Syria - An Unexpected Gem

lbellemore — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 21:07:00 GMT

I'm in the process of getting some things over to World Nomads, no in the meantime, for more photos, maps and older travel stories please visit my blog on http://www.lenbellemore.com

After a very short visit back to London after finished the Camino de Santiago (report to come) to swap our trekking backpacks for our full-sized travel packs, we flew to Gaziantep in the east of Turkey in order to make our way to Syria. Travel tip: It's often cheaper to fly to an adjacent country and to make your way into your destination country by land, rather than fly direct. Turkey has tons of cheap flights from London, whereas Syria has none. We paid about a quarter of the price to fly to Turkey than we would have flying into Syria. We only stayed in Gaziantep long enough to sample the delicious baklava and to enjoy a couple of fantastic Turkish meals before we started the short trip to the Syrian border.
Borders are always confusing, chaotic places. Our taxi dropped us at the gate where we had to get our Turkish exit stamps and then sped off, leaving us wondering how we would make our way to the Syrian border, the whereabouts of which were not exactly apparent. The Turkish border guard flagged down a car, which we assumed was a taxi and we proceeded to go through the Syrian formalities. Our driver happily waited for us and then drove us the next 45km to the city of Aleppo, stopping off at a random shop to ask for directions as he spoke no English and didn't know exactly where we wanted to go. We were given coffee, the guys in the shop googled our hotel, then directions in hand, one of the shop-owners hopped in the car to help navigate the way to the hotel. Once we arrived, we tried to offer our driver some money for the the lift, but he just laughed at the suggestion, shook our hands and sped off. What a welcome.
That is the first thing you will notice when you enter Syria. The hospitality of the people. After our experience with the "taxi driver" we've been bought an entire bag of mini street pizzas (everywhere in Syria) so that we could try each and every one of them, offered countless cups of tea and given food off of the plates of people in restaurants. We've even hitched rides with truck drivers. No one wants anything except to see you safely on your way, wishing you a warm "Welcome to Syria." We have nothing but nice things to say about the Syrian people.

We didn't really know what to expect of Syria. It's the only middle eastern country after Egypt that we have visited. Would we find they hated us western devils? Were the men all wearing fist-length beards? Were the women earing burkas? As I said above, we've been made entirely welcome, so nope, they don't seem to hate us. Most of the men wear "normal" western-style clothes, except that the younger men have seriously dodgy fashion sense (think flared acid washed jeans and big collars) and the older gentlemen tend to dress quite smart, with suit jacket and trousers - very few beards, let alone fist-length ones. Yes, some women are covered in black from head to fingertip to toe - but they seem to be the minority. Most women wear head scarves, with long overcoats or robes to their feet, but their faces and hands are uncovered. The Christian girls dress like any other woman you would expect to see in our countries. It's very much a man's world, with men working and the women staying at home, or shopping. Wow, do they ever shop. Syrian woman have us western Capitalist consumers beaten hands down. Alcohol is available if you look around a bit, although it's not very common for people to drink, except in the Christian areas. Overall, the people seem pretty normal. They like to have a laugh, drink ridiculous amounts of tea and love to watch football. Maybe they're English in disguise.

After we arrived to Aleppo we visited the souk (traditional covered market) and wandered about the town, but we didn't really care for the place that much. There's too much traffic and it's very noisy. We soon went south to the smaller town of Hama, which we used as a base to visit some of the surrounding sites. Taking local transport is so much more fun than taking tours, not to mention it's a lot cheaper. It takes a bit longer, but it's more rewarding. We are starting to get the hang of using the fleets of micro-buses (kind of a hop on hop off van) that criss cross the cities and connect the neighbouring towns. We used these to visit the archaeological sites of Apamea and Krac des Chevalliers.
Apamea is the site of a ruined Roman city, with a 2km long stretch of tall columns lining the ancient "main street." The grooves left from carts are still visible in the stones, and behind some of the columns remain the facades of 2000 year old shops. There are also the ruins of the public baths where water pipes still remain and toilets and sewage pipes are visible.

We also visited the famous Crusader castle of Krac des Chevalliers. Built about 800 years ago, the castle is the epitome of castle design. It's massive, foreboding, perched high up on tall hill, with a nearly 360 degree view over miles of the surrounding area. It's guarded by a great stone wall, inside of which is an interior mote and then the castle proper. The walls are covered in arrow slits and there's a hurling gallery where giant stones were thrown down upon attackers. You wouldn't want to be the one attacking this place. And that is the real reason that the castle is famous. It was never breached. It was finally surrendered by the Crusader knights only after the rest of the holy lands had fallen to the armies of Islam and there was no hope of defeating the surrounding enemy. This is a real castle. A military fortress and not a place where royalty would enjoy living a life of luxury. If as a child you have ever dreamt of playing at knights, then you will enjoy visit here.

