We were getting pretty familiar with Syrian customs and immigration procedures by now so there were no great surprises in store. Unfortunately one of the things that wasn't a surprise was the way the immigration officials looked at our passports, looked at us and scratched themselves for twenty minutes trying to work out why our visas had the same number. Eventually, as always, a superior gave us the all clear. Another depressing non-surprise was that we had to pay again, just the mystery tax this time, US$12 each. Finally everything was sorted out and we were through.

Welcome back to Syria...

We rode down through rocky hills, the usual smell of pine trees in the air, with a strong wind chucking us around the road, first one way then the other. There were no signs but there was only one way to go so we knew we were on the famed road to Damascus, our next stop. Buildings started appearing and we sped on, followed a couple of signs for the city centre and then suddenly, unexpectedly, we were there. The driving was so much better than in Lebanon, and the style of the city so familiar from our previous stay in Aleppo, that I was suddenly, unexpectedly, really happy to be back in Syria, with that nice President Assad looking down over everything.

We found our hotel and settled into a truly miniscule room, two feet of floor space down one side of the bed, but it was clean and had its own bathroom and that's virtually all our wish list consists of these days. The only problem was there was nowhere to park the bikes so we wandered around and asked around until a nearby shopowner said we could park them in a little alleyway opposite his shop. We went and got the bikes and then realised there was a car almost completely blocking the way. After his kind offer it seemed a bit rude to go and ask the bloke to move his car, so Dave squeezed his bike through carefully. Mine was next, but it wouldn't fit because of the metal frames on the back. Backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, lift the back of the car up a bit, push it down a bit, but no luck. A local came to watch and make helpful suggestions like "Is impossible. Impossible." I agreed with him but Dave was determined and finally took the genius step of reversing the bike through which somehow (and who really understands these things) did the trick. The local nudged me and said quietly "Your husband. Fantastic. Very strong." I nodded, because it's been said before (but only by his mum).

We explored downtown Damascus and decided we liked it better than Aleppo. All the shopkeepers called out 'Welcome! Welcome in Syria!' and the whole place had a nice relaxed feel. The boy who sqeezed us a fresh orange juice blew me a kiss when we walked past later, a bit fresh himself obviously. Sweet shops lined the streets around our hotel with windows full of towering pyramids of flaky, syrupy Arab pastries. We bought some and found it was a pick 'n' mix system - you chose whatever you wanted and it all went in one bag to be weighed. The little pastries we chose were delicious but one Arab sweet goes a long way and I don't think we'll need another one for a while.

Pick and mix, Damascus style

Dinner didn't reveal any new and exciting elements of Middle Eastern cuisine, and in the evening we sat in a rooftop tea house, overlooking Martyr's Square in the centre of the city. It was really for men to play cards and draughts and smoke hubble bubbles but there was a special room for couples and families and the waiter steered us in there. So we sat sipping tea, the sweet smell of hubble bubble smoke drifting around us, the Assad family looking down beadily from every wall.

Up and off to the Jordanian embassy to apply for our visas. All very straightforward, we had been told, and free for Australians. Well it was, the man explained when we got there, but now everyone has to pay 825 Syrian pounds. Everyone except people from Japan, Hong Kong and South Africa, we noticed on a sign outside. We left our application to be collected later and set off to explore the old city. The usual suspects - souqs, citadels, mosques - all very bustling. Stalls with huge sacks of different nuts and seeds; dark little shops stacked with boxes of dried herbs and colourful spices; sweet shops selling nougat and dried flowers, roses and spikes of lavendar; orange juice sellers squeezing half oranges quickly in a kind of vice then passing over the juice in glasses, quickly rinsed in a murky bucket of water. There were lots of clothes shops too, selling not very nice evening dresses and even belly dancer outfits, all sequins and tassles. Hard to imagine who wears this stuff as all the women in the market were wearing coats and headscarves, many with the scarf pinned under their nose so almost their whole face was covered.

We had thought we were done with mosques, but as the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus is reckoned to be one of the best in the world, and as it was probably going to be the last one we would see for a long while, we felt up to a visit. We bought our tickets and, as I am a member of the female species, and Dave was wearing shorts, we both had to cover up for once. The man pointed me to a rack of long, brown, hooded robes - your standard medieval monk gear. Dave was reaching for a robe too - they looked pretty unisex - but the man said no and, to Dave's horror, handed him a long, silky, navy blue, A-line skirt. "Can't I just wear those?" he pleaded desperately, pointing at my robes which suddenly seemed rather chic and elegant. But no, he was a man so he had to wear a skirt (and being a Scottish man he really should have had no problem with that). He slipped it on over his shorts, little hairy ankles and surfy shoes sticking out the bottom and I just lost it. Full on, shaking, eyes streaming, bladder loosening hysterics. It was the funniest thing I had seen for months. Very disrespectful really, in front of the man who was handing out the things as it was obviously simply what was required by the Islamic powers that be, but the giggles are the giggles and there's not much you can do about them. It turned out there wasn't much I could do about them for most of the hour we spent looking at the beautiful murals in the mosque, and every time I looked at Dave I broke down again. Not standard behaviour for a mosque-goer possibly, but most organised religions could do with a bit more laughter and I certainly saw the fun side of Islam that day.

