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Published: August 6th 2007
Girls on the Pullman Bus
Hama to Twalid Dabaghein Sitting alone in Damascus's Iranian built Sayyida Raqayya Mosque, a wave of utter peace engulfs me. Although essentially I am alone, I am surrounded by devoted Muslims - praying, chanting, prostrating & relaxing. These people are devoted; devoted to peace & to their faith. This is the real Middle East. These are true, every day Muslims. As I am engulfed in their peace, a hint of anger & frustration begins to reach over me. I am frustrated that a handful of supposedly religious radicals along with western governments & media have managed to shape our perspective of this part of the world as so potentially evil & dangerous.
What I see & experience every day, not just inside this mosque but across the Middle East, is the exact opposite of the image we see daily on our televisions.
The Sayyida Raqayya Mosque is an onion shaped kaleidoscopic mosaic of silver, turquoise & mirrored glass; it could be a gaudy Vegasesque disaster, but to me it is beautiful. This is my first visit to the inside of a mosque, In my travels I've seen many, but
Umayyad Mosque
Above the door, Damascus for some reason I have never ventured inside, until now. I have no idea what protocol I should follow when I enter. I remove my shoes & as I place them outside the entrance a man gives me plastic bag & says keep hold of them or they may go walkabout. Once inside I have no idea what to expect. Knowing that men & women enter & pray separately, I am surprised to find that I am soon in an open roofed courtyard where men, women & children are playing, talking & eating picnics. This is hardly the image I had in mind of a mosque.
I follow a sign that reads 'Men's Entrance' - keeping an eye on what the locals are doing, smiling & checking for approval along the away. I enter a large dome ceiling-ed room. It's peaceful yet chaotic. I walk to the far side & take a seat, again seeking approval from those around me. Some men are praying aloud, some silently. Some read the Koran, others chant out loud. Some prostrate their heads to the floor, resting them on a prayer stone as they reach the ground - a cause of the many
bruise like bumps that I've noticed on men's foreheads. I expect the mood to be sombre & serious, but am surprised to find that among the men there are children playing & taking photographs of each other. As the constant flow of devotees comes & goes, the beautiful sound of young girls singing echoes around the room.
Surrounded by such peace, devotion & beauty, it is easy to forget that I am in a land considered by some to be a hotbed of Islamic militants, a rogue state full of terrorist training camps. This is Syria, a state that along with North Korea & Iran is supposedly the Axis of Evil.
Depending on who you listen to, I am going to be kidnapped or shot. But depending on who you trust, you may or may not be surprised to find that this is one of the most hospitable places on the planet. From invites into people's homes for tea to invites to go to the barber's, this is a country where people's kindness & generosity is second to none.
Arriving in Syria couldn't have been easier. Despite previous warnings about visa issues at the border, the crossing
Beehive House
Twalid Dabaghein itself only took about 15 minutes. Our driver raced us back & forth from the immigration office to the bank, to the stamp office & back to the immigration officer again. A couple of postage stamps were carelessly stuck in our passports, leaving the page soggy & disfigured, & we were on our way. In no time we were heading north to capital city Damascus, the snowy peaks of the diplomatically named Anti Lebanon Mountains a good few miles to the west of us.
Arriving in the city we are surrounded by the usual chaotic scene of cars, people & pollution. However our hotel is in Saroujah, a tranquil corner of an old part of town, down a narrow lane where it quickly feels far more Middle Eastern than the modern streets of Amman in Jordan. As in Egypt, the streets here are full of older cars, numerous vintage Peugeots & Mercedes, bellowing out deadly black fumes. Although new buildings mix with the old, this is clearly a far less prosperous place than Jordan.
