Where’s the Crac?

Day 22
I guess I was due a day of farce, or at least partial farce. Having a bit of a muse earlier, I felt sure that the rhyming of farce and arse was surely no coincidence and one of those word expert jobbies could probably explain the connections. I made an arse of a few things today.

I was a little too keen getting to the bus station. In Turkey they want you there half an hour early, which is when your bag goes on and they depart to the minute. It’s a little more laid back here. About 15 mins before the bus pulled in and the guy who hands out the drinks was getting dressed in the back of it.

We got to Hama a little after we were due, since things had been pretty casual and smokey whenever we stopped, after we finally got started. This was a slight shame, as there’s only a few things I want to see in Hama, which I am mainly using as a good base to visit Crac des Chevaliers and Apamea. So I grabbed my bag and powered off to find a room so I could dump my stuff and head off to Apamea.

Just in case Mr Lonely Planet Middle East map man is reading this: in a city where there are two minibus stations about 100m apart on different forks of a junction, it might just be an idea to mention this. It might just be an idea to mark them both on the map. Otherwise someone might see a minibus station, take that as confirmation that they are heading the right way from the bus station, which is off the map, and not realise for 2 hours how the hell they got so lost and far from where they meant to be. The mappage wasn’t helped by obstinacy in keeping walking long after sanity said get a cab. Though I doubt I would have carried so long if there wasn’t a river in Hama; I kept thinking I simply must hit the river, which I could then follow to hostel central. I think I was running parallel to it so I’d have kept going to the sea before I hit the river. Well I’m sure I’d have stopped at the Iraqi border. Finally, knackered and clueless, I got a cab.

Returning to the scene of the confusion I first tried the wrong microbus station to head to Apamea, but was reasonable swiftly on my way to Suqeilibiyya. Now that’s not easy to say and I was just hoping that there wasn’t another town that sounded anything like it. As I looked as the road signs I was hoping that the ministry of transport had used a different transliteration of the Arabic to the one I had. Fortunately I was able to change onto microbus 2 to Qala’at Alexander-Mudiq. Well now I was home free, Apamea was big and right by the village. Wasn’t it?

Wasn’t it?

Not so much. The microbus sped off, chappie said this was the right place, but there were no signs
I was stood at a junction and the road went 3 ways. We’d come from one direction, the bus had gone in another so I took the third one.

I did ask a chap if I was heading towards Apamea (even pronouncing it Afamia as you’re meant to) and he did nod, but the way things were going I wasn’t convinced-the guy looked like he’d have nodded if I’d asked if was Elvis. I felt stumbling up a steepening hill had to be a good thing; if I’d learnt one thing in Turkey it was that these ancient buggers always stuck it on a hill.

Reassurance came, as so often, from a man on a motorbike. Not only did he tell me I had guessed right but he told me to jump on the back and sped me up the rest of the hill. Thus it was that my first sight of Apamea was from the back of a motorbike looking over a flock of goats. I think I did well not to fall off.



I then got an invitation to come back to the chap’s house. And stay with his family. And phone my hotel that I wasn’t coming. This is the kind of thing that makes trips and you should jump at. I’m just too English, so I declined, which, being English, wasn’t too easy. I did feel bad, but consoled myself with the thought that it was unlikely he lived in the middle of a supermodel convention.

My next attempt at farce was with the camera. I’d got one photo and the camera batteries died. It was probably a couple of miles down a big hill to get back to the village for fresh batteries, so it was just as well I had replacements. I loaded them up, set the date and time and all that, turned to take the photo the last batteries had just denied me and they died. Bugger. I started desperately trying combinations of batteries hoping that some set might just get me through the day. The third or fourth combo looked OK, but I made sure I just turned camera to take the pic for the rest of the day.

I’ve run out of fresh ways to say this, but I think it’s worth repeating myself. If this place was in Britain it would be overrun with tourists and massively famous.



