, Tripoli really is the sweets capital of Lebanon, even as soon as we got off the bus here there were sweets stands everywhere and amazing looking patisseries!So of course I wanted to taste test some sweets, and I can definitely say, as with pretty much all the food we've eaten here, they were delicious!

On our way back to the hotel later in the afternoon we saw what looked like a political rally being held in the main square just near our hotel, there were a large group of people all holding black flags with white writing in Arabic surrounding a man standing on a podium who was talking through a loudspeaker.We didn't really notice it at first because the call to prayer was so loud all across the town.We think it was some kind of religious speech or a strike of some sort.Tripoli is a lot easier to get around than Beirut because it is smaller, and it has a central square with a clock tower and gardens next to it which seems to be a gathering point, when we were in the gardens eating our lunch there were lots of old men just sitting around and chatting, and people eating their lunch in there.

On Saturday we went to Zgharta to visit Gregs relatives who live there, we had a lovely breakfast at the hotel then took a service taxi up to Zgharta which only took about 20 minutes.Greg's grand-uncle Lucien was there to meet us, he took us back to his place and they offered us some sweets and we sat around talking for awhile and met some of the rest of the family.Lucien later drove us up into the mountains to have a look around, it was beautiful up there and we had some amazing views.We had lunch in a place that looked out over a valley, the lunch was huge, Lucien ordered everything for us because the menu was in Arabic and different dishes just kept arriving at the table, including some food that Greg and I hadn't tried before, like raw meat (which surprisingly was not bad, although I don't think you'd want to eat too much of it)!!We sat there for over two hours eating and talking then eventually Lucien very kindly drove us all the way back down to Tripoli and dropped us off near our hotel.We just went back to the hotel and lay down we were so full!!

Right now we're in Bcharre which is up in the mountains, on our way to Baalbek where we'll spend the next couple of nights. That's about all for now, the next update will probably be from Syria!! xx