My Yeh Yeh

I just discovered this photo today at my grandpa's funeral...I love how it portrays my grandpa in such a light way, and how my grandma is staring up at him as if she's simply humouring him.

It's been a rough week, to be honest. I checked my email in Trabzon on Sunday night, and by the next morning I was on a plane to Istanbul and then another 2 planes back home. All together i might have been in transit for 30+ hours, but it was totally worth making it home to see my grandpa to say goodbye. I got home around noon on the 8th and went straight from the airport to see him. Even throughout his 80's and early 90's he was always quite physically robust, so it was a crushing shock to see how thin he had become in the 2 months that I was gone. I have never seen him so debilitated, and it scared me to touch his arm and see that it was thinner than my own. Eight hours later my grandpa passed away peacefully in his sleep. I could only feel genuinely thankful for having gotten back on time.

My relationship with my grandpa is complicated, moreso than the relationship I had with my grandma...but I certainly doted just as much on him, and today I cried remembering all the good memories I have growing up with him. Bye, yeh yeh, i'll miss you.

Photo update

got my photos up of eastern turkey and lebanon, finally. enjoy...

joannachao.photoshop.com

Gorillas in the Mist

Trabzon is a cool little urban city on the coast of the black sea. I didn't get to wander around much, but the area near my hotel had cute little cobble stone sreets that made me sort of feel like I was in a college town, despite the seediness of the brothel/hotels nearby. The people here look distinctly different as well--since they are a huge port they seem to have a lot of Russian imports, and over awhile it looks like the Russians and the Turks have been having quite bit of nookie...I saw a ton of halfies walking around.

The big thing to see here is the nearby Sumela Monastary. By the time Murad, Semi, and I drove through the mountains nearby Trabzon it was well after dark, so I had no idea the next day that Trabzon was basically esconced at the foot of some gorgeous, lush mountains. The windy drive up to Sumela was absolutely stunning, and it definitely had a feeling of the opening scene of Jurassic Park...we had some serious Gorillas in the Mist action going on!

The Monastary itself is not huge and not really all that impressive, but like everything else in Eastern turkey, mostly the trip there and the surrounding areas is what makes it worth it. It was weird to be up in the mountains where it was drizzling and misting all over us, and then to get back to Trabzon and walk around in a tshirt and flip flops. Still, even though I abhor dampness, it gave the entire monastery a nice mysterious effect.

My two saints, Murad and Semi

After the disappointing morning in Ani, Richard and I prepared for a long travel day ahead, both of us were heading to Erzerum and then parting ways--me to Trabzon, him to Mardin. We hailed down a car occupied by two young men, one slightly chubby the other rather thin and drawn, named Semi and Murad, respectively.

I thought Salle was one of the nicest people I've met, and then along came Semi and Murad, one upping the hell out of Salle. Neither of them spoke english, but through pointing and motioning we gathered that they were actually heading South, back towards Van and Diyarbakir, not north west towards Erzerum. They agreed to drop us off at the next city, which Richard and I were happily enough to agree with.

But halfway to the next city, suddenly Semi and Murad changed their mind. They said they would drive to Erzerum, drop off Richard, and then they would head to Trabzon with me! I was overwhelmed by this...who changes their entire road trip for one hitchiker?? but I agreed, even though I was nervous about going the rest of the way with them without Richard or another person to watch my back.

They turned out to be the epitome of kindness--free tea, bananas, chips, beer (although i refused this) abounded. 8 hours! 8 hours these guys drove, and guess what happened at the end?

They didn't even stay! they dropped me at a hotel (this proved to be harder than I expected, apparently there are a lot of hotels masquerading as brothels in Trabzon), told me to make sure i locked my door and ignored any knocking, said goodbye, and literally got back into their car and started driving for Neveshir, back in the SAME EXACT DIRECTION THEY JUST CAME FROM. like....wtf?? they drove nearly 650km out of their way, just to drop me off!! WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? HOW CAN THEY POSSIBLY BE SO NICE?

sorry to get all cappy on everybody, but I just don't know how else to express how profoundly NICE everybody is here. how?? how????

Disappointment - Hamam part deux, Kars, Ani

My bout with food poisoning has proven to be fairly debilitating. I've been able to go through the motions but have felt under a permanent wave of fatigue. After a few days I was finally able to keep solids down, but even now I'm having a tough time having large meals.