In Turkey the odd coach party bumped the numbers up. The first hour or so here it’s just me, a boy shepherd and the guy who takes the money and he wasn’t here to start with. I was glad when he did show up, as I would have felt most guilty not paying for this.



Much as I hate to say it, Syria needs someone to work on their PR and get people to see this. Palmyra will need to go some to top this.

However, if you do go, watch out for this man.



I believe him to be an old perv. I may be missing some local tradition here, but I doubt it. He shouted at me a lot and waved him arms, so it was only polite to go over and say hello. I suppose I should have been suspicious when he patted the rock next to him for me sit down. He then turned his head to one side and pointed at his cheek. Now I am not sure about this. I’ve seen plenty of local boys do the two cheek kiss thing; Antonis did it to me at the Athens games, but only me and John, who he knew well. I understand Beckham does this when he plays football, but that’s no excuse for anything. We’re all a bit continental now, people drink expresso, men kiss women on one, two or even three cheeks. In almost all circumstances, men shake hands. Firmly.

Even in exceptionally continental circumstances, one thing I am absolutely convinced about is that this cheek malarky does not involve any use of lips. So, not wishing to offend, I did a bit of cheek brushing and made some noise. This did not get full marks from the judge, who then decided to demonstrate what he was expecting from me. There was moisture and some kind of sucking: I suddenly, fervently wished I had a beard. A fucking big one.

I’m not 19th century, I have bought moisturiser, I love Oscar Wilde, I can wear pink shirts, but that’s it. Hugging blokes is for large sporting moments and celebrating the departure of a particularly heinous woman. That’s where it stops for me. So when he started pointing at his cheek again, I went ‘er, that’s a bit weird’ and stood up. Strong stuff I’m sure you’ll agree.

It all backs up my theory that in countries where women are not a conspicuous part of the society, the men go a bit gay. It’s the same in India. Men holding hands, men arm in arm, sleeping on each other. These are straight men; they’d probably hit you for saying they weren’t, but I’ll tell you this, it’s not a Northern European definition of heterosexual. It brings back memories of me, Mick and about 700 Indian men in Delhi on New Year’s Eve. We were trying to find the ladies party. That’s a whole other story though.

The old git wasn’t done. He then thought I wanted his photo in my shades, above, and having been told he couldn’t keep my Oakley’s he wanted baksheesh (cash).

Like I say I may have missed some worthy local tradition, but I doubt it. I feel violated.

Still a little disorientated, I got a bit hassles by some locals who’d ‘found’ some antiquities they were willing to sell to me. They even tailed me on their motorbike. I was beginning to think that this was a beautiful place populated by nutters, but this beaming kid in a green jumper offered me a lift back down the hill to the bus. He neither tried to kiss me or sell me anything and thus reassured me that all was right with the world.

Oh, you’d like to hear about Apamea? Well the columns extend for about a mile and a half I reckon and it’s 2nd century BC, founded by Seleucus, one of Alexander the Great’s generals.

Back in Hama I went to look round the Norias.



I saw about a dozen of these water wheels around the place, sadly only one was moving. That might be because it makes a lot of noise and stirs up the water, which smells foul.

I rather like the fountain round the corner from my pad.



Day 23
Tomorrow I head to Palmyra, where everything will be on my doorstep, but today saw another road trips via microbus and the city of Homs to reach Hosn and Crac des Chevaliers. Syrian roads have a strong air of exuberant chaos about them. The traffic is light enough that a fair amount of rule breaking and driving the wrong way down roads (even dual carriageways) isn’t suicidal as it would be at home; there’s enough traffic to make it hairy tho.

Motorbikes are very popular. My guess is that this is economic. Most vehicles are taxis, buses and trucks, so the private car is not common. My theory is that the motorbike takes the place of the small family car; a throy that is backed up by the number of motorbikes with a whole family on. Mum will sit side saddle behind Dad and she’ll hold any babies. They may a have little one sandwiched between them and a slightly larger one sitting up front between Dad’s legs. Teenagers will hoon around 3 to a bike. I’m sure it’s good for Syrian emissions targets, but without a helmet in sight, I fear for their road casualties.

