The Axis of Evil (allegedly)

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  Damascus, Syria
Saturday, June 21, 2008

Bloody Hell!! The taxi fare from the bus station in Damascus to my hotel was £150!! With the current exchange rate running at about £100 Syrian to £1 Sterling, that wasn't too much of a hit though.....
The drive up into Syria from Northern Jordan is a bit like travelling through a dust bowl. Between Jordan and Syria is one serious border, complete with concrete walls, watch towers, razor wire, the works. I got the impression from Western media that the Syrian border is very leaky, with people wandering in and out of Iraq carrying RPG's and the like - I can't speak for further east, but that certainly isn't the case here.
For once being a foreigner worked to my advantage. There are "Syrian", "Arab" and "Foreigner" queues at Passport Control, and only one other person in the Foreigner queue (the other queues were packed). Result! Or so I thought until I realised that the guy in front of me was holding the passports of an entire coach-load of Malaysian tourists. Immigration actually seemed far more interested in scouring my passport for Israeli stamps than inspecting my hard won Syrian visa

Umayyad mosque, Damascus

. Malaysians notwithstanding, 10 minutes and I was through.
Syria is far greener than Jordan (although that isn't saying a lot - Southern Syria is actually just a different shade of beige, with some green bits on top). There's a huge difference between the two countries as soon as you cross the border though. If Northern Jordan was a bit of a desert, then here there are crops growing: watermelons, potatoes, wheat and the like. Judging by the Italian and Dutch trucks out in the countryside this is a country that exports food.
If Amman was a bit bland, Damascus has character in spades and I'm really taken with the place. It's human sized, atmospheric, shambolic, full of fantastic buildings, and safe (but be careful you don't fall down a giant pothole or get run over). In Beijing I got the impression that I'd dropped in on 6,000 years of history, but this place is much much older - historians can demonstrate continuous occupation of Damascus for more than 8,000 years. Big bits of central Damascus and the Old Town look to be crumbling away, but maybe it's always been like this - one bit falls down and you put another bit in its place. My 2* hotel in Damascus was also a step up from my 5* in Amman. The room boy sorted out my laundry for less than 5 pounds, and on the street outside I got my long suffering shoes polished until they gleamed. Including the soles for some reason......
Since the Trans Siberian Express, my diet has become increasingly bizarre - something I need to sort out when I get home

Souk, Damascus

. The day I arrived, I'm ashamed to say that my entire food intake consisted of 1 bowl of Rice Krispies, a mulberry juice slush puppy, and 2 plain ice creams, rolled in crushed pistachios - it must be the heat. The Syrians are doing their best to feed me up though. The restaurants all play the same game here: they put stuff on the table as though it was included in the price of the meal (eg bread), then stick it on the bill if you so much as look at it. If you leave it alone, they'll try and tempt you with something else. In one place, I left everything alone for quite a while, just to see what would happen - I ended up with a jumbo bowl of popcorn, a dish of carrots and cucumber, a bowl of mixed nuts, a plate of home made crisps and a chocolate pudding - there was no room left on the table, or I'm sure they'd have found more. Food is good value here though - a nice meal costs around £2-£3, and breakfast (a full Syrian!) about £1.
A couple of days in, I hired a driver to take me round some of the sights outside Damascus. We started off back down near the Jordanian border at the Roman ruins of Bosra - the driver was a bit of a character, to put it mildly. Just outside Damascus, he pulled up at a coffee place (on the hard shoulder of a dual carriageway, under a flyover). He handed them a mug, which they washed out, filled with coffee and we're away - I'm now a passenger in a car that's doing 90mph, with a driver who has a mug of coffee in one hand, and a cigarette and mobile phone in the other

Damascus skyline

. When both his hands are eventually free, he has the less than endearing habit of shooting any soldiers that he sees (and there are lots of soldiers) with a pretend rifle - even when we've stopped at an army checkpoint. He thinks it's hilarious, I'm not convinced.
It was a fascinating day out though, from the oldest and largest Roman theatre and ruined city of Bosra (where I was the only visitor), up to the Shia shrine and Mosque of Sayidda Zeinab just outside Damascus. In the Bosra area, we passed the Golan Heights which is Druze territory. The Druze are an interesting lot that I was vaguely aware of from the Lebanese Civil War (as in "Druze Militia"). My driver gave up shooting soldiers and sounded his horn every time he saw a Druze, so that we could get a look at their enormous moustaches.
Syria is a much more politicised country than Jordan, and as well as pictures and statues of the Assad dynasty, there are Palestinian flags absolutely everywhere. No wonder really - there are between 500,000 and 1 million Palestinian refugees here, and this is on top of the 2 million Iraqi refugees living in Syria. Then of course there is the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967. The Israelis claim that this is absolutely vital for their security, whilst the Syrians will tell you that it's actually about water - the Golan Heights is one of the best places for water in the region, and the Israelis want to hang on to it. I've got to say that I think the Syrian argument is more plausible.
Aleppo, Syria
Bus travel in Syria is easy and cheap - I travelled practically the length of the country up to Aleppo near the Turkish border for about £2

