I woke up at 6am being baked by the sun through my tent. My nose was completely blocked. It appears that they have hay fever in Syria. Ah, all the comforts of home. The hay fever would blight my first day in Aleppo, which was otherwise fully awesome. Volker, one of the Germans staying at the hotel, and I went for breakfast at about 8. We found a great little joint that served omelettes, potatoes, salad, aubergine, humous, bread and tea. We ate like absolute kings and afterwards, the bill came to a laughable 300 Syrian including tip. 4 euros. Amazing.
Back at the hotel preparations were being made for a day of action. Ahmad, the hotel manager, had offered to show us all around St. Simeon, Ain Dara, the Old City of Aleppo and the world-famous souks. We walked down to the bus station where the service taxis and minibuses congregate. Ahmad began negotiations with a fast-expanding circle of drivers. After a few minutes, one fat driver clutching prayer beads stepped up and shouted for a while, gesturing wildly and occasionally glaring at us. I asked Ahmad what was up. Ahmad told me that the going rate to St. Simeon and back with waiting time should be 500 Syrian. He had been quoted 1000 and, when he had started getting the price down, our fat friend had barged in and declared that he would personally assault violently any driver who took us for less than 1000. Ahmad made a phone call and we had our minibus, but for 800. Split between seven people that made less than 2 euros per person for a two hour round trip plus waiting time.
During the furore, I noticed a Syrian car with a Jesus fish bumper sticker. Amir was kind enough to play the role of Vanna White.
During the furore, I noticed a Syrian car with a Jesus fish bumper sticker. Amir was kind enough to play the role of Vanna White.St. Simeon is an old temple complex made famous by Simeon Stylites, the nutcase who lived at the top of pillars for over 30 years back in the day. Woefully short on pillars, ironically, St. Simeon, or Samaan as they call it in Arabic, is a great archaeological find and has arresting views over the surrounding countryside. Due to the low season, we were the only people there apart from a few school groups and couples.
Throughout my time in Syria so far, perfectly exemplified by my experience at St. Simeon, I have to say that the Syrian people are by far the downright nicest people I have ever met. In terms of welcoming, helpfulness and general all-round bonhomie, they beat everywhere else I have been hands down. Every person I pass in the street here says hello or welcome, smiles, helps with directions or waits patiently as I massacre their native tongue in an attempt to communicate. They regularly go (literally) out of their way to show me around, point out the right road or even to find me what I'm looking for. In return for this, unlike the enlightened self-interest of the Moroccans or the vampiric baksheesh-demanding of the Egyptians, they want nothing. Absolutely nothing. I have never felt so welcome and so relaxed in the company of people from a different culture. The worst I could say would be that they are so friendly that after a while returning every wave, every salaam or hello, every smile becomes not as bad as a chore but quite time-consuming.
After St. Simeon, we all voted unanimously to continue to Ain Dara, an ancient hilltop hamlet that dates back 4000 years. Ain Dara is a brief but brisk climb up a hill. 
Carved out of limestone and basalt, it overlooks valleys in every direction. It is spectacular. Very windy though. I dozed off in the minibus during the hour and a half drive back to Aleppo. The bus arrived back at the station, 200 or so yards from the souks. After paying, my stomach informed me that evacuation procedures had begun and I literally ran to the nearest toilet, which, funnily enough, was in the rear courtyard of a toilet store. When I came out fifteen minutes later, everyone was gone. I walked back to the hotel on my own as the sun began to set. On the way, I bumped into an English couple who had been on the train with the rest of us. We talked in awed tones about the warmth and generosity of the Syrians and then they told me that, mixed in with the hospitality had been an unexpected and informal run-in with the secret police. Apparently, as they were poking around in the souk, a man popped out of nowhere and began asking rather pointed questions about where they were from, what they did for a living, where they were planning on going in Syria, who they had socialised with etc. I was amazed, as were they, by both the fact that something like that still happens and that it can pop up out of nowhere. The following night Amir, Ahmad and I would have our own encounter with the secret police, albeit a much less intense one.
