As I said, I didn’t put an update up on this site every day of the holiday. I’m back in Lebanon now so I’m writing these final details of my Syrian Backpacking Adventure. I’ll try to continue where I left off.
Monday 17th April - Damascus
The first thing we did today was go to the northern bus station and check out the bus times for tomorrow’s journey to Palmyra. We were instantly harassed by men almost forcing us to buy a ticket with their company. We asked around and were given a quote of S£150 for the trip. It was a quick journey with this company.
Next we headed to the National Museum and fought our way through 2 coach loads of French tourers to see the exhibits. The museum is immense. If we’d looked in detail at every thing there it would have taken us most of the day. I saw the oldest and largest collection of fabrics with a certain date and origin (Roman times imported from China). They just looked like some tatty rags to me but I’m sure an archaeologist would have swooned at the sight!
A Syrian military history museum was across the road so we looked there too. It was free and I enjoyed it much more than the National! So many interesting swords, guns and exhibitions. It included some things from the wars with Israel – there was a fair bit of political spin and propaganda on it I reckon!
After walking to the Old City, we went for a look around the Umayyad Mosque in the centre. It was very large and there was a nice atmosphere inside with kids running around playing, families sitting with picnics… interestingly there was a shrine to John The Baptist (which allegedly contains his head). Now, I don’t pretend to be an expert on Islam, but how come we had to take our shoes off go in, but inside I saw Muslims putting the shoes on the floor? Is a shoe different if it has a foot inside? The same amount of shoe is touching the floor with the foot in or not. Also I saw the staff at the entrance (who were making sure we had our shoes off) standing inside the courtyard with shoes on! Answers on a postcard please, I’m puzzled!
Then we walked along Straight Street to the house of Ananias. I don’t know how they know it was his house, but, unsurprisingly, there was a catholic shrine to him there (complete with giftshop selling tacky religious objects). Still, it was nice to walk in the streets where the miracles of Acts 9 actually happened.
It was a hot day (and our budget $5 a night hotel had no hot water to wash in) so we went to Hammam Nur ad-Din and got the full works. A hammam is like a Turkish Bath place and they are a Syrian institution. This particular one is 900 years old. You don’t wander around in the nude, but you wear only a towel. First we had a very hot sauna, then a freezing shower (with attendants to push you in if you’re slow!), then a man scrubs you with something very scratchy that feels like a thorny brillo pad, then he covers you with soap, next you walk to the steam room and wash yourself in the heat there, then you go to have a massage, then another wash, a cold shower, you are then mummified in towels and brought tea and coffee. It is a great place to go and relax, especially if there’s no hot water in your hotel!
Tuesday 18th – Wednesday 19th – Palmyra and Homs
Upon arriving at the bus station we found we’d been told the wrong time for the bus. Thankfully we boarded another 30 minutes later and the cost to travel halfway across the country into the desert was only S£100 (that’s about $2 or £1). It took 2.5 hours. We were next to a Bedouin family with a small child. The child was very well behaved throughout. All the children we saw on our many bus trips were faultless in their behaviour.
On arrival, we booked into the Umayyad Palace Hotel ($4 a night), owned by a rather tubby man who speaks good English. If you ever go there watch your passports when he’s taking your details. He managed to put ours in his pocket and wander off to the shops.
I’d never been to a desert before. It was very nice to look at and the Palmyra oasis provided a stark reminder of just how important water is! The ruins are very extensive and form part of a massive Roman city there. We set out and explored the majority of the place. I tell you, you could wander around for days in that place, down the streets, funeral towers, tombs, colonnades… clambering up walls and into burial chambers. Only the heat and smell of your feet would make you turn back! Have a look at the pictures, search the net, it’s difficult to describe such a place. I bet the Romans thought their empire would last forever, and now all that’s left is stones. It just goes to show what happens when you die, if you build all your life on earthly things!
There were bits of artefacts everywhere. I picked up pieces of opalescent glass, pottery and tiles. Just lying everywhere. But being a responsible tourist, I resisted the temptation to pocket any of it (even that nice piece of glass).
The Lonely Planet (LP) recommended we saw the ruins from a hilltop at sunset. So we climbed the only hill that had nobody on it. We saw a wild animal at the top (some sort of wolf). The sunset was pants, so we walked back down. The LP also said to have coffee with the Bedouin if given the chance (it was one of the highlights they said). We were approached by a Bedouin man offering us tea in his tent, we accepted. Then he started badgering us for pens, tissues, chocolate, bonbons, money… He got quite insistent so we said ‘la shy’ and sped off to safety. Take my advice, don’t visit Bedouin that live near tourist sites, they may try to mug you like this one did. Take note LP!
