Saida, Lebanon

We headed back to the bus stop under the motorway and caught a small bus to Saida, a short journey from Beirut. Saida precedes Beirut with habitation as it was a prominent and wealthy Phoenician city 6000 years ago.

Just before we arrived in the town centre we passed many families sitting in the long grass, beside the road, having picnics. The men had their hubbly bubbly pipes out and the women were organising the food and children.

Near the city centre is a small island housing a 13th century sea castle founded by the Crusaders. The sea was polluted with styrafoam, old tyres, and thousands of black plastic bags. A strong wind was blowing and the rubbish bobbed on the surface near the sea wall. Coffee vendors tied huge canvas umbrellas to the handrails on the footpath to provide shelter and to entice customers but it was too cold and uncomfortable for that.



The caravanserai was deserted although it was well renovated and in good condition. Maybe it is full of stall holders in the peak season. The bazaar was well presented having been recently renovated. It was the cleanest and best organised one we have seen so far. We could see the furniture makers at work and no one pestered us to look or buy.



We found the Soap Museum that dated back to the 17th century. It has been financed by a foundation and they have a short film showing the processes and have kept the original workshop as it was. The soap is made with olive oil and a bar can take a year or longer to dry.

As we left Saida along the coast road we saw dozens and dozens of young people lining the street. They had their cars parked with music blaring and were watching boys on motorbikes racing up and down the public 4 lane highway around the commuter traffic. The police were nearby but didn't seem to do anything about the racing. The bikes had numbers so it was some kind of organised race. It reminded us of the 'boy racers' in our area, but they come out at night.

Beirut, Lebanon

The bus station for buses to Beirut, was a long way out of Damascus, so we took a taxi and were able to bargain the driver down to the price the hotel manager gave us. We left on a Friday morning and the streets were deserted as it was the first day of the Muslim weekend. What a different place, no noise, no shops open and not many taxis tooting at anyone walking on the footpath.

There were no signs in English script at the bus station and we met up with 4 French girls and one was able to speak Arabic so she helped us find the right bus and let us know what time it was leaving.

The bus was completely full and we had no problems getting through the Syrian border exit. At the Lebanese border we had to fill in documents and change money with the money changers outside on the street as we had to pay for our 15 day tourist visa inLebanese pounds. Had we known we could have used an ATM at the arrivals office and not had to exchange our Syrian currency for such a poor rate. Our guide book has a lot of useful information and already it is out of date about the ATM that are available now. Later we used a machine and found that it also dispensed American dollars too.

There is no bus station in Beirut. The bus stopped under a motorway bridge and dropped us at the roundabout there. There was an army tank with soldiers in it stationed under the bridge and several others pacing up and down the intersection with their rifles. Of course we were tooted at by every taxi that came around. Luckily the French girls found a local who told us to wait for a bus and it would be a fraction of the cost of a taxi and drop us a short walk from our hotel.



The hotel turned out to be not far from the beach and the main shopping street in Beirut. There is a brand new corniche all along the waterfront and as soon as the sun came out it was full of people watching people. The waves were very high and crashed onto the rocks and up onto the footpath in places. The newly planted palm trees had their branches tied together as the wind had shredded many of them.



One day there was a marathon on the street beside the beach and we watched as hundreds of kids got into groups ready to race. The Muslim girls looked very hot in their scarves, long sleeved tops and long pants. We saw one end her race and pass out from the heat and had to be put in an ambulance. It was the hottest day that we have had for a long time too.

The Civil Wars and wars with Israel ended in 2000 and there are still a lot of buildings full of bullet holes and deserted but there are lots of new modern glass sky scrappers going up everywhere. In the shopping street there were the usual Starbucks, Mc Donald's and clothing chains that you would see in any other large city around the world. We were able to stock up on some supplies from a huge French supermarket in the city.

