Laurens, Laurens, Damascus, Laurens.
Day 26 Palmyra to Damascus
I know very little about Damascus, yet of the four capitals I am visiting I feel it to be the most….something. The most historic? Most significant? Most important? The one I should like most? I feel it should be the most interesting, although I’m wondering if Istanbul and Cairo will have stronger identities as Damascus has seen so very many invaders, empires and busybodies come and go.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that Damascus feels like a major stop on this journey, but I don’t know why.
This post is off to a great start. For my next trick I shall reveal that this has been a nothing much happened kind of day.
Is there really anyone still reading this?
The surreal moment of the day was definitely this morning, waiting for our ‘cab’ (Mohammed’s mate who owned a car) to take us out of town to the restaurant where the buses stop. Considering what a massive tourist attraction Palmyra is, I can only think that having no bus station and dumping people away from the town is the result of a complicated web of kickbacks. Anyway, Mohammed explained his views on homosexuality as if we’re magnets: women are positive are men negative, so man and woman attract, but same sex should repel: ergo it is not natural. This was all explained while Al Jazeera ran a piece on cock fighting followed by a monkey riding a dog. It was an odd five minutes. I settled for ‘that’s interesting, but I can’t really agree with what you’re saying’ as a reply. I am almost becoming diplomatic.
I marked my arrival in Damascus by disagreeing vociferously with about 20 taxi drivers at once. They appear to be working cartel style to fix the price into town at £200 (for contrast a 3 hour bus from Palmyra is £120). After telling the first guy no thanks, he shouted at the next few cabbies I spoke to, who amazingly came up with the same price; they in turn shouted at the next ones (no matter how far down the queue I tried to go). No one’s meter seemed to work. I hate to think what they did to the guy who caved and took me for £50. It wasn’t as far as I thought, so he did quite well. (And yes I know this makes me sound awful when you convert it back to sterling.)
Found a nice place to stay on another road that’s being redone as in Antalya and then went a walk round the city to get a feel for it. The walk was cut a little short when I got a little carried away and had a one hour lunch, which made dinner snacky. Thus far Damascus seems quite cool (I’ve got some great new photos of the President), but I’ve not been blown away. I’ll be back to visit properly everything I glanced at today, so will leave the real waffle till then.
Favourite moment of the day? Walking past the Kinda Hotel. Just too many jokes for me.
Day 27 Damascus
First up the national museum. There must be some old adage that says if you want to make a statement, make an entrance. In the case of the national museum, if you can’t make an entrance, why not steal one from Palmyra.
and ship it to Damascus. The museum had archaeological pieces from all over the country and from many places I’d been. It was a bit confusing as sections kept opening and closing-I was hurried out o one upstairs gallery. A nod and a wink seemed to open some sections and being behind a tour group could sometimes get me access to the good stuff. As a result I feel sure I missed some stuff. Officially there’s no photography in the museum, but on the hope of a coin or two, the caretaker egged me on while he kept watch.
I’ll keep posting these pics, but these ornate Islamic rooms really need to be seen. I should add that I was a semi-good boy and turned off my flash. There’s quite a lot of Palmyra here including a tomb!
This is just one small part. I think I sense the French influence here; after all they do have a pyramid in the Louvre. In addition to the glass one.
I walked through a lot of the streets in the old town, which must wow people from new countries. To me a lot of it looked in need to some sympathetic restoration. Especially in the former Jewish quarter where many houses were effectively abandoned in the early 90s and are still deserted. Almost everything seems to be a shop too, which just holds no interest to me. Both here and in Aleppo, I’ve been unable to get excited about souqs and shopping; especially when to glance is to invite the hard sell. It frustrates me, although it doesn’t work on me-I’ve travelled a lot and seen Casablanca besides. A kiwi told me that we have the Americans to blame-they often pay the first price.
Truth be told, if you hadn’t guessed, I’m finding Damascus a touch disappointing. Still, the Azem palace (house of a former ruler) was quite luverly.
This time you really couldn’t take photos inside and the guy on the tannoy was at us every 5 mins about not being able to take photos. So you’ll have to take my word about the large number of rather manly lady mannequins lurking inside the rooms. It’s an odd thing I’ve seen here and in Turkey where mannequins are used to illustrate everyday scenes; they pretty much all look comical and mostly serve to distract from some exquisite interiors.
