Syria: souks, castles and supernightclubs

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Ah Syria. The mecca of the backpacker and the nemesis of our friend W. Everybody I met who went in the country raved about it so I was excited to finally get in. The day started badly though. In Antakya I was dropped by the bus' station servis (van that takes you the bus station when it is on the outskirts of town) in the middle of nowhere and I had to wait for 2 hours in a disgusting pit without any restaurant, stores or places where I could change my remaining syrian currency. Not a great place to be when you're starving and have too much turkish currency. But anyway a bus eventually did pull up and reached the frontier fairly quickly.

The frontier was funny on both sides. On the turkish side I saw a policemen almost beat up a man who had complained because a group of guys had passed everyone in the long queue after giving a greasy handshake to the policemen. I guess Turkey's modern secular state ready to embark Europe grow fainter the closer you get to Syria, Iraq and Iran. Everybody had a good laugh at the stupid men who dared to defy authority.

The crossing in Syria was even more interesting. First off the border post has this funny map showing only arab countries (plus some wierd outliers such as eritrea and somalia). I guess those old pan-arabist ideas haven't died in the land of Assad. That little experience with the union with Egypt didn't dissuade them completely.When you go get your passport stamped insidethere's a line for Syrians, one for arabs and one for other foreigners. So I waited in line behind all those turks and after the guard made sure I hadn't been to Israel, I got stamped.

I dozed off a bit on the bus and woke up when I was entering Aleppo, the oldest continually habited city in the world (it's competing with Damascus for that title however). There was very little doubt in which country I was when I woke up. On the boulevard, at every few meters was a flag of Syria, followed by a face of Bashar Assad, then a flag, then a face like this for kilometers. Let me say this, after a few hours in Syria you could recognize Bashar in a crowd of a thousand people.

In Aleppo I checked in to a place called Spring Flower Hostel which my guidebook described as THE place to meet other travellers in Aleppo and even though it's true, I'd have to say the place is quite filthy. But nothing I can't handle for a cheap bed! Apparently the new guidebook mention what I just said, plus the fact that the sleazy staff has peeholes to look at women showering, but I learned that after I left. I'm just glad they're not albanians.

Syria definately felt different than Turkey. The first indication came at the border but the city exactly feels like an arabic city ought to feel: chaotic, dusty, noisy, dangerous drivers and shwarma stalls everywhere. Compared to Syria, Turkey was as clean as Stockholm. You do feel like you're closer to India in Syria. Also the drivers are the most aggressive I've seen anywhere, including Pakistand and India. It takes some time getting used to crossing roads here. But anyway, it grew on me pretty fast.

I met these 2 guys in the common room of the hostel who were learning arabic in Damascus: Bart who was a texan and Jim, a british fella. I went to the souks with them as Jim had some gifts to buy. The souks is basically a big open, but roofed shopping mall where you can find anything from female underwear to pastries, including barrel of petroleum jelly (they sell it by the barrel in Syria, not sure why but they seem to be avid consumer, draw your own conclusions).

After shopping around, we went to a cafe by the citadel in the old town and had tea and sheesha and then we decided to have something to eat. They were both keen on eating at some good restaurant because as Bart put it: "I could never eat a shwarma for the rest of my life and die happy". I don't know how something as good as syrian shwarma can get on anybody's nerve, they're so good, filling and cheap, but they assured me that after eating them almost everyday for 6 months you do get tired of them. Hard to believe.

Anyway we decided to head for Sissi, a high-class restaurant! I was a bit skeptical at first, not wanting to blow my budget. But in the end we had a delicious meal including 5-6 mezze (entree), beers, kebabs for about 6-7$ each in the best restaurant in town. Everywhere around us were men in expansive suits doing business deals or young men in fashionably dressed bringing their date/wife out. I felt a bit out of place but the food was great.

Going back to the hostel, Jim felt he should initiate me to the pleasure of syrian "supernightclub". The place was quite sad with loads of boring looking russian girls (called natashas by turks and arabs) and a few old arab men drinking. Some of the girls were fat because apparently arab men often like their women quite chubby (one of them was obese I swear) but some of them were stunning, and all wore skimpy clothes. We just told them we wanted to have a look before paying the 1000 pounds (20$) to get in and that was enough for us. The men were old and sleazy and the girls looked like they'd do anything to get out of here. Really sad. At least when I encountered these kind of girls in the Philippines (hey, I was trying to watch the World Cup), they smiled and faked like if they were happy so that you could do dumb rationalization in your head that it wasn't too bad and not feel too guilty. Not here. These girls were hating it and weren't scared about showing it.

I always found it wierd that after the end of the Cold War, lots of russian girls went south in the middle east to work as whores. I mean Russia isn't doing good economically but it's richer than most middle eastern countries. I guess since the locals girls are less willing to do this kind of job, they can charge a high price because supply is low and demande is high, as opposed to Russia where supply is high. Ahhh, the beauty of globalization at work. It would probably bring a tear to TL Friedman's eyes.

