Syria Jordan Egypt Tour Journal

Day 05 Aleppo - Halep April 21, 2010 Wednesday

We left Antakya at 08:30. The road to Syria winds through a very fertile valley. The joy of spring is every where. the vines are shooting green leaves as if trying to compete with the almond and pomegranate trees which had already dressed in a green dress.
At the Turkish border the passport check was quick and un eventful. There was a Turkish Cypriot women group in front of us. Meli congratulated the Cypriots for their success in electing their new president. the women sounded very proud and happy. they were expecting their new president to protect their rights against the double standard rules of the European Union. We wished them good luck and off we went to the Syrian border. We had a very warm welcome to Syria by the director of Syrian customs authority. Since they do not get visitors from the USA too often, they wanted to personally assure us that we were welcome to their country.
My experience with borders, generally they are no photo zones. But to my surprise here, the officials took me by the hand and allowed me to take the picture of the sign which said : the Border of the Syria Arab Republic.

We met our Syrian guide Eiyman out side the customs area. We are now ready to have our wonderful experience in Syria.

Aiman's webpage : samatour.zoomshare.com phone: 00 963 932 480722 e mail: aimanmaliha@hotmail.com

We only had 20 minutes to get acquainted with our new guide. Because soon after we left the border we saw the sign telling us that we were about to get to Bab - i Havva Gate ( The gate of Eve) and the Roman Way . the roman way was the road connecting Syria with Anatolia. every one that we know of in the history had been on this way. Hadrian of the Romans, Alexander the Great, St Paul, Caravans, Soldiers, Ibn[i Batuta, Celalettin Rum- i.... Our group added their name in the long list of those who walked on this perfectly preserved and 15 feet wide well paved stone road that stretched as far as one can see.

Some of us had decided not to photograph on this tour but rather sketch what they see. Anita here is trying to observe the essence of the site to draw in her journal.
We are so excited Syria looks very promising.
Our next stop is one hour a head of us. so we quickly line up our questions about today's Syria:

Education : Free through out from kindergarten to end of university, compulsory up to age 13. they do have private schools as well.
Health system : Socialized medicine
Legal system : Islamic Law however for civil law they use the French system. Polygamy is legal
We have so many more questions but those questions need to wait now because we are here at St, Simon's Monastery,

St. Simon ( 380 AD) wanted to fine union with God through solitude. so he chose to live on a pillar. But his odd form of worship attracted thousands of Christians around St. Simon. Even after his death, the pillar where he spent 25 years of his life became a pilgrimage site. the Byzantines in the 6th Century built this monastery around the pillar of St Simon. The scale of the buildings, the fine masonry, the wonderful color of the stones and the setting in general made us all think that there certainly was a very pious atmosphere here.

Only one hour later we have arrived in Aleppo. The bus could not go in to the narrow streets of the old city. We left the bus and walked to our restaurant - an old house with a lovely court yard.

After lunch we walked the streets of Aleppo.

We saw iron smiths who looked like Hephaestus. We saw copper smiths.

We visited an Armenian church where Mother Mary was portrayed as breast feeding Jesus. It was so nice to see that the motherhood of Mary was being celebrated to its full.

The first day in Aleppo was over after a Sufi performance at the court yard of our hotel.