Day 28 Bosra
Well this was the kind of day that could have gone quite wrong. Fortunately my attempt to buy a bus ticket to Bosra yesterday made me discover that Damascus’s bus station for southern routes (i.e. Bosra and Amman for me) had shut down and moved. The tourist info guy had been quite helpful and although he didn’t tell me quite the right place to get a microbus to the new bus station, I’d left enough time to get there buy a ticket and get my ticket to go to Jordan on Wednesday well before the bus to Bosra left at 8.
I’d half inched the hostel’s Syria guide, which gave me a lot more info than the half page my Middle East LP had on Bosra (regional guides cut down the weight, but they really don’t cut it). So I settled down on the bus for a good read and found Bosra has a lot of history. Bosra eclipsed the inescapable Petra as capital of the Nabataeans, then it was the capital of the province of Arabia under the Romans, when it was connected to Amman and Damascus. Later, local boy Phil became Roman Emperor. Tradition has it that it was in Bosra that a monk told Mohammed he would be a prophet: prophesying prophecy I guess. In amongst the history lesson, I did have time to look up when we stopped to pick someone up under a flyover; about half a dozen cars were parked around and the guy got on after saying goodbye to all his friends in sunglasses and black leather jackets, so Syria either has 80s rockers or the mafia.
I felt quite prepared once we arrived and I found my bearings. In the centre of the town is the theatre, which held 15,000 and was freestanding, which was unusual. What is probably unique is that after the town was twice attacked by the crusaders, some bright spark decided to convert the theatre into a citadel. So now the theatre is the centre of a castle. This means that from the outside you get no sense of the shape or orientation of the theatre. It’s an interesting military strategy; I was disappointed not to find out what role the theatre played in siege defence. Perhaps they drove back the Christians with a medley of Lloyd Webber and Cliff Richard. They needed something as it looked nowhere near as daunting as Saladdin or the Crac. Still Cliff might have had the opposite effect on Christians.
I crossed the moat over the bridge and plunged into the corridors of the citadel.
Even inside, with the fort wrapping round the theatre like a second skin, I got no impression of what part of the theatre I was just outside. I passed by several staircases leading up to the sunlight,
as I sought to delay entering the theatre proper, preferring to explore a little first. This turned out to be very wise as I discovered a room full of tyres, a number of which were for tractors. It was therefore the purest coincidence that when I eventually chose to make my entrance, I came on stage right to the applause of a Japanese tour group. With the help of their leader, the Japanese shouted and clapped to demonstrate that the Romans knew a thing or two about acoustics as well as seating a crowd. I guess I should have known this was a slippery slope to Karaoke. It seemed a fun meeting of cultures. For some reason it also made me ponder whether Lost in Translation, Raging Bull or the Godfather was the most overrated movie of cliché stating obviousness ever made.
More interestingly, it also left me marvelling at the Romans once again. The spacing of the aisles between the rows of seats looked very equivalent to modern stadia, where I would suppose computer modelling dictates the ideal length of a row of seats. I’m not sure today that it would be economic to drape the theatre in silks and perfume the air; progress isn’t all advancement.
Oh, and in case you think the seats look a touch uncomfortable, I fairly sure I remember reading at the Coliseum that cushions could be hired, rather like at Lord’s or Twickenham.
Of course anything Roman that’s impressive inevitably makes one wonder what the Romans ever did for us, which reminded me of Carolyn’s Life of Brian story. When she was at the crucifixion site in Israel (please feel free to remind of its name), she conducted all the tourists in a chorus of Always Look of the Bright Side of Life. I’d have like to have seen that. What was Golgotha? Must read some bible again. And the Koran too. I’ve been reading the 1001 nights, and found interesting that the women are almost universally cheating whores, who end up with their heads cut off. Unless they’re really wicked, when they need chopping into tiny pieces.
