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.
