December 2006. Among other things, we couldn't get a cab to save our lives because of our faces. Our hotel manager followed us (not so discreetly) to the restaurant down the street, and back again (we promptly checked out the next day). One cab driver told us how the secret police had questioned him for an hour after he had brought an American couple to Palmyra for the day. In our next hotel, the staff called our room with a "wrong number" (even though they were the ones who had rung us...) and promptly hung up, but not before I heard a slight click, indicating that the phone was now being bugged. We went into a few little shops in the souk and in every one, the phone would ring within three minutes of our arrival and the proprietor would start talking to the person on the other end of the phone about us, describing what we were doing and where we were from.

I've been to dozens of countries and would gladly return to most, but this is one which I have never been happier to leave and hopefully shall never return to.