After my night at Salle's, Richard and I made it to Kars pretty easily (only had to hitch twice! although the first was in the back of a truck, which didn't make my stomach feel too good bouncing around in the back) and settled in at a hotel. I think we were both just feeling really exhausted, him from not being used to being on the move, me from the aforementioned lack of fuel, so we spent the rest of the day just relaxing. I checked out the local hamam--a bad idea. The hamam was fine, bigger and better equipped than the one in Syria, but the heat of the sauna and steam room really took it out of me and I felt extremely faint. In retrospect this was probably dehydration from the food poisoning, so the entire thing was more nauseating rather than relaxing. I got the same cursory washing, and have concluded that maybe i just keep hoping for a proper massage rather than a scrub down.

The next day we checked out Ani. The guidebook makes Ani, a former Armenian capital, sound amazing, but it was little more than a large grassy knoll with some unimpressive ruins. I was crestfallen that I had gone so far out of my way to see it! the only good thing was the novelty of being able to take a picture of the armenian-turkish border. The whole thing just seemed like a huge waste of time, and it was made al the worse after finding out our driver ripped us off dramatically, which put me in a really bad mood.

You win some and you lose some, i guess.

Emergency

My grandpa isn't doing well, so I've cut my middle east trip 2 weeks short and am taking the earliest flight home. As I type this I'm waiting for my flight out of Istanbul.

I'll finish up my last few posts on eastern turkey because I think they were good experiences, but otherwise I will be slightly on pause until I get going again to south america (or mexico, or canada, or across the US, i apparently have some decisions to make).

Down for the count!

and then there were two. Lindsey and Matt left via airplane while Richard and I geared up for a full day of trying to save money and hitching our way to Kars.

This proved to be extremely easy besides the initial trip out of the city. We rode in 3 different cars and arrived in Dogubayazit around 1pm.

I had woken up not feeling too well in the stomach, but decided to ignore it and ate breakfast anyway. Let's just say by the time we got to Dogubayazit I was feeling well regretful! We were dropped at a random intersection in front of a...store? not even a store, an office? i never did figure out what it was. But inside the office was 24 year old Salle(sp?) one of the most generous people i've met to date. The generosity of the people here in eastern turkey is staggering--i thought after Syria I'd met the nicest people in the world, but the eastern turks/kurds are giving the syrians a run for their money! It's honestly a bit shaming that americans are not even 1/8 as nice and generous as the people I've met here. I've vowed that whenever and wherever I settle down I will take tourists under my wing regularly and become a couch surfing host or something.

Salle, taking in my pale and slightly green appearance, immediately led me up to some stranger's apartment, whose bathroom sink I promptly threw up in. twice. and i tracked dirt into their house. v. embarrassing. BUT, After that small bit of purging I felt better! so Richard and I decided to check out Ishak Pasa Palace on recommendation of Salle. "Chocozele!!" he said. Translated: VERY good!!

He let us leave our packs in his office and we hitched another ride up a huge hill to the palace. and salle was right, it was chocozele. It was one of the better preserved palaces I've seen in Turkey and the view from the top was impressive. Suddenly i heard a "hallooo!"

I looked around. Salle? yes, Salle..inside the palace, after he had told us he couldn't drive us up there. I felt confused. He showed us around and then drove us back down the hill. I never figured out why he suddenly showed up.

By that point I wasn't feeling so great again. Richard politely offered that we stay the night instead of hitching the rest of the way to Kars as planned, even though this would set him back a day. Salle, again the epitome of generosity, offered to let us stay in the shack (guesthouse? unused garden shed? not sure. either way there was a bed for me) out back for free! I happily climbed into the bed and had a momentary surreal moment. "Am i really in a stranger's shack in eastern turkey trying my hardest not to puke all over the red fake satin sheets?" I thought of the time Travis told me that i always had "rich life experiences" and I made a mental note to mark this down as one of them.

I slept it off, waking briefly to throw up in a filthy squat toilet (another rich life experience? maybe. something i never really wanted to experience in the first place) and thank Salle for bringing me soda, plain crackers, cookies and cold medicine. Yeah i dunno why he brought the cold medicine..i don't think he understood that I had food poisoning and not the flu.

thank you, salle! you will forever be awesome.

