Real cool old stuff


Damascus :: Syria

However, Israel should have picked a better time for their cross border incursions. First time in 30 years they've been into Syria and I just happen to be here.

Places: Palmyra & Damascus.

Coolest thing I did: Found the nightlife that the Lonely Planet said didn't exist in Damascus. Oh, and Palmyra was pretty good too.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: The King of Spain is going to be here this week.

Sorry if I don't edit this too much, the stupid computer keeps changing back to Arabic on me.

Syria continues to surprise me. I thought the worst possible thing that could happen while I was here was more bad mouthing of the evil Syrians by the Yanks and military incursions by Israel. Instead of people burning Westerners in the street, as the helpful travel advice from the Australian government suggests, there is a stream of intelligent discussion on the thing. Papers debate everything, the TVs are on the news all the time and you can sit in a barbershop, bus or tea house and get a heated conversation on events. Still, it makes that whole Jewish US conspiracy theory I talked about last time a little easier for them to belive. Why does Mr Bush keep opening his mouth on TV?

Anyhow, back to the tourism. Palmyra is something spectacular. You want to see ruins? How about a desert landscape dotted with Assyrian burial chambers, muslim castles, Babylonian temples and streets of Roman ruins you don't see in Rome itself. It's also in the middle of nowhere, so despite a few tour busses everynow and then, you have the place to yourself most of the time. While I was feeling a bit ruined-out I have to say this was well worth the trek out to the desert to see. As the stone has all yellowed and decayed by the constant ravages of 1500 years of desert weather it is an eerie place that has to be seen to belived, especially at sunset. For once, when the Lonely Planet told me "If you have to see one site in the country..." it was telling the truth. I'd use my usual line of words not doing it justice, but neither do the pictures I took. It's too big to even photograph well.

Due to my continuing stomach bug woes (and I'm not alone, you should see the state of the shared squat toilet in the hotel, eeewww) I was quite wrecked when I got onto the bus for Damascus and wanted nothing more than to sleep. However, as I got on two very enthusiastic young blokes (one turned out to be a Palestinean born in Syria and the other a local) waved for me to share the back seat with them. They were two weeks away from an English exam they had to pass to go and work for the Syrian Petroleum Company. They were also very happy when they heard my Australian accent as their English teacher was also from Sydney and it was easy for them to understand me. They wanted to discuss anything and everything, and it put me in an excellent mood. I dare say they will be going to work in 2 weeks with no problem, judging by how much they were trying to get every sentence correct. They also got me onto the minibus into town from the bus station and dropped me off in front of my hotel. It would have been a whole lot harder myself and I couldn't thank them enough, especially with my crook guts.

So Damascus is everything Aleppo is not. It's a city that houses 3 million at night but swells to 7 million as everyone pours in to work. It is a huge modern city with one of the world's oldest constantly inhabited old cities smack bang in the middle of it. In fact, it's only real contender to the title is Aleppo, so Syria is pretty old. The old city has the stuff you expect mosques, palaces, souqs and whatnot, with the most notable thing being the resting place of Saladin (whose story I told last time).

When I got in, I managed to meet up with Paul, who I was traveling down from Istanbul with again. He and a couple of other blokes were on their way out on the town, of which I was skeptical. A big night out here is tea, a hookah pipe and bed by 11, so I didn't like their chances of finding anywhere to drink that didn't have it's fair share of Romanian prostitutes as clientele. After following some dud leads, talking to the younger blokes on the street and by the good graces of a Syrian guy who lived in Texas, we found ourselves in a fairly exclusive looking club. Drink prices made it feel more exclusive that it probably was. However, western fern bar decor and a mix of Egyptian and Western pop had loads of non-be-headscarfed girls and guys all drinking and dancing away. I dare say they weren't real happy with a bunch of ragged looking backpackers casing about the joint, but they did let us in. I should have had a shower and shave after truding around the desert all day. Ooops.

They rest of the guys and out much bigger party left a big later to go onto another club. I decided to give it a rest (I spent more time in the toilet than on the dance floor) and go back early. The story I heard this morning involved cocktails that were 3/4 alcohol, barfights that involved bleeding and military looking police with assult rifles. I'm pretty glad I wasn't there to be Stevil in a situation like that, seeing the inside of a Syrian jail is not on my list of things to do here.

As it's Friday today (the muslim equivalent of Sunday) most things are closed, so the bulk of my tourism will be tomorrow. I thought I'd have a quite day today reading the papers, but the newest English newspaper is 4 days old and the news magazines I saw in Greece, so we're talking 3 weeks back. I've been told that's so the censors can tear out any pro-American takes on Middle Eastern politics, but I've seen no evidence so far. Instead, I just looked at the pictures in the Arab newspaper instead. I also wanted to see something of the Rugby world cup, but no one even seems to know what rugby is here. I don't usually get these urges for the comforts of home, but not holding in food is making me feel a bit weak and washed out. I hope it improves.

I think I will be off into Lebanon on Monday or Tuesday.

Safe as houses


Hama :: Syria

Pleasant surprises all round.

Places: Aleppo, The Dead Cities, Hama & Crac des Chevaliers.

Coolest thing I did: Took the taxi out to the ruined Byzantine cities in the desert around Aleppo.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: You can turn a single entry visa into a multiple entry one by writing "TWO" over the "ONE" printed on it. That's all the woman did when I got a dual entry and paid extra for it.