After discovering this part of syrian culture, we decided to boost the christians economy by getting beer. We went in a small restaurant where we had been told by the hostel guy where we could get beer. It was funny, we felt we were buying drugs or something. We went in and asked for beer and they had to get it from a hidden fridge in the kitchen, then they put it inside a brown bag so that no one would see that we were buying alcoholic beverages. Everyone know they sell it but they're going through the motions of attempting to hide it anyway.

The beer was good. Bart went to bed but 2 turkish guys, once they saw that we had beer asked us where we got it, went to get some and joined us. They were really interesting blokes, doing documentary around the middle east. One of them had just came back from Beirut to see the protests. We talked about lebanese/turkish/syrian politics until exhaustion.

Next day I wandered the souks for hours with Jim and Bart. There were many more shops because yesterday was Friday. I ended up buying a red kaffiyeh (worn mostly be bedouin, the black one is palestinian). There's some amazing stuff you can find in that market if you're into antiquity and have a deep pocket. Mid-afternoon I left the group to go explore the citadel, something they had done already. The place was pretty big and interesting, with amazing views over Aleppo. In the evening I had a great time going out dinner with Jim and the 2 turkish guy in yet another "expansive" restaurant. This time we were accompanied by the governor of Urfa province of Turkey, among other important people. The food was delicious, the service excellent and the alcohol was overflowing. What more can you ask? Great evening.

The next day all the guys were leaving so I found myself alone. I decided to stay around for an extra day and explored the city a bit more. I met and talked with a few syrians and had some really interesting conversations. Lots of old syrians speak a good amount of french and I met 2 that lived in France for a while.

I tried talking politics although it is hard here because a huge part of the population works with the secret police so no one wants to say anything bad. But I get the feeling that most syrians support the regime and that Iraq has increased the support for the regime. Syria might not be the world's richest country and it might not be growing as fast as China, but things work. There's enough work, plenty of food on the table (there's lots of chubby people, especially women, around), no ethnic strife and things are safe. Not even the majority sunni (70% of the population) want to risk losing that to become something like iraq.

The government is run by the Assad family who is a Alawi muslim, a minority group. The 30% non-sunnis know that they'll never get a government as minority friendly as the Assad so they're a sure support of the regime. The christians, who make up 10% of the population, are respected and have none of the problems that plague the coptic communities in Egypt for example. No matter what Bush or Rice says, Syrian regime is there to stay so they should learn to live with it. If Assad fall, you'll get a Iraq number 2 for sure. Everybody in Syria knows it.

Another thing I learned while talking around is that spanish men often come to Syria to have sex with little boys. I had heard that they were doing it in Morocco (and italians in Tunisia) but wasn't aware that it was going on in Syria as well. Apparently a certain Mohammed in the souk could arrange it all. Very creepy.

I went to Hama early next morning and spent the next 2 days chilling out in the very lovely city. It is more laid-back than Aleppo, food was cheap and good and the people were friendly. There is not much to see except some waterwheels in the river, that are very nice but the whole place is so dirty and polluted. On the third day I went to Krak des Chevaliers with Laura, a kiwi girl I had met the day before. We took a bus to Homs and then got in a taxi from there after waiting for 30 minutes for the minibus to fill up with only one person coming.

Krak des Chevaliers is a crusader castle built on the top of the hill. Lawrence of Arabia called it the epitome of childhood fantasy castle and I must say he is right. I haven't seen many castle since I didn't spend too long in Europe so i'm still not "castled out" and I really enjoyed Krak. Beautifully situated, massive and very well conserved. Very impressive.

We got back to Hama by late afternoon. Laura had been invited in a syrian family by a syrian girl she had met in the street. Lucky her. She was leaving in the evening for Palmyra while I was planning to leave early the next morning as I didn't feel like going on a night bus. So we said goodbye, thinking maybe we'd meet each other in Palmyra.

The next morning I woke up 8 to 6, 8 minutes before my bus departed. I packed up really fast, jumped out of the hotel, got in a taxi and arrived only a few minutes late to the bus station to find that the bus was about 15 minutes late and I could get a ticket! Hurray! I also saw Laura there, who had missed the bus last night and was going on the same bus as me.

Palmyra is a oasis strategically located between Syria proper (Aleppo/Hama/Damascus) and Mesopotamia so it was a very important trade town between the two regions. It was incorporated in the roman empire and the most well-known character from the town is a half arab half greek female called Zenobia that tried to take over Rome but was defeated by the emperor. Today little remains of the past glory except some very nicely preserved ruins.

We explored the ruins for most of the day which was really impressive and the hassle we expected wasn't too bad. The temple of Bel, a pagan temple celebrating local gods, was massive and even thousands of years after it was abandoned, you can still see the carvings and what they represented. Along the way we met this nice english fella who joined us. We went to see some tomb tour which was pretty interesting, palmyrites used to build funerary monuments/towers for the deceased instead of burying them. There was also some very interesting painting and carving in amharaic (the language used by Jesus). After that, we went up on the castle that dominate the oasis to get a panorama and look at the sunset. We were joined by a group of japanese NGO worker in Damascus.

