The Cheapest Place on Earth
Trip Start
Jan 06, 2006
1
20
120
Trip End
Sep 02, 2008
Aleppo,
Syria
Sunday, February 12, 2006
The buildings along the road all look a bit more shabby than those in Turkey. The first ones we saw had corregated roofs, and most lack paint. Many urban scapes have a dominant colour. The villages on the way into Aleppo are sandy brown. It's visible on the buildings; if not because they are made of limestone, then because of the dust that coats them. The road is paved to some degree but the ground around it is the same dusty colour. I say paved to some degree, because the potholes are such that drivers ignore left/right road conventions in order to avoid the potholes. Yet, somehow they still manage to avoid one another.
And on the streets we drove by, numerous people wore traditional Arab clothing. Not all, but some men and most women wear headdresses (men wear the red and white checked cloth, and a noticable minority wear a military style jacket with it. Many women wear either the hijab or the veil). Women wear full length gowns, but even some men do too. Sorry, I can't guess at the exact ratios.
And as for me watching the villages go by from the bus, I was just waiting for an international news reporter to jump out of a bush to do a story on Moe and his friends who are down the street, shouting death to Denmark.* The setting was one we've all seen many times before on CNN.
We made Aleppo by noon, and luckly the bus arrived at a depot very near my intended hostel choice.
Aleppo Skyline
Aleppo is a city of 3 million, and on the long ride through the suburbs, I was feeling a bit of trepidation about having to make a long walk from some unknown location well off my map. In my entry on Adana I think I used the wrong teminology about being lost (I wrote it too late at night). I was seeking the term "stressful" when I used the term troubled. Being lost is stressful because there are no options apart from getting unlost. Many other 'hard' pursuits have excape options: If you're doing a crossword, and it's hard, you can always put out of the way and sort it out later.
But when I get lost, I can't sort it out later. Were I to sit down on the side of the curb and mope for a bit, I might be putting my life in danger considering local traffic conditions. So the only option really is to figure out where I am going. Until then I can't really do anything else.
But there was no getting lost this time. The hostel was a three minute walk away. Inside Phil and I found a decently comfortable dorm, with rooms as good as anywhere else I have been. But this one cost the least I have ever paid, about $CDN 4.50 / night. A little while later I found a donair for about 80 cents. Syria was going to be all right.
I did leave Turkey with a little trepidation. We all know that Syria is on the list of countries that our Western governments don't like. And then there is the style of government practiced here, which I will not discuss. And then there were the protests and embassy burnings.
But on my last night in Adana, the 10th, I went to the bus station as a sort of fact finding mission.
Citadel in Aleppo
There I discovered that the only bus for Aleppo left at 9.30 the next morning. I went ahead and reserved a spot. I thought, "what the hell, why not?" And the next morning I went to the bus station. The dolmush was waiting to leave. Also lining up to get on the bus stood an Australian named Phil. Reading our travel guides in advance, we had both chosen the same Spring Flower hostel in Aleppo. It is nice to meet people to travel with, and since we read the same travel guide, we had the same sites hilighted as places worth a visit.
One Dutch-Briton named Sarah has called the phenomenon of meeting up with other travellers due to guidebook advice "the curse of the L P." I disagree with her terminology, but it's what happens when people read the same travel guides. Travellers meet each other along the way by dint of the highlights the guide's authors have chosen.
Indeed, a very concrete example of this was the disproportionate number of South Koreans in Pamukkale, Turkey. Their travel guide must have said it was the #1 Must See site in Turkey. When a number of people use the same guide, they can't help but see the same places, and they meet each other along the way.
It is inevitable though. As individuals, we have not the resources or the time to see everything in the entire country, so we have to trust the experiences of people who have seen the entire country. That way we know what is and isn't worth seeing: Even a site with incredible historical importance may be not worth a visit because of all that has changed over time.
Guard tower of Citadel
Take the seven wonders of the world, for example. Most sites are not worth even a day trip anymore because there is nothing left. On two occasions, when I was in Rhodes and when I was in Selcuk, I saw where the Colossus and the temple of Artemis stood. There is nothing left of the former, and very little of the latter.
Neither deserved a deliberate visit, as the book foretold. But I saw them both as I was headed to somewhere further along the way, and learned that it is worthwhile to accept the advice of travel guides in trip itineary planning. I know that this may seem to contradict my comments in previous entries, because I tend to mention only exceptions - what's the point of pointing out the colour of the sky until it turns something unusual? - and all these exceptions have made me realise I ought to relate the status quo as well.
So despite my long tangent here, "the curse of the L P" is hardly a curse, except in ironic backpacker-speak. As a lone traveller I quite appreciate it, as Phil, like many others I have met this journey, has been excellent company.
We explored the citadel of Aleppo on the day of our arrival. It stands out far and above the rest of the city, like a pimple on an otherwise flat surface. My historical source says it's a natural feature in the landscape. In any case castle builders made a nice piece of work out of it - a 30m wide by 20m deep moath was dug around it. High walls enclosed the medieval fortification, and throngs of locals were inside visiting.
The entry price for locals is about 40 cents Canadian. Syrians take my student card (Hooray!) so I had to pay only 25 cents. This price lets one go just about anywhere inside, as there is no prohibition of climbing. And unlike the Turks, the Syrians haven't let the interior go to seed. The buildings inside were still mostly ruined, but they were not overgrown.
The citadel walls give the same sort of view of the city of Aleppo that a 35 storey sky scraper would. I could just barely see the outskirts of this city of 3 million. Phil tried to count the minaretes, but there were so many on the sky line that it was very hard to keep track of them. Advice when travelling in a muslim country: Never consider a minaret as a landmark!
At closing time a fellow stood on the highest building at the back of the citadel and blew his wistle to indicated that it was closing time. He waved wildly and shouted 'til he was red in the face, to get the attention of the hundreds of people inside. After leaving, Phil and I went for donairs. I had two and a cola product. Total price: about $2.50 for dinner. Believe it or not, the cola actually cost more than a donair.
On the 12th, we went to see the National Museum. I brought my guidebook along, and while peering at exhibits of the ancient past (some artifacts went back 6000 years), I learned the Arabic alphabet. It took quite a while, but with all the computer-printer plaques, it wasn't impossible to read the script. Slowly, I began to recognise the s, the sh, the H, the j, the n, the b, the y, the t, the th and so on. Now I only have to figure out what they mean when they are strung together!
The only bit of difficulty that I had at all in Aleppo was in trying to find an ATM. I had changed about $50 into Syrian pounds before I left Turkey. Although I had only spent $11 in two days, I was getting concerned that the other $39 would not last forever.
For a city of 3 million, there are not a lot of ATMs. In Turkey, there is an ATM booth, just bigger than a phone booth, at virtually every corner. In Aleppo, I had seen a grand total of none. The fellow at my hotel told me there was one a number of blocks distant. When I got there, it was broken. Just like when I get lost, that familiar stressed feeling began creeping over me. More than an hour later, after I had found and tried other ATMs without success, I met another traveller at the hostel (there were not that many others like me) who told me where she was able to find one. I'll thank the curse of L P for that one!
The next day - actually this was the 13th, so I am getting chronologically a bit out of order - but I'll write about this for the sake of keeping my Aleppo entry unified. We went to see the the dead cities and the monastery of St. Simon. The dead cities were abandoned in the 7th century. No one knows why the locals left, but history has given us some clues: The Persians invaded and pillaged the country side for 30 years. Then the Arabs came and "liberated" the local from the Byzantines who, following the Romans, had ruled it for about 600 years.
Anyway everyone left, and lots of their buildings still stand to some degree. Some people cite earthquakes as the reason for the "death" of the area, and maybe there was an earthquake or two in the 6th century, but some of the stone buildings I saw were in such good shape, that with a new roof, new glass in the windows, and a bit of sweeping, they would be fine to re-inhabit.
The monastery of St. Simon was also abandoned, being in the dead cities region. St. Simon was like the Paris Hilton in his time - the biggest celibrity that everyone knew about (no comments about Ms. Hilton, please) - and people flocked from all over the world to see him.