Modern day Syria may be a young country at just over fifty years old, but Damascus can claim to be one of the world's
longest continually inhabited cities. Although rapidly expanding with modern buildings today, it is a city rich in history & culture. Our hotel is a large nineteenth century house centered around a courtyard. Around us in the narrow alleys of Saroujah Souq (market) local tradesmen are busy at work; in one shop a silversmith is melding a coffee pot, in another jewellery is being made. Down the alley are tailors mending & creating, & at the bottom of the street a trader sells posters & cd's. There's a constant battle for freshly baked bread outside the bakers across the road & the occasional horse drawn cart passing through laden with fresh fruit & vegetables.
The centre of the old city is focused around the main souq - a vast area of largely covered markets, much like a hugely dispersed department store. Scattered within the area are ancient city walls, a citadel & a handful of the old city gates. At one entrance of the main street of the souq, Corinthian columns give way to a small square that in turn gives way to Umayyad Mosque, the most important religious site in the country. However much time you spend exploring the
Kitchen
Nargileh to the left; Damascus souq, there will always be an undiscovered corner lurking somewhere in there. Everything you can imagine and more is for sale. From the men selling stuffed eagles near the main entrance to the fake plastic fruit that people buy to hang in their cars & on buses.
Underwear is everywhere - many women may cover up, but they aren't shy when it comes to kinky g-strings. I've never seen anything quite like it, from see through plastic bras to g-strings that hold a mobile phone, there's some bizarre things on offer. Just metres away from the kinky underwear (which is always sold by men) are the more conservative stalls selling Korans, beads & other religious paraphernalia.
Nearby is the not so aplty named straight Street which is so old that is was mentioned in The Bible (Acts 9:11). These days it is home to shop after shop of beautiful antiques, second hand goods, jewellery, backgammon sets, Bedouin handicrafts, carpets & very ornate nagileh (water) pipes. For a change these don't appear to be here entirely for tourists (of which there aren't many anyway), they are all here mainly for locals. As we try to keep to the narrow
pavement, ancient buses full of school kids & small suzuki pick ups making deliveries make their way past us.
We lost day after day getting lost exploring the surrounding medieval streets of brick & wooden buildings with their precariously overhanging balconies. A number of very large traditional buildings are interspersed; Madrassas - schools of Islamic teaching, Khans (or Caravanserai) - traveller's inns, as well as old family homes. These extravagant eighteenth century buildings are centred around fountains, courtyards & gardens with beautifully decorated ceilings, hanging lamps, marble & mosaics.
Near the centre of the souq lies Umayyad Mosque, revered as the centre of Islam in Syria. The origins of the mosque itself date back over three thousand years. Around the vast limestone courtyard are three arched sides, home to golden mosaics. Towering high above are three minarets, each covered with speakers that announce the six times daily call to prayers. Inside the large indoor prayer hall men & women chat & pray & near one end is a shrine shroud in green light, that is said to contain the head of John the Baptist.
Like it's neighbours, Syria is home to many historic religious sites too. The
Tatoo
Twalid Dabaghein small town of Maalula, an hour north of Damascus, is full of churches, statues & shops selling localy produced wine. However the town is most well known for being one of the few places on earth that Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke, is still in every day use.
Syria is trying to move into the twenty first century & although western sanctions don't help, they are coping well. This is a country that is said to be largely self sufficient - pick up almost anything from food to household goods & it will say Made it S.A.R. (Made in Syria). This is a resourceful part of the world, where the alphabet was born, a place that has seen rule & invasion from the likes of Egyptians, Phoenicians, Assyrians, Ottomans, Greeks, Romans, Islam as well & the Crusades.
That said, bureaucracy is still alive & well; with a few traveller's cheques left to cash, we made for one of the major Syrian banks in Damascus. Large queues were waiting at both of the ATM's & the foreign exchange counter outside. Hoping we wouldn't have to join one of these, we headed inside where we were pointed upstairs to
Peugeot
Damascus a desk with almost no queue. It looked like it was going to be easy......
We are sent back & forth to six different desks, collecting forms, signatures & photocopies along the way. Just when we think we'd made it, a signature is required from a manager - a man who is very busy sending a text from his mobile phone. We've made it this far without anyone realising that we don't actually have all the required paperwork - I threw out my original receipt that I am now supposed to have (only in Syria) months ago. To sign or not to sign, will the manager realise? He signs & we have funds again. And all for a fee of twenty five new English pence. Bargain.
