After Israel it was almost refreshing to be back in a country filled with extremely friendly, yet slightly dodgy, Arabs. Our first stop was Dahab on the Red Sea coast. The little town feels a lot like a Thai island with crystal aqua water, heaps of good cheap restaurants and backpackers everywhere. The main difference is the jungle mountains are replaced with endless rocky desert. Our main reason to come, apart from a bit of beach side relaxing, was to do some wo...

After receiving the biggest pat down of all time and 45 mins of questioning we were allowed into Israel and Occupied Palestine. Our first taste of the conflict here was getting on a bus with more assault rifles than bags of luggage. Over our time in Israel we saw thousands of teenagers on their imposed army duty, most still with acne and bum fluff on their faces, holding vicious killing machines. Everyone seems a bit nervous, and overall, nowhere near as friendly...

Due to time constraints we only had a couple of days in Lebanon which we spent in Beirut. This country has been ravaged by civil war, Israeli invasions and the flooding of thousands of Palestinian refugees. The signs of war are still very evident with bombed out buildings, razor wire everywhere, a plethora of army check points and a huge army presence including plenty of tanks scattered around the city. We were able to taste a little of the thriving bar scene...

The border lived up to its reputation of being a pain in the bum. We were wondering wether they would give us a visa at all, but it turned out that they were happy to give us one only it was three times the price! $100 Aussie dollars each! We didn't have enough cash on us so no visa. Our bus left us stranded at the boarder and we were wondering what to do next. Our savior turned out to be an old Norwegian man who was kind enough to lend us some money only it was ...

We have just had the most relaxing week on our trip. First we had a few days at Dalyan. The adventures included a cruise down the river, climbing up to some 'Petra-like' ancient tombs carved into a cliff face, mud baths and hot mineral springs, seeing giant sea turtles lured in by poor fisherman with blue crabs on fishing line, a dark sandy beach with the refreshing waters of the mediterranean and lovely breakfasts on the terrace overlooking it all. Then anothe...