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| Sipping tea across the road from the Aleppo Citadel |
Well it's a Sunday night in Syria, it's only 7:30 PM and
pitch black outside, there are dogs howling and barking outside the van and I'm
bored. Once night falls, activities are severely limited, and if the mosquitoes
are biting, we’re pretty much trapped inside the van. Mostly that's fine, with my
guitar or writing or sitting around talking filling the void. But every now and
then, after two and a half months of van living, I yearn for something else
to do. The daytime is easy, surrounded by new things to see and places to go,
but sometimes the fee for new daytime adventures is a bored isolated night or
two. On the whole, a very small price to pay for travelling the world, but
nevertheless, when these times occur, a pain in the arse.
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| Lonely Planet recommended hotel |
The days in Syria have been excellent. Two of them so far.
Yesterday, after waking up next to the factories, with a whole lot of workers
sitting nearby taking in the strange sight of our van with the roof up and the
bikes on the back, we drove back into Aleppo to look for a hotel. Finding your
way around the city proved much easier in the daytime and by around midday we
had checked into a Lonely Planet recommended hotel that, by its recommendation,
indicated that the other hotels around there must have been pretty shoddy. This
one wasn't too bad, but certainly wasn't anything flash. Still, it had a sit
down toilet and steaming hot water for the shower which were the main reasons
that we hadn't just camped again on the street. After agreeing to pay 400
Syrian pounds (about 6 pounds sterling) we set off for the citadel in the heart
of Aleppo. Mostly it was just a pile of bricks and rubble enclosed by an
impressive wall on a hill looking down on the surrounding city. The entrance fee was
600 Syrian pounds, a night and a half's accommodation, which seemed a
bit of a scam. In fact we seem to be getting ripped off at most quarters. Either
that or there is a strange balance of values in this land. A delicious meal of
falafel and salad rolled up in pita bread costs only 20 piastres, yet a small
glass full of hot water with a Lipton teabag jiggling in the cup costs 25 piastres.
Something is going on somewhere. We drank our tea in the cafe across the road
from the citadel and watched the people going by and around us. A group of four
young guys sat at a table nearby playing cards, each smoking a big hookah pipe,
sending the sweet strawberry water-cooled smoke billowing into the air. Men
walked by in all manner of robes and headdress, from very elegant pristine
flowing robes and bright white headgear, to guys in tatty dress like garments with
red and white checked keffiyes on their heads. The women we saw were mostly
scarfed, but they also had a good deal of variety in headdress. Some wore colours or florals
that just covered their hair, others had similar head covering but in a more
conservative austere black, while some women had black veils to completely
cover their faces, causing one to wonder how they avoided walking into walls. A
minority of the people wore jeans or clothes that would be considered "western".
A man led his donkey laden with sacks through the throng of speeding, honking
traffic and pedestrians. There was a bustle of activity everywhere. When we
finished our tea, we made our way to the old souks, or covered markets, where
we whiled away a few hours among the sellers of lamb’s wool, silver and gold
jewellery and the obligatory carpets.
