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I have embedded a few photos into this text too...]
Thursday, I leave my hotel in Damascus late... as I have been doing every second day or two. Syria is an intense place! It is good to spend some time alone in the hotel capsule, as it seems to refresh me and bring me to put more energy into what time I have, rather than trying to squeeze every little drop out of the time I have, which I find tiring and flags my enthusiasm.
Today, I get to the Damascus museum at 11.45 or so and it closes in front of me until 2pm! So I decide to leave Syria and head towards Lebanon, which has always been my plan. I get my bags from the hotel and take a taxi to the place where international taxi's depart.
It is madness there.
As soon as getting out I am mobbed by dozens of taxi drivers making me offers for a trip to beirut. One man says 700 Syrian pounds, which is 10 euros, which seems excessively cheap and I ask double check with this is just for me to go to Beirut and he says yes. By the time he puts my bag in the boot of his big car, he says that 5 times 700 = 3500, which is like 50 euro for me to go to Beirut. (about $90 AUS)
I am not really willing to do that... the problem is that there are no gringos who are going to Beirut. I find a group of five Americans all speaking arabic to each other, but they have a full car. It is quite a scene actually and I am keen to just get out of there, but cannot justify a whole car to myself... and yet I don't really want to drive in a crowded car there full of people who possibly don't speak English. (even though it would be cheap!)
After about half an hour I see a tall brown skinned woman surrounded by men all haggling for her attention. I say, "are you going to Beirut?" and she says she is. I ask her if she wants to share the taxi with me, and she says she does and so off we go!
She is an American born, of Peruvian descent, who lives in Washington DC and who I will call Verona.
We are both the first independant traveler that the other has seen in Syria and we have a good talk along the way. Getting into Lebanon is really easy in comparison to Syria.
She says she wants to go see Byblos (some ruins and a fishing town) straight away and I say that sounds good, I would be into that too, we can share taxi costs.
As soon as we enter Lebanon, everything feels different.
There is strange kind of atmospheric compression in Syria... not altogether unpleasant, but going into Lebanon, it is like the roof has been taken off!
As soon as we get into Lebanon, it is clear we are back in the western world - with Starbucks and all these little and big accutrements of consumer capitalism you only take notice of them, when you haven't had them present for some time!
So we get a good deal on a taxi to Byblos. And going out of beirut the first thing I notice is how many billboards there are here... it is really quite extraordinary.... many of them very risque, nothing that would be tolerated in Syria at all!
Byblos was quite lovely actually... and I wasn't expecting it. Flowers are growing everywhere, the sea is emerald and the people are at ease. The atmosphere is exotic and fresh... truly cosmopolitan. Having been a major trading port for many thousands of years, this makes sense I guess!
The roman ruins are the same as what you usually see... and after walking through them, we go walk by the sea and have a beer at Pepe's bar on the water. Pepe is dead now, but you could see photo after photo of him with "name your favourite star from the 30's to the 70's" They would have yachted there from all over Europe.
I find a very small christian church that night and also a Church where the people near the church invited us to a feast for St Germain that Thursday....
That night I am taken out to dinner with one of Verona's male friends, Giorgio, we are literally on the water and the waves crash 10 metres from us, while the band plays inside and people dance and smoke aromatic nargilehs. (nobody here knows what a hookah is!)
Then we go to a very crowded bar full of expats and other international types. The funny thing I am getting about the Lebanese, is that in Australia, I think we have all these ideas about who the Lebanese are. I have to say, the stereotypes and public image of Lebanese in Australia are not very good and I think quite distorted.
And being here, it is good to see and be with the very diverse people's here... especially, the boho Lebanese in this bar, with the women wearing makeup like it is the late 60's!
Again, it is a matter of breaking through this one dimensional, overtly mental view of a race of people's or a group of peoples, and just coming to understand the diversity and yet also the threads and similarities which make up these peoples as part of what human beings are.
Giorgio see's a cute Lebanese girl at the bar... and they are clearly having some flirty eye contact. Later, I ask him about the possibilities with Lebanese girls, considering their religion and so on.
He said, basically... nothing is supposed to happen in this society, but if you understand that and realise that it does anyway, in an invisible way and realise how to make any dynamic invisible... then it is just the same as anywhere.
Funnily enough, he talked about the women wearing the birka's and said he found that more sexy than a revealed face!
He also mentioned that cosmetic surgery to create a hymen, for women who want to appear virgins at marriage, is a huge business in Lebanon. I suspect Lebanon makes a great deal of its money by being the most liberal country in the middle east.
As we stayed up to 3am that morning, it is a late start the next day, but Verona and I hire a car and go to Baalbek, the biggest temple complex the roman's ever built. It was actually their last "hurrah", before Christianity took hold.
On the way there, we find a very beautiful mosque which we take photos of.
And then when we get there, it seems we are the only one's there! (turns out there about 8 other people there!)
