Hey, isn’t that the Colosseum? But why are there camels??
The news of the Russia-Ukraine war is highly disturbing. To me, nothing justifies war. Is it really necessary to bomb and kill countless innocent people to teach another nation a lesson? To deter them from going against your wishes? Are you their overlord? Toe the line or die? Any person who does that (i.e. invade, kill) to a non-cooperative neighbour would be guilty of manslaughter, murder, etc, etc, etc. But when governments fight, all gloves are off, I guess.
Despite the clear circumstances of Russia being the aggressor here, unfortunately, there’re still scores of people (especially from the east, the China-Islamic sphere of influence I call) who’re blaming the west. I don’t completely blame them. Some of the west’s actions are clearly self-centred and aimed at undermining their opponents, like this time where the USA can easily declare that Ukraine isn’t gonna be admitted into the NATO. Simple, right? Nah, not apparently for the US. Maybe they want the war to happen. There’s nothing to lose for the US, and everything to lose for the Russians and the Ukrainians. But still, it is the Russians who blatantly invaded an independent country whose people had chosen to go their own way. Is that acceptable? Did Ukraine attack Russia or carry out any acts of aggression against Russia? I dunno what Putin actually wants. To recreate the USSR’s sphere of influence before the collapse of communism? He should understand that it’s not gonna be so easy if the people decide to resist. Just look at Yemen and see how long the Saudi-led coalition is stuck battling a ragtag group of tribal clans.
Borders are manmade and they change throughout history, especially when empires break apart, and new nations are born. We’ve seen that in the Mongol Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the British Empire, among others. The USSR being a successor of the Russian Empire is no different. Isn’t it better to win a nation by an act of benevolence, than by the use of force and fear? Especially in this age of information? I don’t see any nation that’ll stay content if their nation is forced to accept the lordship of another foreign nation, whether they’re related or not. Anyway, I hope Russia stops the war soon, and some settlement is reached. Pray that no more civilians die or lose their homes. Pray that normalcy and sanity returns. Pray that Ukrainians and Russians can live together again. Choose peace, not war. There’re a lot of reasons for peace, if both sides can just forget about bloody defence and weapons. I’d love to visit Russia and Ukraine. In fact, in Dec 2019, we were choosing between Ukraine and Tunisia to visit and finally settled on Tunisia, due to the blizzard in Ukraine. And we had planned to visit Russia in the summer of 2020 if friggin COVID hadn’t hit. I’ve aborted visiting Russia numerous times since 1995, when I was a student in the UK and nearly booked an Aeroflot flight transiting Moscow en route from Manchester back to KL. Looks like it’ll take some time for it to materialize, sigh…
Talking about empires and holidays, here’s a picture post about an empire long gone – when the Romans ruled North Africa.
This is the El Jem Amphitheatre in El Jem, Tunisia
It is nearly 1800 years old and was the amphitheatre of the town of Thysdrus during Roman times
We stayed a night in an El Jem hotel in between our journey from Kairouan to Gabes, and visited the amphitheatre in the morning. This is the best ‘reasonably priced’ hotel we’ve stayed in so far as a family! Just look at the bathroom!!
Bathroom of the Hotel Julius, complete with a smackin Jacuzzi!
The boys loved it! Till now, they talk about going back to Hotel Julius!
The hotel upgraded us for free. It was some sort of a suite I think, separate bedroom and living room, with generous amounts of bath soaps, shampoos, toiletries, towels, coffee, tea sachets, etc. And there’s even a large balcony with a nice view of the city and the amphitheatre. What more can we ask for? – View from Hotel Julius, El Jem, Tunisia
The only problem with the hotel, was that it seems to be the favourite meeting place for the locals and their cigarettes, effectively converting the entire lobby into a huge smoking room. And because the hotel rooms are on the upper floors of the hotel surrounding the large central open lobby, the smell of smoke seeps into the rooms. We resorted to stuffing towels below the room door to keep the cigarette smoke out, and luckily our bedroom had a separate door from the living room…
The smoking lobby…
View of El Jem city from the amphitheatre. The yellow building in the middle left, below the communication tower, is Hotel Julius, and the 2 upper windows just left of the dome, was our room
Justin, dwarfed by the immense ruins…
Ruins of the Thysdrus Amphitheatre, El Jem, Tunisia
This is the underground part where the gladiators and lions are kept I suppose
Bye! Family pic, El Jem Amphitheatre, Tunisia, Dec 2019