In Hama we stayed in a decent hotel with a big, nice bed and a good shower. After weeks of bunk beds on the Camino, we needed a little bit of luxury. We stayed in at night, catching up on Lost episodes and eating fried corn from the market. Almost like being in the cinema!

We then bussed it down to the capital, Damascus. It is one of the longest continuously inhabited cities in the world, with evidence of people inhabiting this site for the last 6000 years. Despite being completely traffic choked, and victim of out of control building, the old city is almost perfectly preserved and is the heart of the city. The ancient city walls and the narrow tangled streets keep out most of the cars, making it a very pleasant place to walk. We spent 4 or 5 days s just wandering around the old city, visiting the souk and taking in the sites of sounds of this hustling, bustling place. The souk is a little different from others we've seen in that the main thoroughfares are two stories high, and having the added decoration of having bullet holes in the corrugated iron ceiling; a relic of the uprising during the French occupation following the first World War.

The old city is a really wonderful place, it is home to thousands of tiny market stalls selling spices, clothing (surprisingly for a country where the women are covered head to toe, they sell a lot of trashy lingerie,) perfumes, tourist goods and all the other things that we would normally visit our supermarket for. There's also a large Christian quarter with medieval churches and where the women don't cover their heads, dressing more like western women than their Syrian Muslim counterparts.
Inside the old city is the Umayyad mosque, which is one of Islam's holiest sites. It is a truly beautiful building, cool, and calm inside. A welcome hideaway from the souk. Husayn, a grandson of the Prophet Mohamed is buried here, as is "allegedly" the head of the St John the Baptist, whom the Muslims regard as a prophet, much like Christians do. Muslims also see Jesus as a prophet, and a very important one. They believe that it is he who will return on Judgement day. They just don't see him as the son of God. There's probably more similarities than differences between Christianity and Islam. It's a pity we don't see them more often. Islam is obviously the majority here in Syria, but Christians make up about 10% of the population. Relations between the two religious groups are very good. We spoke to many people of both faiths and they have always stressed that there are few problems between the religions.

We visited a Syrian Catholic monastery a couple of hours from Damascus, called Mar Musa. An Italian priest named Father Paolo discovered the ruin of a 1000 year old monastery high on a mountainside and set about restoring it in the early 1980's. Now the monastery is completely rebuilt and sees guests from all over the world, wanting to see this unique place. It's quite a bit out of the way, down a quiet desert road and perched like an eagles nest way up on the mountain. You have to climb a steep path to get to it, but the effort is worth it. The views are spectacular. Anyone can go and stay, the only fee is by donation or by the work you do in the kitchen or gardens. The church, which you have to enter by ducking through a tiny carved doorway, has wonderful frescoes on the walls, some of which date back to the early 11th century. It's a Catholic monastery, but Father Paolo, a Jesuit priest, is quite different and makes the mass interactive and fun. Before the mass begins, there is meditation time in the church, during which the only light is by candle and everyone can meditate in their own way. When the mass begins, everyone sits on the floor and is asked to participate by saying their own personal prayers, or by reading. Most of the mass was in Arabic or French, so we didn't understand much, but it was interesting nonetheless. The hills behind the monastery are dotted with caves where some of the monks spend time in silent retreats. It's easy to imagine characters from Biblical times living in such a place. We met some really great people up there, both Syrians and western travellers. Syrian Christians tend to be a bit better educated than the Muslims and their grasp of English obviously makes it easier for us to interact. It's very peaceful up there on top of the world, and I think it would be quite easy to get stuck out there for a while, and many people do. We met some folks that had been there anything from a few days to two years!
On the way back from the monastery we thought we would catch a ride 17km back to the town of Nebek with a bus load of Lebanese Christian tourists, from there we thought we could get a bus to return to Damascus. Unfortunately, due to some miscommunication between the tourists and their bus driver, they could only take us 3km back to the road, and from there we tried to hitchhike our way out of the desert. A passing gravel truck soon picked us up and took us to the project that he was working at, an excavation site of some sort, where he flagged down another big truck that turned out to be going all the back, the hour trip to Damascus. What luck. Our driver, who spoke not a word of English, stopped to buy us coffee and then of course refused to accept any money from us as he dropped us just outside of the city. From there we caught a micro-van then taxi and we were back "home."

