The liberal girls of Latakia...

I left Aleppo with my eyes set towards the coast. I had no idea of what to expect , but was obviously hoping to chill out on a beach , and take a little swim in the 35-40 C hot weather.  The train trip was quite nice , only took a few hours. The syrian landscape was much more greenish and fertile  then what I would expect (although after seeing the whole country i know that most of it is dessert) . The train station is 2 km from the city core ,and I decided to walk....and for th whole walk i was chased by myriads of shouting taxi drivers.....

Latakia was a nice little town with nice liberal muslims , but there are`nt any real attractions in the town itself.   I gave up the thought of doing any beach chillin` once I saw the coastal strips there.

....very dirty....sewage, industrial waste ,and most noticably the junk trail left by the locals living in the local slums.  But the beaches was actually a bit crowded with syrian holidaymakers....can`t always be selective ,right!?  There is one beach called the blue beach , a few km north of the city which is supposedly a little bit cleaner....

The city is quite modern really ,with lots of cafes and some nice boulevards. Another thing which is cool is that the muslims here are more liberal then the rest of the region , which means that it is one of the only places where one can actually see how pretty the syrian girls are , as there is much less Hijabs or Burkas here.  Budget accomodation here was quite shoddy to say it the least , there is`nt really any hostels here as there is hardly ever any backpackers here. Cheap food is easily found as there is lots of little shops around the Assad statue that offer half-chicken, kebabs and lovely hummus. Gotta love syrian food!