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  • Syria: land of hospitality and plenty

    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
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