There is a large American University in the city and we saw lots of American students in the internet cafes and heard them on the streets. At night the streets near the university are crowded with cars 3 deep as the passengers buy coffee and snacks from the fast food shops that are crammed along the streets in front of the university. There are guys running up and down the street with trays of coffee to go and snacks for the lazy drivers who do not want to get out of their cars. There are lots of expensive cars in this city and many are huge 4 wheel drive ones.

They love their cars here. You take your life in your hands crossing the streets. They like to use their horns to tell you to hurry up, move over or ask if you want a taxi or minivan. Some of the horns sound like ambulances or police sirens. The women drivers are as wild as the male ones. Police direct the traffic at the traffic lights. I am not sure why that is, but it may be because the drivers don't take any notice of the traffic lights, signs etc. When they can the drivers like to make their wheels squeal and the noise goes on all night.The weekend here is Saturday and Sunday, but it feels like any other day of the week and is hectic all the time.

Before the war with Israel the population was 50% Muslim and 50% Christian. Due to the Christian exodus and the higher Muslim birthrate the population is now 70% Muslim, made up of Shiites, Druzes, and Sunni. Palestinian refugees make up 9%.



From our hotel window we looked onto an empty piece of land that had been cleared of its buildings and left to grow grass and collect rubbish. Three young lads turned up one day and shucked sweetcorn, boiled fava beans in a huge saucepan on an open fire in the yard and titivated up their trolley and headed off to sell to the strollers on the corniche.

Damascus, Syria

Syria has 20 million people and 90% of them are Arabs. Damascus has 5 million!

From the bus to the capital we saw snow on the hills just outside Damascus and knew we needed to keep our warm clothes handy!

There seem to be more yellow taxis than private cars in the city and they all seem to have more than one horn. They don't like stopping at lights or crossings either. We felt like we were back in Vietnam where you have to step out into the traffic and let it weave around you. It is always easier if you tag behind a local though. It is preparing us for Cairo.

We had to negotiate a price for a ride in a shared taxi (called servees) to the city centre where we were dropped not far from the hotel we read about in our guide book. We had no reservations and had to negotiate a 4 day stay with the manager in a small but popular place for backpackers. The hotel is clean and conveniently located near the old city and bazaars. In the centre of the hotel is a covered courtyard and at night they put on the heating and turned on the fans to blow the hot air down from the high ceiling so it was quite pleasant.

There are many tourists in the hotel from France and Air France inflight magazines lying about the place. Unfortunately, they keep to themselves and seem only to be interested in others who speak French.

We have walked through all the bazaars (souqs) in the old city and followed the signs for the handicraft markets and historical sites. We wondered if there was a map to go with the signs but when we asked at the tourist office they only had the one map we have found every where else in the country and nothing else.

The president features a lot on posters, in hotel foyers, on taxi windows (wearing sunglasses), in shops, on mosque walls and flags. When you ask about him the locals say they love him and he does a good job.

Internet access has been very poor here in Syria. We still cannot load photos and the service is erratic.

We had a few hours at the National Museum but it was quite frustrating as there are cases with labels and no exhibits and exhibits with no labels. There are signs in Arabic and French and hardly any in English. The numbers on the exhibits don't match the explanations or the numbers on the explanation are not on the exhibits! Some of the areas say no photos and in others the guards are pressing you to take photos. A lot of the areas are not well lit so they are a strain to view and there is no floor plan to tell you where things are or what there is to see. Nevertheless we found some interesting things.

The most well known mosque here is the Umayyad Mosque. We had to go to the 'clothes changing place' and I had to put on a hooded grey gown and we had to pay to enter. It was quite busy and there were religious leaders talking to groups of worshipers in small clusters around the mosque.

The sign at the entrance told us not to leave our shoes unattended so we had to carry them with us.

The black basalt and white limestone building was enormous and there were several small shrines with tombs of revered religious leaders.

