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Castle Explorer
Entry 22 of 120 | show all | print this entry |
In this entry, I will discuss the Syrian bus system and the nature of ruins in Syria. I may include a number of casual "by the way" comments, but I am really going to try to not ramble on about Syria is so cheap. I do understand that this sort of gloating easily becomes old hat.
But at the same time, my self discipline is very weak (and like the traveller's platitude goes, "travelling is the best way to get to know yourself") and I am finding out exactly how weak that is when it comes to sleeping in (near daily now) and also when it comes to getting my way (I have become a stubborn bastard who will walk four miles in the rain if required, or I will walk away from a thirty cent rip-off). But enough about me.
And now for a short explanation of the bus system. Wow. Do you also feel that my writing in this entry is verging on a sort of slapstick self-awareness? Perhaps this new communicative style is partly due to the fact that recently I have been speaking with many people whose mother language is not English, and subconsciously I feel my linguistic subtleties are not fully appreciated, therefore I have an extra inclination to over-explain myself for the benefit of my listener (that was in Lebanon, yes this entry was written 8 days after the fact). Well - apparently the last line of the previous paragraph expected too much.
Perhaps now I will start to explain the bus system. Either that or I will relentlessly type about how travelling is leading me out of touch. In the first place, an eleven year old boy playing the tout led us to the bus to "Tartous Tartous Tartooooous!" Well child labour isn't that unusual in most countries. Maybe he looks young for his age - and remember, for all I know he is 12 - that would be legal in Alberta.
In my first entry I mentioned that there is a certain stigma about Syria because of its government. On a more overt level the goverment here wants to know about the people on its territory. Like in the EU, it is obligatory for hoteliers to have passport information of their guests on hand. If I were to remain in Syria for more than 15 consecutive days, I would also have to register with the Immigration Ministry. I had to go to the Police station in Lattakia to sort that information out.
But most pervasive and yet benign is the fact that any time I use intercity public transportation (except when I buy a bus, for example), ticket vendors (train, bus and taxi) are obligated to copy information down from my identity card. In one instance, taking the Bus from Tartous to Qala'at Marqab (a crusader castle on the coast, see below), I wasn't even given a ticket. Before the bus pulled out, the driver got a copy of the passanger manifest and that was that. And that was just for a 25 minute drive.
Yet, sometimes I wonder what these ticket vendors write when they see my passport. It is written only in Engish and French, I wonder sometimes what these monolingual Syrian speakers are writing on my ticket. Sometimes they verbally comfirm my name, other times they say my city, other times my province... Aha. I look at a ticket and try to discern if the scribble says my name or Mr. Alberta.
Phil had a bizarre anecdote for me: travelling in Iran, where similar practices occur, a local translated his ticket for him from Farsi to English. The scribble said "Mr. Tourist."
In a short order after arriving from Lattakia, the hotelier in the pension which Phil and I had chosen found a service taxi to drive us to the renowned Krak de Chevaliers (Knight's Castle). It lies 70 km inland from Tartous and the Mediterranean coast. It was a good deal. Fifty minutes and no speedometer later, we were at the top of the best preserved Crusader castle in the entire Middle East.
It is as complete a castle as I have ever seen in my life!
There are roofs on all of the buildings! On the stables, on the church, in the walls, and so on and so forth. Rare is the ruin that has a roof. Perhaps actually having a roof is in contravention of a building being a ruin. Perhaps with a roof, it is simply in a state of abandon! Oh semantic tribulations!
Narrow staircases are hidden in the walls, so to find the way up to the next level, one must explore every nook and cranny, and see every single little room just in case there is a concealed stair. It is possible in some places to get inside the thickest walls at the base of the castle, and explore the long, narrow corridors, where archers once hid whilst shooting their longbows. The towers are so complete that it is possible to see the murder holes in the ceilings (should the enemy ever get into the base of the tower, things are dropped upon them), to see the slits in the wall where arrows may be fired from a stair into a room, or where the walls double back or zig and zag to give the defender an advantage in hand to hand combat.
A flashlight was essential in exploring the nooks - I had one on my multi tool (thanks to a gimmick in a 12 pack of Western Ale or something) and it allowed me to explore the depths of cisterns and storage areas that I never would have otherwise dared, given the wet steps in pitch darkness (one part went lower than the moat, and I think the moat was leaking).