Apparently no-one wears the trousers in our relationship

Just beside the mosque was a small building which turned out to be the tomb of Saladin. It was surprisingly modest, just a simple room with a carved wooden casket inside (alongside a more ornate marble one, donated, for some reason, by Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany). After Saladin had signed the truce with Richard the Lionheart dividing the Holy Land between the Christians and the Muslims, he seemed to lose the will to carry on and died three months later. He requested that his body be taken to Damascus for burial so that's what happened. We had read all about this when we visited his castle, so it was interesting now to come across the actual tomb. It kind of proved that history really happened.

We collected our Jordanian visas and then went in search of a hamam (the local equivalent of a Turkish bath) as a visit to a genuine Middle Eastern one had been on our to do list since arriving in the region. We finally found one in the little alleyways surrounding the mosque. It was men only, which wasn't a big surprise, so I retired to explore on my own and Dave disappeared for an hour of sweating, scrubbing, massaging, being wrapped in hot towels, chatting about football, tea-drinking and just general pampering. He finally reappeared, pink and gleaming, having had a whale of a time.

We stopped off in an Internet cafe to collect email and chatted to the owner for a while. He told us that the Internet had only been legally available in Syria for a year, since the new President took over. It was classed as a luxury service so was very heavily taxed, he said, making it expensive for him to run and for us to use. We talked about the political situation and he seemed fairly optimistic about the future. He thought that the latest President Assad was a good man, but that the regime as a whole was corrupt. The late President's sons were all good, he claimed, but various other relatives were abusing the system. Call me cynical, but I would think that a system where one family holds total power for 30 years and doesn't allow any political opposition might be rather open to abuse. He seemed to think that there might be an opposition party in a few years and that Syria would be able to move forward. There'll certainly be plenty of work available for the population of a democratic Syria, taking down all those Assad family portraits and statues.

We got up and packed the bikes, lugging all our bags down the stairs watched by a selection of the hotel staff. A real feature of our stays in hotels throughout this trip - no-one ever helps you with your luggage, ever. A group of men will stand and watch us carry two saddle bags, two aluminium boxes, a spare tyre, and a selection of cameras, helmets and jackets, and not lift a finger to help. Notable exception: the twelve year old son of the hotel owner in Aleppo who took one look at me, shook his head and grabbed the bags out of my hands. Nice boy.

We found our way out of Damascus easily and sped south. A few miles short of the Jordanian border we spotted a major motorway services type place so, as Dave wanted to change the oil in the bikes, we pulled in. The mechanics were very excited when they saw his bike (they weren't very excited when they saw mine) so were keen to help. Dave really wanted to do the oil change himself so they had to be content with hovering around him, handing him things. Meanwhile I sat in the sun, sticking duct tape over the holes in my jacket (the only injuries suffered in my undignified skid along the road in Lebanon). At one point one of the mechanics came up to me and stood, tapping himself on the shoulder, saying "My God. My God." I thought, what on Earth are you talking about, that you are a soldier of Allah? Then Dave told me that this bloke had noticed the scuffs along the mirror and handlebars of my bike and had asked if I had fallen off. Dave mimed the accident and he had been shocked and had come up to sympathise with me. Nice man.

The oil change complete, Dave's little helpers gave the bikes a free jet wash (so that 'also available in white' graffiti on my bike was true after all!) and waved us off. The border was only a few miles away (past a town called Khebab where we DID NOT STOP) so we were soon back with our old friends, Syrian customs and immigration. It all went fairly smoothly, apart from being required to pay the unlikely sum of US$2 each to one of the officials. This was so obviously a con - the bloke didn't even try to come up with a reason why we needed to pay it - that we handed it over laughing. You've got to love someone who, with total control over your border crossing, comes up with a figure of US$2 to steal from you. So we rode on, into the Hashemite Kingdom ofJordan.

For those who are interested, just a quick update to let you all know how the fundraising is going. We don't have any actual numbers but have been REALLY touched by how many friends and relatives in the UK have sent in donations. A huge thank you from both of us, and the people at CRP, to everyone who has contributed.

Regarding the Australian situation, CRP didn't seem to be making much progress with OXFAM in Bangladesh so we looked into setting up an account independently in Australia. Again, we were defeated by those friendly neighbourhood Aussie banks - there seems to be no way that we can organise an account without going through some hideous process of setting up a formal charity with articles of association, a board of directors and a party of the first part. So, we are officially stuck. All we can suggest is that anyone in Australia who wants to make a donation can email us and let us know, and then when we get home they can deposit Aussie dollars into our account in Australia, and we will deposit the equivalent in pounds into the FCRP account in the UK. We don't want to put our account details here now in case anyone puts money in without telling us and we inadvertently keep it. So if any Aussies out there want to make a donation, let us know (now or nearer the time) and when we get home and are able to get to our British account we'll email you with the details and we can both do the depositing.

Clearly this is not an ideal solution and if anyone doesn't feel comfortable with it, that's fine. However, for what it's worth, you have our personal guarantee that your money will be sent to FCRP on the same day you deposit it in Australia. And to be honest, after crossing so many countries in the last few months, this sort of international currency laundering seems pretty straightforward.