Beirut - A City Under Seige.........

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From the ancient to the ultra-modern, Beirut is one captivating city....where Ancient Roman ruins stand alongside mosques and churches.....

Once known as the Paris of the Middle East, the city still lives upto its reputation as the party capital of the middle east and this can be seen in Gemaizeh....where Beirutis crowd the many bars and restuarants of this hip residential area....and are not put off even by the heavily armed guards and soldiers who are everywhere on the streets....!!! Beirutis can be seen parading their chic style in their Porches and Hummers.....

First impression of the city as we got off the Bus from Damascus was like any other big and busy city, however as the taxi drove off towards the city centre....the first thing we saw was military tanks and convoys of army vehicles....uummm and the one thought that crossed my mind was - what are we doing here...it was scary...!!!

Beirut really took a beating during the Lebanon's long civil war, but since then under the rule of the much loved & then brutally assassinated president Rafik Hariri, the city underwent a major transformation in the years following the cessation of hostilities, particularly in the downtown area which is also the financial centre of the city, was completely rebuilt....! Sadly when we arrived there all the streets were empty and shops were closed....the buzz of Beirutis on the streets of downtown was replaced by armed soldiers at every street corner which were now military checkpoints - we got our bags checked before entering every street in downtown...never before have we has this happened to us on the streets of a city..!!....Cars have now being replaced by army "Tanks" that lined the streets......giving the whole area an eeriee feeling ..!!!

At first we thought it was friday (the islamic holiday) and therefore the shops would open later after the friday prayers, however after speaking with a shop-assistant, a young girl (Joyce) in the only shop that seemed to be open (a Christian book shop) i found out that the shops are not going to open in the near future and have not done so in the last few months.... and this was due to the unstability in Beirut and fear from Hezbollah who seemed to have camped outside the downtown area and the area is now locally known as "Ghost-town" :-((
I spent about an hour chatting to Joyce while Sadiq went to pray the friday prayers in the mosque and she gave me a lesson on Lebanese politics and how the Christians and Muslims were divided !!!! Hezbollah apparantly supported by shia governments of Iran and Syria and the hatred for Syria was evident among many of Lebanese people as they hold the Syrian government responsible for killing president Rafik Hariri.

As we wander through the streets, reminders of the civil war and the 2006 war with Israle are still there......buildings bearing the scars of shelling and bullets holes..!! The only evidence of booming business is in the construction industry as new building are going up everywhere alongside the mortared ones...and the whole city is one big construction site.....!!!
The area to the north of downtown beyond the heavily guarded UN headquarters building seemed like a Hezbollah stronghold as posters of Hezbollah leader/s (Hassan Nasrallah) and others were everywhere and seemed a world apart from the chic and fashionable crowds of downtown Beirut!!!
However in another part of the city, students crowded the many cafe's and restuarants around the American University campus....and life seemed to go on with normality despite the unsettled political climate. The hip residential area of Achrafieh is full of places to hangout and ultramodern shopping malls....packed with international shops.........!!!we spent the evening browsing around the shops in the mall...as if in any other city in a western country and so were the other Beirutis who crowded the shops...leaving the "ghost town" of downtown Beirut far behind..!!! Dinner was at Nandos (Beiruti style) evesdropping on a conversation of 2 businessman of which one sounded like he was an expat and enjoying life in this chic middle eastern city!! Well so despite all the troubles that the city is so volatile to..... Life still goes on..........

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Photos

once a luxury hotel....now....
the scars from the various wars are evident everywhere in the city

Downtown Mosque
these minarets dominate the skyline....in the only christian capital city in the middle east!!

religious co-existence!!!
despite all the political turbulence......these holy places still co-exist and have done so since the biblical times........shud be taken as an example for peace in the middle east..!

Downtown Street
tanks have now replaced the cars that were once parked in the streets ........!!