Of course there was hot water in the morning contrary to what Alison said about testing the water at 3am and found no hot water then. I tested it at 1100 pm before going to bed and found the water hot, so I was quite confident there was hot water on tap.  But breakfast was another thing, just bread, butter, goat’s cheese and olives. It was just bread and butter for us.

Our next stop was the only sight to see in Antakya which was St. Peter’s church. It was a church built into the mountain where the first Christians in the area were believed to have illicitly practiced Christianity. There was even an escape tunnel at the back of the church in the church to justify a 4 Euros entrance charge.

We were soon on our way to Syria and stopped at Reyhanli, the last town before the border to buy bread just in case we got stuck at the border. As it turned out it took us half an hour to clear the Turkish border post and we decided to have our last meal in turkey at the border post café. I had my last sis kebab and Alison had some kind of meat stew, which tasted like Rosdah’s spaghetti sauce and rice.

The crossing into Syria took a bit longer and fortunately we had the carnet endorsed for Syria. I was pushed form one immigration counter to an office and then back to the counter upon confirmation by the official that we didn’t need a visa. A local who was obviously on the lookout for foreigners offered his help and I accepted it without too much resistance. I had to cough out USD165 for the one week anticipated stay USD100 being diesel tax, USD55 for the insurance and USD10 for road tax. The guide accepted 100SPD (less than 2Euros) offered to him gracefully without argument, thank God for that. It took us one and half hours and then we were on our way to Aleppo.

On arrival at Aleppo while heading for the city centre a gentleman Mr. Malik, asked us if we were looking for a hotel an dif so to follow him. That we did and he took us first to his office which had all the hotels nearby. We found one within our means the Grand Hotel at 1,600 SPD (27 Euros) per night with breakfast.

As promised, 2 hours after checking in Mr. Malik called to ask us to meet him. He came round in his car and started driving around with the music blaring first stopping at a shop to buy us chips and then at another stall to get Alison an orange juice and beer for himself and me. I had to ask him to send us back to the hotel after an hour or so of him driving around showing us all the properties he had as Alison couldn’t take the loud music and the driving, although I didn’t mind it at all. He asked if I could go out after sending Alison and of course I said no even if I wanted to, especially after him asking Alison to talk to his mistress on his mobile. I heard her screaming at him after that.

That was our first meal in Syria. When we got back to the hotel we just decided to call it a day and went to sleep.