In the streets are men selling green almonds, they look like a skinny hairy long baby peaches, and this guy had a particularly well presented trolley. It had plastic flowers and a glass jar with live goldfish in it.

There are very few women working in public places; I think we saw one loading a bucket at a building site and a couple in a bus office. Only one place we have stayed had women cleaners. This well decorated shop sells perfume and we have only ever seen men purchasing it.


We found the Azem Palace at the end of a lot of narrow winding lanes. It was built in 1779 by the governor of Damascus. It was built so he would have a refuge from the busy city and have a place to relax after all the difficult decisions he needed to make. It had fountains and an internal courtyard just for the women and children. Another area was built just for the men, from which they were unable to see the women or governor's family members.

Damascus is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and has been occupied by Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Umayyads, Mongols, Turks and French and they have all left something behind for the city.

Frequently throughout the day the electricity failed and the shop keepers in the bazaar had their generators roaring. This stall holder was selling brocade

and this man in traditional dress, some kind of drink.


LATER
After visiting Lebanon we returned to Syria in order to go on to Jordan. During our one night stay we met Frederick, Joachim and Annette who come from Konigswinter, Germany.

They were very surprised that we knew where they lived and that we had visited their small town when we had Christmas with our friend Gerti. We look forward to when they visit us in New Zealand one day.

Palmyra, Syria

Palmyra is a dirty, dusty desert town, and used to be an Assyrian caravan town for over 1000 years. The Greeks took it over for another 2 centuries and Rome annexed it in AD 217.

Zenobia was a half -Greek, half-Arab queen who became the ruler of Palmyra in 267 and the ruins of the palace are here. The city was torched and the rest fell to an earthquake in 1089. Most of the ruins are free to visit and we were able to avoid the entrances with the vendors so as not to be pestered to buy scarves and such. There were a few signs to tell you about the temples so we didn't need a guide.
We were not sure if these tents were for Gypsies or Bedouins.

There is a huge area of ruins in to visit here and tourism is what keeps the town going. There has been a drop in the number of tourists so the local vendors are pretty desperate to make money and when ever you are out and about they are urging you to buy, have a look, taste their dates, or ride the camel and horses, buy jewellery, and buy carpets.

There are nicely decorated tourist offices in Syria but they don't have any helpful information. They have one map of the country routes and nothing else. The staff are usually chatting or drinking tea with their mates and don't work like other offices around the world.

We liked the Towers of Yemliko. The towers were used to store the dead and then they were sealed with a plaster slab on which was a relief of the deceased. They sat outside the city walls on the hills surrounding the site.

At night the Roman arches and pillars were lit and quite a sight. It was pretty windy and freezing cold in Palmyra and it felt like the wind was coming off the snow. We expected nice hot desert weather but had to drag the long-johns and thermals from the bottom of our packs once again.

The locals love to ride up and down on their motorbikes. The only people walking are the tourists. The motorbikes are covered in frilled upholstery cloth and they decorate them with signs and stickers.

This camel head was hanging on a hook outside a butcher shop, the rest of it was inside. It was for sale for 300 Syrian Pounds ($40 NZ).

We had planned on a few days' stay here but decided to head for the 'big smoke' after two nights. We caught a bus out and John had to sit in the front with the men and I had to cram in the back with the vomiting children, and women for the hot 2 and a half hour trip to Damascus.

Hama, Syria

Hama and Homs are two cities that the guide book recommends you stay at and then take excursions from them to sites you want to visit. We chose to bus to Hama and were glad we did. When we arrived at the bus station, we decided to walk into the city centre and find a hotel. We headed off and found many people staring at us and greeting us with 'Welcome, where are you from?' It was a strange feeling , like they had never seen Westerners before. We continued walking and found ourselves in a residential area where a fruit seller greeted us and gestured ' Where are you going?'. When we told him, he hailed a taxi and negotiated a price with the driver and sent us off in the right direction. He never spoke a word of English and we could only say 'thank you' in Arabic. We then realized why everyone was staring at us.