Baalbek really is quite something, and looks like it would have been as impressive as the Vatican in its day. Apparently the Roman's really wanted to impress the locals with their might... it is estimated 100,000 slaves worked on the site over 150 years and it was never really finished, and kind of semi-converted into a Christian place of worship as the romans gave old "baal" was given the shove for Christ!
Being in Lebanon without tourists is great! Everywhere else, this place would be swarming with tourists.
And I actually feel very safe in Lebanon. Unless the Israeli's decide to invade, it is very safe place I think. There are lots of checkpoints and once, I drove straight through one... until I was waved down and Verona told me to stop! The dude picked up his automatic weapon half his size and came towards us a bit ominously... but when I told him I was from Australia and this was my third checkpoint, and he smiled and waved me through! People in the middle east are good like this... they generally don't bother you with petty beurocracies or cause you any problems because everything is not in "order".
When I got my visa into Syria, I didn't have an address for my visa application. I tried to remember the name of the hotel, but couldn't. I told the uniformed guys my dilemma and I brainstormed with them for a little bit until they chuckled and said not to worry about it!
Whereas, I have friends who have terrorised by officials at American airport for hours because they forgot to bring a written address!
On our way back to Beirut, we go to a ruined Ummayad city Anjaar... which has some quite interesting arches I take some photos of.
Then we eat out at this huge restaurant where they serve us, among other things, ballooned potatos!
And then I drive back to Beirut. Driving in Lebanon, especially Beirut, is something else. The rules are there are no rules. People usually don't use their indicator and basically, you really have to push and shove to get anywhere.
Also, it is quite common for people to go extremely fast, not just speeding, but really taking it to the limit on city streets. It is common for cars to be going directly towards you on the wrong side of the road (seriously, all the time!).....added to this, there are always *two* teenage boys on little scooters without helmets swerving around madly in front of you, and people just sauntering across the road without a care in the world, and then there is the very common driver just crawling along at a snails pace, and the squeeling tyres of some hotrodder in a souped up car and you have a lot of potential trouble. But strangely enough... everyone seems to get to where they are going.
People are quite regularly braking quite suddenly, swerving around, screeching their tyres, backing up, lurching forward very fast and suddenly. Nobody uses their horn much...maybe because it is all horn.
I realised, driving in Beirut, you just have to fall in into this warfare in order to survive and NOT end up scared, stuck, in the middle of a traffic island, being assaulted from all sides, escape not being possible. You just to say storm forward and engage that inner cavalier spirit of the charge.
Whereas in Syria, driving was more a zen calm of syncronised parts all being one big whole... in Lebanon, driving is like all the parts magnetically opposing one another in frenetic conflict in order to achieve this always pre-assumed a to b.
Actually, in driving in downtown Beirut, I found myself becoming very gung ho (which is not easy to do in a Nissan Sunny!) and checked myself at one point.... because in Australia, if I drove like this, the cops would pull you over if they ever saw you.
As it is, in Lebanon, at the constant military checkpoints, the guys with huge automatic weapons seem to remind you that how you are driving perhaps isn't as important as other issues the "authorities" are trying to address. (Not that there is any sitting government in Lebanon at the moment, or a president either... but it all seems to work quite well. They have an interesting system of shared power in all the different community groups which seems to work for now. )
The constant experience of being in traffic is swearing like a trooper in amazement and awe, with a tone of condemnation that people can continue to drive like that and maintain a impact free vehicle and also their lives.
Strangely enough, at least 33% of the cars are Mercedes Benz's, another 27% BMW's, 20% are various american, korean and japanese cars, 10% assorted 4wd's, porches, lamborginis, infiniti's and so on... the other 10% are the cars that survived the decades long cival war in one piece!
I figured that actually, it is not ALL about having a good car in a superficial way of appearance. I think it really helps to have a good car to deal with spontanous friction of what is out there. And also, it is much harder to push your way in front of a gleaming, huge black BMW 730i saloon, than your average diarrhea coloured, oil saving, japanese bullet ridden shitbox from the 1970's.
But on the other hand, I am told people here like to get stuck in the traffic in front of the late night bars, so other people can see what cars they are driving.
I asked an ex-pat who lives here, "where are people getting the money to buy these cars?". He said they are often second, third hand. And also that it is known that a lot of wealthy people are basically bankrupt. That buying a Porsche and having it was the most important thing... whether you can really afford it is besides the point. I was told of one guy who owned a luxury car outlet in town, who sold heaps of cars and yet was basically bankrupt. As soon as the money comes in, it is spent!
There is this nightclub you can go to, where if you pay $3,000, it will buy you a huge bottle of Moet I think it is. Then the music will stop, other music will play, a spotlight will focus in on you and your group and some sort of opening the bottle ceremony will proceed for 45 seconds or so.
Asked how anyone could afford this... the owner said they often paid in installments!
I think a good key to understanding the Lebanese is that they are the descendants of the Phoenicians... mercantile, sea trading people - variously conquored by many over thousands of years. And very much used to hardship and forms of oppression, but they just keep persisting, in an optimistic and bright way!