In short, there was nothing disapponting about this castle except that the knights weren't there any more (probably a good thing given their lack of hygenic practices). And, since they have been gone such a long time, there are no relics of their presence except the massive structure that attests to their efforts. There is neither any evidence of their sitting long hours at windows, scratching their crests into the stones.
For, in 1936, the castle was partly restored and the most badly worn limestone blocks were replaced (and recently too, as some blocks were not of stone but of styrofoam, just to complete an unslightly gap in the wall!) But it is not Disneyified in any way (it doesn't even have a castle store), it is simply that the castle was in need of a bit of a tiding up.
At the very end of my visit, I found myself atop the South West tower. The view from the top was astounding - to the south loomed the snow-capped mountains of Lebanon. To the East lies a vast cultivated plain, and to the West, great hills separated me from the Mediterranean Sea. And cradled in the valley below is the original Monastery of St. George.
It is a wonder why the crusaders ever left the Krak. It was besieged many a time by the armies of Islam. In the end, it was given up without a fight by the beleagured garrison. They had the supplies to hold out for five years, but after only a few months they capitulated and were given free passage to elsewhere.
By that time, it was late in the 13th century and the Crusades were completely out of fashion in Europe. Noblemen had realised that crusading may have been Holy, but leaving home for years was bad for one's material fortunes. There wasn't any plunder left to pillage, or it was too hard to get from the Arabs. And then there was the fact that so many dedicated crusaders (the ones who were there with relatively more sacred dedication) were monks. The blatanly obvious problem was that they were not propogating themselves. I would have liked to know the average age of the Krak's last defenders. Were they all grey haired, hobbling around like men at an extended care home, yet wearing suits of armour?
But soon enough our visit came to an end, and we were wisked back to Tartous. On the way, the radio played music by Chris Isaac, and a host of other older bands. There is a lot of 80s music. It made me wonder about royalties - does Chris Isaac get royalties when his music is played in Syria. Does he even know that his music is played in Syria?
For that matter, there is a lot of knock off stuff here too. Some are N I K E socks manufactured in the Syrian Arab Republic. They do fit well. A doll in toy stores name Fulla Boy who looks suspiciously like Barbie. Megablocks which look suspiciously like Lego. Oh wait. Those come from Montreal. And then there was a salesman who told me that his folding knives that have "made in South Africa" written on the blade are actually made in Syria too. He tried to get me to buy a switchblade instead! I bought neither. I have a knife with a flashlight!
Then on the 15th, I went to see Qala'at Marqab. Phil took off for Palmyra that morning, and I got on that bus without a ticket (see above) to Banias. It was another bus without anything in the instrument panel connected to the motor. Part way there, the driver pulled over for gas and payed with a requisition form.
It's not like getting gas is such a worthwhile thing to mention, except that only in this part of the world have I ever seen bus drivers buy gas in 25 liter incriments. Usually they pump just enough to get to the destination and to the gas station on the next trip. I wonder if they don't have enough cash on hand to just fill up the tank outright.
I reached Qala'at Marquab with the help of another bought out vehicle. This one reminded me of the need to carry small bills - I tried paying with the Syrian equivalent of $CDN 20 note (except here it has the relative value of $100) and the driver had to give me virtually all of his change (he got a bit of a deal). Clearly these drivers do not have the cash on hand.
I had the Qala'at to myself! This was another crusader castle, but one which fell to Beybars (the 2nd greatest Islamic commander of the Middle Ages, after Saladin). It has a marvellous location, but the ground is soft, and Beybars sapped the walls (dug beneath them, and then burned the supports). When they fell down, his forces stormed the castle and met success.
I could rewrite what I said about the Krak, but in this case not every building still had its roof. But there were little warrens and corridors to explore, and it was dark! because it was made with not white stone but black basalt. It offered a great view of lush, green and partly terraced Syrian hills, a cement plant, hot houses by the Sea and a half dozen tankers off the coast. The wind howled. But I was content.
And then I went back to Tartous. There, I took the time to explore that cities ruins. I walked through the old city - once a crusader stronghold, like the Krak or Qala'at Marqab. Except I could not explore freely, for in this old city, guard towers had become people's homes, as had interior buildings and even all the walls were joined to homes.
There were four gates in the old city; each has a narrow road, where drivers honk a warning before continuing through. Trash is piled in all the narrow spaces, rendering them unvisitable (for obvious reasons). All things being equal, seeing the contrast between the two sorts of ancient sites gives me a great preference for the abandoned castle. The inhabited one is less hospitable to the visitor and his imagination.
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