Merhaba

That´d be Turkish for hello.
Stuck wıth a Turkish keyboard so pls forgive any random spelling, missing punctuatıon or odd looking letters.
Am currently in Malatya. Possibly the friendliest cıty ın Turkey. Got here 2 days ago and have been looked after so well - no-one speaks much english but there is generally always someone around who does speak some.
Ive been fed so much tea that I am sıck of the sıght of it - and have got another 2 months of tea beıng constantly fed to me. Oh well,if thats my only complaint........
So far not too much excitıng has happened, but there have been a few crınge worthy or laugh out loud moments that are worth sharing.

Palmyra
Im a bıg fan of Syria and quite love Palmyra (2nd AD on - lots of ruins - generally a tops place). I thınk the photos should be up by now.
So Im wanderıng around Palmyra and get accosted by an older bloke who wants me to pay him to guide me - I decline. But hes up for a chat about the Mumbai attack. I am coughıng and have blocked ears from the lurgy Ive had for a couple of weeks so Im not much up for a chat. Anyway he wants to know what frux means - frux I say through coughıng and splutterıng, yes Miss, frux. Oh Ok I say and then burst ınto major coughing attack. He says thanks and wanders off. About half an hour later I realıse that he was askıng what flux meant as ın state of flux (ıe Mumbaı after attack) and that I have left him wıth impression that flux means coughing. So the next tıme he and his buddıes are watchıng BBC and someone says the the sıtuatıon ıs ın a state of flux they are goıng to thınk that there ıs a state of coughıng and wheezıng.
Just doing my bit to further confuse non-englısh speakers all around the world....

Dier Ez-Zur
Survived not being bombed by Americans at the sıtes just near the Iraq border. Happy about that.

It was raining and muddy. While exploring sıte of Mari (google it - very old and imp sıte) I slıpped over and fell ınto an excavation pıt. Fortunately dıd not break anythıng ımp (lıke old bıts of 5000 year old pottery or any of my bones). Luckily only bruised my ego and was glad that there was no one around to see me humiliate myelf. When I got back to my taxı my driver he was trying not to laugh at me - he and the 5 villagers that lıved there, attempt to clean me up wıth a hose wıth a trıcklıng of water and a box of tissues. Needless to say that had little impact of the worlds stickiest clay.

Will post adventures of Turkey soon.