Castle-d out in Van

Since we were taking a night bus from Diyarbakir to Van, the four of us spent a leisurely day taking care of errands (on my fourth pair of sunglasses in 2 months now) and catching a flick at the local movie theater (Wolverine. Like i said to deb, the man is GOD). The bus trip was unfortunately pretty rough. We arrived around 7:30 am in Van and stumbled about searching desperately for a hotel to crash in.

We all took a 5 hour nap and slowly gathered ourselves together by 1pm. The afternoon was dedicated to a small trip to Akdamar Kilisesi, an old church/monastery on an island, smack dab in the middle of the magnificent Lake Van (or rather, Vangölü). Despite the complexity of getting there (we had trouble getting any clear directions on how to get there. finally a woman just got on the bus WITH us) the trip was well worth it. The church itself was really interesting with reliefs and murals in a style I haven't seen before, and the island was a wonderful opportunity to take in the loveliness of Lake Van and the surrounding mountains. Think switzerland...or austria. even though i've never been to either!

The next day was ambitious...we hit up 3 separate castles.

1. Ho?ap Castle - Perched haphazardly atop an impressive rocky craig. The moment the little kids saw us they came running after us trying to sell tiny miniature knit mittens. I don't think many people visit here. The groundskeeper keeps it locked at all times until he sees some tourists and then comes running out with a key. Matt had to help heave the huge metal door open. We were instant local celebrities down at the town below the castle as well. We were invited to tea and then we were immediately swarmed by seemingly every man in the vicinity of 60 feet.

2. Çavu?tepe Castle - a waste of time, in my opinion. don't bother!

3. Van Kalesi - I almost skipped this because by the end of the day I was completely warped, but i'm really glad I ended up going. This castle is absolutely HUGE. We were easily walking for 15 minutes around the perimeter, simply trying to find the entrance! The view was fantastic and I was able to enjoy another middle eastern sunset.

Diyarbikir, home of the PKK and Kurds galore!

Diyarbikir is, according to the Lonely Planet, "THE stronghold of Kurdish identity and tenacity". and yes, in the short 1.5 days that I've been here, pretty much everybody has proudly told me they are Kurdish. Yet when I finally found somebody who spoke English (ridiculously rare in turkey, even less in eastern turkey, and even LESS in Diyarbikir it seems) and I asked how they differed from the rest of the Turks, the only thing they could manage to tell me was that they "looked differently, dressed differently, spoke differently". It's definitely a topic I'd like to look more into, but I have a feeling I won't be able to tell the difference in such a short time and from simple observation.

The city itself, for me, isn't anything great to look at, but I've had a wonderful time anyway. Lindsay, Richard and I (matt was MIA with a cold) walked around looking at the few monuments listed in the book and then went directly to the cheese bazaar. Yes, you read that right. they have an entire bazaar dedicated STRICTLY to cheese. and just as you'd expect, it was sort of amazing.

Okay, it's maybe not as mysteriously beautiful as you might imagine and the entire place frankly stinks of ..er, well...CHEESE, but one of the store owners sat us down in his stall and fed us seemingly endless amounts of free cheese, olives, and tea. He even sent his son out to get us fresh, hot bread! We spent roughly 2 hours there struggling to converse, laughing at our lack of ability to communicate and generally enjoying ourselves. At the end a procession of men, presumably owners of the surrounding cheese stalls, marched up to us and very officially presented me with a white smock, plastered with the emblem of the cheese shop next door (ironically named "?op", when pronounced sounds like "shop"). I happily donned it and took a number of pictures in front of the shop (maybe I'll be in their next ad campaign??) and we were sent off with genuine smiles and another huge tub of free cheese. Now that's what I call hospitality! not a single lira was spent.

Experiences like this are what make backpacking so special for me. I'd so much rather meet nice people around the world and experience their culture rather than make sure I'm ticking off sites to see. My favorite memories on this trip so far have all been because of good people and good experiences, not the 30th beautiful mosque that I had to see.

Big stone heads - Nemrut Dagi

After some tentative scheduling, I decided against heading straight for the west (package tourists galore!) and went for the east instead. Supposedly it is far less touristed over here, and although I find comfort in Turkey's western ways, I already feel nostalgic for Syria.

