Palmyra

When they’re coming out of the desert, the Roman ruins you see are in the city of Palmyra. It is clearly amazing, but what is really good about Palmyra is you buy one ticket for basically all the attractions in the city are included. The ticket lasts 2 or 3 days and costs about 500 Syrian pounds (10-12 US dollars) each.

Palmyra is about 300 kilometres away from the Syrian capital of Damascus. It’s quite a long drive down undulating desert roads. It will cost you about $90-120 US dollars a day for a taxi driver that speaks a bit of English (off season – and the same in Euros in peak season). We took a taxi from Aleppo to Palmyra and it was a long day of driving through the desert, nicely punctuated by a visit to stellar attractions like Qala’at Samaan and the Dead Cities.  The next day the driver took us from Palmyra to Damascus with time to stop at the pork serving Christian village of Maalula and a weird hippy, non demoninational Christian convent (it’s the only time I saw pork anywhere in the whole 3 weeks I was in the Middle East!). Be warned, the “mid range” Ishtar Hotel we stayed in at Palmyra had no fancy luxuries like a Television in the room, carpet, or a fitted sheet on the mattress. Rest assured there are poncy luxury hotels with a view of the ruins, just not much in between that and the Ishtar.

The Souqs of Damascus

Where the boys buy their gold, frankincense and murryh is in the souqs of the old city. You can easily spend a few days here. Nuff said. If you make it to Damascus you can’t miss the souqs, almost literally. You enter the old city by going through the Bab Touma gate (most taxis drop you off there as the streets are very skinny for cars), find your way to Straight Street, turn right and you’re in the souqs. Even for this part of the world, there’s a special crazy chaos to the old city 24 hours a day. I preferred Aleppo (not visited in Top Gear) up north, but Damascus is a very special place.

Getting from Damascus to Amman for their next stop can be done by a service taxi very cheaply ($50-100) and takes about 4-5 hours. It all depends on how quickly you can get through the border checks. Going form a developing nation like Syria into Jordan is an interesting contrast. One the Syrian side the cop cars are all buggered old Mercedes and Peugeots 404s. The Jordanian cops have new Audi A6s!

Jerash

The last site where they’re doing the Roman chariot racing their convertibles is called Jerash. It’s about 50 kilometres out of Amman, capital of Jordan down the King’s highway. It was such a cushy drive I thought I was back home in Melbourne! And despite seeing loads of Roman ruins (Apamea in Syria was probably he dumpiest), this was definitely a favourite. It has loads of mosaics, an excellent ampitheatre, a small museum, the lot! You could easily do the citadel and Jerash in 5 or 6 hours without rushing. A guide is essential.

We went to Jerash by chance when we went to the Amman Citadel (be warned no average Joe Arab has a clue when you say ‘citadel’. You might as well be asking them for Mila Kunis’ phone number and when she’s most aroused in Icelandic), our citadel guide offered us a day trip out there for about 80 Dinars. If you are in Amman, there are 3 other things I can recommend for you:

1. Visit the King Hussein car museum. I mean come on you’re planning your holiday around an episode of Top Gear, it’s a no brainer.
2. Eat at the Reem Al Bahwadi restaurant. A grandiose display of Middle Eastern hospitality and truly amazing food.
3. Get the hell out. Little wonder the guys didn’t spend long here. It’s a bit of a shit hole (at least it is down town)! Not really much to see here

I can’t vouch for all the destinations in this episode, but I hope it helps. Any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. I’ll do my best to help.

Helpful tips:

• Be warned, even during the winter the desert sun is hot in the car. In summer it would be excruciating. I’m told spring is the nicest time to visit.
• At the time of writing 45 Syrian Pounds equals about 1 Aussie dollar/US dollar.
• One Jordanian Dinar was about 70 Aussie/US cents.
• Taxis and accommodation are your biggest expenses. Food is cheap, tasty and in ridiculous abundance and there’s very few trashy malls or duty free stores to buy stuff you’d buy at home.
• Most taxis are nuggety little Korean cars. So you’d struggle to fit more than 3 passengers in with packs, making car pooling a bit difficult.
• You take taxis everywhere in the Middle East. Even Service Taxis will take you into other countries. It becomes very normal after a few days. Even over long distances it’s fairly cheap.