I must have been scarred by the photo session with the Armenian priest in Aleppo, as I hadn’t had a me photo since. Just in case anyone was worried that I’m not still here:
I realised I’d been made quite cagey by the pushiness of Palmyra and Damascus and it was nice to meet and chat with some genuinely friendly folk again. It was even noticeable in the vendors: the guys in the cake shop gave me a free taster, while the chap in the mini market gave me a free chocolate as I left: a much more effective sales approach too! Lots of big smiles today-one guy saw me waiting for the bus back, so he just came over to chat to me. I think lone travellers worry some of the locals-I’ve been asked many times why I have come alone; combine that with not being married and they really want to look after you.
I was also pleased that I didn’t need my ski jacket in Bosra, which has been a constant companion. When I set off I’d hoped that I’d only need it in Turkey, but 100km south of Damascus and the temperature was starting me thinking the shorts and thongs could soon be out the bag. Amman’s further south again, so it’s all looking good. I really enjoyed today and, despite feeling a bit tired, am reinvigorated. I hope to look on Damascus with fresh eyes tomorrow.
Day 29 Damascus
I hope anyone reading this will be tempted to visit Syria, if not so much Damascus. If you do, here’s a bit of advice. Don’t try to post anything. Certainly not if it’s a got a CD of photos in it. I went to the post office, full of vim and vigour, looked around the counter and went to one that sold stamps. That seemed right. Well the lady had a good feel of my package, which I said contained some paper and a CD. In which case her stamps were no good. She said I needed to go underneath. At this stage I was already thinking I should wait till Jordan, but I stumbled out a little bemused and as I headed down the steps of the post office, I noticed another kind of post place under the stairs. The guy at the door didn’t have a good feel, but passed me onto a bloke who did. ‘CD? Down the street.’ By now I’m starting to feel like I’m trying to get a visa to Russia, but halfway down the street was a door topped by a ‘Parcel Office’ sign. Mine was only an A4 envelope, but maybe this would work. Another guy, another feel. He said I needed to go upstairs. I said they’d just sent me here. He was halfway to shrugging, when I said the magic word. ‘CD’. The look on his face was pure ‘well why didn’t you say so. Of course you can’t post a CD anywhere else’. Things were going quite well and then he asked for my passport. I suppose I should have guessed, but passport for letter posting was a total surprise. It appears that for £50 the tatty photocopy of your passport lurking at the bottom of the bag will suffice. I had to go to 2 more desks, my envelope had to be covered in sellotape, but I was handed a piece of paper and told finished. Phew. As I turned to leave, one beaming helper grabbed my hand and pointed to the tracking on the piece of paper-I’m guessing this is a new thing. I didn’t spoil by asking if I could track it on line.
With less than 24 hours to go, I was hoping for no more bureaucratic encounters.
I’d concocted a route of things that might be worth a look so I pottered off and mostly succeeded in covering myself in mud: there was a downpour last night and this did not combine well with Damascus’ dusty streets, many of which are being dug up. Still I found some good strolling spots
Walking round I got the impression that not a lot happens in Damascus; good crowds were gathered by most of the roadworks and not all of the onlookers were builders. I think it must have been a courthouse where a lot of folk who weren’t fans of digging had gathered. I guess this maybe explains why foreigners get stared at so much: this never feels threatening, but I think being different makes tourists diverting for a while.
One thing that appears alive in the modern old city is the porter. It took me a while to work this out, but there are quite a few guys making a living with a sack barrow shifting stuff about town. The way one sack barrow was padlocked to some railings emphasised its importance. The 1001 nights are full of instances when a porter is called or needed to shift merchandise or some purchase. Sinbad the sailor tells the story of his 7 voyages to Sinbad the porter.
I remain to be convinced that the decision a few years back to allow motor vehicles into the old city was a good one.
I tried to see the city gates; at one point I walked through a city gate, onto the other side of the city walls and crossed the now pathetic and dying river without seeing any of it. Giving up on gates and walls, I headed to the Umayyad mosque.
Now the mosque promised to be the big one for Damascus and it was mighty impressive. As it should be, for in the early 8th century when it was built/converted from a church, which was previously a temple, it cost a lot. A lot being all tax revenue from Syria for 7 years. A lot of this cash got splashed on the mosaics, which were beautiful.
It wasn’t the easiest place to get into, despite being rather large.
