The Castle of the Kurds & A Ghostly Colonnade

Damascus to Hama, Syria.

I had an interesting conversation with a waiter at le Jardin restaurant in Hama. Everyone likes to practise their English and being naturally friendly they grab every chance they get to speak to foreigners. So we spoke about the lack of tourists and how life was harder because of it, and how he used to write poetry but now he had no leisure time because he had to work harder to support his family. Eventually he got round to the fact that a good friend of his was living in Wales, married to a Welsh girl. She had come to Syria on a visit and had been drinking rather a lot of vodka one evening whereupon she confessed to having slept with 17 men in her life - not all at one time he hastened to assure me - but she told him this was entirely normal. He wanted to know if this was true - the fact that Western women could possibly sleep with 17 men had clearly been on his mind for some time and could I either dispel or confirm her story.........