The problem was actually that Google-Blog is banned in Syria, like many other websites as well. Getting access to it is not a problem because the internet cafes have special software to access the banned sites but then the connection becomes incredibly bad and I lost several times everything I had written and uploading pictures was absolutely impossible.
So now I am in Turkey and access to Google-Blog is possible here (although not to youtube, deezer etc – yes, they also ban webpages here!!), I just decided to spend the first week in quite remote areas in the east of Turkey, so again the internet connection wasn’t good enough… but now:
A short description of how Syria was this time is a bit difficult, it was a very diverse experience. At first, arriving from Beirut, everything seems – and of course also is – much more conservative in Damascus. But I soon got to know some locals in Damascus, spent much time with them in cafes, bars, went to a theater play of Don Quijote in Arabic (very interesting although I just understood very few), a Jazz concert and a poem evening in a bar. Also in the hotel we developed a kind of intimate circle in which every day the same people for almost two weeks took part, playing backgammon, smoking Shisha, drinking tea… With spending some time in a hamam (a Turkish bath), in the different suqs (markets) and eating very well my time in Damascus is best described.
I also met again with Rana, a Syrian I knew from my last trip – but unfortunately she was the only one I could reach because telephone numbers have changed.
Anyway, the best impressions you get from the pictures I took in Syria…
Impressions of Damascus
walking through "New Damascus"
in the city center
my favourite caravanserai
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen