kevinwanders's TravelStream™ — Recent TravelPod.com entries TravelStream™ news feed for member kevinwanders on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/kevinwanders en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 06 Jan 2008 15:49:07 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com Jerash and back, with lettuce. — Jerash, Jordan http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1199670300/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1199670300/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1199670300/tpod.html Sun, 06 Jan 2008 15:49:07 -0500 Kevin Wanders the Middle East: 7 countries, one bag and a whole lot of sand.
Jerash, Jordan

The hotel had listed a number of trips available, but nobody else seemed interested, so I wound up on my own, and decided to do the daytrip to Jerash. Jerash was a Roman city, part of the Decapolis League (a group of semi-independent cities) and was qute prosperous back in the day.

The ruins of Jerash are well-preserved, and the organizers make a big deal of reconstructing parts of it; many of the major structures either have been done, or will be rebuilt. I'm sort of torn; on one hand, the rebuilt stuff is less authentic than the original, but it's also a lot better to see structures rather than piles of rocks.

The main highlights of the site strted with the Hadriatic Arch, a massive and ornate triumphal arch built for a visit by the emperor Hadrian. An unusual large round plaza -- finally, with Ionic columns rather than Corinthian capitals! connected the arch with the Temple of Zeus and the Cardo (the main north-south road). The temple was lqargely unreachable, but the theatre nearby was open, and in fine shape. Three members of the Arab Guard were playing pipe and drum on and off in the theatre; "Scotland The Brave", amusingly.

There were a few small churches from the Byzantine era on the site as well, but most of them were still in ruins -- those don't bring in the tourist buck, maybe? I wandered the ruins of (I think) the Church of Saints Peter and Paul, and saw some wonderful patches of mosaic -- mostly gone, but the edges remained and were beautiful. I refrained from grabbing some loose mosaic stones, but only barely.

From there, it was over to the Temple of Artemis, the largest structure on the site, with beautiful columns still standing. I wandered back along the cardo to the entrance and looked for a ride back to Amman.

The ride back was the best (since I survived) taxi ride I think I've taken. I wound up as the only passenger in a microbus, for 4 JD, about $6 (a 45 km trip). The driver, Omar, didn't speak English, but that didn't stop him from talking. I tried to put on a seatbelt, but it wasn't working, and Omar assured me that Arabs don't wear them. It didn't help that the next thing he did was weave all over the road while searching the dash and glovebox for cassettes, eventually settling on a Qu'ranic recitaton played at unreasonable volume and him aswering along with the crowd on the tape. A few minutes later, he pulled over to the side of the road -- to buy Romaine lettuce from a vendor. He handed me one, and started to rip off the outside leaves, and then eat the stems of the inside leaves, throwing the rest of them outside the window. He indicated should follow suit, so we rolled down the highway, driving unsafely and throwing lettuce out the window. After that, we came up a ridge and I started taking pictures of the vibrant sunset. He pulled on a side road to an out-of-the-way viewpoint, and I got to take a few nice shots. On the way back into Amman, with the Qu'ran blasting, he started talking about religion and politics (I generally refrained, especially since I couldn't speak Arabic). At one point, he indicated he had Saddam Hussein in his heart. It was just the most bizarre set of events.

I'm finishing this up in an internet cafe (found a good one, yay!) before heading to my (freezing) hotel room for some shut-eye. I took a cab to the 'burbs (and then two back, because cabbies don't know anything, and/or I can't pronounce anything) and had a meal of... chinese food! Awesome! I was totally craving it, and now I'm full of rice and soy sauce and MSG and toffee banana.
]]> Ammanin' up. — Amman, Jordan http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1199579820/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1199579820/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1199579820/tpod.html Sun, 06 Jan 2008 15:44:15 -0500 Kevin Wanders the Middle East: 7 countries, one bag and a whole lot of sand.
Amman, Jordan

The first thing I did when I got into Amman was switch hotels; this wound up involving a walk through the entire downtown area, which gave me a nice view of the area -- a frenzy of shops and souks, mostly, with no building over around 7 stories, much like Damascus. Amman is built on and between a patch of steep hills, which makes navigaton difficult at first (it looks like spaghetti), but once you realize that there's only one road from one place to another, it simplifies itself.

In the afternoon, once I was resettled in a hostellish place -- still little heat, but better atmosphere and location -- I set out to see the sights. Amman's no Damascus, as far as things to do go, but it has a couple of neat things.

The first thing on my agenda was the Roman Theatre, set in the side of one of the hills and facing the citadel hill. The theatre was pretty cool; it doesn't have any of the stage structures that Bosra has, but it opens up towards the street and city, so it was a great place to sit and watch the world go by -- except for the rain. The skies were angry, often rainng, but always changing wiith clouds passing through at record pace, due to the hilly terrain. I finished up with the two small museums there; containing dioramas, jewelery and mosaics -- but also, unlike Syria, explanations in many cases.

From there, I caught a cab up the Citadel hill to walk the ruins, and view the city. There are a handful of ruins up there as well, including an Umyyad palace that has been reconstructed -- but with displays tht provide a really good overview of what was involved in the reconstruction of structures. It was late, so I only did a quick gloss of the museum attached, which went back to before the Paleolithic and included some of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The remainder of my evening was pretty quiet; a nice supper of hummus and tabbouleh, some internet and blog working in the hotel lobby, and then an early bed.
]]> Smugglin' Syrian Smokes — Bosra, Syria http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1199495700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1199495700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1199495700/tpod.html Sun, 06 Jan 2008 15:16:54 -0500 Kevin Wanders the Middle East: 7 countries, one bag and a whole lot of sand.
Bosra, Syria

My last day in Syria started nice and gradually, like many of the days on this trip. Two nice glasses of freshly-squeezed juice, and a handful of zattar pizza-thingies; sort of small mini-pizzas with zattar (a thyme-based spice mix) on top.

I performed a bit of transportation relay, taking the four main for-hire road vehicle types. The first leg was taxi, to a bus station (or rather, a bus, just parked beside the road). The bus took me to Dara'a, the border town between Syria and Jordan. I took a taxi again, this time to Bosra. I hired the driver to take me there, wait a couple hours and take me back, but he asked if he could come with me, so I said sure. We were quiet company for each other, me not speaking any Arabic and him no English, but it was nice all the same.

Bosra is another Roman site, a decent-sized city back in the day. Much of the Roman ruins are pretty ruined these days, except for one major structure; one of the best-preserved theatres in the world. A citadel was built around it, which served to protect it, and most of the seating, backstage and stage floor are all original. It's pretty gigantic, too -- 37 rows of seats, around 9000 person capacity.

I was thrilled to wander around the stage, backstage (there was some scenery from something that had been staged there in recent years), and of course, on stage. I decided to test the acoustics a little, and wound up performing a brief a capella excerpt from the Pirates of Penzance -- "I Am The Very Model of a Modern Major-General". (I wanted something obviously theatrical, and it was one of the few famous bits I could remember.) I don't know that I was that good (the choreography could have used some work), but the couple of dozen people applauded, so I guess I was okay.

From there, after wandering the back alleys of Bosra for a while, it was on to Jordan. The next part of the transport relay, once I was back in Dara'a, was a service, a shared taxi. This prticular one had two Jordanians in the back -- I think they were doing some cross-border shopping. The driver stopped before we hit the border to stock up on cigarettes, and stowed packs of them around the car -- under the seats, in the console, and so on. As we approached the border, I saw a garbage can that was almost entirely overflowing with Marlboro packages.

The border crossing wasn't too complex, but it was a little stressful as I read one passage in my travel book just before i got to the border that made me unsure whether I could get a visa on the Jordanian side. I did, of course, but it was a little extra stress for a couple of hours. While we were waiting for a visa officer, one of the Jordanians called one of his friends who could speak English on his mobile, and we had a bit of a conversation. Welcome to Jordan, I guess.

For the next leg of the relay, I was handed off to a microbus, a multi-passenger minivan that took me to Irbid, a university town in northern Jordan. I only saw the bus station, though, and wound up eing sort of adopted by one of the guys on the microbus. A student-looking guy, he bought me a cookie, and then a cup of coffee. His Englsh was limited, but he made sure I was on a taxi in Amman before he left me. Very hospitable, indeed.

From there, I wound up taking a taxi to find a hotel; the hotel I finished up at wasn't particularly nice, though -- expensive, dirty, cold and in a bad location. But I didn't know anything, and it was pouring rain, so I suppse I kind of had limited options -- and they knew it. I wandered around for a bit until I sort of understood how Amman was laid out, and then went back to my room to snuggle under 4 blankets and sleep.
]]> "Look on my works, Ye Mighty, and despair!" — Palmyra, Syria http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1199378820/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1199378820/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1199378820/tpod.html Sun, 06 Jan 2008 15:13:55 -0500 Kevin Wanders the Middle East: 7 countries, one bag and a whole lot of sand.
Palmyra, Syria

For reasons I can't fully explain, I decided to get a cheap room in Palmyra, despite my high level of discomfort at the budget hotel the night before in Tartus. It can't have been the temperature -- it drops to around freezing at night, and I could see my breath in my room. It was partly the prospect of paying $5 for a night's sleep in a hotel, which puts the New Tourist Hotel in a solid second behind the $3 Elegant Wind Guest House in Da Zhai, Guangxi, China. It was also partly the promises of a hot shower, heater and diesel-powered stove to dry my laundry by. It was also the genial host, Sari, who was just a ridiculously outgoing, wacky guy with an awesome sense of humour. I was in the mood for a coupole of hours of chat, so it fit well. He said they had mostly had crazy Japanese since the Iraq war (which the guestbook confirmed -- the last entry in Englsh was in 2004), and he offered to buy my phone for $10. (Which isn't that far off market value, actually.)

After a cold but tolerable night's sleep under a ton of blankets and a banana pancake breakfast, I hit the ruins. Palmyra is a desert oasis, and it was a major stop on the overland trade route between the Persian Gulf (and by sea to India and China) and the Mediterranean (and by sea to Rome). It was an important city in it's Roman heyday (200-300 BC) but then was eventually abandoned, to the point no one knew it existed. Rediscovered in the 1600s, and excavated starting 1924, the site is a decent sized Roman city, with alll of the trimmings. The baths, Senate and agora are in pretty rough shape, but the theatre has been reconstructed and the major temples are in very nice shape.

The city also has a long colonnade, with a very impressive Monumental Arch; this is one of the most photographed features in Syria, and I contributed a few to that. The arch is supposed to mask a bend in the main road through the city, realigning it so it faced the Temple of Bel. The Temple of Bel (aka Ba'al) is one of the biggest standing structures in the city, and I spent a fair while exploring the nooks and crannies of it.

From there, I passed through the colonnade back towards the main city, looking at the ruins of various other structures, although most were not particularly recognisable. I swung by the museum, which was actually the best of the museums I'd been to in Syria; most of the artifacts were actually well-labeled and understandable. It was pretty impressive to see some of the subtle ways the Romans rendered fabric in marble, and the mosaics were absolutely spectacular.

I caught a cab up to the citadel on the hill; it was an Islamic era structure, but offered a million dollar view of the entire ruined city (and the remaining existing city as well). Sadly, the sunset was only a twenty-dollar sunset, as incoming clouds blocked it off.

And that was my time in Palmyra; I didn't explore every inch of the city, but it was impressive to see the ruins contrasted against the desert beyond.
]]> Happy birthday to me: Four days in point form. — Damascus, Syria http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1199327100/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1199327100/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1199327100/tpod.html Sat, 05 Jan 2008 11:30:17 -0500 Kevin Wanders the Middle East: 7 countries, one bag and a whole lot of sand.
Damascus, Syria

Wow, so I had three days of typing on a USB key I was using to go from my computer to internet cafes, which got blotted out of existence when I used one particular virus-heavy cafe. It isn't recognised on any system, including my little Unix machine. Goddamn.

Technology seems to be conspiring to keep me from doing anything to remember this trip; the USB key melted down, so I can't post my detailed recollections of my birthday (and I'm not writing those 1500 words again), and I simultaneously had my camera lens break. So instead of the detailed entry-per-location I'd been doing, I'm going to try and do what I can to cover Dec. 30-Jan. 2 in point form.

Dec. 30 was Aleppo day.
- Wandered Aleppo, which is a sort of burly, industrial-feeling city in the north.
- Swung down to the Old Town, of course, via some really cool streets of stores. There was an entire block that was mostly scale shops. Just selling scales. Nothing else.
- Hit the Citadel, which is up on a hill overlooking the old city. It's an interesting mix of ruins and reconstruction. The citadel is cool enough, but the main attraction is the view. Spent a fair amount of time admiring the view.
- Came down and went to the local branch of the National Museum. Had some amazing Roman mosaics, and some (Akkadian?) cuneiform writing -- very cool; I didn't appreciate how small cuneiform was written. Got grabbed by a museum employee, who hurried me around, pointing out various interesting artifacts; a case of lamps here, Roman pottery there, and so on. He showed me a Roman-era Venus statue that he said was the original with a copy in the Louvre. He offered to steal it for me, with enough baksheesh.
- Hit the souks. Aleppo has a bigger souk than Damascus, and I liked it more because it seems to have a little more various businesses, rather than just things tourists might buy. It's got tailors, nut men, and butchers -- one of whom had camel on display. Actually decided to listen to a couple of sales pitches, even though I wasn't in the market for anything.
- Wandered around back to the citadel, when the lights went out on an entire neighbourhood. Chatted with a soldier for a minute.
- Hit a restaurant that had made the worldest largest kebab (12 m), plate of fattoush salad (6 tons), and something else. It had "lamb spinal cord" and "lamb testis" on the menu. I went with the chicken.


Dec. 31 was my birthday (and New Year's), so I tried to make it special.
- Got up early and met my hired driver.
- Went to St. Simeon, a Byzantine cathedral built around the pillar the saint stood on, ca. 500 AD. Destroyed in earthquake 50 years later, but the walls are still standing, and covered with elegant decoration.
- Drove through countryside past red-brown potato patches, and pimped-out farm trucks.
- Went to Afamea, a Roman city with a 1.8 km colonnade still standing. Walk the length of the colonnade; very cool.
- Drove through mountains, past some very nice views and some crazy hairpin curves. Freaked out a little about running out of gas; apparently, there isn't much to be had because of the end of the year.
- Made it to Qa'lat Salah al-Din, an awesome Crusader castle captured by Saladin (using catapults, cool!) despite being built on this jutting out piece of hillside, with steep valleys to the north and south, and the Crusaders cutting the castle away from the hillside by cutting a 12m wide, 28m deep, 150m long ditch through solid rock at the entrance way.
- Got dropped off in Lattakia at a 5-star, the Meridien, outside of town. Asked for, and received, a birthday discount (25%!). The manager must have been feeling sorry for me, alone in a strange place on my birthday and New Year's, because he sent up a fruit basket and cake. I almost cried, actually.
- Mostly hung around in my room all night, watching old movies on TV. Went to my balcony from time to time to watch the fireworks over Lattakia (the hotel was on the coast a few km north). People started shooting off their fireworks as soon as it got dark, and then continuously; these distant pops all night long. The fireworks are pretty good here, due to no pesky safety laws. For the hour around midnight, the fireworks sped up, so that midnight was just a continuous eruption of light, sound and colour over the entire sky of the city. It was very cool.
- Tried to take a picture of this, and had the tripod collapse and break my lens.

Jan. 1 was a day of hanging about.
- Swam in the Mediterranean. The air temperature was around 8 degrees. Swim didn't last long.
- Went into Lattakia to try and replace my camera lens.
- But, alas, virtually every business was closed for New Year's.
- Wandered about for a couple hours; didn't see anything special. Although it's on the water, there's a seaport between the city and the Mediterranean. which sort of reduces the charm. Syrian architecture is mostly cinder block, so it didn't cut it, either.
- Took a bus down the coast to Tartus.
- Wandered the far more elegant (i.e. you are next to the ocean) corniche there.
- Chatted with a guy on the corniche about various, including how to get a visa for Canada, and whether I knew any nice girls who would chat with him over the internet.
- Went into the old city; lots of neat architecture -- a real jumble of eras and styles.
- Played a little street soccer with some 10 year olds.
- Was given a ride around town and a chat by a random man from a nearby Christian village driving his sister home and his parents for the ride.
- Went to take a bus to Damascus; they were all full for the rest of the day.
- Took a taxi to another bus station, my two ad-hoc interpreters jumped in. They began asking me if I liked women, and extolling the virtues of the "round" Canadian women.
- Slept in a hotel that I found out belatedly didn't come with heat. Overnight low was near zero.

Jan. 2 was a day of errand running.
- Took a 6 AM bus from Tartus to Damascus.
- Had an awful cab driver who spent half an hour finding the best-known square in the city.
- Went to a camera store to try and pick up a replacement lens; the dude calls around, and all that's available are 18-135 lenses -- a step up, but not the lens I'd buy at home. But I've got a two week holiday and no camera otherwise. My mom didn't know it, but part of the lens is her birthday gift to me. :)
- Visit an internet cafe that somehow nukes my USB key.
- Wandered through the National Museum. It's so sad, really; Syria has possibly the best cultural heritage in the world (at least in terms f the number of cultures that have left their mark), and they have just astoundingly great artifacts, but they suck at museums. Most things aren't labelled, the labels that are there aren't helpful or explanatory. The collections are jumbled; sometimes by date, sometimes by culture,sometimes by site, sometimes by object type. Lots of stuff is sitting in the open, or being touched. I got bored a lot quicker than usual, I think since so much of the museum is "here... look at this beautiful old thing."
- Return to pick up my lens. No UV filter available, so it's really vulnerable right now.
- Pick up a sweater; it's been cold, and something warmer would be nice. Wind up with a second shirt, with just bizarre pseudo-English on it. It makes me smile. "AKA THE STALLIONS".
- Visit an internet cafe, try to catch up on things. Can't update my blog; the USB key's been nuked.
- Go to the bus terminal way too early. The bus terminal is boring.
- Ride a bus to Palmyra that is currently travelling at about 25 km/h. How long is this ride going to take?

So there it is, four days in a few words. I'm still bitter I lost my hard work and time spent on the previous ones. Damnit.
]]> Crac addict — Qal'at al-Husn, Syria http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1198986600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1198986600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1198986600/tpod.html Sat, 29 Dec 2007 15:51:41 -0500 Kevin Wanders the Middle East: 7 countries, one bag and a whole lot of sand.
Qal'at al-Husn, Syria

I certainly believe people who say Qal'at at al Husn (also known as Crac de Chevaliers) is the best castle in the world.

First, a historical perspective:
This is a strategic location, controlling something called the "Homs Gap"; essentially, the only place to come though the mountains between, say, Turkey and Beirut. The first castle was built in 1031, but in 1110 the Crusaders took the fort. And by take the fort, I mean there wasn't a lot of fort left by the time they finished. So they built this thing; pretty well an entire hilltop, turned into an imposing castle. It held for 161 years until the Mamaluks took it after a month of fighting -- at one point before that, Salah al-Din (Saladin) rode out with his armies to the castle, took one look at it, and rode away.

So that's what's awesome about this castle; it's just incredibly strongly built, from back when it actually meant something. And it's gigantic -- I saw dots moving on the other wall, and then realised they were people. The castle is 30,000 sq. m., if that helps you out at all (322,000 square feet).

The castle has an outer and inner wall, and one doorway connecting the two is five metres thick. It's lined with arrow slits and the like, and has an amazing view over the areas the Crusaders would have been defending. It's even got a moat! A real, 12 metre wide, no-BS moat to it. As you tour the outer castle, you can do it by mostly walking around the top of the walls; the castle is in pretty good shape, but not mint condition, and it's not all cleanified and railed off and what have you.

The inner castle is maybe more impressive, since it's where everybody would have lived. The outer part is all "come get some", but the inner castle is a little more subtle. Highlights include the gothic architecture -- since that's what they were building with in 1110. There's a chapel -- now a mosque, and 12 latrines -- nicer than the Homs bus station latrines, I assure you. There's an oven in the kitchen area 5m across. The whole thing is built to these ridiculous dimensions, I just can't describe.

Just to fill in the travelogue, I went there by first taking a bus to Homs, which is as dreary-looking as all the accounts say it is. Because I got a late start thanks to my errands in Damascus (there are 22 ATMs in Syria that I can use, and the first one I went to was out of service), I wound up hitting Homs a little later than I wanted. To save time, I made like the Amazing Race and just hired a taxi to take me all the way to the castle and back; $20 or so, including the three hours he waited for me (while every single other bus, coach and taxi left).

I then hopped a bus to Aleppo, getting in to town, and walking the 2 km from the bus terminal to the downtown; past an amazing mosque that I can't find on any maps. I'm currently writing this in the Baron Hotel, which was at one point the end of the line for the Orient Express. TE Lawrence, Kemal Ataturk and Agatha Christie all stayed here. I just wish they'd redecorated the rooms since then. That said, it's still a bit of a grand old dame, and I like it, even though it's busting the budget a little.
]]> Laptop + bus + boring + Kenny Rogers = ? — Homs, Syria http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1198950360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1198950360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1198950360/tpod.html Sat, 29 Dec 2007 15:48:28 -0500 Kevin Wanders the Middle East: 7 countries, one bag and a whole lot of sand.
Homs, Syria

On a fair winter morning
On a bus bound for Homs
I wrote a new blog entry
Though I probably should sleep
But I've also been staring
Out the window at Damascus
The city's drab and boring
But the hills are kind of neat.

I'll say that I spent this morning
Mostly running little errands
Knowing where to buy baklava
And where to get juice squeezed.
So if you don't mind me saying
You can see this entry's sort of boring
And the click that got you here
Was a waste for you and me.

But although I'm self-effacing,
These words ring kind of hollow
Since I'm writing even more of this
Dear reader, this ain't right
But the bus is loud and squeaky
And the seat's kind of uncomfortable
So if I'm going to write this entry
I better finish it up right,

You got to know when to take photos
Know where your bus goes
Know where there's ATMs
That take your card.
You never lose your wallet
On the second day of your trip
'Cause the way you have to sort it out
Well, it's kind of hard.
]]> Wandering lost — Damascus, Syria http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1198896300/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1198896300/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1198896300/tpod.html Sat, 29 Dec 2007 15:45:49 -0500 Kevin Wanders the Middle East: 7 countries, one bag and a whole lot of sand.
Damascus, Syria

I'm starting to believe Damascus isn't a place so much as an experience. Most of the memorable things today can't be tied to an address or geocoded, and barely even described. Just the feeling of wandering corridors as old as civilisation, and seeing what happens.

I got lost today; I never get lost. But I can't go more than a few minutes in Old Damascus, it seems, without getting lost. The good thing is that mostly what happens when you're lost is the same as what happens when you're found; wandering, looking at how people live, chatting, and so on.

A couple examples:
- Getting an invite from a friendly, English-speaking man (Suleyman) to go for coffee; it turns out to be a long discussion covering his hard life as an Iraqi refugee and touching in every concievable way -- sociological, anecdotal, religious, philosophical, economical, political -- on the theme of I should give him money. What can I say? It was the most entertaining guilt trip ever. $10 or so.
- The posters of Assad (mostly the new one, Bashar) everywhere; cars ofen sport a decal of him in the back window. Every business has a couple of pictures. The entertaining part is he sort of resembles John Cleese with a moustache.

The main sight, other than generic Old Damascus and the souqs therein I saw today was the Umayyad Mosque, the largest mosque in Syria. (For those keeping score, I've seen the largest open mosque in every country so far except Saudi Arabia.) It compares well to other mosques I've seen -- the outsides are pretty rough stone brick, but the courtyard is just sublimely decorated with mosaic work and gold. And the inside's prettys nice too, although not as ornate as, say, Sultan Qaboos. The difference is that the other mosques are all modern; this one was built over a thousand years ago. It has the head of St. John in the middle, for crying out loud. (Not like that; in a box. Ew.)

The gravity of history (Saladin's buried right outside in his own shrine) combined with the decoration to make the mosque visit quite memorable. Seeing something that's weathered the years is just difficult to describe. It just sort of feels important, you know? Someplace worth something. Something worth visiting.
]]> Feet on the ground. — Damascus, Syria http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1198813320/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1198813320/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1198813320/tpod.html Sat, 29 Dec 2007 15:42:47 -0500 Kevin Wanders the Middle East: 7 countries, one bag and a whole lot of sand.
Damascus, Syria

My first day in Syria started with a lot of sleep (hey; I was up until 3), and some down time in my hotel; I hit the ground around 11 AM.

The first day was really a mix of culture shock and wayfinding. I spent a couple of hours trying to find a cheaper hotel than the one I'd crashed in the night before, but first I had to get my bearings, since arriving by taxi at night means you're pretty clueless, and the area I was in was a maze of angular roads. Most of Damascus is a maze of angular roads; it's the world's oldest continuously inhabited place (over 5000 years), and the state of travel demand modelling even as recently as Roman times, more than halfway through the city's lifespan was shockingly bad. (They predicted a mode split of LXXVIII per cent by chariot in their 2000 horizon scenario, for example.)

Before I checked in, I had a bit of a stress issue since the main banks here are only on the Visa network, and I couldn't use their ATMs. I eventually found a hole-in-the-wall that was Cirrus, but not without increasing my blood pressure a little. It's nice to be able to withdraw 10,000 things in one transaction, even if the Syrian pound is 50:1.

Anyways, this is a long way of saying it's easy to get a little lost in this city, particularly when Let's Go's helpful map was scaled such that it put all the hotels in an area the size of a dime. But being a little lost is wonderful; this city has great people-watching.

Once I resettled, after a leisurely lunch overlooking Yousef Al-'Azmeh Square, I hit the souq around 4 PM. The Damascus souq is considered by some to be the greatest in the world.

It's amazing; a quarter of the old city, essentially, lined with hundreds of stalls selling everything from fake fruit to hanging Mylar decorations. Huge crowds of people, haggling, chatting, wandering through the side passageways. It was Thursday night, too, whch is date night, so I saw lots of couples -- one woman who sticks in my mind just looked deleriously happy, like a bride. Just an incredible experience.

I did the main aisle of the souq, then went past the Umayyad Mosque (prayer time; I'll visit it today in daylight), and just sort of lost myself in the alleys of the old town, passing shops, houses and so on, in a layout that's millenia old.

And from there, back to my hotel for a taking it easy night -- I grabbed a roast chicken from a man who said he had visited Montreal, and thought Canada was a wonderful country. It was on a street nearby that's entirely chicken vendors, mostly raw and some with roasted as an additional option. It was a very good chicken.

So far, it's interesting, because the Syrians I've met are nice, although there's a much stronger language barrier than the Gulf states. But the infrastructure is in much worse condition; honestly, Damascus reminds me as much -- if not more -- of China as, say, the UAE. What a difference some oil makes, I guess.
]]> Culture shocked — Damascus, Syria http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1198758540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1198758540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/kevinwanders/middleeast-0708/1198758540/tpod.html Sat, 29 Dec 2007 15:31:37 -0500 Kevin Wanders the Middle East: 7 countries, one bag and a whole lot of sand.
Damascus, Syria

"You're flying to Damascus tomorrow? With no hotel? What's your plan?"
"Well, I'm flying to Damascus tomorrow. Sounds like a plan to me."

Okay, yeah, I'd gotten cocky. But I'd been on the road for four weeks now, through various countries in the same region, and had overcome the occasional obstacle, with a little help from my mom and my friends.

This is how I wound up, at 1 AM, exiting passport control at the airport, with no hotel, and no clue. I walked out through the shoddy terminal, noting with every step that this wasn't like any of the countries I'd visited yet, and outside into the chilly night air to see not a single word of English anywhere. Oman and the UAE are effectively bilingual, and tourist facilities in Saudi are, too. This was the goddamn capital airport, and nothing.

I got into a taxi, whose driver spoke no English, and settled (so I thought) the destination, as we started driving into town. A few minutes later, he asks again where we're going. Oh. After twists and turns, we wind up somewhere he claims is the area I asked for (a district of budget hotels), but seems to mostly have tire shops. For some reason, I get out after overpaying him. There's a railroad station, so I proceed to make the heroic assumption that it's the one on the Let's Go map. (Which is remarkably light on landmarks, showing only occasional street names -- tough in a country without, you know, street signs.)

After half an hour of walking through a pretty empty neighbourhood, I decide this isn't the right area and hail a second cab. He also asks for a bit too much money, but it's 2 AM at this point, so he has a point. I ask to go to the best hotel in the country, which I eventually get across and we go there without much difficulty. I had my GPS out at this point, and the first driver dropped me off over 4 km from where I wanted to be. I wander around the neighbourhood, trying to find a hotel listed in my guidebook (Cham Palace runs $200 a night; the most expensive in Let's Go is $23), and wind up taking the first hotel I come across; a tired place with a $60 a night room I realize after some sleep I could have bargained down.

And that's my time in Syria so far. Just a huge blast of culture shock. Welcome to the 3rd world, Kevin.
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