Castles and stuff

Yet again there's time for another holiday from school. Sometimes I really appreciate that we have ten days off every four weeks. Then again, other times it feels like school is just time spent waiting for another test and maybe longer courses would be nice too. Not that it really matters in the long run anyway.

Having to spend time on my thesis sort of impairs my ability to do anything really relaxing during these holidays though. Especially since this is the last one and i haven't really spent that much time on it before. I guess I'm just the kind of guy who likes to procrastinate.

So why should this holiday be any different? Well I don't know I guess it won't so let's go on a road trip for a day or two or why not four, five or even six? Let's spend the holiday in old buses and dirty hostels.

Ok, I'm getting carried away. I do have at least a bit of discipline. Or maybe i just pretend to.

Anyway, friday morning me and two of my new housemates left the house to go look at the amazing Krak de Chevalier. It's this really cool Crusaders' castle not too far away from Homs. Going there includes taking a bus to mentioned Homs and then taking a microbus for the rest of the way. Sometimes people stop at the bus-station in Homs to eat something and maybe use the toilet. Eating and buying fake sunglasses is by all standards ok, the toilets aren't, and that's by any standards... Japanese tourists are known for passing by just to shoot photos of them...

Krak is soooooo cool though. You HAVE to visit it if you're ever closer than 10.000 kilometers of it. It's worth the trip. Especially since it's in Syria and there are lots of other cool things to look at here.

Just make sure that you have a lot of time at your disposal because the place is huge and also bring a flashlight since that makes it possible to run around in all the tunnels and dark rooms under ground. Well spent time and money I said. The view is the only thing that doesn't make you want to order up an extra bottle of oxygen, but it's still quite ok...

Leaving the Krak isn't supposed to be that much of an hassle. Then again things are never easier than you make them. We didn't want to go back to Homs but rather continue to Tartus on the coast. Being from Stockholm and all I do feel the need to see some water every now and then and there's even an Island just outside of that city, can you believe it?

Asking around for a service to Tartus wasn't really meaningful, but people did tell us that we could take one from the highway and then usually just pointed in a random direction. Since Syrians usually tell you to take a cab if the distance would take more than two minutes to walk we thought it couldn't be too far away. Apparently country side people are more up to walking than your usual Damascus guy... Having walked for a while we finally asked some people how far it was. Getting an answer that could be understood as either 200m or 2km. Since we'd already walked for so far we thought it probably couldn't be too much farther. Half an hour later we ran in to two old ladies that was happy enough to tell us that we still had more than 2km to walk. They we're also nice enough to stop a truck for us to hitch with. Too bad he'd just ran out of diesel and could only take us downhill. Then again there a car stopped almost immediately to drive us the rest of the way. Now you might think that the smart thing would have been to just take a service to the highway and then get out there... We could have done that had there been any around...

Finding a service for Tartus was easy and so was finding a hotel. The latter thank's to Lonely Planet...

Tartus is a quite small but pretty nice town. Most of all it's located in a really nice and green area. I had almost forgotten what that color looked like but now i know again. We didn't visit the Island but we did have both dinner and breakfast by the sea. It was indeed very nice.

Having already spent a day and a half away from home another couple of hours didn't seem like the worst thing you could do. We also read in the GUIDEBOOK that Qala'at Marqab is a nice place to visit and that it's pretty close to Tartus and everything. It's not really on the way to Damascus or anything but you can't have everything here in life, I did at least have a bad stomach so that made up for a lot.

Going North is never a bad idea and that was the way to Marqab. First off to a place called Baniyas and then another service to the castle it self. If Krak lacks a view Marqab lacks its splendor because, boy, does it have a view. That said it looks really cool on top of its hill, being all big, black and intimidating. I wasn't the only one thinking vampires... Then I do have Buffy on speed-dial. Despite looking so big on the outside it's not as impressive as Krak on the inside, still well worth the trip though it's not like it's small or anything and we for one don't have anything like it in good old Sweden. It was also kind of cool to be kidnapped by the guys who worked on the set of this television show they were recording there. As you all know I never turn down being force-fed some good tea. The only one to complain about it less is probably my dentist since it keeps her in business. Marqab is for sure a castle where you can spend a couple of hours searching for the best spot to be impressed by the amazing view, or to do Tai-chi on the roof.

The trip back to Damascus was uneventful though. Being back was as always these days very nice. This city is really growing on me.