Category: Travel

Its just too crowded, I hate it. There is a guy in my hotel that has the ugliest Hummer H3 I have ever seen, the car has Saudi license plates so you could already imagine what I am talking about. I am going to try and take pictures of it tomorrow.

I am at the Bangkok airport waiting to board my Qatar Airways flight back to Kuwait. I slept in total only 4 hours in the past 3 days because of the workshops and last night when it was all done and over with I only managed to get 5 hours of sleep so I am still extremely tired. Once I get back to Kuwait posting should resume normally and I will also fix the serious problem with the forum.

It seems my posting will be sporadic in the next few days since I will be held up in all day workshops. I’ve been up since 7am and just got back to my room awhile ago (its 10:45PM now). I need to get some rest since the next two days the workshops are going to last past midnight which is going to be really exhausting.

On the bright side breakfast is great at the hotel and for dinner I showed everyone how much we eat back in Kuwait. I totally massacred what had to be the largest buffet I had ever laid my eyes on. Since the hotel is located on the river its like mosquito city and I am covered with bites all over.

Check safat.kuwaitblogs.com for other blogs while I am away since there is always something interesting to read there. You can also pass by the 248AM Forum and mingle with other readers or just sit back and read what others have to say.

My flight arrived to Bangkok yesterday night at 8:30PM which is around 3:30 Kuwait time so other than the fact I had a long 7 hour flight from Qatar I also ended up losing around 5 hours of my day because of the difference in timezones. Isn’t it supposed to be a 4 hours difference actually? I don’t know maybe. The point is by the time I got to my hotel I was exhausted with no sleep so I didn’t get to see much of Bangkok. Today is my day off to go explore but I just woke up now and its nearly 2PM so half of today is also gone. Its not raining so I guess thats a good thing. Quick notes about my trip. I flew Qatar Airways economy class. The plane was really great, decent legroom great entertainment system with video on demand and live news feeds. The food was also great. Qatar Airport on the other hand sucked. It was over crowded and once you get off the plane you need to do a security check even if you are going through transit, that took like 20 minutes of waiting in line. Also it seems you need to take a bus from and to all the planes. Bus ride to the plane seriously took 20 minutes also. Not a very nice airport..

I’m leaving to Bangkok in the middle of the night for a work related trip. I’ve got to be at the airport at 3:30AM which sucks. Its like the worst timing so I am going to try and go to sleep at 10PM so at least I would have some shut eye. Things I am looking forward to doing in Thailand:

1) The $200 burger
2) Midget Kick Boxing
3) Ride a scooter
4) Eat a deep fried bug
5) Forensic Museum (Museum of Death)
6) Sky Train

Any other fun things to do in Thailand?

One of my favorite things about Munich was the food. I was eating non stop through out the day since their food is very hard to resist although it would be easy for the majority of you since most of their dishes are pork based. I took pictures of my dishes whenever I could and if you click on continue below you could see some of them. As you can see most are sausages with potato salad. The one above was taken at the Augustiner Beer Garden.

I took my Nikon FE with me to Munich as I mentioned before I traveled. The camera is nearly 30 years old and the pictures I shot with the camera also look like they are nearly 30 years old. It’s an amazing effect and I have really fallen in love with this camera. I loved carrying the heavy weight around and then manually focusing on a shot before snapping it. I took 91 pictures in total but here is a link to my favorite ones. Notice it even made the very modern BMW World look 30 years old. [Pictures]

Today I finally had a day off work and I managed to properly see Munich and I am seriously in love with it after today. I have a ton of pictures and videos to share but since I am coming back to Kuwait tomorrow will do that when I come back but for now I leave you with the shot above.

While walking back to my hotel today in Munich I spotted a weird Z4. At first I thought it was very tacky customized Z4 but then I realized it was actually the new unreleased 2010 model. The car was camouflaged pretty well with black body work and tape but as soon as I figured out what the car was I quickly took out my camera and turned it on. By then the traffic light had turned green so I was only able to take two shots.

It was pretty cool seeing an unreleased test car but sadly only a few car freaks will appreciate this! For me this was an amazing experience, I spend soo much time checking car blogs and magazines and seeing “spy shots” just like this all the time. Now that I was able to take these same kind of shots feels pretty great. Below are the two pictures which I managed to shoot, they are in full resolution.

2010 BWW Z4 Rear
2010 BMW Z4 Side

update: This post made Jalopnik, yay!