After going back to town, Laura and the english guy both left for Damascus. It was bloody cold after sunset so I had a traditional bedouin food, chicken rice with plain yogurt and peanuts. Sounds wierd but it's good stuff, give it a try one day.

The next day I was determined to leave early for Damascus. The bus station is out of town so the LP suggest taking a cab which is what I did. However the guy ended up taking me to some restaurant where I was the only person there. I was told there was a bus passing by in 1hr15min. I was a bit angry because I know there are hourly buses so the guy brought me to his friend's company and not to the main bus station or something which pissed me off. But I had no idea where I was and waiting 30-45 minutes more wasn't gonna kill me, it would probably be faster than get out and walk or take another cab.

So I paid my ticket and waited. But when the time was come to get on the bus, I was told to get into a taxi to somewhere else. There was an old man in the taxi who was dropped before me, in a place with a bunch of buses. But somehow I wasn't taken there but to another sleazy restaurant where I was again almost alone. I lost it against the taxi driver and told him to take me to the bus station where he had dropped the old man but he didn't speak english and just repeated: no bus station, no bus station.

The old man at the desk told me to wait and give him my passport. I refused to give him the passport and waited a bit. Then he told me there was a bus at 1PM, 2 hours from now. Then I lost it again, told him to give me my money back, yelled until he did when he refused to hand it back(the taxi driver who had taken me from the previous place had given him the money I had given for the ticket) and then stormed out of the place. I had no idea where to go so I just walked trying to orient myself with the arab castle's mountain and another one. It worked because after about 30 minutes of walking, I was in the main part of town and I stumbled upon this really busy restaurant with 4 buses parked. I enquired whether there was one to Damascus soon and of course there was one, leaving in a few minutes. I grabbed food, hopped in and was out by noon.

I'm not too sure what really happened there, but for sure the first taxi driver took my to his friend's bus company or something. I felt bad for yelling at these people afterwards when I was out of Palmyra but I now think they deserve it. They lied to me by saying there was no other bus and tried to put me in a situation where I was forced to use their service. Pretty shady and dishonest. This goes to show that even in countries like Syria where people are nice, you still get assholes.

Arriving in Damascus 4 hours later, I had to take public bus to downtown. I hopped on the right bus and told the conductor where I wanted to leave in arabic. Yet when we arrived there he didn't even bother to tell me to get off so when I realized we were leaving downtown and I had missed my stop I was a good 5 kilometers away. He laughed at me with his friends when I repeated the place I wanted to get off and told me to leave. I was angry but managed to put myself on the map fairly quickly by locating a landmark on my map. I then spent an hour walking back downtown as I was very angry and didn't feel like dealing with a taxi driver.

I finally found Al-Haramein hostel, an okay place but with no atmosphere and overpriced albeit situated in a lovely street. I had dinner at some shwarma stand on Martyr square and then tea in a little cofffe shop. I spent the next two days exploring Damascus and I must say it's not my favorite city. I much prefer Aleppo. It seems that Damascus has lost more of its charm to the concrete than Aleppo or Hama. I didn't find the Old City impressive although it reminded me a lot of India. One thing that did actually blow my mind because I didn't expect it was the Umayyad Mosque. It is one of the most important Mosque in Islam and I had heard that the golden carving was beautiful but I was not ready for it. Wow. To me it was more amazing than the Taj, the Blue Mosque or Haghia Sophia. Wow. For some reasons lots of the pictures I took of it turned out really bad, I don't know why so there's only two. But the central facade blew me away. But all things considered, Damascus is pretty high up in my "city ranking" overall. It just doesn't compare with Hama and especially Aleppo.

On my last night there I was totally ripped off at a sit-down restaurant, thinking that syrians are an honest bunch so I don't need to ask the price. Mistake. It was the first ripped off (apart from the Palmyra incident) that happened to me in Syria and left me with a bad taste.

But overall I liked Syria, the people were friendly and hospitable, the food was amazing and the sights impressive. The only problem was that it was cold and I was sick of it. I had planned to go to Beirut but I decided against it on the last day. First it would be really expansive to buy a new visa to get back in Syria to go to Jordan and second I just wanted some warmth. All the hostel I stayed at weren't heated so that I never had the chance of being somewhere warm and it was getting to me. I decided to do Jordan very very fast and spend christmas in Dahab.

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Photos

Ruins of Palmyra
With arab castle in the background

Umayyad Mosque
Wow. That facade is simply amazing.

Welcome to Syria
Ahh, someone didn't give up the pan-arab dream!
And wtf is Somalia and Eritrea doing there?

Aleppo's souk
Man and his mule

Syrians
These guys asked me to take a picture, out of the blue.

Aleppo citadel 3
These guys asked me to take a picture, out of the blue.

Krak des Chevaliers
Beautiful castle

Krak des Chevaliers 3
Inner courtyard

Krak des Chevaliers 4
That water looks tasty, same color as the grass!