Crooked house - Straight Street, Damascus

. On the buses they generally close all the curtains and show very bad Arab films, often starring a weedy guy in glasses - a sort of Arab Woody Allen. They also like to run the buses with the engine covers raised, presumably to help keep the engine cool. In the UK, Health and Safety would have a fit.
Aleppo vies with Damascus for the title of "Oldest Continuously Inhabited City" - this is another city that is at least 8,000 years old, but it feels very different to Damascus. My hotel is in the old Christian quarter and it's an absolutely gorgeous place. It has been constructed from a number of old houses that have been restored and then knocked together - very much in the style of  a Marrakesh riad. It also has a lovely rooftop restaurant, grossly overstaffed with the usual barely competent waiters - think Basil Fawlty meets the Keystone Cops.....
I went up to the Barons Hotel to watch Turkey versus Germany in Euro 2008. This place is an institution, and guests have included Lawrence of Arabia and Agatha Christie (Aleppo was part of the setting for Murder on the Orient Express) - in WW2 British officers used to practice fox hunting in the bar. These days the hotel is seedy, frayed around the edges and slowly falling apart - a fantastic place! Incredibly, this is also where I met our man from the Foreign Office........
I've got a bit of a problem - the next stop on my itinerary is the Lebanon, scene of the most vicious civil war that I can remember. Originally, I was going to visit in 2006, but the Israelis put paid to that when they bombed Southern Lebanon, South Beirut and the airport

Umayyad mosque 2, Damascus

. The situation seemed to have improved lately and so I thought I'd give it another go - then while I was in Japan, it all kicked off again. From what I understand, there was an attempted coup by Hezbullah, who turned their weapons away from the Israelis and trained them on fellow Lebanese - an incredibly dangerous thing for the country. Scores of people were killed, and for a little while it looked as though Lebanon was on the brink of another civil war. Things have calmed down a bit since then, and it's back on my schedule - but the Foreign Office are still classing it as "Essential Travel Only". This may cause problems with my insurance if anything happens while I'm there.
I asked the Foreign Office guy what it was all about - at one point Lebanon was being classed as more dangerous than Iraq or Afghanistan, which is clearly absurd. It was quite an interesting conversation really. Apparently Iraq and Afghanistan have been downgraded for political reasons (to make it look as though the US and UK are "succeeding" I suppose), and since the Bali bombing the Foreign Office are so frightened of the British press that their advice is now ultra-cautious. And if that means ruining the livelihoods of people trying to earn a crust in countries on the "Don't Visit" list just to keep the Daily Mail happy? Then so be it.
  

So, "To go, or not to go? That is the question"................I'm going.     

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Sayyida Zeinab Mosque	...and I think you made it up	View from my room (balcony actually), Damascus	Umayyad mosque 3, Damascus
Umayyad mosque 4, Damascus	Roman arch and building site, Damascus	Hezbullah bulldozer, Damascus	Mulberry juice seller, Damascus
Ice cream to die for - Bekdach, Damascus	Stone tableau, Roman Theatre, Bosra	Roman Theatre, Bosra	All the world's a stage, Bosra
Tunnels - Roman Theatre, Bosra	Roman city, Bosra	Roman city 2, Bosra	Roman city 3, Bosra
Roman city 4, Bosra	3rdC Mosaics, Shahba	Sayyida Zeinab Mosque	Sayyida Zeinab Mosque 2
Sayyida Zeinab Mosque 3	Sayyida Zeinab Mosque 4	New Town, Aleppo	Giant water pipes, Aleppo
Citadel, Aleppo	Courtyard, Aleppo	Aleppo from the Citadel	Maronite Cathedral, Aleppo
Souk, Aleppo	Archway, Aleppo	New Town 2, Aleppo

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