Journal Entry 4

March 16, 1326
Crossing into Syria is one of the most challenging aspects of mosts peoples journeys to Mecca, but not ours. Most people have to go through a series of complicated procedures. First of all everybody has to pay major fees at the station of Qatya (Document G).They also check your bags whenever they choose to and they do not hesitate. Besides getting your bags checked and paying a fine,  you need to have certified passports. If you want to cross into Egypt, you would need a passport from Syria. If you would like to cross into Syria, you need a passport from Egypt (Document G).Overall there is really no easy way to do this. Also, they smoothen the sand before nightfall so they could see what tracks are left in the morning (Document G). They are so serious about protecting their countries because they do not want any attacks from Iraq to come into their cities. I thought this process was quite bizzare, but we were given permission to pass through for our journey to Mecca and this was a huge shock to our whole caravan (Document G). They treated us like we were royalty and we were allowed passage to the town of which borders Egypt. No one knew that this would have been one of the easiest parts of the trips, but the security for Syria treated us with the utmost respect. Throughout my journey I have noticed that people are becoming more and more respectful no matter where we travel or what cultures we come across.