Turkey to Syria

We got up at 6:30 am to catch the bus that will take us to Syrian border.
The tour leader told us that we will cross the border on foot.
So here we were 7 of us with heavy backpacks walking in the blasting sun on a concrete bare road fenced by chicken wire.
Not sure why we had to cross the border on foot, something to do with bus complication and visas that may arise between Turkish and Syrian border.
First there was to turkish check point - everything ok, we all got our exit stamps.

For a while we were walking in no man land, we are in between the two countries, it was really strange to walk on the road which has signs at both sides - "Mine field, keep off" ; hmmm I didn't quite enjoy walking on that road.

First Syrian check point; the officer looked carefully at each passport, gave them back to us, said nothing, just nodded his head to move forward.
Second check point; we filled out forms and handed passports. I was so happy I had my Syrian visa; I read on the Internet that tourists have to wait a long time and the border, but at the end we just waited half an hour, that is pretty good considering that we are a group of 7 people.

Right in front of Syrain border there was a bus waiting for us, nice! in short time we were in our way to Aleppo.

The road is not particulay scenic, everything around looks dusty and dry. Small villages looked poor and colorless. As we were approaching the city there are many unfinished constructions in different stages, the scenery is quite depressing.

Our hotel Al- is centrally located between the new and the old town. I like this location! I remember about Morocco, it is nice to visit the medina, but never chose a hotel in the medina. I like to visit the old, but I prefer the modest comfort of a newer hotel.

In Aleppo there are 8 more people joining our group: two couples and two girlfriends from New Zealand, a French woman that lives in London, a Canadian girl from Alberta that lives in Vancouver.


In Turkey Ramadan didn't have any impact on our trip; many restaurants, coffee shops and juice bars were open everywhere. Not in Syria, pretty much everything was shut down until dusk.

In the evening we went out for a group dinner (by then we were really hungry); food was awesome, traditional Syrain food, mezze, kebabs, some strange coffee at the end.