Sure there are 3 large gates, but as I approached one I was asked for my ticket. There was a booth type thing by the gate so I hoped I could get it there. Nope. I got some vague arm waving to go further round, where some more building was going on. I tried the museum of calligraphy, which is affiliated to the mosque, but they were building in there and pretty much chased me out. Passing a lot of building I reached the main gate, who sent me back the way I’d come. Which left the mausoleum, which didn’t seem right. I passed a doorway, which had double doors, no signage and looked most unwelcoming. I found the entrance to the mausoleum. Realising this still didn’t look right, I left my shoes on and hailed the custodian. No tickets here either. He waved me back the way I came. That only left the unfriendly door…….
I soon realised the door was a sign of things to come. For here were the two least friendly men in Syria (n.b. this would make them the two nicest people in London if they moved). I made a here you are kind of gesture, which elicited no reaction and made me think I was in another wrong place. Then I saw the sign ‘Entrance £50’ and felt a ridiculous feeling of accomplishment. I handed over a £200 note, ‘You’re very hard to find’. They ignored me. I wasn’t to be put off that easily. ‘You should get some signs.’ Stamps my ticket. ‘So people know how to find you.’ Pushes ticket and change towards smart arse Brit who thinks it’s all so easy. There is a possibility that I may not have been the first tourist to point out that there is not a single indication anywhere of the whereabouts of a ticket office for a mosque nearly 100m by 150m; it seems someone hid it on purpose. I should emphasise that this is the number 1 tourist attraction in the capital city; yes, it is a working mosque, but visitors are welcome. Anyway, it was so tranquil and pleasant sat down inside, with the sun on me that I nearly fell asleep. So it turned out nice in the end.
After the ticket buying fun for the mosque, I figured that although Damascus and I had had some good times, there wasn’t any future in it. So I grabbed some food and a couple of fake DVDs for quiet nights in Jordan and headed back for a shower.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Syria and think the letdown of Damascus was mostly a result of all the great stuff that preceded it. I feel there’s only one man to whom the last word on Syria can go and that’s Mr President.
Just look at him; it’s hard not to, he’s everywhere after all; with all those pictures, I’d vote for him; although I’m not sure if I’d have any choice in the matter.
I know very little about Damascus, yet of the four capitals I am visiting I feel it to be the most….something. The most historic? Most significant? Most important? The one I should like most? I feel it should be the most interesting, although I’m wondering if Istanbul and Cairo will have stronger identities as Damascus has seen so very many invaders, empires and busybodies come and go.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that Damascus feels like a major stop on this journey, but I don’t know why.
This post is off to a great start. For my next trick I shall reveal that this has been a nothing much happened kind of day.
Is there really anyone still reading this?
The surreal moment of the day was definitely this morning, waiting for our ‘cab’ (Mohammed’s mate who owned a car) to take us out of town to the restaurant where the buses stop. Considering what a massive tourist attraction Palmyra is, I can only think that having no bus station and dumping people away from the town is the result of a complicated web of kickbacks. Anyway, Mohammed explained his views on homosexuality as if we’re magnets: women are positive are men negative, so man and woman attract, but same sex should repel: ergo it is not natural. This was all explained while Al Jazeera ran a piece on cock fighting followed by a monkey riding a dog. It was an odd five minutes. I settled for ‘that’s interesting, but I can’t really agree with what you’re saying’ as a reply. I am almost becoming diplomatic.
I marked my arrival in Damascus by disagreeing vociferously with about 20 taxi drivers at once. They appear to be working cartel style to fix the price into town at £200 (for contrast a 3 hour bus from Palmyra is £120). After telling the first guy no thanks, he shouted at the next few cabbies I spoke to, who amazingly came up with the same price; they in turn shouted at the next ones (no matter how far down the queue I tried to go). No one’s meter seemed to work. I hate to think what they did to the guy who caved and took me for £50. It wasn’t as far as I thought, so he did quite well. (And yes I know this makes me sound awful when you convert it back to sterling.)
Found a nice place to stay on another road that’s being redone as in Antalya and then went a walk round the city to get a feel for it. The walk was cut a little short when I got a little carried away and had a one hour lunch, which made dinner snacky. Thus far Damascus seems quite cool (I’ve got some great new photos of the President), but I’ve not been blown away. I’ll be back to visit properly everything I glanced at today, so will leave the real waffle till then.
