India Calling Cards

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!

See original here:
Don’t Ask For A Cigarette

Ok Rami, here is a new post about Al Ghoota with more photos and resources, Al Ghouta surrounded the old city from every direction, but mainly from the east and west. To get to Damascus, you had to walk through heavenly valleys and large plains all planted with olive trees, apricot and nut trees and other fruits and all kind of vegetables. Al-Ghouta wasn’t simply a large area of “farms”, it had waterfalls and great views wherever you look, and many historians believe that the first café in the world was established in Al-Ghouta in the years of 1500′s

Read more here:
Al-Ghouta-2

Al Nabek (Qalamoun Mounts) (feb/2005) well this small church inside the monastery was one of the strangest things that i have ever seen! Religious drawings wherever you look, most of the drawings are over 800 years old. i picked this one that describes the judgment day: on the right the bad fellows that crying blood, with the devil (the black on the second row) on the left the good guys… the most interesting things are the shapes and the costumes of the people (that gives a good idea of that time), and that (and it’s my own conclusion) it weren’t drawn in Mar Moussa’s life, because if he was there he wouldn’t draw the devil in black because in Ethiopia they used to draw Jesus as a black one

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The Road To Mar Moussa AlHabashi- last episode-