Our group, now whittled down to 4, overnight bussed to Kahta. This wasn't so bad, especially with a nap in the morning. I bargained hard for our tour to Mt. Nemrut (never did I think these words would come out of my mouth: *pointing at eyes* "See? Chinese! Yes! You give me good price.) which left at 2 later in the day.

There isn't much to say about Nemrut. They are, as previously stated, big stone heads, slightly gnome-ish in nature, on top of big ass mountain. We drove, we saw, we conquered. oh and we nearly froze waiting 2 hours at the top for the sunset, along with 60 other annoying tourists.

Four days and nights in Cappadocia

Before I left my cousin Sandra wrote me a message on facebook saying to make sure I checked out Cappadocia. I wasn't really sure what to expect and didn't read anything about it before I went. I like to think this is the reason I was SO impressed with Cappadocia, along with its natural beauty and fascinating stone structures. Basically it is just an area filled with amazing rock formations, some of which have been carved out into dwellings way back when. Sort of Petra-like, but cooler, although I feel blasphemous for saying that. You guys can look up pictures on your own, and I will publicly endorse here how awesome it really is to see in real life.

Somehow our group swelled temporarily to six people, all people i either met on the bus or in the hostel (shoestring cave pension, highly recommend. sleeping in caves is a little cold, but it's dark, quiet, and they have really good showers).

Day 1: I went hiking. yes, i went hiking again. yes, in flip flops again. it was a lovely hike though, even better than Bcharre...the rock formations were really interesting if not a bit too phallic shaped for my tastes ;)

Day 2: Goreme Open Air Museum - this was cool, but maybe not necessarily worth the money to see. It's a little small but is interesting to see the old cave dwellings and rock churches. There are still some pretty well preserved frescoes (erm, maybe the wrong term, but the first that came to mind. just pretty, colorful paintings of jesus, saints, etc?)

Day 3: This was by far my favorite day. The 6 of us rented a car together (4 in the backseat, but we managed) and drove to the surrounding areas. The underground cities were amazing, especially the smaller "free" one (sorry the name escapes me now), mostly because we were the ONLY tourists there and we climbed through tons of pitch black tunnels with nothing but head torches and little flashlights. I felt very bilbo-esque a la the hobbitt when he's trapped in that mountain with Gollum!

After that we picnicked in the incredibly picturesque Ihlara valley (again, not a tourist in sight after a mere 10 minute walk along the river) and hit up Selime Monastery. The monastery, another "carved out of the mountain" structure, had some impressive churches and an incredibly steep climb (hands and feet climbing!) to the top which made me use the very miniscule rock climbing skillz that I had. No other tourists again. Matt said it was like a huge playground for adults, which might have been why we all enjoyed it so much.

On the whole I've realized that seeing a country by car allows for some much richer experiences--you can stop whenever you want, wherever you want, usually hitting up small little villages and towns that have never seen tourists, and you can have big sites all to yourself because you get to avoid all the tourist buses! well worth the extra money you might be spending on renting the car.

Day 4: this was sort of a lost day since there were no buses until 8 that evening. I got to catch up on postcards though. jeff have you recieved yours yet??

Accidental hitching

The bus system works on a completely different level here in Turkey. Lindsay and Matt (the american couple i mentioned before) were saying that we were spoiled by middle eastern buses, where we could rock up at pretty much any hour and get on a bus within an hour. At the bus station in Adana we were shocked to find out that the direct bus to Cappadocia was full, and that all the bus tickets here are exorbitantly priced.

So we were forced to take another bus to another near town and told to transfer--not really much more difficult, they said, just a slight annoyance. After 5 hour or so the bus dropped us off at a indiscreet intersection, happily pointed in the direction of Goreme, and took off. Supposedly a bus was coming sometime, so we settled ourselves in view of the road, crossed our fingers, and kept an attentive eye for the alleged bus.

During the 10 minutes we were here we joked about hitching a ride because the bus was so expensive, but I don't think any of us were seriously tempted to do so. But as a large semi truck went by I pointed at the empty cabin, after which the semi promptly slammed on its brakes and pulled over. I gave Lindsay a look and said, "uhm..i guess I'll go ask if he'll give us a ride?"

