Lebanon

Beitrut is a strange clash of cultures, it's East meets West with more West and none of the homogenity of Istanbul - Change comes back a mix of US dollars and Lebanese lira, conversations switch between Arabic and French, early 70s and late model mercedes clog the streets in equal proportions, and, of course, the community is deeply divided on socio/religious grounds. It feels somewhat confused.

Despite its history and still precarious state, Beruit feels safe enough to walk alone through the city streets in the early morning (one of the great things about middle eastern countries). It's home to the remains of countless pockmarked buildings cum bunkers, Quaint 50s european architecture, Hip little bars where sunglassed patrons down shots to the sounds of pulp and the velvet underground (no, its not me sitting alone in my hotel room), austentatious restaurants and clubs fortied by a ring of late model Porches and the odd lamborghini. A local advises that the famous nightlife is fueled by years of uncertainty, pending war and the resultant tendancy to live for the moment. That attitude, and perhaps new money pouring in results in a shallow surface exemplified by the prevalence of bling and plastic surgury ... the Maimi of the middle east. I was wondering where the resources originated until the ATM both short changed me and doled out a fake $50.

With no motorcycle rental to allow the hit and run I had planned for lebanon, I chanced my thumb ... the second lift was a 5min ride in a brown 70s mercedes in which time the driver managed to explain he was gay, ask if I had had sex in lebanon, enquire about the size of my johnson and if he could view the afore mention appendage, all before slipping his hand on my leg and simultaneously crashing his car. The busses and taxis were frequent and cheap.

Heading north I visited the spectacular Jaetta grotto before spending a night in Byblos - a historic and quaint port that mercifully breaks the seam of grey high rises clinging to the coast. Keen to keep away from souless hotels in such a beautiful setting, I slept on boat of a local who woke up drunk after spending the night slurring in fractured english about his love for his estranged Russian wife and daughter. After a quick visit to Bcharre - perched atop the steep and deep quaida valley and below the bare lebanon ranges it was time to head to Israel via Beirut, Damascus and Jordan.

(Oh, an addend for those that read my Syria post: In an effort to rid the country of the traditional veil Attaturk issued an edict requiring prostitutes to wear them ... genius!)

 

 

 

 

Syria

I split a taxi with a couple of guys across the border to Syria hoping travelling with locals would help smooth over the fact that I had no visa. Fortunately, counter to the guidebook insistence, the crossing was smooth with no palms required greasing. 30 cups of tea, and 200 cigarettes later I found myself in a time warp in Aleppo where I got lost in the labyrinth souq I and quickly discovered that Syria has some of the best fresh juices and street food on the planet!

From Aleppo I headed to Latakia so to experience being the least hairy guy on the beach for my first time ... even then I nearly failed in my objective. The public beach is the location of choice - women swimming with hijabs and life jackets, friendly men smoking hookahs and boys (well, men actually) peering through walls into the exclusive hotel section of the beach to catch a glimpse of the liberal lipsticked gals in bikinis. With all this I couldn't help but overlook that the beach was cut from the same cloth as Queenstown football oval and the water looked kinda like it had just been used to wash the nations clothes.

After Latakia it was on to the Crusader castle of Crac Des Chevaliers stopping overnight to check out the quaint town of Hama with its giant creaking norias (waterwheels) kind of on the way. I don't know much about castles other than: I got a cardboard cutout one for my birthday which as destroyed before I could make it (Mum ever so wisely never revealing the perpetrator), Rick had the big Lego one (spaceships was my Lego of choice), and that they generally look cool. Lawrence of Arabia probably knew a bit more so I´ll go with his description of the Crac des Chevaliers as "perhaps the best preserved and most wholly admirable castle in the world". It looks big but is deceptively huger (surely not a word, but should be). However, being holed up in a castle in the middle of a desert for a few decade sausage fest while Saladin ignores you and takes out the easier castles and the surrounding territory takes shine of a knights armour, so I used my thumb and a bus to leave for Damascus (actually, with the methods and motives for the crusades about as dubious, and successful, as Bush's war on Iraq, the shinning armour had lost its appeal a while ago).

Damascus is a city unlike any other I have visited. One of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world, it is infused with the times it has seen. While the tourist buses, touts and modernity shout in Istanbul and the Pyramids scream in Cairo, Damascus murmurs its age through everything within its walls ... the bullet scarred souq, story telling shop owner, hammams, grand courtyards, cobble stone streets, trapezoidal buildings, narrow lanes, churches, mosques, hookahs, backgammon, dark gloves, tight jeans, Shiite pilgrims, Arabic students, smoking dens and ice cream parlours. With no big ticket items to distract (unless your a Shiite Muslim looking for the sparkliest Mosque on the planet), the city is the attraction, its wrinkled flesh more affecting and enjoyable than so many protected skeletons.

But wait, there's more! The people are friendly (as they are throughout the country), generally wondering why the hell you bothered to visit their country. And it offers fantastic food: Where else can you eat at a restaurant frequented by the popular & iconic president (whose aviator clad silhouette obscures many a car window), choose between sitting in a charming courtyard or a beautifully breezy rooftop, eat an exquisite three course meal, smoke a hookah and still get enough change from a 20 to eat almost as well from one of the variety of shopfront restaurants the following day. To top it off this particular restaurant offered its own version of "stuffed aborigines" - which were much more palatable than that dished up over the centuries by the Australian government and its constituents!

I loved Damascus, it is likely to remain favourite city of the trip, and whats more, It doesn't feel like a city about to change; so you only have to make sure you get there before you find an Israel stamp in your passport. I left Damascus wondering just how different Beirut could be.