Hi guys,

i'm in damascus, the capital of syrian and have now entered my third day. its not a long time, but already i am just beginning to slide out of the fast paced london lifestyle and am starting to enjoy this time of exploration!

due to the unbelievablly slow pace of the internet cafe i am in , i will try and upload more photos , but please bare with me until i find somewhere faster!

so after a 3:30 am start on saturday morning, i arrived in damascus at 3pm to a pretty unbelievable wave of heat! i found the bus to the city, a half hour ride costing 25 syrian pounds = 25 british pence! and have since discovered that this country is incredibly cheap!

the arrival at the bus station was pretty chaotic and it took me 4 taxis to find someone to take me to my hotel! but open checking in to the al-rabi hotel i have discovered a little haven in this bustling city! my mattress is on the roof of the hotel with 5 others. a canadian, mike, who has been travelling the world on his bike for the last 25 years! a swiss guy with whom i travelled yesterday, a nz girl and 2 spanish guys! its great in the evening, but i get woken initiall by the mosque calling at 5:30am and then the sun at about 7am! but its fine to get up early and enjoy the city before it gets too hot!

my first day included wandering around the old city and through the souks and the umayyad mosque (a beautiful open courtyard (seephotos) in the centre of town.

it was an early night and then an early start as i haeded south the next morning to bosra with laurent (swiss guy) to explore the roman ruins and theatre there. the photos i have are amazing ( i hope too upload them) the ruins were not too ruined! the theatre (holding over 10,000 people ) is incredible. many old houses and arches were still in tact. we explored some nooks and crannies and were then lucky enought ot meet a young boy who invited us into his parents house where we met his mother and sister and drunk chai with them. a very unique experience!

the large open pit you can see in one photos, is an old water storage site built by the romans, it is 120m long x 150m wide and 5-8 m deep! pretty impressive stuff!

we had a few relaxing egyptian beers on the roof when we got back and went out for some kebabs! after such a hot day of sightseeing (it was roughly 40 degrees) i had drunk 3 1/2 bottles of water!!!

today has been a chillout day, i will go back to the covered courtyard of the hotel and read up on the country and then late afternoon go for a stroll! tomorrow i plan to see the amazing ruins of palymra and then the day after head to Hama to explore the north of syria...

i will keep you up todate as much asppossible and miss you all! please excuse the spelling here as it takes so long to backspace it is not worth doing it!

lots of love to you all and look forward to reading your messages!

john

xx00