He happily agreed to drive the three of us to Neveshir, a city about 5k from Goreme. Turns out this would be the good hitching experience to my one bad in jordan. Ali was one of the nicest people you'd meet, proudly showed us pictures of his wife and kids, and even gave us chocolate (yes, we hitched a ride AND accepted candy from a stranger...)! and okay, he didn't speak any english and was missing a finger, but really I was completely enchanted. If this experience was any indication, Turkey was shaping up to be pretty darn awesome.

Trapped in Aleppo

I'm getting really fed up with all this religious holiday nonsense! Friday is the day of rest in muslim countries,and becuase of this I got stuck in Aleppo for 3 nights because there were no buses to Turkey.

This was good and bad in a way. I got to stay at Kasr Alandaloss again and have good times with the hotel staff (rani, abdul, i love you)...I found the pair of strappy sandals that I had been eyeing on the french girl I met in Bcharre..and I got to hang out with two crazy Turkish men, one of which drank a liter of whiskey every morning and did small amounts of cocaine throughout the day. He was quite a funny man.

Other than that, not much to report--the border crossing from Aleppo to Antakya was as cinch, although I had to have my temperature taken at the border for fear that I was carrying swine flu into the country.

I CAN say, first impressions, Turkey is AMAZINGLY beautiful. I was shocked at how beautiful the countryside was driving from Antakya to Adana, and I was even more shocked that when I looked around the bus all the local Turks weren't even looking out the window. They didn't even care that they were surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen!

It's also been difficult communicating so far--almost nobody speaks english here and after communicating in broken arabic for almost 2 months straight it's hard to switch over to the few Turkish words I memorized on the bus. I managed enough to make sure me and the two other american kids on the bus (from, guess where? san francisco, of course) got to a cheap hotel.

to cappadocia tomorrow!

The border crossing FROM HELL

so i've been hearing that crossing from Lebanon back into Syria would be a pain, especially for Americans. I requested a multiple entry visa back in the US, but they only granted me a single entry, for what reason I'm not sure. So really, i can't blame syria (but i sorta do anyway) since I knowingly left and entered Lebanon without having prepared another visa.

I left Becharre at 9 and headed to Tripoli by mini bus. I decided not to stay a night because the Serbian guy at my hotel told me it wasn't worth visiting. On arrival I beelined straight to the bus company to syria. stupidly i said i had no visa and they outright refused to take me since they knew that i'd get stuck at the border. There was much confusion after this, and I somehow mistakenly got sent to the Lebanese immigration office. They made me leave my pack at the front gate and accused me of carrying a bomb (uhm...no, really officer. no bomb.) and then the immigration officers tried to give me another stamp to travel within Lebanon even though I kept saying I wanted to go to Syria. After an hour wasted and quite a bit of exasperation on my part, I FINALLY went back to the bus company and convinced them to take me by saying they could leave me at the border if there were any problems.

and yes, there were problems.

when I arrived I was very hopeful. There was another American girl--she had arrived 2 hours earlier. She said that since I've already been in once the background check was already done and that I should have my visa in a jiffy. She left me 3 hours later and I settled in for a wait.

The most I had heard of somebody waiting for a visa was 8 hours, so I mentally prepared myself for this, but after hearing what the American girl said and seeing her leave after 5 hours I really didn't expect to ever reach that point. I sat patiently in a plastic chair, smiling and nodding at hundreds of people passing through. The guards gave me reassuring faces, gave me tea and told me to wait longer.

Hours 1 through 5 I was cool as a cucumber! i had endless patience! I was buddha goddamit!

Hours 5 through 6 I was starting to get a little antsy, but kept a smile pasted on my face.

By hour 7 something snapped. I remember hearing a story about an American girl crying her way through the jordanian border. I squeezed out some tears (not difficult, i was hungry, tired, and extremely crabby by this point) and looked through wet lashes at the guards. no dice.

Hour 8 rolled around and I was pissed. I went up to a guard and asked why there was such a delay. In broken english he told me he didn't know and motioned to a hospital bed that I would have to sleep on for the night. I screamed some more in english even though nobody understood me. I felt guilty afterwards.

NINE HOURS. NINE !"£$%^&* HOURS at that goddamn border, and they FINALLY let me through. By that point traffic through was at a standstill. I wasn't even sure if I would be able to get any transport to Aleppo. I think the guard took pity on me though, he arranged for a bus to wait for me on the other side of the border.

