Distance wise that is. The Turkey/Syria border is approximately 4400km from both Weymouth and Addis.

By evening on Tuesday we were within a few hundred km of the border and we pulled over in Iskenderun for an evening meal. The food was adequate, the wine was poor and the bill was astronomical. There were no prices on the menu so the staff took it upon themselves to make them up. They presented us with a bill the size of the national debt of a small country. Needless to say we queried the £5 a bottle for beer and the £25 bottle of wine, not to mention the £35 service charge. Strangely the bill was reduced by a third fairly quickly but it was still enormously expensive. Finally, with the local police in attendance, we reluctantly handed over the cash and left. It was a real shame, we had met some nice people in Turkey but the staff here had caused a lot of ill feeling and resentment.

We arrived at the Syria border at 130am to start the usual bureaucratic nightmare. Sullen border guards did nothing to help. JC, Adz and Tibbs started an impromptu football match in the customs area as we worked out how to get through.

Jim finally located where we needed to get various documents signed and stamped. I had a worrying moment when a coach driver suggested in very broken English that vehicles over 20 years old were not allowed in Syria. That might cause us some issues.

We were finally allowed to leave Turkey and drove about 5km through no mans land. We were then greeted in to Syria and I set off in to the building to sort paperwork. A helpful chap started to lead me through the process but I couldn't help feeling a little dubious about the various taxes being levied. A late arrival tax and local tax were added. I couldn't work out how they knew that we were a few hours behind schedule to tax us.

Finally, at 4am we were through. 5km we parked up in the dark and those of us still awake crashed.