Immodium in the chaos of Allepo

the boys are enjoying their birthday wish and are sitting nearby at separate computers working together to haul out some treasures from an electronic battlefield within a Runescape world.

Victor has taken an Immodium to plug up the gastro that began last night and Lute will take one tomorrow morning if things don't improve. We suspect the trigger was some hot cheese sandwiches we ate in the Souk but the orogins could lie in many places in this hygiene lax chaos. Yes I'm afraid a health and safety audit would fail Allepo in the first couple of milliseconds.

The Allepo Souk is amazing, a vibrant middle eastern market of ancient heritage that the locals still use. We wandered through it until we had all had our senses battered into numbness by the onslaught of colour, spices, enthusiastic stall owners and endless people who like staring at the boys.

Today we found the blacksmith quarter of the city and I was welcomed into a smithy by an old wirey Syrian who proudly showed me a huge chopping knife he had forged from a piece of automobile leaf spring over a tiny fire on a square anvil no heavier than 15kg - Amazing! . I will try to upload a photo sometime soon.

Off to Jordan tomorrow.