Favourite moment of the day? Walking past the Kinda Hotel. Just too many jokes for me.
Day 27 Damascus
First up the national museum. There must be some old adage that says if you want to make a statement, make an entrance. In the case of the national museum, if you can’t make an entrance, why not steal one from Palmyra.
and ship it to Damascus. The museum had archaeological pieces from all over the country and from many places I’d been. It was a bit confusing as sections kept opening and closing-I was hurried out o one upstairs gallery. A nod and a wink seemed to open some sections and being behind a tour group could sometimes get me access to the good stuff. As a result I feel sure I missed some stuff. Officially there’s no photography in the museum, but on the hope of a coin or two, the caretaker egged me on while he kept watch.
I’ll keep posting these pics, but these ornate Islamic rooms really need to be seen. I should add that I was a semi-good boy and turned off my flash. There’s quite a lot of Palmyra here including a tomb!
This is just one small part. I think I sense the French influence here; after all they do have a pyramid in the Louvre. In addition to the glass one.
I walked through a lot of the streets in the old town, which must wow people from new countries. To me a lot of it looked in need to some sympathetic restoration. Especially in the former Jewish quarter where many houses were effectively abandoned in the early 90s and are still deserted. Almost everything seems to be a shop too, which just holds no interest to me. Both here and in Aleppo, I’ve been unable to get excited about souqs and shopping; especially when to glance is to invite the hard sell. It frustrates me, although it doesn’t work on me-I’ve travelled a lot and seen Casablanca besides. A kiwi told me that we have the Americans to blame-they often pay the first price.
Truth be told, if you hadn’t guessed, I’m finding Damascus a touch disappointing. Still, the Azem palace (house of a former ruler) was quite luverly.
This time you really couldn’t take photos inside and the guy on the tannoy was at us every 5 mins about not being able to take photos. So you’ll have to take my word about the large number of rather manly lady mannequins lurking inside the rooms. It’s an odd thing I’ve seen here and in Turkey where mannequins are used to illustrate everyday scenes; they pretty much all look comical and mostly serve to distract from some exquisite interiors.
Day 28 Bosra
Well this was the kind of day that could have gone quite wrong. Fortunately my attempt to buy a bus ticket to Bosra yesterday made me discover that Damascus’s bus station for southern routes (i.e. Bosra and Amman for me) had shut down and moved. The tourist info guy had been quite helpful and although he didn’t tell me quite the right place to get a microbus to the new bus station, I’d left enough time to get there buy a ticket and get my ticket to go to Jordan on Wednesday well before the bus to Bosra left at 8.
I’d half inched the hostel’s Syria guide, which gave me a lot more info than the half page my Middle East LP had on Bosra (regional guides cut down the weight, but they really don’t cut it). So I settled down on the bus for a good read and found Bosra has a lot of history. Bosra eclipsed the inescapable Petra as capital of the Nabataeans, then it was the capital of the province of Arabia under the Romans, when it was connected to Amman and Damascus. Later, local boy Phil became Roman Emperor. Tradition has it that it was in Bosra that a monk told Mohammed he would be a prophet: prophesying prophecy I guess. In amongst the history lesson, I did have time to look up when we stopped to pick someone up under a flyover; about half a dozen cars were parked around and the guy got on after saying goodbye to all his friends in sunglasses and black leather jackets, so Syria either has 80s rockers or the mafia.
I felt quite prepared once we arrived and I found my bearings. In the centre of the town is the theatre, which held 15,000 and was freestanding, which was unusual. What is probably unique is that after the town was twice attacked by the crusaders, some bright spark decided to convert the theatre into a citadel. So now the theatre is the centre of a castle. This means that from the outside you get no sense of the shape or orientation of the theatre. It’s an interesting military strategy; I was disappointed not to find out what role the theatre played in siege defence. Perhaps they drove back the Christians with a medley of Lloyd Webber and Cliff Richard. They needed something as it looked nowhere near as daunting as Saladdin or the Crac. Still Cliff might have had the opposite effect on Christians.
I crossed the moat over the bridge and plunged into the corridors of the citadel.