This of course was filled with 15 men who spoke no english...and me. This, of course, didn't stop them from trying to talk to me. In fact they spent a large portion of the time taking pictures of me and trying to feed me watermelon seeds. by now i must have thousands of pictures of me and strange men floating around on people's cell phones.

They dumped me on the side of a dark highway near Aleppo around 3am. I was afraid--i hadn't been out this late by myself at all on this trip, i was always with somebody. but one of the guys made sure to flag down a taxi, bargain a price for me, and even wrote down the license plate number. I'm not sure if he would actually check with the police later to make sure the taxi would get me to the hotel, but there was something reassuring about him writing down the number anyway.

The swiss-y becharre

Becharre is beautiful. It's perched atop a huge gorge and surrounded by semi snowy mountains. I think I liked Bekaa valley better, but Kadisha Valley certainly competes. With their churches, mountainous skyline, and cute litle streets lined with red roofed houses, I get a overwhelming feeling of being in switzerland (or at least what I imagine switzerland to be like, as I've never been). It's peaceful here, quiet. and they have lots of "chalets" dotting hills..i guess this is the place to go for some fantastic winter skiing.

I'm staying at Bauhaus on recommendation of a brit I met in beirut. Great little hotel..clean but unfortunately mostly empty. A french couple I met in Jordan showed up 5 minutes after me, but they left this morning. Tonight I will have the company of a serbian man and hopefully a good movie on tv.

Today I saw--

1. The Cedars - the lebanese flag is red and white with a cheesy looking green tree in the middle. This is a Cedar tree, the national icon because of a small forest of cedar trees approx 12km north of Becharre. I had to pay 8USD to get up there and back via taxi, but it was a pleasant little walk. Nothing as impressive as our redwoods back home, but still nice. It reminded me a lot of fort mason, if fort mason was surrounded by huge mountains and not by the bay.

2. Kadisha Valley - I did something very un-joanna like today. Actually two very un-joanna like things. I went hiking. in a dress. yes, you read that right. I went hiking OF MY OWN WILL in a DRESS. granted the only reason I was wearing the dress was because I washed both of my jeans in a kitchen pot this morning, but in retrospect the situation was the result of a series of bad decisions. The hike itself was semi grueling--1.5 hours down and a little less going back up the other side of the gorge since I hitched a ride back into town. The path was slightly overrun because I don't think many people hike it, and I kept getting scratched and poked by all sorts of unruly plants. At first I sorta felt cool that I was the only person on the path, but after falling flat on my ass twice I was starting to wonder if I actually hurt myself how long it would take for anybody to find me. or to even look for me, since I didn't tell anybody I was going hiking anyway!

Beittadine and the black hole that is Beirut

I tried to get out of Beirut, I really did. But Beirut is sort of a black hole..you go in and will only just barely get out. Shirbid told me he would take me with him to the Cedars and Becharre, so I decided to stay one more night in Beirut to do that.

The next morning came and he copped out, so instead Karam joined me on a small day trip to Beittadine, a palace in the nearby Bekaa Valley. It was a nice day out and is mostly worth the visit for the drive in through the valley and the views from the palace. I also enjoyed it because when we arrived there was a film crew with lots of extras sitting around in awesome period costumes. I was tempted to ask for pictures but thought it might be inappropriate.

Also saw a couple taking wedding photos and then gave the girl my water when she fainted. Maybe she didn't eat enough so she could fit into her dress?

That evening I made another trip to Tempo, but was surprisingly weaker than normal. I had one drink and started to feel quite sick..so the sandwich guys all dragged me out of the bar and forced me to eat a foul tasting yogurt drink and a tuna sandwich, for some odd reason. I think it made me feel worse, but apparently lebanese people think this combination will cure drunkenness, go figure.

The next day I attempted to leave Beirut again. It was sunday though and the buses weren't running that regularly. I ended up just staying one more night and filling the evening with the epic masterpiece that is "Speed". god, keanu was hot back then.

black hole, i say.

I love the nightlife, i like to boogie...

One of the more special things in Beirut is the nightlife. People here know how to PARTY...like seriously. Obviously I'm too pathetic to keep up, but I took it upon myself to make sure I went out, just so I could experience what it was all about.