Sitting once again at our favourite Damascus cafe, we meet a couple of locals in their early twenties. George & Mary (their adopted western names) love all things western (apart from Hollywood). They know far more about western movies than we do & they are big fans of Pink Floyd & Metallica. This isn't what you expect in Syria. Mary is Muslim, but is by no means strict - like many other
Syrian women she wears tight fitting casual western clothes; she goes to clubs & even drinks alcohol. I try to steer the conversation towards politics. We've noticed that there are posters of the current president (Bashar al-Assad), his father & Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasser Allah everywhere. Do they support these leaders, considered so dangerous by the west? All that I am told is that the president is doing okay but that they care little for politics - they won't be voting in the (rather pointless) local elections next week.
While smoking bans are taking over the western word, smoke is everywhere in the Middle East. While it's hard to avoid the very harsh on the lungs reality of very low grade second hand cigarette smoke (in particular when being served food or filling up with gas), the more sophisticated & far more pleasant aroma of water pipe smoke is also in great abundance. Hubbly Bubbly, Sheesha, Nargileh; the names vary, but the long lasting tradition of the water pipe lives on. Although some people say that smoking a water pipe isn't as unhealthy as smoking a cigarette, some research shows it to be worse. Often intricate in design, the
smoke passes through cooling water in a coloured glass base, through a decorated shaft & into the pipe. The tobacco is mixed with molasses & flavours such as honey, mint, apple or strawberry.
Sitting almost at the highest point above Damascus, on Jebel Qassioun (Qassioun Hill) looking out across the city, I once again find myself talking the global language of football. Sadly my vocabulary only stretches about as far as Manchester United, Rooney, Beckham & C. Ronaldo (as he's always called out here), but it's enough. As a vicious wind blows, my new friend seems to be listing off the names of the players of the entire Spanish league - fortunately his friend is as bemused as I am.
It was from this point that Mohammed looked out across Damascus & stated that he would not enter the city - he only wanted to enter paradise once & that would be upon his death.
Below us as the sun sets & night falls, Damascus begins to light up. I take a moment to count the mosques, but soon give up - there must be hundreds if not thousands. Each mosque has at least one or two
Stickers
Presidents past, present & martyred before their time. Families & friends. Damascus turrets & each turret is lit with green light - a colour long associated with Islam. At prayer time hundreds of muezzin's simultaneously lead the call to prayer. In the warmth of a mountain top cafe we drink the most expensive tea in Syria & watch the moon rise.
Palmyra, a few hours north of Damascus, is famed for its Roman ruins. These second century AD ruins are impressive, covering fifty hectares they are perhaps the best in Syria; The main 'high street' is lined with a lot of Roman pillars while in the centre is the Hypogeum, an ancient roundabout of sorts. There's also a small & well restored amphitheater, a church, baths & a castle on a hill.
But there's only so many large Roman pillars you can look at before you are ready for something new. Most impressive to me in Palmyra are the tombs - the most well-known being the Towers of Yemliko & The Hypogeum of The Three Brothers. Dating back to the start of the twentieth century they are in various states of disrepair. At a few scheduled times of the day a caretaker unlocks a couple of the best preserved tombs
& a throng of rowdy middle aged tour groups appears from nowhere to fight and shout their way through the small rooms. Interesting as the two most well preserved places are, it was the other tombs scattered far & wide around the area that are the best.
Most are freestanding over ground towers, up to four stories tall, while a couple are underground chambers. Inside, coffins were stacked up on shelves, much like a mortuary. Each individual's tomb was then sealed off with a stone panel with a lifelike carving of their head & shoulders placed at the end. The actual coffins are long gone & the only busts that remain are in museums, but in the towers a few shelves remain & in the underground tomb some artwork still survives to this day.