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| Under the ever watchful eye of President Assad's son Bashar. |
Other stalls had barrels of various
coloured spices, or pistachios and cashews, filling the air with their alluring
smell. Then of course there were the fruit and vegetable sellers, loudly
hawking their fresh produce, and the meat sellers with tubs of goats heads and
trays of testicles sitting alongside the more common cuts of meat, bringing
home the reality that this was an animal carcass far more readily than a piece
of sirloin steak does. We were enticed into a small jewellery store where we
chatted for about half an hour about Australia and Syria while looking at the
wares on offer. We ended up leaving with a necklace for Tori made of silver and
lapis lazuli (a.k.a. pretty blue stone) and having had some excellent
conversation. I have no idea if the necklace price was reasonable for the Syrian market,
but it was certainly good by western standards and the fun we had in their
store certainly made it all great value. Immediately from there we were
solicited into a tea shop by a well-dressed, eloquently-spoken man who told us
of his plans to set up a tourist service business and who, I have to admit, I
was sure was just looking for us to employ his services in some manner or
other. As it turned out, he was just after a bit of a chat. It's hard not to
get paranoid in these markets. Everybody seems to have a good angle to part you
from your money albeit in an extremely friendly way. We wandered around some more after we left him, past the
bridal gown shops, the row of tailors making suits, the potbellied stove stalls
and the mosque for when buyers and sellers alike needed to duck in for a quick
prayer to Allah. When we finally emerged from the markets and made our way back
to the van, night had fallen. We dropped our bags off at the hotel and then
drove around the city looking for somewhere quiet to make some dinner. We
finally ended up in a quiet street beside a mosque with a tall spire crowned by
a green lit minaret. Well it was quiet when we got there but it didn't take too
long for a curious crowd to gather. Again the bikes on the back of the van seemed
to be the main attraction. Again a common language was elusive. One of the kids
on his bike came over and gave Tori and I a biscuit that he had just grabbed
from inside his house; a beautiful and quite tasty gesture of friendship. I
showed them our bikes, then we packed up the van for the night and proceeded to
walk back to our hotel room. At least we tried to, but unfortunately we found
navigation on foot to be as difficult as that in the car. After taking 45
minutes to walk around in a circle ending up only 200m from where the van was
parked, we decided that it would be more prudent to catch a cab. The driver
took us back to our mosquito infested room for 80 Syrian pounds; not too bad
considering we couldn't communicate with him, he didn't have a metre, we didn't
agree a fair upfront, and I only had a £200 note. He had had a golden
opportunity to rip us off blind but declined to take advantage of us. That certainly wouldn't have happened in London with most of the minicab drivers I'd met.
This morning, after taking advantage of our hot shower,
we checked out of the hotel and caught a cab across town to where we had left
the car. Still safe and sound. We jumped in and began the search for the road
towards to Damascus, again going round in circles and ending up once more confused
and frustrated. We stopped to ask directions and a young guy who appeared to be
a student offered to jump in and direct us to the freeway. We accepted and in quick
time he had us on the right road. He jumped out and we drove down the highway,
bopping along to some loud tunes, buoyed again by the friendliness of strangers. As we drove we took in the sights of the semi desert with
its red clay and sand, and a few scant attempts at olive groves, dotted between
villages of concrete blocks masquerading as houses. The wide open spaces were
punctuated occasionally by small tent villages of brightly-clothed earthy looking
people, perhaps Bedouin. Hitchhikers dotted the sides of the road every couple
of hundred metres, mostly men in suits or men in robes and headdress.
Occasionally there would be stalls selling fruit or even at one point, house
bricks. But always the barren red desert stretching off into the hills towards Lebanon.
The highway was excellent once we were on it. Even the signs were helpful for
us foreigners, being in English as well as Arabic. The flat straight road was a
far cry from the pine forested winding mountain roads of the Turkish
Mediterranean coast of only a few days earlier, where a goatherd complete with herd
of goats, motioned to me for a cigarette as we were driving past. We had some
cigarettes and so stopped to give him the packet and some matches. He was so
grateful he embraced me and kissed me on both cheeks. Quite a dubious honour to
be kissed by an odorous stubble faced goatherd, but I was glad to have made him
so happy.
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| Chatting with a local donkey while the killer dog lurks in the background |
We drove on through the Syrian countryside until we
reached Hama, where we stopped for lunch. It looks like quite a picturesque and
interesting place with large water wheels (norias) turning on the river, once
used to supply drinking water and irrigation for the town, but now purely
ornamental. From there we continued on to the ultimate destination of the day,
the 12th century Crusade castle Crak des Chevaliers. It sits perched high on a
mountain top above the town of Qala’at al-Hosn and is still in very good nick.
It is at the restaurant beside the castle (about 100m up the road) where we are
camped tonight with quite spectacular views below. We arrived too late to see the
inside of the castle today (but amazingly not at night), so will go and have a
look tomorrow morning. The only event of any note in the late afternoon was the
killer dog in the chicken coop drama, especially as he had pretty much been led
there inadvertently by us on our walk into town. If I hadn't have grabbed him
by the neck and back and dragged him off, the big white rooster would have been
the dog’s dinner. As it was he lost quite a few feathers and ended up in a
serious state of shock. I guess the family who own him will perhaps chop his head
off and eat him soon enough anyway.
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| Camped next to the restaurant for the night |
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| The town of Qala’at al-Hosn from above |
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| View from Crac des Chevaliers over Qala’at al-Hosn |
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| View from Crac des Chevaliers over Qala’at al-Hosn |
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| Inside Crac des Chevaliers |
