ONCE UPON A TIME IN SYRIA...

Memories of Middle East travels when the region was calm and opening to visitors

The ancient city of Hama, Syria, and its water wheels.

I didn’t plan on a mid-December Yak post being about Syria but, as that blighted nation has taken centre stage this week with the overthrow of a murderous dictator, I thought I’d share my experiences of travelling in Syria a quarter century ago.

From the time I left NZ (in 1990) until the pandemic forced me to stay put (2020) I was an inveterate traveller, determined to explore the world. The Middle East had fascinated me since childhood and I first came across the tales of Ali Baba & the 40 Thieves and Sinbad. Yes, I know, kids cartoons shouldn’t serve as a basis for interest in a geopolitical region but growing up in Mt Roskill – a suburb of Auckland where church and rugby dominated and there were no cinemas or theatres or music venues – I fed my imagination by reading books and watching TV/movies, the more vivid the tale the better. Soon ancient Egypt – mummies and curses and all – fed into my sense of wonder. By adolescence the conflicts in the Middle East had gained my attention. One day, I determined, I’d get to explore the region.

I first did so in early 1992 – Israel/Palestine and Egypt. I would go on to travel through Turkey, Morocco, Iran, Pakistan and further afield in Asia but it wasn’t until 1999 that I determined to visit the triangle of Lebanon-Syria-Jordan. At the time peace – of a sort – reigned in the region and Syria was cautiously welcoming visitors. While I often travel alone, time in Iran had taught me how lonely an experience this can be: in Iran (in ‘93) there were no other travellers to socialise with and the locals kept a polite distance (not wanting to incriminate themselves by being seen speaking with foreigners – at one Tehran guest house an Iranian man who had lived in Italy engaged me in conversation in a communal space and the proprietor angrily insisted we stop socialising. Yes, Orwellian). So I convinced my pal Gary to travel with me.

Fairuz is now 90 and widely regarded as the greatest Arabic vocalist of the past half century. I love her music.

Gary hadn’t travelled widely but he liked the idea when I sprang it on him. And so we got our visas and flew into Beirut, the city then being rebuilt after an Israeli bombardment (plus ca change…). I had two contacts in Beirut via a Kiwi pal who had spent some of his childhood there (his parents worked for Unesco), one being a doctor who described with stoic weariness what it was like to be a medic during the outbreaks of carnage that happen too often in that city. Both loved their home city but, and as this was before everyone had email thus I’ve not stayed in contact, I’ve no idea if they stayed there as Lebanon slowly collapsed due to war, corruption and mismanagement. Today, Beirut must be a shell of a city.

Beirut was, as you might imagine, hectic, with all kinds of commerce underway and jammed roads. The city’s casinos and beaches had once been venerated as places for the jetset to vacation, but war had long ago put an end to this and my lasting memory of Beirut is it resembling a gigantic building site. As I imagine it does again today. We were happy to escape to Tripoli, a smaller city in the north that has avoided the devastation Beirut has suffered.

We enjoyed exploring Tripoli’s many historic sites – one afternoon we entered an ancient mosque and a man, perhaps a caretaker, began speaking to us in Arabic and making gestures. Neither Gary or I had any command of Arabic so stood their like the dumb tourists we were. Then just about the broadest Aussie accent I’d ever heard stated, “he’s telling you to wash your hands in the fountain.” Also visiting, it turned out, was a Lebanese Australian man of a similar age to us. I’d heard Sydney had a large Lebo population and this guy confirmed that, yes, he was one of them and back visiting family. Once we’d washed our hands in the ancient fountain the caretaker instructed us on aspects of the mosque’s history (with the Aussie translating). I love these chance encounters that occur when travelling.

The Temple of Bacchus, Baalbek.

From Tripoli we travelled to Baalbek, a small city noted internationally because of its remarkable Roman temple complex. Baalbek is also noted as aHezbollah stronghold – again, Israel bombed it recently – and it is thought to have been where the British hostages Terry Waite and John McCarthy were held during their long, cruel captivity. Thankfully, in 1999 we Western infidels could wander Baalbek without fearing we might end up chained to a dungeon wall. And, yes, the temple complex truly is a sight to behold.

From Baalbek Gary and I headed into Syria. Our first stop was Damascus. On return I wrote a travel feature for Time Out magazine on Damascus – TO wanted a “city breaks” piece and so I gave them one. I dug it out and have posted it below. While far from my best work I hope it provides a sense of the Damascus experience when Syria was peaceful.