Some towers are locked up, others are just a pile of bricks, but most can be explored. It's hard to imagine that these hollow shells once housed up to a few hundred bodies. A pit in one tomb holds a selection of bones, apparently some animal, some human - this is the closest you get to really understanding what you are standing in. Scattered
around one of the ruined underground tombs are a handful of open sarcophagi (stone containers for a coffin or body), half buried in the sand. The whole area being so sandy, it's likely that many more secrets lay buried somewhere out there.
Not for the first time, I ask myself if some day in the future tour groups will be dragged through the empty tombs where modern day heroes & pariahs are now buried?
A few hours further north is the larger town of Aleppo, it's hard to get used to travelling such short journeys. On arrival we have no real idea where we are. We take a guess & start walking. This is perhaps a bit like arriving on a bus in west London & expecting to find your hotel in east London on foot. The difference is that here someone soon noticed us & walked us to the place we were actually looking for. We weren't sure if he'd ask for money, but he didn't - again it's just typical Syrian kindness.
Strangely, the hotels in Aleppo are all in the few streets that seem to sell tyres, nothing but tyres. Every single shop sells
Tombs
Some still standing, some not; Palmyra tyres. All day mini sized trucks come & go, taking tyres in & taking tyres out. Each time one reverses a high pitched version of The Lambada plays as a warning. Perhaps we should adopt this in the west? Most hotels are full (perhaps with Iraqi refugees?), so we end up in a very cheap place that we first think may be a brothel. It's not; it may be cheap, but it is friendly.
Like Damascus, Aleppo has a huge souq, an old town, a lot of mosques & a castle. The souq is narrower & perhaps more diverse than Damascus & hidden among the narrow alleys are more grand khans, madrassas & hammams (bath houses). There's a large number of Armenians here, so signs are no longer just in Arabic & some of the clothes are a lot more colourful.
Lost again in some back alley, I notice a sticker shop. I was hoping to find some Fulla stickers - Fulla being the Arab version of Barbie. Sometimes she wears a hijab (headscarf), sometimes her chador (full body & head robe), but sometimes she dresses western. The shop owner calls us in & won't let
Camel In A Hole
Apparently this is quite common; Palmyra us leave. He disappears, but minutes later he's back with bottles of drink for us. He used to be a teacher & he's worked in Dubai. We talk the usual talk; Married? Children? Profession? Religion comes up - we talk Buddhism a little. He thinks someday we'll turn to Allah. Before we leave he gives us some food & then the stickers all for free.
So why is it that this country that seems to very hospitable, kind, courteous & generous to us is considered as part of Bush's Axis of Evil? A simple answer would be that the Syrian leaders are seen to be undermining the US's role in Iraq, that they support Hezbollah in Lebanon & they refuse to deal with Israel until they return the Golan Heights. In reality there's a lot more to it. Whatever the reasons, Bush & co are seen as the evil ones from here.
Syria today is ruled by Bashir al-Assad who was handed the presidency when his father died a few years back. If that seems undemocratic then perhaps more dubious is that Bashir was 34 at the time, yet the law stated that the president must be at
Umayyad Mosque
Courtyard, Damascus least 40. No problem, they just changed the law to suit him. But Bashir was never meant to be a great ruler - he was happily studying to be an ophthalmologist when his brother, Basil - the heir to the presidency died in a car crash. Basil is now seen as a martyr & his image, complete with shades & beard is seen widely on posters & paintings across the country, although most often quite appropriately on car windows.
Terrorist training ground? Rogue State? Bush may think so, but Blair isn't so sure - he's been here making favourable diplomatic moves. US House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi was here at the same time as us. Clearly a few people believe dialogue is the way forward rather than name calling.
Bashir al-Assad's hard-line father ruled for forty years, but today there are promises of reform. Perhaps one small step is the availability of the internet. What do the people make of it all? They admire the west but don't understand the treatment they receive from us. They see the threats as a challenge to their own peaceful existence.