That was a great introduction to the city. It was a calm, peaceful place where we were left alone to get on with what we wanted to do.



Hama is famous for its wooden waterwheels, some of them are 20 metres in diameter, but none were operating and didn't look like they had for a long time. They used to take the water from the river and direct it onto the stone aquaducts and off to the fields. The river had very little water and most of it was stagnant and smelly with loads of rubbish lying exposed.



Our guide book says that Syrian food is 'simply superb', but we have got tired of eating kebabs and swarma (like a kebab on an upright rotisserie), so we were happy to find a hotel that allowed us to use the kitchen to cook some food. We went to the market and found some fresh vegetables and cooked a large vegie stew. The hotel had many Asian travellers, from China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan who loved to be able to cook noodles and rice so there was a long queue for the stove. It is not common to be able to cook in a hotel in this part of the world.



There is a huge hill in Hama where the remains of the citadel are and when we trudged our way up there we found large groups of school children and family groups picnicing. The children followed us about practising the only phrases of English they know, "Hello, where are you from?" and "What's your name?". There are many people with fair skin, blue or green eyes, as well as ginger hair. The girls like John's blue eyes and crowd around around him to chat.



We took a local minivan to see the Crusader castle of Crac Des Chevaliers. The Crusader knights developed the original fortress built on the site in 1031 to the present day castle in the 12th century. It is pretty well preserved and buses pull in all the time with tourists.

There seem to be a lot of elderly people doing tours and many needed help to get up and down the steep stone steps around the castle. Luckily for them there were always some locals who were willing to push and pull them up and down in exchange for a small tip! Unfortunately for the camel and horse owners there were not enough fit and able people to mount their animals so they could make money too.



The castle was built to house a garrison of 2000 but when the numbers fell to below 200 the Crusaders gave it up. They were surrounded by armies of Islam and probably decided it was not worth it even though they had enough supplies to last five years.



We had a few problems returning to Hama by minivan as there were not enough people to fill a van for the return journey. We waited and hour or so and then were joined by a couple of ladies and two workers and had to pay a little more for our return journey than it had cost us to arrive. That's the way it works here if you don't want to take tours to get to sites.



It was rather difficult to find reasonable places to eat in Hama and we ended up in a 4 star place one night. It was well decked out with white linen and suited waiters. the upstairs area was a cafe where there were mainly Muslim women drinking coffee and smoking the sheesha pipes (nagile). The roof was glass and no sooner had we sat down when they drew the roof curtains with an electric motor. The restaurant where we ate was practically empty so I wonder if it will still be running next year.

Our hotel was pretty good but so many people in Syria smoke, and the ceilings have a black ring around the top of them, where the smoke settles. There is always the smell of stale smoke in the linen as well. The beds here have only a bottom sheet and we have never encountered this any where else we have been to date. I was able to drag out my silk sleeping sheet again for a more comfortable sleep. There was a TV in our room with 500+ channels so we were able to see the film clips of the new island that has exploded out of the ocean off Samoa and keep up to date with what is happening in the world.

Dead Cities, Syria

We took a tour with two other women from our hotel in Aleppo to the Dead Cities. Our driver spoke enough English to chat about his life and we headed off in his battered yellow taxi.

First we visited the ruins of the Basilica of Saint Simeon (Qala'at Samaan). St Simeon was an eccentric Christian who spent from 423 AD living on a pillar for 36 years.

The Basilica was built after he died to commemorate him. It is now in ruins but was once quite a sight atop a rocky hill.

Next we visited the dead city of Al- Bara. The ruins of a couple of tombs are in the middle of olive and fruit plantations.

Alexander the Great over ran the city and then an earthquake in the 12th century finished off the remains.

The dead city of Serjilla was more extensive and has been deserted for about 15 centuries. The buildings were very large and made from huge blocks of rock with archways inside some of the rooms.