Its such a beautiful place, I was soooo not expecting Munich to be like this. The streets, the weather, the people, the buildings everything I’ve been experiencing in Munich has just been perfect. I am staying at a hotel called H’Otello, its a small boutique hotel but one thats super affordable and seriously excellent value for money. Its the trendiest hotel I’ve stayed in and I love my room, again because of the minimilism.

I found this place in the local market that has like a million kinds of olives. I love olives so I will probably have to try as much of them as I can. Internet is free at the hotel so I will be posting from here but probably late in the evening and early in the morning since I will be trying my best NOT to spend my trip here in the hotel.

I am taking off to Munich tonight, will be back next Sunday. I am taking my Nikon FE camera pictured above. The camera originally belonged to my parents and when they went to Munich in the late 70’s they took the camera with them. Now thirty years later I am going back with the exact same camera, thats quality!

Awhile ago I passed by Boushahri to pick up some Fuji Reala and Velvia film and it turns out they don’t carry them anymore. So I ended up picking up some Fuji Pro 160’s which I’ve never tried before but I guess I was lucky to actually find any Fuji 35mm film. Sucks. So anyway, once I get back will develop the film and post some pictures up, should be interesting.

Just found this cool site while researching on what kind of seats will be on my next flight. The site has pictures and reviews by people on various seats and classes on different airlines. The site also has reviews and pictures of different airports, lounges and even airline meals! Its pretty helpful and its little things like this that makes the Internet such a wonderful place. [Link]

I passed by Bakdash when I was in Syria. It was impossible to resist, the ice cream just looked delicious. What surprised me the most was the amount of traffic they had, They were serving ice cream non-stop!

I’ve had a ton of people ask me what I thought of Syria so I figured I would dedicate a post to it. I had heard sooo much negative stuff about Syria that I arrived expecting the worst but it wasn’t that bad. Border security didn’t give me any issues even though I had a Canadian passport. No one asked for a bribe or even hinted to wanting something. The road from the borders to Damascus was gorgeous and reminded me of the drive from LA to Vegas. Damascus is and looks really old and everyone seems very poor but one things for sure, they sure know how to make the most amazing kebabs. The first night I had dinner at a restaurant called Abu Kamal and they had the best kebab’s I ever tried. The restaurant had been around for over 60 years so I figured they had time to get the formula right but next day for lunch I stopped by this random kebab place on the street and again I had the best kebab I’ve ever had! How the hell is it so easy for them to get kebab so perfect?? I could probably walk into a bakala and ask for kebab and it would be the best kebab in the world. The prices are also sooo cheap!

The hotel I stayed in was called Semiramis Hotel. The website says its 5 stars but I don’t know how thats possible. The hotel was decent, I am guessing for Syrian standards its like superb but it really was just standard. The room was big and the location of the hotel was right in the city, walking distance from a lot of things. I had some free time the next morning and headed to the famous Syrian souk (forgot the name) which was ok I guess, not my style.

The airport was the biggest disappointment. Its old, small, unorganized, dirty and boring. But my Damascus stay wasn’t bad, I wouldn’t go there on a vacation but I didn’t mind passing through.

My escape from Lebanon was a long and adventurous one. Looking back at it now it was an interesting experience but while I was in the car on my way to the Syrian border it was a completely different story. I wasn’t afraid or anything but I really didn’t like the idea that at any moment the road will be blocked and I would have to turn back and cancel my whole trip.

The roads from Lebanon to Syria were randomly getting blocked with burning tires, rocks and sand mounds. There were a lot of taxis offering to take people to the border but none could guarantee you would get there because of the way roads were getting blocked randomly. I needed a “sure thing” and this is why one of my relatives hooked me up with this guy who managed to arrange a series of rides from one area to another until I finally got to Damascus.

The main theory behind changing cars after every area is that the drivers would be very familiar with the roads. So for example if I take a car with a guy who lives in the neighborhood, if one road is blocked he would know another way out and if that road is also blocked he would know another way. By the end of my journey I had taken 6 cars including one that was a van that carried fish! As you can see from the photos, we didn’t stay on the main roads or even the inside roads, we spent most of the time on muddy farmland trails.

The Syrian border I went to (Daboosiyeh) was pretty empty but thats because the roads to get to that border were all blocked. I had some friends who had left much earlier in the day and had gotten stuck at another Syrian border for over 6 hours. Nat did a great job in getting me a Jazeera Airlines ticket before they got sold out and then managed to find me a room in a hotel to stay in even though most hotels in Damascus were fully booked. Anyway I am back and its good to be back but I will be leaving again in a couple of days to Munich.