Marhaba from Dahab, Egypt (on the East coast of the Sinai)!

Sorry we've been rather negligent, but it's been difficult to find a 
reasonable internet connection at reasonable rates in the Middle East.

Turkey was a remarkably easy place to travel - the bus system in 
extremely efficient, despite appearing rather chaotic. The bus 
station in Istanbul is unbelieveable. It has 170 different bus 
companies and is laid out like a major international airport, with 
three levels and with huge access ramps. As everywhere in the Middle 
East, there are thousands of hawkers vying for your attention, this 
time selling bus tickets instead of the ubiquitous carpets. We 
stopped at three locations on our way through Turkey - Ephesus, 
Pamukkale, and Cappadocia. Both Ephesus and Pamukkale had very well 
preserved Roman ruins, the latter at the site of an extensive strip 
of hot springs up on a ridge which natural pools in these amazing 
snow white travertine deposits all down the ridge. The place has been 
a tourist destination since B.C. times, and the Romans built an 
entire city above the springs and used them to feed their baths.

The Cappadocia region was also an incredible sight. The area is 
surrounded by three very large volcanoes which blanketed the whole 
region with thousands of feet of ash and basalt flows millions of 
years ago. The deposits where subsequently eroded down into some very 
unusual shapes due to variable resistance to the weathering, leaving 
towers of petrified ash (tufa) capped in many places by basalt. Since 
ancient times, people have carved homes and even entire cities into 
the tufa and to this day there are thousands of people still living 
in them. We stayed in a small town, Goreme, in the center of the 
region, where many of the structures are carved into the rock (hotel 
rooms, bars, restaurants, and even the town minaret). While there, we 
met many other travelers including a brother and sister, Brad and 
Rachel, from New Zealand, with whom we have been traveling ever 
since. Turns out there plans coincided almost exactly with ours, so 
we grouped together and it's worked out well. Many of the other 
travelers were also going in the same direction and we have 
encountered them repeatedly as we've traveled through Syria, Jordan, 
and Egypt.

We entered Syria without problems (although it was rather time 
consuming process - apparently, a lot of smuggling goes on across the 
Turkey-Syria border and it must take a while to negotiate all the 
bribes. We had a eyewitness report of such activity from a traveler 
on another bus which was carrying contraband as well as passengers). 
We found Syria to be very welcoming and refreshingly devoid of the 
normal Western influences (no McD, Coca Cola, etc.). The markets 
seemed much more genuine (lots of locals and some incredible sites in 
the food area - towering pyramids of food and spices, shocking animal 
parts of every description including sheep heads and entrails proudly 
displayed at the storefronts). Both Chris and I scored Arab headdress 
complete with camel hair cords (which came in handy in the cool 
evenings and sandy days, particularly later in Jordan) in Aleppo, our 
first stop in Syria. We moved on to Hama, from which we took a day 
trip tour out to Roman ruin with a remarkably long (2 km) colonaded 
avenue and the Crac de Cheveillers, apparently the best preserved 
medieval castle in the world. Next, we visited Palmyra, another Roman 
era city which is situated in a large oasis in eastern Syria and is 
accompanied by numerous towering tombs out in the desert and 
overlooked by another medieval castle up on a hilltop. We moved on to 
Damascus, but didn't do much there besides wander through the 
Umayyhad (sp?) Mosque and the Siq (marketplace), having overdosed on 
sightseeing.

From Damascus, we caught a bus to Amman, Jordan, where we spent a 
couple nights wandering around the hills (the old city is situated 
astride about 7 small hills) and sampling the local fare. We took a 
day trip out to the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea and had a swim (or 
rather, a float - the salinity is so high you can't really get under 
the water. Not that you would want to - I got a drop in my eye and it 
stung like the dickens for about 10 minutes). Our next stop was 
Petra, which I found to be the most interesting place on the entire 
trip. The city, which was lost for eons to all but the Bedouin until 
the 1800s, was one of the largest in the Middle East in Roman times 
and is laid out over a large area, with massive granite and 
strikingly beautifully colored aeolian sandstone formations 
everywhere. Many of the buildings, temples, and tombs were carved 
into the sandstone in various canyons over an area of several hundred 
acres or more. The best preserved one, the Pharoah's Treasury, which 
you see abruptly after emerging from a narrow 2 km gorge at the 
entrance of the site, was featured in Indiana Jones and the Temple of 
Doom. We spent a very long day walking all over the place, taking it 
all in. 

When we arrived it Petra, we were surprised to find the police in the 
lobby of our chosen hotel, confiscating about 10 cases of beer. 
Earlier in Syria, Ramadan had kicked in and, apart from here in the 
Egyptian dive resort town of Dahab, it has been difficult to find 
food during daylight hours, let alone a beer at anytime of day. 
Needless to say, we were distraught to see so many tasty beverages 
denied to us before our very eyes.

From Petra, we took a minibus to Wadi Rum, a very small Bedouin town 
in the desert. We hired a driver and 4 wheel pickup and spent the day 
driving around the desert, visiting Lawrence of Arabia's stomping 
grounds, hiking in canyons and running down sand dunes. This area has 
similar geology to Petra, with massive buttes of red and yellow 
sandstones overlying granite, and has vast plains of sand and dunes 
between the buttes. We camped out for the night in a tend, watched 
the stars and planets overhead, and talked with a couple of young 
Bedouin who paid us a visit in the night. As our friend Brad says, 
once upon a time, they would have rode in on camels - instead it was 
a Landrover and they came carrying cell phones, albeit dressed in 
traditional Bedouin sheepskin lined coats.

In the morning, we caught a bus to Aqaba and then a ferry to Nuweiba, 
Egypt, then took a taxi here to Dahab, where we've spent the last 
three days diving. Both Brad and I are experienced divers, so we 
buddied up for 7 dives over three days, including an incredible wreck 
dive yesterday offshore from Sharm El Sheik (an English supply ship 
sunk by the Germans in 1941. Still has holds filled with large trucks 
containing various military supplies including many motorcycles). The 
fish are extremely plentiful and colorful and we've seen many 
interesting ones such as scorpionfish, lionfish, and aligatorfish, as 
well as schools of large tuna and an amazing array of coral reefs. 
Chris and Rachel are both taking their open water training and are in 
their third day of it today. They seem to be enjoying the experience. 
The atmosphere here is very relaxed and we're relucant to move on, 
but the Upper Nile calls and we'll probably be heading that way on 
Sunday or Monday.

We hope you are all well and will try to get another message out 
before Christmas.

Than & Chris