The bikes look regular enough in the hands of the young, who mostly wear a Middle Eastern slant on Western clothes. Lots of denim, lots of designs on it. Where the meeting of cultures stands out is with the older more traditionally dressed gentleman. Robed in a black Lawrence of Arabia with the red and white head dress, it does look incongruous with a Japanese motorbike. I also thought how distinguished the men looked in these outfits; clothed which we see on TV being worn by terrorists and malcontents, clothes that the media have something made threatening. That at least is the perception I had.

I hope the health service can cope in Syria, as I think a lot of the cabbies must suffer from repetitive horn strain. There are cabs everywhere. Many are free. It’s not hard to get one. So I don’t really understand, why taxis cruise slowly round blaring their horn at any pedestrian to show they’re free. I haven’t noticed anyone stroll, get horned and then go ‘well I was going to walk, I hadn’t thought of a taxi, but come to think of it a taxi would be nice, why there is a taxi bringing itself to my attention, how convenient.’

I love the guys selling fish on the dual carriageway between Hama and Homs. They stand in the hard shoulder and when cars approach they lift up a bit of fishing line with a fish on the end and wave it about. I’m not sure if the ones you buy are rather better protected from the car fumes than the demonstration model.

One innovation they have, which we don’t have, is countdown traffic lights. I’ve seen variants in many places, but these are especially smart. The red light isn’t a solid circle, but is made up of LEDs, so it can be red, but by turning off some of the LEDs can show a number, like 27. This allows the red light to count down to when the lights will turn green. Some pen pusher has ordered a lot of these. Anyone on the street could have told the bureaucrat what would happen. The red light gets to 3 and the horns start blaring. At zero the green light comes on; it too counts down till it changes, but I’ve noticed that no green light is ever lit as long as a red light. The drivers notice this too and the horns take on a more frenzied pitch and frequency.

Safe to say I was quite well entertained before reaching the Crac. We’d all had to agree to pay a bit extra for the empty seats on the microbus as

The Crac was a fortress for some time, but was developed to its current form in the 12th century by the crusaders. It’s a heck of a fortress and a devil to get a long shot of.



Truth be told, I preferred Saladin, whose location is stunning and has a more romantic feel. Where the Crac scores is by being more complete; or more rebuilt, I’m not sure which. It’s clear the French did a lot of work in 1936 and some continues today.

The Crac was designed for a garrison of 2,000. It strikes this layman as a masterpiece of defensive design. There are a huge number of levels, half levels and quarter levels. You feel as if you keep ascending, yet almost always there is higher ground you. Higher ground an archer or such could easily exploit. Frequently you come through a door, an arch and you are overlooked from an unexpected angle. Many an invader would fall before they saw a defender. Then it’s such a rabbit warren; really knowing the castle would be a massive aid to defence. I found a corridor of archers post through an out of the way nook in a store room; it reached half way round the inner fortress.

The two walls which form two almost separate fortresses both have towers and any number of positions for individual defenders. The strategic options available to the general seemed almost limitless; the biggest problem I felt would be to command once battle was commenced. It would be very difficult to get a good overview and with so many defensive positions, small rooms and so on, I’d love to know how instructions were issued without modern communications.



However, when 200 troops, with 5 years of supplies were besieged by the Muslim hordes they gave up after a month. On the way there, I read this and thought it was a bit lame. I changed my mind once there. The wind was roaring round the place. Stuck in this huge construction (200 of them would have really rattled round), surrounded and lashed by the weather, I could see the appeal of safe passage. Great as the castle was, I think the crusaders were vanquished psychologically.

Oh, and it had one of these



The whole thing gave me quite a Helm’s Deep feeling.

Palmyra tomorrow. Bus 6.45. I haven't worked this out yet, buses are very early, but people don't seem to be up early