Even inside, with the fort wrapping round the theatre like a second skin, I got no impression of what part of the theatre I was just outside. I passed by several staircases leading up to the sunlight,
as I sought to delay entering the theatre proper, preferring to explore a little first. This turned out to be very wise as I discovered a room full of tyres, a number of which were for tractors. It was therefore the purest coincidence that when I eventually chose to make my entrance, I came on stage right to the applause of a Japanese tour group. With the help of their leader, the Japanese shouted and clapped to demonstrate that the Romans knew a thing or two about acoustics as well as seating a crowd. I guess I should have known this was a slippery slope to Karaoke. It seemed a fun meeting of cultures. For some reason it also made me ponder whether Lost in Translation, Raging Bull or the Godfather was the most overrated movie of cliché stating obviousness ever made.
More interestingly, it also left me marvelling at the Romans once again. The spacing of the aisles between the rows of seats looked very equivalent to modern stadia, where I would suppose computer modelling dictates the ideal length of a row of seats. I’m not sure today that it would be economic to drape the theatre in silks and perfume the air; progress isn’t all advancement.
Oh, and in case you think the seats look a touch uncomfortable, I fairly sure I remember reading at the Coliseum that cushions could be hired, rather like at Lord’s or Twickenham.
Of course anything Roman that’s impressive inevitably makes one wonder what the Romans ever did for us, which reminded me of Carolyn’s Life of Brian story. When she was at the crucifixion site in Israel (please feel free to remind of its name), she conducted all the tourists in a chorus of Always Look of the Bright Side of Life. I’d have like to have seen that. What was Golgotha? Must read some bible again. And the Koran too. I’ve been reading the 1001 nights, and found interesting that the women are almost universally cheating whores, who end up with their heads cut off. Unless they’re really wicked, when they need chopping into tiny pieces.
I must have been scarred by the photo session with the Armenian priest in Aleppo, as I hadn’t had a me photo since. Just in case anyone was worried that I’m not still here:
I realised I’d been made quite cagey by the pushiness of Palmyra and Damascus and it was nice to meet and chat with some genuinely friendly folk again. It was even noticeable in the vendors: the guys in the cake shop gave me a free taster, while the chap in the mini market gave me a free chocolate as I left: a much more effective sales approach too! Lots of big smiles today-one guy saw me waiting for the bus back, so he just came over to chat to me. I think lone travellers worry some of the locals-I’ve been asked many times why I have come alone; combine that with not being married and they really want to look after you.
I was also pleased that I didn’t need my ski jacket in Bosra, which has been a constant companion. When I set off I’d hoped that I’d only need it in Turkey, but 100km south of Damascus and the temperature was starting me thinking the shorts and thongs could soon be out the bag. Amman’s further south again, so it’s all looking good. I really enjoyed today and, despite feeling a bit tired, am reinvigorated. I hope to look on Damascus with fresh eyes tomorrow.
Day 29 Damascus
I hope anyone reading this will be tempted to visit Syria, if not so much Damascus. If you do, here’s a bit of advice. Don’t try to post anything. Certainly not if it’s a got a CD of photos in it. I went to the post office, full of vim and vigour, looked around the counter and went to one that sold stamps. That seemed right. Well the lady had a good feel of my package, which I said contained some paper and a CD. In which case her stamps were no good. She said I needed to go underneath. At this stage I was already thinking I should wait till Jordan, but I stumbled out a little bemused and as I headed down the steps of the post office, I noticed another kind of post place under the stairs. The guy at the door didn’t have a good feel, but passed me onto a bloke who did. ‘CD? Down the street.’ By now I’m starting to feel like I’m trying to get a visa to Russia, but halfway down the street was a door topped by a ‘Parcel Office’ sign. Mine was only an A4 envelope, but maybe this would work. Another guy, another feel. He said I needed to go upstairs. I said they’d just sent me here. He was halfway to shrugging, when I said the magic word. ‘CD’. The look on his face was pure ‘well why didn’t you say so. Of course you can’t post a CD anywhere else’. Things were going quite well and then he asked for my passport. I suppose I should have guessed, but passport for letter posting was a total surprise. It appears that for £50 the tatty photocopy of your passport lurking at the bottom of the bag will suffice. I had to go to 2 more desks, my envelope had to be covered in sellotape, but I was handed a piece of paper and told finished. Phew. As I turned to leave, one beaming helper grabbed my hand and pointed to the tracking on the piece of paper-I’m guessing this is a new thing. I didn’t spoil by asking if I could track it on line.
