Subject: Post: Yesterday evening we went to meet a few local Couchsurfer guys and their Czech guest, to spend the evening together. We took a bus outside the city to the fair center, but finally decided not to visit the international fair going on there but walk to see the largest restaurant in the world. Yes, the largest restaurant in the world according to the Guinness world records actually is in Damascus, unlike you would ever imagine.<p> A friend of the local guys had said it would just be 20 minutes walk, which obviously wasn't quite correct. We walked alongside a highway, and walked, and walked.. It took around one and half hours to reach the restaurant, I guess we ended up walking 6-7 kilometers at least.. Well, eventually we did reach it and had a nice meal for a couple of euros each.<p>The restaurant was a bit odd experience. In addition to being the largest restaurant in the world, they also for some reason have the largest part of a meteorite ever landed on earth on display there, claiming it's the largest one in the western world (Syria being western world??). That meteorite was found in Siberia, Russia by the way. They also do have a karting racetrack..<p> The earlier mentioned friend of those local guys also arrived there after we had eaten, and gave us a ride back to the city in his car. Probably it was 20 minutes by car, not by walking by the way.. Through the chaotic traffic of Damascus we drove back to the area where our hotel was located, and went to the outdoor cafe just next door of the hotel. After a short discussion we found out they were not officially selling beer as they were not allowed to do that, but they would unofficially do it. We just had to have the beers inside, not on the street. That was fine for us, so first we just spent a while on the street smoking nargila, and then went inside for the beers and some languages-related chatting :)<p> Pretty nice evening altogether. Now as we are heading towards Beirut and Lebanon, I guess I should write up some opinions about Syria so..<p> We only saw a small part of the country, just a few cities. Aleppo which we didn't have time to visit should be a really beautiful and historical city, and Syria also has some supposedly nice coastline. Of the cities we visited I would definitely want to return to Damascus and I guess I also will do that in near future. Damascus reminds me a lot of Istanbul which I have visited like three times in the last three years, and these three days in here really do not give justice to the city. It is a big city with tons of stuff to explore, and I could easily spend a week or two in Damascus just enjoying and exploring.<p>The town of Palmyra itself was not really worth of a visit, and at least not worth of doing it again. But, once again, the main attraction of Palmyra are the ruins, not the town. The ruins were interesting, beautiful and one more Unesco world heritage site on my growing list of those visited, but maybe one visit to those is also enough. Most of the stuff there can easily be seen during one day.<p>About the border town Al Kamisli I really don't have much to stay, as we just passed through it. Neither do I have much to say about the deserts in between the cities, as we were just watching them through the bus windows and there's nothing in there. But, I'm pretty sure there are a lot of places in Syria to discover in addition to Damascus, and I feel like this country deserves another visit with more time.<p>As other notes of Syria, the Syrian people seem to be very well educated and competent. Everywhere we were getting good and professional-feeling service, and practically everyone we met could speak at least basic English. Getting around was really easy, as all the random guys met on the streets could speak a language understandable to us.<p>There are some odd things about Syria which we randomly found either annoying or just funny. Facebook and many other web sites are blocked by the government, but all the net cafes can easily give you access to them just by asking. They do it by using a special software that encrypts the connections and forwards them through a proxy server in the US or sometimes in Lebanon. Alcohol is only sold in really rare places which made getting a beer on a hot day a bit annoying and challenging task, but even more annoying was the total lack of ATMs. Obviously credit cards are not allowed in Syria, and there are a very few ATMs in Damascus working with foreign credit cards. In the other cities, there were none.<p>There's countless other small annoyances and specialties to list, but.. They are mostly minor things, in general the country was really nice, and the people were feeling really welcoming for us.<p>Now, off to Beirut, Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea :) Latitude: Longitude: Security Code:
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