Our vote for friendliest country

Last week in Lattakia, a nice city on the coast, we were adopted by a shopkeeper named Ali who took us out for dinner. His taxi driver friend gave us a 3-hour tour to a Crusader castle and didn't want any money. We talked to several students on the street for an hour. And that was just one day! Since we arrived in Syria over a week ago, about 200 people have said "welcome." Taxi and minibus drivers have bought us coffee and juice.

Syria is also one of the safest countries in the world for travelling. Basically the only chance of hostage-taking is being removed somewhere by a local to drink tea or coffee. We arrived in Damascus yesterday, and after 20 minutes met a friendly English teacher named Saeed, who took us to his apartment for some ping pong, tea, coffee, and shawarma.


Jerome gets his ping pong ass kicked.