Many people here support the Lebanon based Hezbollah (Party of God),
Kohl Eyes
A kind of traditional eyeliner, kohl is worn by many Bedouin or country people. It's said to have powers that ward off evil; Twalid Dabaghein but not as a radical Islamic group, rather as a legitimate resistance movement. (We will talk A LOT more about Hezbollah when we write about Lebanon). The vast majority of everyday people here aren't fanatics or terrorists. They don't support the hardliners or the suicide bombers. They worship the same God as Christians & they respect other people's beliefs.
Buying shoes (finally), I find myself sharing a shoe horn with more Iraqi refugees. This time it is two young people, one from Baghdad, the other from Mosul. They only left last week, but have no idea if or when they will return. They don't want to be here in Syria, but anywhere is better than where they have come from. A few days earlier we met more refugees on the street. An older man & young child. The story is the same as always - 'Bush bad, Blair bad - people good'
What you really never quite get over is just how hospitable people are. It's not just the numerous offers of tea, but other little things like paying our bus fare, bringing us seats to sit on when we were crouching by the kerb. Walking through the
souq passers-by randomly hand you the food they are eating - a half-eaten piece of bread or a biscuit.
Another highlight of the many souqs is the meat. In most countries we've been to the fresh produce is all together, but here it's often randomly mixed in with everything else. You could be buying a pair of socks, turn around & find yourself face to face with a dead goat. I've lost count of the number of times I've almost walked into a full sized freshly skinned carcass hanging in front of me. This is no place for the squeamish. Around the markets are also freshly severed heads, tongues & spinal cords. A highlight has to be seeing a man blowing up intestines with his mouth as if they were balloons. We were sure he was going to shape them into dogs. Nearby a goat's head is cooked with a blowtorch - strangely, the goats always appear to be smiling.
Menus, when you can find them, can be interesting too. Anyone for lamb brains with fries? How about ‘raw meat’, ‘crushed wheat with flesh’,’ lamb's spinal cord’, ‘fried kinds of bird’ or ‘underdone chicken’?
Looking for a
John The Baptist
His head may be in there; Umayyad Mosque, Damascus hammam (public bath) one morning we ask a passer-by if we are heading in the right direction. He tells us we are, & that we can walk with him as he's heading the same way. We get there to find it closed for renovations, so he invites us back to his mother's house for tea instead. We walk through alleys, the high walls revealing nothing about the homes hidden away behind them. Imposing closed doorways with iron fists for door knockers & stencils of Mecca above them are all that can be seen from outside. Our host is well travelled & open to talk about politics & religion - something we've largely avoided so far here. His family is Muslim, but not too strict. Lucy asks about his daughter's chador (head scarf) - we've wanted to know for awhile what the real differences are between the women & their various states of coverage. There are those who are covered from head to toe, those who just cover their head, those who just show their eyes & those who drape a scarf over their face - showing nothing at all. In his opinion just the hair should be covered, but quite
Tea
Damascus liberally - he thinks his own daughter covers too much. He tells us that the women who are completely covered think they have a better chance for afterlife, but he isn't so sure
Nearby to Aleppo are Al Bara & Serjilla two of many 'Dead Cities' inhabited from around 200 - 300 BC until just 150 years ago. These places are like ghost towns that time forgot. While Al Bara is lost in the undergrowth, Serjilla stands proud looking as if it were abandoned just a few years ago. In Al Bara arches & walls suddenly appear from nowhere in the undergrowth. A couple of small pyramids hold unopened sarcophagi & a buried tomb hides in the undergrowth, the lid partially open. Meanwhile Serjilla's open plan view looks out across town at houses, a church, the bathhouse & a tavern.
