Syria is one of the least visited, and least familiar, countries in the world. Jammed in between the vastly more popular tourist destinations of Turkey, Jordan and Israel, for many years it has been considered an unlikely destination by many travellers, scared off by a combination of safety worries, the yards of red tape that a visit required, a military government obsessed with internal security, and closed frontiers. Through much of the 1980s these fears were justified: Syria was cast as a supporter of international terrorism and broke off diplomatic relations with a number of Western countries, making it virtually impossible for many nationalities (including Britons and Americans) even to set foot there. But after President Assad voiced support for the allies during the Gulf War and helped to secure the release of the Beirut hostages, things started looking up as far as travellers were concerned; a steadily growing stream of Westerners have visited the country in the 1990s, drawn by the wealth of archeological remains, by the renowned hospitality of the people, and perhaps most of all by sheer curiosity.

Politically, modern Syria is a result of boundary drawing by the old colonial masters of the region, France and, to a lesser extent, Britain. The French took over in 1920, occupying the political vacuum left by the end of four hundred years of Ottoman rule, and separated their territory from British-administered Transjordan by drawing a ruler-straight line across the desert. During its 26-year rule, France did little for the country, governing it without the consent of the people and treating it largely as a barracks, and Syria approached its hard-won independence with an understandable lack of confidence: coup followed coup in the early 1950s, and then came the disastrous political union with Egypt, which broke up into a further period of political instability in the 1960s. Since 1971, however, the country has been ruled by a former airforce commander and Defence Minister Hafez al-Assad, the leader of a radical wing of the Ba'ath (Arab Socialist) party. Assad has treated dissent with bloody determination, killing thousands in the 1982 crackdown on the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood opposition group, but he has maintained power with unerring shrewdness, never letting his country lapse into the civil war and political anarchy that beset neighbouring Lebanon for much of the 1970s and 1980s.

Most Syrians are Arabs, though there is some degree of heterogenity - in Aleppo, for example, you'll find Armenian and Turkish speakers. The greatest concentration of non-Arabic speakers, however, is in the northeast, where Kurdish is spoken by those who dare - using the language has long been seen as a sign of dissent, particularly in the light of the Kurdish uprising in neighbouring Turkey. Syrians are divided more on religious than ethnic grounds: although the majority are followers of Sunni Islam, there is a large Christian minority (itself divided into a number of sects), plus a tiny number of Jews. President Assad himself is a follower of the Alawite religion, a curious branch of Islam followed in the mountains of the northwest, with the Druze and the Shi'ites making up the remainder of the non-Sunni Muslims.

Though a small country - about the size of Scotland - Syria's political isolation and high population growth reduce the amount and effectiveness of international aid, and the country is one of the poorest in the region, with huge disparities in the level of development. The rich, Europeanized urban elite of Aleppo and Damascus, most of whom have got where they are through government connections, live largely separate lives to the majority of the people. In the same cities, however, you'll find the familiar trappings of developing world poverty - shoe-shine boys out in force, begging, prostitution, and hawking of all kinds - while in the countryside agriculture is carried out using age-old techniques of irrigation, planting, harvesting and selling, with a proliferation of carts and working animals, and few modern machines. Many of the Bedouin, the traditional tent-dwelling nomads of the Middle East, have been forcibly resettled by the government in towns and cities, but some still roam the desert with their herds of goats and sheep, much of their lifestyle unchanged for centuries.

Despite the country's political isolation, its unhappy colonial past and its resentment towards the West for its perceived support of Israel, the reputation of Syrians for hospitality towards foreigners is well deserved, and it is this which makes the country such a rewarding place to travel in, particularly if you go independently and make an effort to stray from the cities and the most popular tourist spots. You can actually cause offence by rebutting any friendliness extended towards you, and the most casual meetings can often lead to an invitation to take tea at someone's home. Rarely do such offers of friendship come with strings attached, and in most cases the warmth of the welcome you'll receive is entirely genuine.