The next day I go with Verona and her friend Saul to Tyre, which is in southern Lebanon.
Saul tells us that in 2006, you couldn't drive to Tyre as the Israeli's bombed all the bridges and the roads. Also, they cluster bombed most of southern Lebanon... and as 10% of cluster bombs don't go off, there are teams still destroying 30 cluster bombs a day...which are found everywhere. And these bombs still maim and kill people who accidentally set them off.
All this attack two years ago was started, because two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped by Hezbollah, who wanted to a swap these solidiers for some of their guys.
5,000 people in total died and in the end, the Israeli's were eventually repelled, never actually retrieved their soldiers and nothing was really achieved except more blood and more bad blood here towards Israel and increased support for Hezbollah. (who are already quite popular, seeing as they run hospitals and have a good track record of actually getting things done for the people, so people say!)
Funnily enough, Hezbollah has created computer game, where you are a Hezbollah militants attacking the Israeli forces! Saul says he actually plays the game on his computer and it is loads of fun.
In Tyre, we go to look at the old roman city there, which contains a huge old roman hippodrome, where they used to race chariots. There are stone coffins everywhere, and in a few of them, I find piles of human bones. I go to pick up one of the bones...but think, I wouldn't want my bones picked up by a tourist in the future and so don't.
We then go to a beach, which is actually really nice. The waters are surprisingly clear and very refreshing, and bikini's rather than birka's are the what the women wear at the beaches here!
Then we try and go visit a Palestinian refugee camp, but the border guards won't let us in. Saul has an official UN like card, but it is clear they don't want no tourists going in and checking out the scene there!
And then have grilled Barracuda's and mezze on the waterfront, near all the fishing boats. Saul has been here 18 months, and we are all economist readers(!)...so we have some good talks and understand more of the political situation here in Lebanon.
All that is way too much to go into in such a blog as this... needless to say I have more understanding of what people think and feel here about what is going, and different people's perspectives on the whole thing.
The next day I just spend in Beirut... looking around at the buildings and the street life. The entire downtown area is new, and there are not many people there at all. Building work is taking place everywhere.
I try to take photos of the what is left of the old city and just through that you can see how beautfiul it would have been. My father, who came here before the war told me how beautiful it was and I didn't believe him. I have also seen photos too which show this.
If any of the military guides saw me taking photos of the old buildings, they would usually tell me to stop. Once I was able to convince a guy that this was a necessary photo, and he let me and once I had to delete a photo.
Then I take a walk along the entire cornische, which is a walkway that goes around the shoreline of the entire city.
Ah, Ronny, is there anywhere you don't feel comfortable? Even in front of a poster of Hezbollah leader Nasrallah... All the days I have in Beirut are lovely weather and I feel strangely invigorated and refreshed being there. My only regret is not going to the BO18 nightclub... this place that goes all night, in an underground bunker, where the tables are coffins and the roof literally comes off during the night.
In fact, I only went out once... and didn't push past my "I just don't really feel like going out and want to save myself for tommorow" story... and regret that, because you can see that the Lebanese really know how to party. In fact, I can't think of any other group of people's off the top of my head who seem so dedicated to this persuit.
I read some stuff online where a few people said they thought it was the best place to party in the world, and they have been everywhere. Not that I'm really into that paradigm (I went to Ibiza and didn't go out once either!), but it would have been very interesting at least.
So the next day I go to this cave complex called "Jeitta". I have to take a taxi there and it costs a fortune, but is worth it. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take photos inside the caves, so I can't show any photos... even if you could, it wouldn't really show much of what it is really like.
Some of the staligmites are just huge.... it is something which is not easily explainable... all of it is lit up with huge spotlights, huge caverns and stalictites everywhere.
Then there was this other part of it, where you take a little silent boat on the underground river through the caverns. A lot of the people in boat are just saying things like, "this is unbelievable!" and various exclamations over and over. It is very impressive...pure natural art and I would highly recommend it to anyone if they ever get to Lebanon. (anyone?)
Then I have my taxi take me to the airport, I get out expecting a flight every hour to Amman in Jordan. Turns out I have to wait until 11pm for a flight with Royal Jordanian.
Always getting into a country is a new experience... and Jordan is no exception. Finally, I was getting into a country in the middle east which was not war torn or had been suppressed or oppressed by its leaders or other countries for decades... and that in itself was relief. Although, almost immediately, I missed the stimulation of Lebanon.
Amman strikes me right away as this very spread out, car dominated, very modern city. And not modern in any middle eastern comparitive sense... but just plain modern, but I feel also, it carries with it all the perils and complications of western life which i was not expecting to find in the middle east.
(fast forward four days)
Today, a young guy show me where I can buy fresh juice and then buys me an orange juice.
When he gives me his email address, I can see on the bottom of his left arm is a big raggedy barcode tattoo.
He gives me his email address, it is is "white_wolf_dead_soul@hotmail.com"
And then he says he has to go.
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