In a rare, infact unprecedented display of solidarity, even my fiance agrees that the following is the most irrelevant and self indulgent editorial in the history of car magazines:

“This is a motoring magazine, I know. But it has to be said that suicide, no matter how galantly potrayed and noble in Seven Pounds should have no place in the real world… I have to say this because I know how influential movies with big names can be, and I know there are quite a number of folks who read this magazine, even the younger susceptible set. So again, suicide, however ‘worthy’ the cause is and will always be wrong. There, I said it.”

It’s almost a moot point that if he cares for the younger, more ’susceptible’ readers maybe he wouldn’t overtly go out of his way to alienate those who are in a bad place. Let alone waste valuable magazine space with his degrading opinion. I can’t wait until next week when he shares his opinion on gays and abortion. A quick reminder Top Gear, why do people read car mags? For completely NEUTRAL, unopinionated escapist romp in tarmac fantasy-land. That’s why. And with one incredibly arrogant and self indulgent, completely socially irresponsible statement he destroys all that, and any credibility his magazine may have had. It’s bad taste and completely bad form.

To be honest, I am very close to mental health care professionals and have recently experienced a friend’s suicide. Irrespective of both those points, Cheah’s comments are still completely nonconstructive and completely distasteful.

Oh and it gets better. Letter of the month goes to some local boy who tells some sob story about losing his girl on Valentines Day. A letter so pathetic that the writer basically states he wants his letter published to boost his ego. Perhaps this is down to cultural differences, but this was just pathetic. Donald gives him a pep talk and offers him a Teh Tarik (”pull tea” – a Malaysian beverage). So now we’ve gone from judgmental, to the ‘pussification’ (thanks George Carlin) of a car magazine. Not acceptable! Who reads car mags to hear about someone’s hurt feelings?! WHO CARES!

In the next horrid installment, Cheah provides a two page attempt at satirising apartment life in Hong Kong. The only link to cars being that he was sent there to see Top Gear Live. However only manages to mention how great the show was, of course. You can hear the crickets chirp in your head as you get past paragraph 3. It’s er, COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY IRRELEVANT TO MOTORING.

Given that Hammond and May provide great, witty, slightly self deprecating articles that always have a common thread about motoring, this guy gets two pages to gloat about how KL is better than Hong Kong.

Oh and in the piece where he’s actually meant to talk about Top Gear Live, all he mentions is that the shark fin dim sum was great, real champagne was served and you should meet his brother if you’re in town. This is barely an exaggeration.  Oh how I wish it was. And here’s the next installment in the Cheah gloat-fest:

“Hong Kong holds no fascination for me, apart from the great food at almost every corner of any street. It’s just too busy, too crowded, too stifling and too mercenary for my delicate and refined palate.”

This is clearly not the language of the common man, as I’m sure Cheah himself would be the first to point out. But please raise a hand if you think this kind of softness belongs in a tissue box and not in Top Gear Magazine. While the magazine probably things Cheah will attract aspirational advertisers like Boss and Hennessy, 17 year old Matt Hayward wouldn’t buy that magazine again. And 31 year old Matt Hayward can’t stop cringing at gut laughing at once.

Quite literally, Cheah was so bad that I had to buy another issue to see if it was just an off issue. It was worse. Sadly though I have to admit Cheah’s a decent photographer (albeit overseas), but as an editor and journalist, don’t get me started. Two or three guys wrote in (March 2009 issue) saying how the Malaysian photography was sub and par offering suggestions to make it cooler. Cheah simply refutes their suggestions reminding them of the great format the magazine has, then in a pseudo-arrogant-trying-to-be-cool way invites them to do better.

I agree with the guys writing in, insofar that there’s a marked difference in quality between the British sourced and Malaysian sourced photographs. And in believing that the world is truly flat there is no excuse for this. It’s just plain shoddiness. Frankly I think your readers deserve better.

Already this must be the longest blog post put here in a while. I could go on for volumes but why bother? ‘Nuff said. Let’s hope one day our Malaysian brothers and sisters can get a quality, non judgemental car mag without someone trying to float his own celebrity at their expense. Let us hope.

Quite literally, Top Gear is that great tiny, chintzy looking Asian restaurant that has punters lined up out the door. While other motoring shows are the classier, much emptier restaurant next door catering to the scraps of punters left out in the cold.

Anyway, here goes. Would love to hear your favs in the comments section too.