Oddly enough, Ruby and I befriended the guys who ran the sandwich shop down around the corner from the hotel. They were incredibly generous, and basically took me out 3 nights in a row, paying for everything, and eventually I began to just eat for free. This was a relief, since Lebanon is considerably more expensive than all the other middle eastern countries (except for maybe saudi).

The first night out we went to Tempo, a fairly posh bar somewhere near our hotel. I never did catch the neighborhood name, but I know it was close enough to walk and we drove anyway. In fact, now that I think of it, it didn't matter if we were were just crossing the street, those guys always wanted to drive anyway!

the biggest difference between going "clubbing" in beirut and going clubbing in the US is that there is no real dedicated dance floor. You make a reservation beforehand with table service, and you basically just sit and drink with your friends and dance around the table. I asked the sandwich guys (Osama, Shirbid, and Karam) how they are meant to meet girls at a bar like that, but apparently meeting people NOT at your table just isn't done. and they can't go into the bar unless they have a girl accompanying them, which I thought was really interesting! and sort of difficult. but apparently they have normal dance clubs too.

Otherwise the music is predominantly house remixes of arabic music and some other american songs. good stuff. I got schooled by Karam who was incredibly impressive at belly dancing. Beirutis also party all night--we're talking 4, 5, 6 in the morning. When i got back to my hotel at 7 the all night bar downstairs was still thumping music.

Hezbollah tshirt? anyone? anyone?

On Thursday I reluctantly headed to Baalbek alone, a city about 2 hours north of Beirut with another deserted roman city (seeing a pattern yet?) and supposedly the "seat of Hezbollah". I didn't really see much evidence of this other than regular checkpoints and the fact that my bus consisted of about 8 soldiers and little 'ol me. On the way home a man opened the door and waved a rifle around inside to check passports, but after a cursory glance at me he didn't even bother to look at mine.

The trip to Baalbek was uneventful except for the obligatory older man trying to hit on me. This guy was a little more persistent going so far as to tapping me awake despite my best efforts to pretend to be asleep. I otherwise arrived safely. I was feeling just slightly paranoid though, every time somebody asked me where I was from I would meekly say "china".

Near the entrance of the ruins there were a number of men selling postcards, guidebooks and yes, hezbollah tshirts. I debated if I should buy one for the novelty factor, but decided I would probably never be able to wear it. These guys were pros though...at least 2 of them spotted me from 30 feet away and began ran and seriously CHASED me down the street. I finally had to yell "LUH!" really loudly and angrily before they would leave me alone.

Baalbek itself? I'd say not as good as Jerash in Jordan and better than Palmyra in Syria.

I stopped by Ksara winery on the way back to beirut but arrived after they closed so was only able to briefly walk around and look at the scenery. One of the guys who worked at the winery saw me wandering around and happily walked me around telling me the history of the place, so....no wine, but still good.

the ride back was more adventurous. and without going into too many details i'll just say these four words: old man touching himself. I'm not really sure what's worse...that this happened right next to me on a public minibus, or that I have actually reached a point where I am SO blase about this type of stuff that it didn't even bother me.

Jeitta Grotto and Byblos

After wandering around Beirut my first day, next on the agenda was a number of day trips around the country. Luckily Lebanon is a tiny country, so I got to stay at my hotel for 7 days. This means that everything somehow comes out of my pack and gets strewn all over the room within hours and by the 7th day I'm wondering how to get everything back in.

Ruby and I decided to hit up Byblos, a city about an hour north of Beirut, and stop at Jeitta Grotto along the way. Jeitta was maybe one of the more enjoyable things I've seen in the middle east, simply because it's a lot different than anything I've seen here. I've had my fill of castles, ruins, and souqs, but Jeitta is a cave with heaps of beautiful stalactites and stalagmites. It was nice to see something nature oriented, rather than another citadel. Would highly recommend, although for some reason I got a huge bruise on my thigh climbing out of the toy train that takes you from the upper cave to the lower cave, which could have easily been walked within 2 minutes.

Byblos I have less nice things to say about--it's not that it isn't nice, but there was nothing here that I found to be terribly interesting...even the citadel was sort of a let down. Because of this I decided to not bother with the other cities in the south...i figure I've seen enough middle eastern cities to know what a souq should look like.

Technical difficulties

fallen behind on the blogs due to technical difficulties. everything seems to be up and running again now though!