A dead city of a different nature is Quineitra, once the administrative capital of the southern Syrian region of the Golan Heights. The vast majority of this area was lost to Israel in the Six Day War of 1967 and today most of the demilitarized buffer zone is administered under UN supervision. No shots have been fired in
Local
Damascus Quineitra for over thirty years, but the town has been left as it was when the occupying Israelis left all those years ago. As they left they took everything with them - including all the fixtures & fittings from shops & houses to sell back home. They bulldozed the remaining buildings & that's how it remains today - a surreal ghost town of empty & devastated buildings. On the horizon is the Israeli occupied part of the Golan Heights where you can see Israeli traffic & a small town.
You can only visit this area with a special guide - it's still a tense place, full of land mines & soldiers with guns who will shoot at the slightest provocation. Having looked around the town - churches, mosques & a hospital, our guide takes us to a small grove of trees. We stand in the spot where Pope John Paul II stood & planted an olive tree. We are metres away from an impenetrable coil of rolled barbed wire. Beyond that is a grassy no man's land where a few cars are rusting away. On the horizon an Israeli car passes, on the hill are Israeli antenna & communication
Mercedes
Scores of ancient Mercedes taxi local tourists back & forth around the ruins. Sometimes it feels like every old Mercedes ever made is now in the Middle East; Palmyra towers. Beside the olive grove the road we came in on is blocked by a large gate. Although the road continues on the other side, it is unlikely that anyone has passed this way in years. We are told that this is the road to Palestine. There's no sign of any soldiers or security & James asks what would happen if he tried to cross. Our guide laughs, perhaps unsure whether to take the question seriously. You can't see the guards, but sure enough, we would be shot.
In Hama our travels grind to a halt again. Lucy has left, James has a dodgy stomach & Kylie & I have colds. A few lazy days are spent strolling out for felafel, local style pizza & juice. We did make it as far as the immigration office to extend our Syrian visa. This involved running back & forth to various offices to get different people to sign our many forms; they take five passport photos from each of us, for what? I joke with them that this was just so they could each keep a photo of us. The process seems slow at the time, but is far quicker than
other places I've been. It costs us massive $1.20 (60p) each. In one room where we needed a signature were seven Syrian guys in uniform, all looking very important, slouching back in their chairs & texting.
Hama's most well-known for its Norias - large wooden water wheels, perhaps dating back some two thousand years. Up to twenty metres in diameter, they lift water onto aqueducts as they turn, the water then flowing into the nearby fields to irrigate them. As they turn the friction causes them to groan, a never ending soundtrack that could be at home in a horror movie.
With tourist numbers being so low, the tourist infrastructure is lacking a little in Syria. Many places are only really easily reached by expensive taxi or hitching. We were keen to take a look at some 'beehive villages' near Hama - but the ever reliable guide book once again contradicts itself; on one page is says that is best to hitch, then a few pages later it tells us that there will be no traffic heading this way.....
So we decided to hitch; we didn't make it very far as a friendly local directed us to
Cheer Up / 7 Up
I've seen a lot of rip off soft drinks, but this is one of the best; Aleppo the bus that would take us all the way to the village of Twalid Dabaghein (the bus that the guide book had failed to mention). This is one of those places where the journey can be as enjoyable as the destination. Before we had even left I'd been asked to take photos of most of the colourful buses by their very proud drivers. On board we were centre of attention, we had our tickets bought for us & we were invited to visit another passenger's house. Behind us a couple of young women spent the entire journey staring at us & giggling.
The beehive houses are a type of small conical shaped mud brick house that have long been lived in by local villagers. These days most people have moved into adjoining larger breeze block houses, but they still maintain the old ones for animals & storage. As soon as we leave the bus we are accosted by a huge gang of kids screaming for stylos (pens). Is this going to be the unique experience we imagined or a painful few hours of people trying to get money & presents from us? As it happens we have a few
pens, and after we've handed these out the mood calms a little. We're invited into a beehive to sit & relax. It's cosy inside, there are cushions, blankets, a small window & a TV. Only one child speaks any English & our Arabic is still limited, but we get by with the usual sign language & smiles type of conversation. Eventually an adult comes - she speaks no English either, but we establish that she is mother to five or so of the kids.