So, what do you know about Syria? If you are like me, you'd half have in the back of your mind that it was some kind of totalitarian military dictatorship full of terrorists and the like. It has a pretty bad rep, but just getting here, I've had to change that perception. It's a truly amazing place, made all the more so by the fact that there are not hundreds of Aussies getting drunk everywhere like there are in Turkey. I think the novelty of Westerners is still setting in here, because you don't get ripped off as regularly as you do in Turkey and everyone is so nice. I mean, very, very nice. People have been stopping me in the street asking where I'm from, do I need any help and then if I say no, just saying "welcome to Syria". In Morocco or Turkey, this would be a prelude to wanting to sell me a carpet. It's a nice change.

The other good thing is it's stupidly cheap, even more so than say Poland or Slovakia. This is due to the fact that people are pretty poor here, and mass tourism hasn't arrived yet. I've been here for 5 days now and I'm still on my first 50 euros! Having said that, I have been pretty sick from eating something (I'm not sure what) and I spent most of yesterday in bed with a fever and diarrhea (too much information?) and am avoiding too much of the stranger local food. I was having a pretty good run up until now, but I think yesterday's rest did me good. I think the heavy run from Greece into Istanbul the direct to Syria was taking it's toll a bit.

So, what's there to see? Well Aleppo isn't a real pretty place. It has some spectacular things in it (a mosque built under the first Muslim dynasty, a cidatel that's never been captured) but as a settlement that's been constantly inhabited for close to 10,000 years, all the layers are showing their age. Add to that some genius French city planner decided to run straight roads through it and destroy much of the old town hasn't helped. Add to this the fact that the Ba'ath party have been in power for long enough to turn it into a pseudo socialist paridise (ie lots of concrete and posters of President Assad everywhere) and it's probably seen better days. Still, the people are very nice and you make do. The souq here is a whole lot more real than the one in Marrakesh, as it seems to sell nothing a tourist could want. With motor cycles and donkeys running back and forth through the winding, irregularly paved streets you find yourself looking over your shoulder alot.

Myself, Paul (whose been traveling with me since Istanbul) and another bloke from the hostel hired a taxi off the street to take us out to some of the Dead Cities outside Aleppo. As this is the land crossroads from Istanbul (old Constantinople) into the Middle East, it used to be a a strategic point for the Byzantine empire. Many old cities and churches were built in the first 600 years after Christ but fell into ruin during the reign of the Turks, due mostly to a move to sea bound trade. This has left several hundred ruins all over the desert here, which you can see by day trip from Aleppo. The most famous is St Simeon, which is a huge Orthadox chruch dedicated to a monk who lived on top of a pillar. It's a long story.

Our taxi driver, Mad Mohammed was pretty good to us, even though the inspector at St Simeon reckons we were getting our ride around for about half of the going rate. He didn't mind waiting as we wandered around and took photos of the overgrown pillars and arches like proper tourists. However, driving with him is an experience. His use of the horn was not at all sparing and wild gesticulations at other drivers, usually with both hands were a little nerve wracking. He spoke next to no English but was highly amused by us knowing the words falaffel and kebab. He'd yell "falafel kebab!" at the top of his lungs and go into giggling fits for minuites on end.

I'm currently in Hama, which is famous for having water wheels in the river. That's it. Water wheels. It's also within striking distance of Crac des Chevaliers, the best preserved of the Crusader castles and possibly one of the best remaing castles in the world. It comes from the time when the hordes of Catholic Western Europe managed to retake much of modern day Syria and Israel/Palestine from the armies of Islam. When much of the Byzatine empire was taken from them by these uppity arabs, the emperor of the East asked the pope in Rome for a hand. He proclaimed a crusade to reconquer the holy land from the Muslims. The first 2 crusades were hapazard affairs, but managed to get a foothold into much of the coast. The real thing started with the 3rd crusade, which pitted the armies of Christianity under Richard the Lionheart of England (of Robin Hood fame) against Saladin, a Kurdish warlord. Unlike the resistance they'd met before, Saladin's army were professionals and this showed in the stalemate that ended the conflict. Big Ricky Lionheart knew he could retake Jerusalem, but did not have enough me to garrison it. This was the peak of the crusades and it ended with the reconquest by the Muslim armies. Crac des Chevaliers should have had 2000 men in it but had 50 when the Muslims arrived. They could have held out for 5 years, but abandoned it for safe passage. It was never taken and thus is in immaculate condition (with minor restorations over the years).

Saladin does play a big part in the Arab psyche too. Witness the fact that many of the propaganda posters in Iraq showed Saddam dressed as Saladin on horseback, holding off the Crusaders, which he equates with the armies of "Little Bush".

While everyone here likes to have a talk, it can turn quickly into politics with no warning. This is not such a problem, it's good to hear the other side of the story, but the following themes keep reoccuring:

• America is controlled by a Jewish consipracy.
  
• The Arabs have been persecuted by the whole world, whcih is why they are so poor here
  
• Only those with military power can shape their own desitinies.
  
• The recent history of the middle east is a divide and conquer tactic by the West.
  

Given this is a totalitarian state, there are secret police and state controlled media, it's easy to see how these conspiracy theories form, but I'm amazed at how uniformly accepted they are. Like anywhere, governments look for someone to blame when their own ineptitude gets them into trouble (look at the Australian government and those evil migrants), but we tend to have a liberal media to allow us to make more informed decisions. This makes George and his Axis of Evil making just that much more dangerous. People here are not hating their government more than America because they brought sanctions upon them.

Right, I think I've had to change of plan. I don't know how much I trust this multiple entry visa I've been given, so I'm going south to Damascus and seeing everything else I want to see in Syria before going into Lebanon. That way, if I have issues with my visa I can get a transit one at the border and go direct to Jordan.