Photos - Middle East
Umayyad Mosque, Damascus Syria  

The Middle East is one strange place - you can feel the male nature of the society. In many places, there are NO women on the streets or shops. Restaurant wait staff are all male. Hotel staff, all male. Shop-keepers, all male.

People, on hearing I was American, said: " we love Americans, we just don't like your government." Well join the club! But from the huge populace of underemployed young men, itching for some meaning, I can see how extremists have a big pool of recruits.

On the left is the Umayyad Mosque, the fourth holiest sight in Islam, in Damascus, Syria.

  
       
           
Petra monastary   Palmyra, Syria  
The monastary at Petra, Jordan   Pillars at Palmyra, Syria, an old Roman outpost city  
Palmyra, Syria aerial   Saudi woman shopping in Aman  
Palmyra, Syria from the air (click to enlarge)   A Saudi women in her abeyeh shopping in Aman  
Muslim women bathing   Sphinx  
         
Muslim women bath in the ocean, Turkey   The Sphinx and one of the pyramids of Giza  
Broken statuary, Egypt   Egyptian salemen  
"look on my works ye mighty and despair" Shelley   Egyptian salesmen haggle you wherever you go  
         
 
© Copyright 2006 Michael W. Seto. All rights reserved.