After awhile we decide to look around - but we don't get far. We are invited to sit outside another house & drink cups of extra sweet tea. We sit in glorious sunshine surrounded by a family - kids, mother & grandmother. As always they are amused & confused by Kylie's many piercings. Why does she have them? Do they hurt? The grandmother has elaborate facial tattoos - no doubt painfully made with a very hot stick of sorts. I want to explain to the woman that people in the west would ask the same questions of her - why does she have tattoos on her face? didn't it hurt? But our lack of language
skills means I can't. They think Kylie's piercings are from an alien world, but many western people would think the same of her tattoo.
We try to explore the village again but are invited into another house for another drink. In this one we find a couple of teenage girls, one of whom speaks excellent English. These are two of eleven brothers & sisters; from time to time siblings, nieces & nephews come & go. There are a lot of babies - the youngest at just 10 days old. They all seem to be having babies. We try to establish what the families do for work, but never really find out. Some family members are heading south to Jordan the next day to pick fruit, but beyond that there seems to be no work around.
The youngest baby is sick, so when they head to town to the doctor we hitch a ride on their pick up back towards our bus stop. At the time the thought of money doesn't even cross my mind. In many places here 'baksheesh' (tip/donation) is asked for, but happily not yet at this village, their hospitality is genuine. Arriving back in Hama
Oven
Fresh pizza style bread; Aleppo we realise that the whole day cost fifteen Syrian pounds - that's about 15 English pence (30 US cents).
One morning in Hama I set off to use the internet. It was a Friday (the weekend here) and a man outside told me it wasn't going to be open for another hour. He offered me the obligatory cup of tea - in his workplace, a barbershop. The place is full, so I take a seat & wait for my tea. No one speaks English, but there's lots of smiles & eventually my tea arrives. As usual it's in a small cup & is more like a cup of hot syrupy sugar than tea, but it's good all the same. Someone leaves & a barber's chair becomes free. I try to explain that I'm not actually there for a haircut, but it falls on deaf ears. These people take their hair seriously - many men go to the barbers for head or facial hair trimming every few days. Looking at the various hairstyles around me I wonder what on earth I will end up looking like.
My stylist, a middle aged man who tries to explain that the kids
Mecca
In the backstreets of Aleppo running around us are all his, begins by trimming my neck hair with a cut throat razor. I've never been near one of these before & wonder what will happen if I make an accidental move & get cut.
Next up is a face wax. Looking around me I had guessed that this was coming. Either this or the 'cotton' treatment - the removal of hair by tightly wrapping cotton around them & plucking them out. The wax treatment involves hot wax, not dissimilar to that of a candle being applied to my face - across my forehead, my nose & into my ears. Although the warm sensation feels good, I can't help wondering what it will feel like when it's pulled off. As you can perhaps imagine it hurts - especially around the inner ear. The whole barber shop watches in amusement & I have provided excellent entertainment for the crowds. I pay one Syrian pound & leave, my face smoother than ever, my ears throbbing incessantly. A few days later I surprise myself by considering going back for more.
We save our hammam (more commonly known as a Turkish bath) for almost the end of our
Syria experience. Rather than visit any hammam, we opt for one of the oldest in the Middle East, Hammam Nuredin. Dating back to the twelfth century, the bath house is a beautiful, largely marble building tucked away in the depths of the Damascus souq. We have no idea what we are supposed to do once inside, so let the numerous assistants guide us. Our clothes are removed & a large piece of material like a sarong draped around us. For the next few hours we enjoy the sauna, steam room & soap. One man drags us in for an intense massage, another has us laying sprawled face down on the marble floor while he rubs our skin vigorously with what feels like wire wool.
Prior to the hammam we go for a haircut at the attached barber's. It turns out that the barber is quite highly regarded locally; although he doesn't speak much English, his relative who is there fills us in. His credentials include cutting the hair of the late president. You would think this may make him one of the best at his profession. But ask James what he thinks of his haircut & he may have
Noria
Hama a different opinion.