1. The Norweigan challenge [season 6, episode 6]. Arguably the best ever IMHO. Blazing through Europe in a McLaren Mercedes against everything the ocean had to offer. This was a true epic because they blitzed Autobahns, and half of Scandinavia in two days. As always with incorporable wit and superb cinematography.
2. The truffle challenge [series 7, episode 5]. The boys raced a private Cessna plane from Italy to London against tempestuous Clarkson in a Bugatti Veyron. Winner got to eat their truffle at the top of London.
3. The first US challenge [season 9, episode 3]. Proof that even the worst American cars have charm and rednecks really do throw rocks.
4. The £10 super car challenge [season 7, episode 4]. Debunking pub myths of cheap Ferraris and Maseratis has never been so funny. And Ellen MacArthur was brilliant as a Star In A Reasonably Priced Car.
5. The French supercar episode [season 7, episode 3]. Upstaging the Parisians is pretty hard to do. Although nothing cuts through the French mustard like an impromptu supercar cruise down the Champs Elysee. And despite all the bravado, you felt like a fly on the wall on a mates’ weekend away. Well some very rich mates.
6. The Audi RS4 episode [series 7, episode 2]. Jeremy races two rock climbers up the alps in an Audi V8 that roars like Thor’s plumbing. Epic photography and suspense.
7. The Vietnam challenge [season 12, episode 8]. This was a Boxing Day special that proved that you don’t need a billionaire rides to make epic television (well maybe a billion dollar crew). Just a great challenge, a dodgy scooter and a sublime location. Oh yeah, and that after five or so years, they’ve still got it.
8. The second US challenge [season 12, episode 2]. So ladden with irony and contempt for the septics, but with a boyish zeal for the Bonneville salt planes and the vast, lonely planes of the modern day wild west. Just awesome.
9. The British Leyland challenge [season 10, episode 7]. Keeping the boyish fervour going, they prove that despite the cars of your child hood truly being shitful, there’s still great fun to be had revisiting the past.
10. Jame’s Aston Martin episode [season 3, episode 6]. One small segment rather than a challenge. But that’s all James needs to but the bulldog in British and show just how and why a classic Aston can cut it with the best. A master of pub raconteuring at his finest.

Well that was fun. In that top 10, they’ve covered most of Europe and the States. Throw in the African and Polar specials and you have to wonder when they’re going be real men and cross the Nullabor Plane or something in Australia. God how I wish they would. Roll on series 13.

Richard Hammond book. Just avoid.

Er, frankly not what I expected. Here’s the breakdown:

• 2% about James May and the Jeremy Clarkson
• 5% childhood
• 5% getting to Top Gear
• 13% Top Gear pre-accident
• 75% ‘the accident’

Don’t get me wrong, of course I expected it to be about the accident. But much like the Walk the Line movie about Johnny Cash, I expected a big crescendo to his fame as a Top Gear host, then bang. Nothing. Instead he talked about how he shat himself on the way to the audition. More about him and the early days of Top Gear would’ve been very interesting. He does touch on how the idea of driving a jet car came about, but more or less in passing detail.

Unless you’re a nurse or involved in the health industry you too will probably have a feigning interest in this book. Don’t get me wrong, I owe Richard Hammond and the boys a tremendous debt of gratitude for doing Top Gear. But by crossing narratives from Richard to his wife Mindy as his hospital stay begins, every bane minute detail of Mindy’s doings is discussed in detail. Frankly it’s hideously boring.

Despite the bane minutia, there’s one interesting bit. The Hammond clan hire some ex special services lads smuggle them out to Scotland past the preying paparazzi for a well deserved vacation. It’s amazing to think that anyone would need such a crew to take a holiday!

This is more a book for the girls. It’s about love and empathy and Florence Nightingale dedication to the sick. It’s the kind of account your mum would write when her son goes to hospital to get his tonsils out. Now I want to invoice someone for the hours of my life this book has usurped and kill a hippie to feel normal again.

May’s quirky style means each rant, or chapter, is no longer than 5 pages [edit: not being in the UK, I didn't know these are reprints of his various newspaper columns]. While I find him hilarious on Top Gear, I only got about two giggles out of this book. What really irritated me was not the lack of consistency between topics, but the continuity. Some ramblings were written 2 years ago and others 2 days ago. So one minute he’s talking about a Top Gear episode in 2004 he mentions is soon to be airing, the next something that hasn’t aired yet. Surely a good editor could have smoothed out these bumps?

If you like short, witty ramblings, you may (no pun intended) enjoy it. If not, you may as well spend your $20 down the pub. At least you’ll get a drink out of your hard earned.