Carved out of limestone and basalt, it overlooks valleys in every direction. It is spectacular. Very windy though. I dozed off in the minibus during the hour and a half drive back to Aleppo. The bus arrived back at the station, 200 or so yards from the souks. After paying, my stomach informed me that evacuation procedures had begun and I literally ran to the nearest toilet, which, funnily enough, was in the rear courtyard of a toilet store. When I came out fifteen minutes later, everyone was gone. I walked back to the hotel on my own as the sun began to set. On the way, I bumped into an English couple who had been on the train with the rest of us. We talked in awed tones about the warmth and generosity of the Syrians and then they told me that, mixed in with the hospitality had been an unexpected and informal run-in with the secret police. Apparently, as they were poking around in the souk, a man popped out of nowhere and began asking rather pointed questions about where they were from, what they did for a living, where they were planning on going in Syria, who they had socialised with etc. I was amazed, as were they, by both the fact that something like that still happens and that it can pop up out of nowhere. The following night Amir, Ahmad and I would have our own encounter with the secret police, albeit a much less intense one.Before getting back to the hotel, I stopped off in a teahouse to see if I could pick up a game of crackgammon before dinner. I got the board from the man behind the cash register and surveyed the room, trying to make eye contact with whoever seemed bored or unoccupied. A man in the corner gave me a smile and waved me over. His name was Haza. Haza runs a ladies' shoes and handbags emporium in the city of Homs. He and I played several games while he waited fo his train, although rather than the shesh-besh I'm used to, he taught me the Syrian version of backgammon in between an endless stream of Gauloise blondes. Syrian backgammon is played by each player having all of his pieces stacked on the first space on the far quarter. Then each player rolls and moves his pieces from the far quarter to his own in order to take them off the board. Single pieces can not be landed on or captured. To begin with, it seemed dull, but once I realised that it was actually very hard to get the job done under those conditions, I got really into it and in the end Haza had to run as soon as he finished our fourth or fifth game. He told me to write down the name of his shop and come see him if I was in Homs. Then he left, but not before paying for my tea as well as his own. Another example of Syrian hospitality in action.
Amir, Ahmad and the others were back from the Old City and souks by the time I got back to the hotel and we wound up the day by picking up a bag of food from the informal barbecue restaurant down the road (run from a metal-framed market stall) and getting a couple of bottles of very good Syrian wine. 
We sat on the roof, talked and drank. It was bound to happen sooner or later, although I'm glad it wasn't me who caved first - Amir was the first to crack a pun using the word Syrians. "Are you Syrians?" "You cannot be Syrians." The pun served the dual purpose of fulfilling the mandatory bad joke quota that I have to fill every day and also summing up, in an homage to John McEnroe, the incredulity we all experienced when basking in the unbelievable hospitality of people we had been told were extremists or at least tolerant of extremists. Amir, Ahmad and I had hit it off big time and Ahmad insisted that I share his room for the night since it was very windy and chilly on the roof. I drifted off in one of the very comfortable beds in the 4-bed room Ahmad had commandeered for himself, watching subtitled action movies on Arab satellite.
We sat on the roof, talked and drank. It was bound to happen sooner or later, although I'm glad it wasn't me who caved first - Amir was the first to crack a pun using the word Syrians. "Are you Syrians?" "You cannot be Syrians." The pun served the dual purpose of fulfilling the mandatory bad joke quota that I have to fill every day and also summing up, in an homage to John McEnroe, the incredulity we all experienced when basking in the unbelievable hospitality of people we had been told were extremists or at least tolerant of extremists. Amir, Ahmad and I had hit it off big time and Ahmad insisted that I share his room for the night since it was very windy and chilly on the roof. I drifted off in one of the very comfortable beds in the 4-bed room Ahmad had commandeered for himself, watching subtitled action movies on Arab satellite. 
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