Wow! what a surprise this morning, we actually had boiled eggs at breakfast. Adrian had fun time trying to take the shell off the eggs, but he had one whole egg without the yolk as he dropped it while too busy minding others business. When we were about to finish a family came in with a young boy who had his own cereals and milk. I could see Adrian drooling over the cereals, the poor kid. Tomorrow we thought we would bring his coco-pops up.

We had decided to keep the room and head for Palmyra to see the ruins. As it was some 200 kms away not knowing the conditions of the road, we started moving at 1030hrs. After fiddling with the Garmin set Alison found that Palmyra was not on the system but came under another name found on the local map we got from the reception. Fortunately we had the Garmin as otherwise we would never have found our way to Palmyra. The system indicated that our ETA was approximately 1245hrs.

We got into Palmyra just after 1300hrs and the ruins were just to the right as one enters the city although the signs could fool anyone as it was placed after the junction to turn. It was a massive area with an Arch De Triumph still intact and the Greek temple being the focus of attention where one would have to pay to go in, and we didn’t bother. The visitor centre looked closed when we were there.

As it was passed lunch time we thought it a good idea to have lunch in the oasis, the Green Oasis, nearby. We entered it and there was no way out but to proceed ahead as the narrow entrance was a tight squeeze for Tuah. As we proceeded a gentleman came and spoke to us in reasonably good English inviting us to see his garden with a viewing platform, Alison got agitated as usual and wanted to turn back but I decided to go along with the gentleman, Kastan.

Apparently Kastan worked with a French professor in archeology and he was looking after the garden but lived in Palmyra. He invited us to the viewing tower and as I was in no condition to climb I persuaded Alison to go, and I suppose I would never hear the end of it. She complained that her arm was strained and leg muscle aching and all for nothing. I parted company with the 10 Euros jacket I bought in Istanbul to give it to Kastan.

As it was almost 1500hrs before we got out of the oasis and we didn’t want to get back too late, as everyone had told us of the dangers of driving in the dark in Syria, we left and had lunch in Tuah while driving.

Alison tried to capture her first desert sunset on camera and almost got a perfect picture, if only I didn’t have to turn sharply to avoid missing the junction to Homs. By the time we got to Homs it was already dark and contrary to the hype about the dangers of driving in the dark I found it reasonable as long as one concentrates while driving. There was the odd vehicle without rear lights and the occasional one driving on the curb the wrong way. We got back to the hotel safely at 1750hrs and as lunch was light we went for an early dinner at the same restaurant we were in last night. Tonight we had deep fried chicken instead of roasted and it was delicious, better than any KFC.