None of the sites have signs or information about them as you are supposed to hire a guide to learn more and they pop up where ever you are willing to offer their services. The locals graze their sheep and goats in and around the ruins and the local kids leave their rubbish inside them so they are not well looked after.

The last place we saw was Ebla, which is still being excavated. It had the foundations of several royal palaces and an area that was used to keep lions for sacrifices. It had signs forbidding people on the excavations and large information boards describing the preservation methods being used to keep the mud brick buildings from deteriorating. 15,000 cuneiform tablets were unearthed from the library here in 1980. The oldest alphabet was also discovered here along with the oldest musical score. When it is completed it will be a popular place.

We had a fast drive back and the taxi managed over 220 kph taking on more powerful buses. The driver managed to avoid cars coming at him on the wrong side of the road and the shepherds kept their sheep from straying in front of us while grazing in the grass strip in the middle of the motorway.

Aleppo, Syria

As the beehive houses were closed in Harran, Turkey we had to flag down a minibus on the side of the dusty road to catch a ride to the Turkey-Syria border. There were many mud brick houses and obviously poor people at work in the fields and around the houses.

The border crossing was a dusty wind-blown place. There were queues of trucks on both sides of the border and a brand new covered building stood unused on the Syrian side. We had to stand in the wind outside a small shed, filling in forms that wanted to know our mothers' and fathers' name, then we had to go to another shed that was the bank where we had to pay $60US for a Syrian visa.



The customs guy told us the bus station was 1 and a half kilometres away so we started to walk. A man in a mini van picked us up and dropped us at the station, which was a long way away. There was no bus so we had to take a mini van to Raqqaq, to join the main bus route.
Once inside the Raqqa bus station, we were besieged by about 10 different men yelling at us to take a bus from their company. It is such a crazy system. You have to find out from each, what time they are going, how much, work out who will leave next, and then find one that is the price you want to pay or with a company that has reasonable buses. They grab at you and shake their heads and wave their arms around and we have to decipher what they mean by all these gestures, yes, no, maybe, never! We were the only people at the station and no sooner had we got into the bus when small groups of people arrived to join us. They come a few minutes before the bus is ready to leave and before too long the bus was full and on its way.


We finally got on a comfortable bus to Aleppo and drove through a dust storm. All around was sand and rubbish blew every where. The fruit trees had them stuck on their branches and they were tangled in the vegetables. Rubbish is dumped any where, especially black plastic bags.
We drove past irrigated fields of wheat and there were people camped in the fields under tents made from plastic bags and scraps of material. They were grazing their sheep and goats on the edges of the fields and the sides of the road.

On the edge of Aleppo's old town we found a lovely spotless hotel. It used to be run by a 97 year old lady who had died 4 months before. We met Akhmet who ran the desk at night. He came from a Kurdish family in the north and at 28 wanted to marry. He has been studying archaeology for 5 years as well as working in the hotel. He sends money home to his dad who invests it in animals for his dowry. He currently has 7 sheep, 5 hens and a donkey but is still having difficulty finding a wife.
Akhmet

It was raining and very cold on our first day so we spent it at the local museum. The most interesting display was the almost complete skeleton of a two year old found in a cave and estimated to be from between 40,000 and 200,000 years BC.

Citadel
Aleppo is a dirty, noisy, crowded city. The old city has many narrow lanes that have renovated houses in them that are now cafes, restaurants or hotels but they are all very expensive and noticeably cleaner than the local streets.

Buildings are half finished, as are the footpaths and streets, but there is an enormous nearly completed sports hall and international football stadium not far from the city centre. It has been a long time since we have seen such a poor place.

There are lots of children working, selling chewing gum, cleaning shoes, as well as begging to get money for their families.

Aleppo is quite conservative so there are many women wearing headscarves and long coats. There are a few with their faces covered and only their eyes showing but not many. A group of girls passed me and felt my hair- I have never had that happen before but I do hear from blonde women and ginger headed women that it happens to them. Some men 'shsh shsh' at me as they go by and one even said he loved me!