Times were different then, and instead of infamy, Simon was known for his Christian piety. Okay, so my comparison to Ms. Hilton is an ironic one. Unlike her, Simon was easy enough to meet (if you didn't mind walking all the to Syria from your home country, say France or Italy). That's because, instead of jetsetting, he lived in a little cave as a hermit. But as he became more and more popular, he got sick of harassment, and started living on top of pillars where people couldn't reach him. In order to avoid his intrepid fans, his pillars got higher and higher, until his last one reached some 18 meters. Naturally this spawned a fad all over the world, with other would-be Simons erecting pillars to dwell upon... but like all fads this went the way of the Pog (the what? That's right).
When Simon died, his admirers built a basilica on top of where his pillar stood. This is a bit worse for wear, but impressive in its grandeur nonetheless. In the 10th century, it was turned into a fort. In the 16th, a Kurdish nobleman took some of it down so it would be easier to live inside. In the 21st, it is a oft-visited tourist locale for travellers who have taken the advice of a certain guidebook, which says it is a must-see.
It was time to go to Lattakia. We were told we ought to take a Taxi to the train station. It was supposed to be a taxi ride of 25 Syrian Pounds; about 60 cents.
Let me now explain to get out of a Taxi scam, if you are riding in a taxi and suddenly things start to feel a bit dodgy.
1) If you think that because you tried to agree on a price when you got in, don't think you can sit back and hope that the driver will honour that when you get there. Because now he's rambling on in Arabic about the price of benzine going up, and the numbers on his (crooked) meter are soaring up as if they are counting nanoseconds.
2) Figure out where you are. If it seems like he is zigzaging through the city, start telling the driver where to go with concrete directions. Especially when a three minute cab ride is now well into its tenth minute, and your destination is far off, or when the driver, who knows full well that you want to go to the train station, is doddling around some residental neighbourhood like he has never been there before.
3) If he starts gesturing with one hand "give me money now" and if he's looking at you in the rear view mirror, saying in Arabic, give me dollars, ignore him. Any encouragement will compel him to take his eyes off the road even more. He needs to keep his eyes on the road and be less aroused by the thought that he is going to soak you, because he is about to hit those pedestrians - oh, damn - that was close. Show no fear when he cackles like Ebeneezer Scrooge.
4) When you see your destination, and your cab is not slowing down, force his hand. If he doesn't stop when you are shouting in his ear - stop the goddamn car right now! - and pointing a hole in his floor, indeed because he is laughing like hell, extreme measures are required. Open your passenger door in traffic. He will get the picture. He knows that he will not be able to soak you for more than the price of a new door.
5) Do not get out until the driver stops the car and opens the trunk. Any goofing around on his part, start to open your door into traffic again. He will still fear for that door, because another cab driver just like him may blast it to smithereens.
6) Do get your stuff out of his vehicle ASAP.
7) Do not succumb to his demands of 30 times the agreed price. Hold firm. He may try to enlist people on the street to join him in hassling you, but they are probably honest folk. Listen carefully for key words borrowed from English. If the cab driver says airport, and you were picked up in the city centre, say the street you were picked up at. The honest folk wills doubt the driver. But they probably never believed him in the first place: Taxi drivers are taxi drivers! (no appologies).
8) When the driver, who is now offering to settle for less and less, finally gets to an amount, near to what you agreed on, go for it and bolt. Remember what his amount actually mean in your currency, and ignore the handful of zeros that boggle your mind when on the local banknotes. Once you are gone, there will be nothing he can do.
I settled for double the price: $1.10.
Well, we did manage to get the train, thanks to a helpful attendant at the tourist information, and my knowledge of French. She ended up getting us tickets to Lattakia, 180 km away, for 91 cents each. Phil remarked to me that even India, where he had visited last summer, was not as cheap as this. Hence my title: the cheapest country on Earth.
* The only thing that I have noticed at all on the subject has been an Arabic poster in a shop window in Tortosa, professionally printed, encouraging a boycott on Danish products. While my Arabic is still poor, it was easy to tell its subject matter, because it had the logos of maybe 25 or 30 Danish companies, including Lego, and printed overtop was the universal big red circle with a slash through it! I also had a Faxe Danish beer: I may have been drinking up a bit history, considering that there won't be any more of that coming in any time soon.