After the night’s event, we didn’t go to see the ruins at sunrise. But we got a taxi later on to the Arab Castle at the top. The views are nice but inside it’s rubbish. The staff seem to use every room as a toilet, so watch your step there. We walked down to the town and got a bus to Homs.
Homs is not a tourist town and we were the only white people there which was very refreshing. After an awful taxi ride (by a psychopath who looked like a skull and smelt like cabbage) we checked into Nasser Al Jedid hotel ($3 a night). The hotel was filthy but the beds were nice and clean – what’s the point of paying loads if you only go there to lie unconscious for a night?! The souks of Homs were a pleasant surprise, totally local and untouristed. Worth a visit. We spent 90 minutes in a barber shop talking with the staff (who spoke less English than we spoke Arabic!). It was quite novel for them to speak with foreigners and good practice for our Arabic.
We went to a Hammam after to get clean. The fat old Arab who was in charge of scrubbing didn’t hold back as in the touristy Damascus. He rubbed so hard I had little rolls of skin coming off all over me. I felt thoroughly clean by the end of the hour!
Thursday 20th – Friday 21st – Day trips
Today utterly confirmed my thoughts of taxi drivers in Syria and Lebanon. They are nutters. Here is a sample advert I’ve written for the post of a taxi driver in Syria or Lebanon:
“City needs new taxi drivers. Ages 15-90 can apply. Applicants must have an unstable mental illness, no driving license and a hatred of other road users. Dishonesty is essential not preferable.”
Don’t get me wrong: 10% of the drivers we met were 100% OK and honest.
We were going on a day trip from Homs to Krak de Chevaliers. The taxi driver, on the way to the bus station, offered to take us there and back for S£1000. We haggled him down to S£800. It would be much simpler to do this than change buses all the time. When we got there he demanded his money (the meter only said S£400). He kept asking for more and more money and was getting very aggressive. He rolled his shirt sleeves up and everything. He followed us around the castle being intimidating. We found someone to translate to sort out the issue, but he still kept asking for more. He would not be paid off and sent back to Homs. On the way back he removed his driver ID card so we couldn’t see his details. It was quite scary, we thought he was planning something nasty. We decided to part with S£1100 to keep the peace and keep us safe. Be very wary of taxi drivers, especially if you can’t fluently communicate with them.
The castle was OK, but was tainted by the fact there was an angry taxi driver pushing us around it. We quickly boarded a bus to get us back to the safety of that nice hotel owner in Damascus!
We did a load of shopping in the souks and had a meal in a very nice restaurant. One of the dishes served was fried lambs brains. I think the texture put me off more than anything. Oh, and the taste too. If you’ve ever toasted a marshmallow over a bonfire, you’ll know exactly what the texture was like. The ‘shell’ was crispy, but inside it was gooey and a little like squashed banana. It tasted like fish – everyone thought it tasted like fish, not just me. I ate 1½ brains. The rest of the meal was amazing. I won’t say the name of the restaurant, that’s my little secret.
The morning later we had a lovely breakfast at the hotel and got a taxi to the Baramke bus station to travel down to Bosra. The taxi meter said S£25. We gave the driver S£35 as we wanted to get rid of all of our coins. Even then he wanted S£50 off us! He pointed at my friend and said ‘You Australian’, I told him we were not made of money just because we were white.
It took a couple of buses to get to Bosra, a small town near the Jordanian border. We had come to see a medium sized Roman amphitheatre that had an Arab fort built around it. It was not really a ruin because it was in almost perfect condition. As it was a Friday, nobody was really in work and the place was buzzing with families and school trips. All of whom were Syrian (it seems to me that the Lebanese go on trips and days out much less than the Syrians do). There were hundreds of people there. Ordinarily, I’d have not liked this, but the people gave the amphitheatre a lot of life. You could really imagine what it was like when the place was built. Someone had even brought a tape player and an impromptu dance was set up on the stage area.
After travelling back to Damascus, we did a last bit of shopping, visited another hammam, and headed back to Lebanon. The border crossing was much easier this time and took no time at all (due to the absence of coach loads of people. A man sharing our taxi was forced by the Syrian guards to pay export duty on his 20 pairs of wellies he has trying to smuggle into Lebanon.
We had spent the week travelling, very easily, around Syria by public transport. However, in Lebanon we ended up having to walk miles through the dark mountains because of a lack of buses and taxis! After a couple of hours we managed to get a taxi and got back to the school OK.
My impressions of Syria, an ‘axis of evil’ country, are very positive (except the taxi drivers who were described as ‘all scum’ by a shopkeeper we spoke to in Damascus). If you think of terrorists when you think of Syria, try visiting and you’ll soon change your mind. The people can’t answer for the actions of the Assad Regime, just as we can’t answer for the actions of the Blair/Bush governments. It’s a place that’s well worth a visit!
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