Don't Ask For A Cigarette

JablehCountrySides
Originally uploaded by amrtheproud.

July (2005)
(Jableh countryside, Western mounts)
It looks like a scene from Yemen and not from Syria, tobacco is widely planted in the northern parts of the Syrian coast and western mounts, even though I'm a non-smoker, I like the colors and the shape of that plant.
What was really horrible in these villages that everyone smokes even the old women!
Anyway, here's a little advice when you visit this area and enter a shop: don't ask for cheese, yogurt, or milk; they are all home produced!
And when visiting a village as the one in the photo don't ask for a cigarette, because they make their own!

How Well Do You Know Palmyra?

PalmyraNP
Originally uploaded by amrtheproud.

(Palmyra - September 2004)

Everybody knows Palmyra from its Roman style ruins and the Palm oasis that surrounds it, but nobody knows what is right to the north of it..
Neither did I till I had the chance to visit the mounts of Palmyra, an average height of 1300-1500 m, and a National reservation for birds and other rare desert animals.

First we walked through valleys and hills, nothing was around unless the earth and the sky, but suddenly we saw a very unexpected view: right in the middle of the desert, and on a small hill, there was a very huge tree and right over the tree, there were three eagles roaming around!!!

We reached the top of the hill to see a countless number of these trees, each one seems to be as old as Zanobia the queen of the ancient Kingdome of Palmyra.
I couldn't do anything but walking with mouth open!
I will talk about Many amazing things happened to me there in the next posts.


PS:
Abdul Hadi Najjar was there too and he took many photos from this area:
check out his site
http://www.syriait.com

also read his comment