From Damascus we visited the ruined city of Bosra, which used to be the capital of the Roman province of Arabia. There's a perfectly preserved amphitheatre, where we were treated to an impromptu dancing and singing session by a group of Italian women. The city itself is for the most part just ruined buildings, but many of them are still inhabited by contemporary Syrians. It's quite fun to see the odd painted door or tiny shop hidden amongst the ruins of ancient houses where a Roman official might once have lived.

Public baths (Hammams) are still very much in use here in Syria. A bit like spas back home, men and women (strictly segregated) often visit the centuries old Hammams to enjoy a steam, scrub and massage, followed by tea while wrapped head to toe in towels. I tried out the Hammam Al-Malek Al-Zaher which dates from the 10th Century. The relaxation area was very luxurious, with a fountain, soft seats and men seated around drinking tea. The actual bath area was a lot more primitive, with large stone slabs to sit on, a small steam room with boiling hot steam, stone basins lining the walls from which you could douse yourself in cold water. The only light in the place was from glass covered holes in the arched ceiling. It felt a little like being in a warm, damp cave. The men performing the massages and scrubs wore the same attire as we did, which was a simple cotton towel around the waist. At first I was left alone in the bathing area, after about half an hour of steam, showers and wondering what exactly I was supposed to be doing, the assistants finally showed up (I think it was lunch.) By now there were a few other bathers and the assistants set about scrubbing us down. Remember that this isn't exactly a European spa, and we were made to sit on the floor while a man roughly scrubbed me down with a scratchy mitt, making certain that any dead skin was forcibly removed. After that I laid down on a table and another man gave me a fairly quick and rough massage. I'm not sure if he was in a hurry because by now there were a few of us waiting, but I felt a little disappointed with the massage. Anyway, after that another man wrapped me head to foot in about 8 towels, gave me tea and moved me back out to the relaxation area to drink tea. I got the feeling that the entire process isn't much changed for the last few hundred years, and despite the fact the rough and tough nature of the place, I did feel very relaxed afterwards. Not exactly the best spa treatment I've ever had, but a very interesting experience nonetheless.

So far the best thing about Syria, other than the people, has been Damascus. Normally when we travel, capital cities are horrible places. But Damascus is great. The people are friendly, the old city is magical, there's great food, street cafes, and best of all, a fantastic hotel. We've been sleeping up on the roof of the Al Rabie hotel along with many other travellers, relaxing in the cool, tree covered courtyard. There's a constant stream of interesting people coming through here on their way to or from different parts of the Middle East. It feels like the days when diplomats or writers would get lost in exotic places like Damascus and never want to come home again.

Tea in Damascus Old City

Finally, after not really wanting to leave, we ventured east to the deserts of the Beduin people to visit Palmyra. Palmyra is meant to be Syria's top tourist attraction. It's a huge ruined Roman city, with temples, streets and more tall columns than you can shake a stick at. It's all great to see of course, but we were feeling a little "ruined" from all of the other ancient sites that we had visited in the preceding days. The most interesting things at Palmyra were the tall "towers of death" standing eerily on the surrounding hills. Apparently, the Romans, and the Palmyrans before them, used to dry the bodies of the dead in the hot desert sun, and then stacked the bodies, morgue-style in two to four story towers. We climbed inside some of them, and were able to see the places where slabs were slid into place, each with a body, one on top of each other inside the towers. Who knows what happened to the thousands of bodies that must have been there at one time.

We were pleasantly surprised by Syria. The people are fantastic, the sites are great. If you like history, there's no end to things that will keep you busy. It's very easy to travel, the food is good, and it's very cheap.

We had intended to travel directly north from Palmyra to see the East of Turkey on our way to Iran, but after so many people told us to go to Cappadocia, in the middle of Turkey, that's where we decided to go. We said goodbye to Blake, our Aussie travelling companion of the last few days, and next up it was a two day bus and taxi journey all the way back the way we had came, first to Aleppo and then back into Turkey. And that's where we leave you for today.

Average Costs to Travel in Syria:

private room with bathroom: 1300 SYL = £18 GBP
bed on the rooftop dorm: 300 SYL = £4.25 GBP
1.5L bottle of water: 25 SYL = £0.35 GBP
Falafel from street vendor: 25 SYL = £0.35 GBP
Dish with bread in a restaurant: 200 SYL = £2.83 GBP
One hour Bus Ride: 100 SYL = £1.42 GBP
one hour internet: 60 SYL = £0.85 GBP
Cup of coffee or tea: 35 SYL = £0.50 GBP or free from any number of hospitable Syrians.

Average Cost per day in Syria: £27 GBP for two people.

For more photos, maps and older travel stories please visit my blog on http://www.lenbellemore.com

Len & Michaela's Big Trip - The Sequel

Syria - An Unexpected Gem