Advertisement
Our first trip out of Damascus was not without its difficulties! We took a taxi out to the main bus station for routes to the North of the country. Then we had to find the right bus - not an easy task with almost no Arabic!! Eventually we were on a 10am departure which left on time, moved about 10 yards, then spent 20 minutes crawling along to the police check area at the exit. Finally we were on our way through the hot sandy scenery for a couple of hours. That took us to Homs.
The bus station at Homs was a little chaotic as we tried to find a minibus to “Krak des Chevaliers”. Someone offered us seats for 50p (about what we were expecting to pay) but it turned out to be a ruse to get us to a tour office where they wanted £50 for us to go on a tour with them, and it didn’t leave for another 6 hours! Next we tried to negotiate a taxi to take us the 50km to the castle at Krak. The taxi drivers insisted it was well over 100km and wanted anything from £10 to £20. No sale!!!
After a heated discussion in broken English we stormed off and someone told us to go the small terminal just up the road where the minibuses left from. If only we had known that in the first place. A very helpful young man who spoke reasonable English made sure we got onto a minibus to take us to a village close to our destination and the cost was 50p each.
The minibus was absolutely full. Anyone who’s been to Turkey will know about the
Dolmus services which cram as many people in as possible. This wasn’t quite that bad but an hour later we were pleased to get out! We then had another argument with a taxi driver. He shouted a price at us once we got in then sped away before we could accept or decline his offer. Before we knew it we were weaving our way up the sinuous road to the castle and beyond, to a hotel we hadn’t asked to go to. Still, it looked nice so we decided to go for it anyway. We tried to pay what I thought would be the right place and our argument continued in the hotel foyer. The
hotel staff were on our side but eventually Russ threw the driver some more money and told him to “go away”!!
The
Beibars Hotel proved to be a wonderful place. The view from our balcony was amazing: we were looking straight at the castle and the valley below. After the altercation in the foyer the hotel manager lavished us with freshly brewed tea and some chilled water. They know how to keep us happy!! We sat on our balcony and rested before going out to visit the castle.
The castle at Krak (Al-Husn to use the Arabic name) is the best preserved Crusader Castle in the world. It’s hard to dispute this. It is quite a breathtaking sight from the outside, and inside it takes a good two hours to explore all of the corridors and rooms. Some of them are very dark so a torch is essential! Luckily we had ours with us so we were able to poke around in murky nooks and crannies!! We were please that there were not too many tourists around as it felt crowded up on the high lookouts from the towers as it was. The views were well worth the climb
up steep spiral staircases though.
That night we had a bit of a trek to find an open restaurant. We ended up walking around to the other side of the castle again but were rewarded with a marvellous meal. Nearby some Syrian scouts were camping. We were invited to join their campfire but declined as we wanted to get back to the hotel and it’s quite some time since our Scouting days!
The next day we checked out of the hotel and the staff arranged for a taxi to take us down to the Monastery of Saint George. They even negotiated the price and we paid in advance to prevent any hassle! The road down was 9km of twists and turns with spectacular views of the valley.
The monastery itself was a cool oasis of Christianity in the desert-like heat of Syria. We were shown the “new church” first, built in 1857, which contained lots of icons of St George. We lit some candles for recently departed friends before heading down to the old church. This one was much smaller and darker with a slightly sinister feel to it. From there a curator unlocked a door which
led down to the original church. Dating from the 6th Century, it now looks more like a wine cellar (but without the bottles!) where we sat for a while to enjoy the coolness and the tranquility.
Today it seems there is a solitary monk living in the monastery. If that’s the case, we met him! His English wasn’t bad and it seems he runs the small gift shop too!! One of the guys in the office then sorted us out with a taxi to take us to the village where we could get a minibus to Homs. We then retraced our steps back to our apartment and by the evening were exhausted!!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.061s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 13; qc: 26; dbt: 0.0234s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
amanda the great
non-member comment
what is scouting?
could it be like camping???