There are an amazing number of people here with ginger hair and blue eyes as well as some with dark hair, fair skin and green-grey eyes. Our guide book says they may be of Berber origins.

We had a lucky find in a shop full of plastic toys and flick knives: a portable element for heating water. We bought one in Japan and it blew up after a few uses, we bought another in the Philippines but it leaves a cloud of black copper bits in the cup, so we were happy to be able to replace it for a few NZ dollars and bought all the guy was selling.
We have been having a lot of problems loading our photos to our blog in Syria.

Sanliurfa, Turkey

We caught a comfortable bus to Sanliurfa in eastern Turkey, a dry rocky area, where many Kurdish people live. We were touted by a young man who took us to his uncle's guesthouse. The uncle, Assiz and his wife Farada, were Kurdish and used to live life as Bedouins between two rivers. They had 14 children, of whom 6 are married, and only the youngest aged 19 is living at home.

It was interesting to hear Assiz talk about his life. He was 18 when he married Farada who was 14 at the time. At a gathering he rode his horse through a group of girls and grabbed Farada. He took her back to his black goat-hair tent and shut her in, so began their life together.

Assiz is the same age as John and Farada the same age as me. She had a tattoo on her forehead of the sun, a symbol of a Bedouin, and a tattoo on her chin of the v-shaped tent peg used to anchor the tents.

We stayed one night with Assiz and Farada but found the house extremely cold and the facilities uncomfortable so we left the next day. Unfortunately we did not get a photo of the couple as they became quite angry when we said we were not staying as long as we had originally intended to. They used to rent a property as a guesthouse and the guests who have signed his visitors book from those days wrote some good reviews but now they have bought the present place and it needs a lot of work to make it more comfortable but they were charging as much as it cost to stay in a 2-star hotel.





We headed off and stayed in a 2-star place in town and enjoyed the delights of cable TV, comfy beds, hot showers and free Wifi.

Sanilurfa is a sacred city as prophet Abraham (Ibrahaim) was born in a cave in the city. There is a well kept public park around the main mosque and cave area where families picnic and feed the sacred but already over-fed fish in the ponds.





Above the city are the remains of the fortress built on the remains of a settlement dating to 9500BC. We were able to look down on the activities in the mosque

where the men formed small groups to pray together and others arrived at the covered bathing area to wash their face,

hands and feet, before finding a place either inside or outside to pray.





Assiz had showed us around the covered bazaar, some of it from Roman times, and we tried to find our way ourselves but after getting lost about 3 times managed to work out where everything was.

We joined the men in an old caravanserai courtyard for a cup of tea. The men were playing cards, backgammon, chatting, playing with their worry beads, and some were even playing rummicub.




In the new city there were rows of jewellers selling gold jewellery. It is used as an investment or dowry for marriage. It is time to vote for a new mayor and the streets were full of photos of the candidates and there was a street march of supporters in their candidate's party colours. Mini vans and buses were decorated with the candidates smiling face and loud speakers bellowed out his promises accompanied by loud wailing music. This din went on late into the night.

Not far from Sanilurfa is a small town called Harran. It is famous for its ancient 'beehive' houses. They are built of mud bricks and then covered with mud and the rooves are mounded up like an old fashioned beehive. Unfortunately they were closed when we arrived and if we paid an English speaking guide about $200US we could have done a tour and they would have opened them for us.
Harran village
There are many young men, including Assiz's son, who have gone to university to study tourism and work at the seaside resorts on the western coast of Turkey. At this time of the year, being low season. they return to their families and make money by being guides.

Overall, we have found the small part of Turkey that we visited this time around, to have very friendly people. We have heard that the more touristy areas are different, but eastern Turkey gets a lot of bad publicity as people think there are Kurds there who will attack them.