I arrived in Damascus, Syria yesterday via taxi with ‘taxi team’ of Mike and Nikki. The tour leader has divided the 12 of us into 3 pre-allocated ‘taxi teams’ of which we are to travel throughout Syria with. I was couldn’t believe it when he told us, I felt like I was in primary school! Group travel has some benefits in seeing a lot of places in a short space of time but it really has its downsides too… speaking of which I forgot to mention that I had a ‘chat’ with Sarah back in Madaba about her surliness (after she hadn’t spoken a single word to me in nearly 3 days) and miraculously she seems to have found her voice again and is being pleasant, as pleasant as she can be anyway.
But I digress…
My first impression was that Damascus seems to have about twice as many cars as people, yes even despite the population being 6 million, and three quarters of those cars are yellow cabs. The traffic is so congested yet there seems to be hardly anyone, by comparison, on the street. The streets become like a parking lot by mid-morning with cars double and triple parked then left for the day turning a multiple lane road into a skinny one-way street. As I arrived around midday I had plenty of time left in the day to delve into the ancient alleyways and bustling bazaars of the capital's old city, including a walk to the beautiful Umayyad Mosque where I had to wear a druid-like cape to enter.
Damascus is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world with the Persians, Greeks and Romans all having their hands in the history of what the locals call ash-Sham, until the Muslims and Mongols took over, only to eventually give way to the Ottomans and finally, the French, before Syria finally gained independence in 1946. Given its varied past Damascus is one of the most architecturally significant cities in the Middle East.
In the Old City, it was easy find my way around on foot, that is, provided I used a map and stayed off the main thoroughfares (where it's easy to get run over). I also found out a little about the greatest Arabic hero ever, Saladin, and visited his mausoleum. I joined up with the rest of the group for a rare group dinner, the dynamics being somewhat awkward ordinarily, but between Mike, Nikki and I we managed to keep some sort of conversation flowing during the meal. The food was fantastic and the restaurant, in a renovated old Damascus house, was beautiful. They also had a little old man there who cooked bread in the main dining room freshly as people ordered it. A 3 course meal cost me a little under $6AUD, a bargain in any language. After this Nikki and I went out for a few beers with our male tour leader along as a protector seeing as the only bar around (as it’s a Muslim country) was a decidedly seedy joint, with a completely male clientele. The first beers I have had in a long time as alcohol has been tricky to come by ever since hitting Egypt.
This morning I had my first sleep in a very very long time. I could hardly believe it when I woke up at the leisurely time of 8.30am instead of the usual 5-6am wake up call to beat the heat. I spent the morning strolling through the New City and meandering along the bustling streets. In the afternoon I decided to go to a Hammam, a Syrian bathhouse for what I belived was going to be a relaxing scrub, massage and sauna. I SO wish I could have taken photos to show you because my word simply won’t do it justice but I will have to try…
Upon entering, and walking along a low, winding passage, draped at intervals with dirty sheets, I entered a round room with a high domed ceiling that was liberally peppered with naked Syrian women lolling about on mattresses and some getting their hands waxed. No one approached me and I started to wonder if I was in the right place or had I stumbled upon a a strange cult Eventually a woman spoke who was seated behind a cupboard to my left and asked, ‘Hammam?’ Ah, so I was in the right place after all! I walked around to talk to her and saw she was the only person with clothes on, but was breastfeeding what I am certain was 6 year old child sitting next to her.
Through a series of gestures and the 5 or 6 words of English she knew I managed to work out that the Hammam was 300 Syrian pounds but it was more for soap and shampoo. I figured I didn’t need shampoo as I could wash my own hair back at the hotel so just opted for soap. I turned and began walking to a narrow passageway at the opposite side of the room when I was stopped and instructed, by gestures, to remove my clothes. At this point I was wishing I had worn a more substantial pair of underpants as this is all I was permitted to keep on.
Suddenly out of nowhere this enormous, hairy, moustached Syrian woman appeared in nothing but underpants and dragged me at high speed by my arm through a rabbit warren of tunnels and through a catacombed round room so full of steam I could barely breathe, let alone see. I was hauled into a tiny room the size of closet and directed to sit on the stone floor. The only thing in the room was a stone basin set into the floor with a perpetually running tap.
Suddenly I was doused from above and this woman began frantically rubbing a bar of soap back and forth over my head and scrubbing vigorously; I realised then why I should have paid for the shampoo. After the most violent hair washing I have ever had, that left my hair feeling like straw, I was made to lay down on the floor while I was scrubbed raw front and back with a loofah and nearly had the life squashed out of me by the sheer weight of this mountain of a woman. At one stage I was clouted about the head with one pendulous breast and thought I was going to knocked into the wall. By this stage I was nearly hysterical with laughter.
After the scrubbing which fortunately was far shorter than I had anticipated, came another dousing and then the ‘massage’. I continued to lay on the stone floor and by this stage I was already pretty uncomfortable after having my hip bones being shoved onto stone but then the massage took the pain to new heights. Not only was I being virtually ground into the floor by the viscous pinching, squashing and squeezing of this mad woman, she then started punching my back! No not a pummelling of the back, it was definitely punching. I felt everyone of the 17 punches.
As I lay there stunned into silence and gasping for breath as this mountain of a woman removed the bulk of her weight from my back, she peered down into my freshly scrubbed face and screamed ‘bakeesh’, which is basically asking me for a tip. To scared to say anything, I hastily nodded and made for the door.
I wandered around inside clutching the tea towel I had been given in lieu of a towel as I inspected the inside of the hammam. There seemed to be numerous little cavernous rooms like the one I had been assaulted in and one teensy weensey little steam room that could seat two people at a stretch but that was it. So I went back out to the main room I had first entered and put my clothes back on. I was offered a hand wax but politely declined. I paid my money and walked outside into the heat, humidity and reality of Damascus. When I looked at my watch I was surprised to see that not half an hour had gone by since I had entered the hammam, it had seemed an eternity.
Despite my scary initiation into the world of hammams I am still determined to go to a Turkish bath in Turkey soon and hopefully my bruises will have healed by then.
