I've been travelling with a tiny MP3 player that I bought in Malaysia before I left last year. Before I came away, I got out some Farsi tapes from the local library and they really helped to learn the language, by the time I left I could speak to the taxi drivers about family, what they did, what I was doing etc, and barter no the price. Farsi has the same numbers as the Kurdish language, so that helped once I got into Turkey. Arabic is different although it shares many words. I am now relaxing in Allepo in northern Syria, paying 1.50 pounds a night to sleep on the roof of the hostel and enjoying the Bachlava sweets and great coffee.

I've been in an internet cafe for 2.5 hours now, but it's a scorching afternoon outside and I feel like relaxing. I've taken off the "learn farsi" Mp3's and pop music and just put on the "learn arabic" stuff. I love getting into the music of the langauge you are learning, it really helps. Syria is wonderful, the same friendlyness as everywhere else in the middle-east, but as I travel nearer to Israel, viewed by everyone I talk to here as the source of the problem, people are questioning me more on what I think of Blair/Bush/Sharone. I went out from the hostel last night for some fallafel and it was the same time as the Euro2004 final between Portugal and Greece. I am not interested in the football, but the whole of the middle east is, and the match was displayed on the big screen in the central square. Me and Perry, a canadian I met at the hostel, were the central attraction for the kids in the square and I was mobbed with questions as I tried to take some photographs. In the end I tried to make things clear, and answer all the questions and diffuse the situation: Blair, I say, I gesture thumbs down , Bush, and Sharone I do the same, a huge cheer goes up as if I had made a rousing speech, I wanted to take some video too, but the situation was full of too much energy to risk taking the camera out. Positive energy I must say, but a little too positive.



The british drew the dividing lines between Syria and Iraq, as we drew the one dividing Israel and the Palestinian terretories, but the Syrians are pretty much the same as the people living in Iraq and Palestine. I imagine iraq is very similar to here, being only a few hundred miles away or so, and I am not surprised that the people are anti-war and feel for the Iraqi's whenever something happens there. I think the point I am trying to make is that people's attitudes are the same throughout this region, extremely friendly and welcoming but extremly angry that the war in Iraq ever took place.

Reflections on Iran.... coming soon, but here are a few photos which sum it up..