With less than 24 hours to go, I was hoping for no more bureaucratic encounters.
I’d concocted a route of things that might be worth a look so I pottered off and mostly succeeded in covering myself in mud: there was a downpour last night and this did not combine well with Damascus’ dusty streets, many of which are being dug up. Still I found some good strolling spots
Walking round I got the impression that not a lot happens in Damascus; good crowds were gathered by most of the roadworks and not all of the onlookers were builders. I think it must have been a courthouse where a lot of folk who weren’t fans of digging had gathered. I guess this maybe explains why foreigners get stared at so much: this never feels threatening, but I think being different makes tourists diverting for a while.
One thing that appears alive in the modern old city is the porter. It took me a while to work this out, but there are quite a few guys making a living with a sack barrow shifting stuff about town. The way one sack barrow was padlocked to some railings emphasised its importance. The 1001 nights are full of instances when a porter is called or needed to shift merchandise or some purchase. Sinbad the sailor tells the story of his 7 voyages to Sinbad the porter.
I remain to be convinced that the decision a few years back to allow motor vehicles into the old city was a good one.
I tried to see the city gates; at one point I walked through a city gate, onto the other side of the city walls and crossed the now pathetic and dying river without seeing any of it. Giving up on gates and walls, I headed to the Umayyad mosque.
Now the mosque promised to be the big one for Damascus and it was mighty impressive. As it should be, for in the early 8th century when it was built/converted from a church, which was previously a temple, it cost a lot. A lot being all tax revenue from Syria for 7 years. A lot of this cash got splashed on the mosaics, which were beautiful.
It wasn’t the easiest place to get into, despite being rather large.
Sure there are 3 large gates, but as I approached one I was asked for my ticket. There was a booth type thing by the gate so I hoped I could get it there. Nope. I got some vague arm waving to go further round, where some more building was going on. I tried the museum of calligraphy, which is affiliated to the mosque, but they were building in there and pretty much chased me out. Passing a lot of building I reached the main gate, who sent me back the way I’d come. Which left the mausoleum, which didn’t seem right. I passed a doorway, which had double doors, no signage and looked most unwelcoming. I found the entrance to the mausoleum. Realising this still didn’t look right, I left my shoes on and hailed the custodian. No tickets here either. He waved me back the way I came. That only left the unfriendly door…….
I soon realised the door was a sign of things to come. For here were the two least friendly men in Syria (n.b. this would make them the two nicest people in London if they moved). I made a here you are kind of gesture, which elicited no reaction and made me think I was in another wrong place. Then I saw the sign ‘Entrance £50’ and felt a ridiculous feeling of accomplishment. I handed over a £200 note, ‘You’re very hard to find’. They ignored me. I wasn’t to be put off that easily. ‘You should get some signs.’ Stamps my ticket. ‘So people know how to find you.’ Pushes ticket and change towards smart arse Brit who thinks it’s all so easy. There is a possibility that I may not have been the first tourist to point out that there is not a single indication anywhere of the whereabouts of a ticket office for a mosque nearly 100m by 150m; it seems someone hid it on purpose. I should emphasise that this is the number 1 tourist attraction in the capital city; yes, it is a working mosque, but visitors are welcome. Anyway, it was so tranquil and pleasant sat down inside, with the sun on me that I nearly fell asleep. So it turned out nice in the end.
After the ticket buying fun for the mosque, I figured that although Damascus and I had had some good times, there wasn’t any future in it. So I grabbed some food and a couple of fake DVDs for quiet nights in Jordan and headed back for a shower.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed Syria and think the letdown of Damascus was mostly a result of all the great stuff that preceded it. I feel there’s only one man to whom the last word on Syria can go and that’s Mr President.
Just look at him; it’s hard not to, he’s everywhere after all; with all those pictures, I’d vote for him; although I’m not sure if I’d have any choice in the matter.
posted by Poll Star at
4:58 PM
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