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A little further en-route, Ahmad, stopped by a local Bedouin family so that we could see a typical clay house.It also gave us the opportunity to traipse our muddy tourist shoes through the poor family's home.We have to say that the place was spotless and very cosy, even if it was two rooms for a family of 10+.And, judging from the number of children following us around, I wonder if dad had more than one wife?Anyway, out of respect we refrained from being the tourists that we are and snapping away at their sofa, bed etc and settled instead for a couple of pictures of the family outside the double-roofed dwelling.We tipped the dad (100DP - £1.40) and as we were leaving the kids followed us to the mini-van hoping for pencils etc.Unfortunately, all we had to offer was our lunch, the pastries/rolls we'd nicked at breakfast, and a pencil taken from the hotel room.I gave these to one of the mums, despite the kids frantic attempts to grab whatever they could from my outstretched hand, and our parting view was of the mum breaking up the food and giving a small portion to each of the children.I just hope she didn't do the same with the pencil!!
Hama, our next destination is a river town built on the banks of the Orontes river and is famous for its 17 huge wooden water wheels, known as norias.The norias allegedly date back to the Byzantine times and were originally used to route water into aqueducts which led into the town and the neighbouring agricultural areas.They are up to 20 metres (66 ft) in diameter, the largest being the al-Mamunye (1453) and the al-Muhammediye (14th century) and whilst they still turn today, their spectacle is merely aesthetic.I have to say that we were a little underwhelmed by the wheels, mainly I guess because the place was more colourful than a Chinese travelling circus, and just as busy, and because we had already seen so many magnificent sights that were always going to be hard to top.So we stayed only briefly, took the obligatory snaps and continued onwards.
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