Floating through the air… along with up to 100 other balloons. I counted 94 that day. Dreamlike if it wasn’t for the screaming of excited Korean tourists. Not cheap but certainly an experience to remember.
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Carried by the economic boom before the Syrian war, Turkey is changing at breakneck speed – in some areas. Istanbul is certainly the hotspot of the new western-oriented progressive elite and developing fast under its influence, but other parts of the country cannot keep up the same pace, both culturally and economically. To speed up the process, places like Kayseri in central Turkey receive vast government investments to build tens of thousands of new apartments to attract workers for the local businesses which creates a sort of sterile, semi-conservative cityscape.
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Syria has a bad reputation but in 2009 it was most hospitable and fascinating to explore. It felt very relaxed, 100% safe and quite conservative but accepting of foreigners.
Photos shown are from Damascus, Aleppo, An-Nabk, Mar Musa, Palmyra and Krak de Chevalier. The Ummayad Mosque in Damascus is still standing but the central mosque in Aleppo (man in foreground) is a ruin, and so is Palmyra unfortunately. I don’t think the columns and amphitheatre are still standing. I don’t know what happened to the mountain convent of Mar Musa but I hear it was also attacked by IS.
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