Our final night in Syria is spent in the small market town of Deir Es Zur which is closer to Iraq than Damascus. There's not a lot to see there & the phenomenal amount of tiny flies that fill our hair, food & eyes drives us close to insanity. We take a walk to the edge of town & cross the pedestrian bridge that spans the Euphrates River, trying to remember why it may be famous. On the far side is a decaying children's playground where a handful of kids are at the top of a slide that is close to collapse.
Walking back to town with low expectations for dinner we are beckoned across the road by some teenagers. We wander over & they offer us chairs at the side of the road. The next two hours are spent in broken English, broken Arabic & laughter as brothers, sisters & other relatives come & go. Each child seems to be one of at least fifteen brothers & sisters & a couple seem to have at least two or three mothers. Before we leave one of the sisters, Cookie, says she wants to marry me
Fulla
Aleppo - it seems that my having a wife already is not a problem. When I decline, she moves on to James, but is disappointed to hear that he's taken too.
Cookie seems to be the eldest & has a far more modern cell phone than I've ever had. Within the space of a few surreal minutes she has shown us all manner of videos & images from the film of the hanging of Saddam Hussein to photos of very scantily clad women.
We're given coffee, ice cream, fresh roses, football stickers & beads but sadly have nothing to offer in return. The one mother we meet is quite a character; the president, Bashir, was in town a few days before us - we'd seen the rally style event on TV, & the mother was still very excited that she had managed to shake his hand. It's easy to see why the people here often love their leaders so much - anyone willing to stand up to Bush & friends is likely to be seen as a hero here. She may speak no English, but her impressions of George W Bush (as a donkey) & Condoleezza Rice (pouting lips
Pyramid
Syrian style, Al Bara & sticking out her behind) are hilarious.
Once again there is no question of money - this is another case of genuine Syrian hospitality.
Wellington - Sydney - Bangkok - Khao Lak - Chaweng (Koh Samui) - Lamai (Koh Samui) - Bangkok - Macau - Guangzhou - Yangshuo - Guangzhou - Zhengzhou - Guangzhou -Shanghai - Huang Shan - Shao Lin - Beijing - Xi'an - Chengdu - Leshan - Kanding - Tagong - Litang - Xiang Cheng - Zhongdian - Lijiang - Kunming - Hekou/Lao Cai - Hanoi - Cat Ba Island - Ninh Binh - Hanoi - Hue - Hoi An - Hue - Hanoi - Sapa - La Chau - Son La - Mai Chau -Hanoi - China Beach - Hoi An - China Beach - Quy Nhon - Kon Tum - Saigon - Phnom Penh - Pursat - Battambang - Siem Reap - Anlong Veng - Siem Reap - Kompong Cham - Kratie - Ban lung (Ratanakiri) - Kratie - Phnom Penh - Kampot - Sihanoukville - Bangkok - Kanchanaburi - Bangkok - Rangoon - Bagan - Monywa - Mandalay - Pyin Oo Lwin - Hsipaw - Kyaukme - Inle Lake (Nyuangshwe) -Taungoo - Bago -Kinpun (Kyaiktiyo) - Yangon - Bangkok - Ayutthaya - Bangkok - Koh Kong - Sihanoukville - Phnom Penh - Bangkok - Vientiane - Luang Prabang - Bangkok - Bahrain - Luxor - Cairo - Dahab - Nuweiba - Aqaba - Amman - Petra (Wadi Musa) - Wadi Rum - Amman - Damascus - Palmyra - Aleppo - Hama
New Zealand - Commonwealth of Australia - Kingdom of Thailand - Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China - People's Republic of China - Socialist Republic of Vietnam - Kingdom of Cambodia - Union of Myanmar - Lao People's Democratic Republic - Kingdom of Bahrain - Arab Republic of Egypt - Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan - Syrian Arab Republic
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Johan
non-member comment
Thank you!
Thanks for such a wonderful, balanced blog!