We got back to Damacus in the early afternoon and had bit of a faff sorting out some admin for the trip but after buying a chap 3 packets of cigarettes for his help we finally got it sorted.Then off to our next stop, the Beit Rose, where we said goodbye to Ahmad and gave him a generous trip; he'd been pretty darn god throughout.The hotel was very pleasant with a lovely receptionist, Dana, and a wonderful relaxing courtyard complete with obligatory fountain.Now imagine if you will the smallest, tiniest, most incredibly small thing that you can.Now cut it in half.That was the size of our room.Now imagine that room crammed with a bed the height of which can only compete with the bed from the Princess and the Pea fable...you know, the one 100 mattresses high!!Let's just call it cosy but heh, we thought, it's only for one night.We'd try to stay here for our remaining stay in Damascus but it was fully booked so we had to move on and spend the next 2 days in a guest house that was operating a soft opening.

Anyway, the manager grabbed us when he arrived at Beit Rose as he was a bit miffed with the messing around he'd had with our booking.It turns out that the reason the hotel was full was because he had 3 bookings for us but under 3 different names and so thought that he had 3 different guests!He'd also allocated us the suite initially but cancelled it when our wonderful tour agency, Orpheus Travel, cancelled it for a reason that will be forever lost to the annals of time.It turns out we were booked in under the name of Jim which we learned was derived from Maria's Hotmail signature of JM Matarrelli!!!

We went wandering in the evening to try and find the next day's accommodation - unsuccessfully so headed home.We got lost and ended up spending the evening having dinner with Eyad, an extremely likeable and friendly Damascan who walked us back to the Beit Rose after seeing us standing on a street corner aimlessly looking for a familiar landmark.