Syria: land of hospitality and plenty
The Times/UK
May 2, 2009
When the children are older and no longer enjoy `fun’ family holidays
it’s time to take them somewhere a little more adventurous, like Syria
Anne Spackman
The `I Love Bashar’ magnet has taken its place in the patchwork holiday
album on the fridge door. It certainly stands out from the more
traditional images of Thorpe Park, Yosemite and the Rockefeller Centre.
Syria is our most unlikely holiday destination yet, though Mozambique
runs a close second. As our boys have turned into adults, so our
holidays have evolved from mainstream family fun to travels in places a
little farther off the tourist track. Morocco was the start. We did the
popular mix of Atlas mountains and Marrakesh, where the Djemaa el-Fna
and the souk were the star turns. The boys competed to buy the cheapest
fake Rolex. Their dad taught them the critical `walk-away’ routine.
Crowds gathered in the dusk around medieval-style storytellers. Men
offered them drugs in the street. Despite trips to much more distant
countries, our sons agreed it was the most exotic place they had ever
visited. We all loved it.
The following year we travelled to Botswana, South Africa and
Mozambique, circling the pariah state of Zimbabwe as that country’s
elections took place. This mix of travel laced with equal parts luxury
and current affairs reached its apotheosis in Maputo, Mozambique. We
found ourselves in the bar of the colonial Hotel Polana. On a backdrop
fit for a Bond movie we watched a Chinese businessman mingle with South
African fixers, English snake-oil salesmen and local hookers. It was
Graham Greene meets Blood Diamond.
It was the search for somewhere offering a similar mix that took us to
Syria. People reacted to the choice in one of three ways: `Oh . . .’
(the polite friends), `Why on Earth . . .’ (the closer friends) and
`It’s fantastic, you’ll love it’ (from anyone who had already been).
You soon understand why. In a field of spring flowers and 5th-century
ruins a young Bedu leapt down from his tractor and ran over. He
addressed us in the common human language of smiles and welcomes,
shaking our hands with a palm as leathery as the soles of our shoes ‘
an alien analogy in a land of plastic Chinese footwear.
We were visiting one of the `Dead Cities’, the remains of Byzantine and
Crusader settlements that lie scattered across the hillsides of
northwest Syria. High stone arches, held up by physics rather than
cement, huge church walls, their corners unmarked by time or
cannonballs, detailed carvings on columns and pediments, caves with
tombs, pyramids with tombs: Hadrian’s Wall will never be quite the
same. One day these monuments will make up the itinerary of20the typical
Syrian tourist. In ten years’ time, perhaps. For now Syria is a place
where Western visitors are a source of fascination.
There can be no better guide to a country where 2,000 years of history
seem visible daily than William Dalrymple’s From the Holy Mountain, his
1997 travelogue that chronicles the collapse of Christianity as an
Eastern religion. It was a great primer for we first-time travellers to
the Middle East, explaining ancient history and its modern-day
political and cultural legacy. For our sons, 17 and 20, that sharp
modern relevance was vital to lift the experience above a Saga history
tour.
We stayed in Aleppo, Syria’s second city, 350 miles north of Damascus.
At its heart is a citadel perched on the kind of `kop’ you expect to
find in Southern Africa. Climbing up its vast stone ramp is like
walking the pages of your school history books. The citadel was one of
three unmissable castles. The second was a Byzantine fortress high in
the Jebel Ansariya mountains. It carries the Arabic name of Saladdin,
its conqueror, not its creator. Built on an island of rock, in a gorge
cut through by hand, it was far more exciting than our Bradt guidebook
suggested. Third in our castle tour but first on most travellers’
itinerary is the Krak des Chevaliers, a Frankish Crusader castle, as
its name suggests. (It suggested other things to our sons.) We climbed
up the long zig-zagged stone ramp to the picture-book fortress of
towers and battlements that T. E. Lawrence described as `the finest
castle in the world’.
On the way through the mountains we stopped at a small roadside shack
selling the flatbread wraps that are Syria’s fast food. Two middle-aged
women rolled small heaps of flour into perfect round discs, slapped
them against the sides of an open oven, then smeared them with a spicy
tomato or olive paste. We bought seven for S£100, about £1.40. Food in
Syria is tasty and cheap but monotonous. By day five you’ve had enough
of flatbread and hoummos.
Travelling across country, two memories stand out. First is the sense
of plenty. Olives, pistachios and apricots grow in the fields beside
the road. Horned sheep graze in the central reservations of dual
carriageways. Along the coast polytunnels of lemons, oranges and
tomatoes grow right down to the sea. Syria is said to be
self-sufficient in food, partly to protect itself from the impact of
sanctions.
The other memory is of the driving. Like many travellers, we hired a
driver to navigate us through a country where we didn’t know the
alphabet, never mind the language. Navigation would have been the least
of our worries. Syrians drive like Mad Max on acid. One of the first
words you learn is schwai. The guidebook says that it means slowly, but
perhaps that was a
little joke.
The other words you will use and hear constantly are the expressions of
welcome and hospitality. A sense of fascination followed us through the
streets and souks of Aleppo. My husband’s height, the boys’ blond and
ginger hair and my Western clothing all attracted attention. Were we
Italian, Czech, American? `Finanz Mann?’ asked a Syrian in German of
our student son. No one knew where England was, but they had heard of
Little Britain. As we walked through the main souk, one trader called
out `The only one in the village. Very good.’
The souk itself more than lived up to expectations. You enter through
heavy medieval gates into a labyrinth of trade that seems to have
stopped only for religious observance since the day it was built. Every
inch of more than a mile of passageways is dedicated to selling ‘ nuts,
spices, every part of a sheep, clothing, fabrics, sweets, knives,
haberdashery, soap, shisha pipes and wooden boxes.
South of the souk we took a stroll through the area of Aleppo’s Old
City, now designated a World Heritage Site. One of its most charming
attractions is Bimaristan Arghan, one of the earliest examples of a
mental asylum. It was a sharp reminder, or, more honestly, a revelation
to discover how advanced science and medicine were in the Levant at a
time when we were deciding how much mud to slap on our huts. Down a
tiny alley in this neighbourhood an umarked door leads to Aleppo’s
first luxury boutique hotel. Al Mansouriya palace is a series of
opulent double rooms set around an elegant courtyard. Each one costs
$250 (£170) a night.
We were staying in Beit Wakil, an elegant restored courtyard hotel
where double rooms cost $110 a night. The restaurant was one of the
city’s best, but the rooms were small and somewhat monastic, with hard
single beds and basic showers. I’m not one for frills, but I confess
that I longed to wash off the city dust in one of Al Mansouriya’s deep
baths and spend an hour lounging in plump cushions with my book ‘ an
idea greeted by my husband with contempt .
On the flight to Aleppo an uncovered head attracted the occasional
stare. Once there, it was an acute marker of difference. It was my
first time in a country where immodesty begins at the wrist, an
experience I found uncomfortable.
Dalrymple remarked on the creeping spread of the abaya and the hijab on
his tour. In the Grand Mosque women are required to wear a hooded grey
cape, like an extra in The Lord of the Rings. On the first day of the
holiday this seemed interesting but by the last day I was tired of
seeing streets filled with men, bundles of black clothing flapping in
their wake.
Syria does not feel like a repressive Islamic country in any other
respect. Aleppo is dotted with churches and cathedrals from the
religious factions that mark its past ‘ Syrian Orthodox, Mennonite,
Armenian.
Nor does Syria feel like a dictatorship. There are plenty of police on
the streets and we saw the occasional army base up in the hills near
the border with Turkey. But people seem relaxed and relatively
comfortable. We made a couple of mistakes in our planning. We should
have stayed either in Damascus or on the `blue coast’ of the
Mediterranean as well as in Aleppo. The city is perfect for a four-day
break, but a week was too long. If you’re taking teenagers, the beach
is probably the better option.
There are signs to tell visitors that they cannot bathe in their
clothes ‘ at least, that’s what the guidebook says. What they mean is
that you must wear swimming costumes, not long black coats. If I longed
for the cushions of Al Mansouriya after a few days, the equivalent
longing of my sons was for a beach filled with girls in bikinis.
Women in Syria
The news that I was going to Syria, armed with only a smattering of
Arabic and accompanied by another 26-year-old woman, received mixed
reactions.
`It’s so dangerous for women ‘ it’s next to Iraq,’ a geographically
informed friend said. `It’s not as bad as Kabul,’ another reassured me.
Nor, it turned out, as India, Morocco or even parts of London on a
Saturday night. Yes, there was the odd averted gaze or overly intense
stare. But the biggest harassment came in a form that my mother has
been honing for years, namely, fielding persistent questions about why
we were still unmarried.
There are basic rules to follow in the Middle East. Cover up unless you
are in the modern parts of big cities such as Damascus. Don’t head down
alleys that look interesting unless you have a good sense of direction.
And watch your bag in the crowded souks.
But tourists have such novelty value in Syria that you are much more
likely to be suffocated by the hospitality. Everyone is keen to give
impromptu grammar lessons or canvass your views on President Obama.
When four men converged on us in an eerie station in the middle of the
night it was to make sure that we were heading the right way.
Nor are intrepid tourists the only women on the street ‘ Syria is full
of very visible women, most of them in long belted coats and
headscarves. Their dress tends to be more restrained than their
actions. We passed one long journey teaching a 19-year-old girl how to
conjugate English verbs. In return she helped us to read our map of
Aleppo, find a cab and yell at two men who were overkeen about carrying
our rucksacks. And she managed it all on her own.
She then, of course, ruined it by asking us when we planned to get
married. But, even in a country that gave us ten days of hassle-free
travel, you can’t have everything.
Alice Fishburn
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