Hot. Oppressive. Uneasy. That was my Iranian experience. So why head to Syria, the country most closely linked culturally and politically with Iran? Actually, a blunt “why” was the question most often thrown at me before I left London. Why go to Syria? No beaches, no babes, no booze... not much of anything desired by Eurobloke in search of holiday paradise. Deserts, terrorists and kafiyyeh fashions - these being the associations people tend to make with Syria - and, sure, all share a basis in reality. Yet with Syria cautiously opening its borders to travellers I wanted to lift its veil, smell the camels and once again be seduced by the mystic East.

Initial impressions were ominous: sharing my service taxi crossing from Lebanon to Syria was Mohammed, a mullah from Aleppo, Syria’s second city. Chain smoking and quietly intense, Mohammed spelled out his job (“Propagandist.” “You mean prophet?” “No. Propagandist is the correct term. I have checked in the Collins dictionary”), beliefs (“We will crush Israel like a beetle!”), and the time ("we live in Khomeini time"). Er, right, any chance you can turn the taxi around and head back to Lebanon?

Like Iran, Syria’s soaked in religion, heavy with history, but as I was to find out, there is an openness and quiet joy apparent in Syria that Iran's fundamentalists have smothered. I didn't know this as Damascus appeared on the horizon and I got a strange sense of deja vu: it resembles Warsaw... if Warsaw was stranded in the desert. Syrians likes to boast that Damascus is the world’s oldest continually occupied city. Unfortunately, recent history found Syria not only embracing Soviet bloc politics but also their school of urban development - Damascus’s cityscape is dominated by tower blocks and squat, concrete buildings, Stalinist brutalism being the heavily favoured architectural style.

Mohammed directs the taxi to my hotel of choice and with a parting “Inshallah” the friendly fundamentalist is on his way. Getting a cheap room isn’t so simple - Damascus has, it appears, become a magnet on the backpacker trail between Istanbul and Petra - and as it’s mid-afternoon in April and 37 degrees the first part of my equation (hot - oppressive - uneasy) is correct: Syria gets very, very hot. Walking the streets of central Damascus suggests the next part looks also to be born out - Hafez-al-Assad was once President-for-life and now remains the Republic’s poster boy: from A-4 sized photos hung in every shop/restaurant/cafe/work place/hotel through kitsch billboards and murals to seven storey high banners, his image is everywhere, often flanked by his son and successor Bashar. No dissent is tolerated in Syria and one glance at The Great Leader’s thin-lipped and hawk-eyed visage reinforces this fact.

All of which makes Damascus a pretty strange location for backpackers. But there they are - Japanese wearing operating theatre masks, Germans quibling about the price of a cuppa (5p), French still acting sniffy about the fact the Syrians turfed them out fifty five years ago, Australasians on their way to Gallipoli and Brits... no, no Brits. Maybe if Syria got its football team together then... Syrians are welcoming if amused by the baggy shorts and piercings travellers. Unlike Iran - whose rigid dress code must be observed by locals and visitors - Syrians favour a casual, conservative dress sense. Indeed, Assad’s emphasis on a secular Syria means alcohol is available and, while a fair percentage of the female population may wear head scarves, another section stroll around as if dressed for a Mariah Carey video.

Encountering Zahar and Mahmood, two youths with a fascination for the West ("Britney Spears! Very beautiful!" joyously proclaims Zahar), I’m invited for a ride in what turns out to be Mahmood’s father’s Mercedes. “You can’t go down here,” I exclaimed as Mahmood tore down a New City pedestrian boulevard. “My father is a General in the police force,” answered Mahmood, “we drive where we want.” While Mahmood and Zahar love the New City for its modernity there’s little there for those seeking the flavour of ancient Arabia. Yes, it has Pizza Hut and designer shops and cinemas showing Jackie Chan but it all feels a bit like Birmingham.

Crammed into the centre of Damascus, surrounded by freeways and flyovers, overflowing across the ruins of the citadel, the Old City is Damascus’s beating heart. To enter this labyrinth is to stumble into narrow (narrow!) streets, lopsided (Dr Seuss-style) buildings, commanding mosques and glittering, covered souks. It’s a rush - literally: people flow across its pavements, cycle through the souks and skip through the surrounding multi-lane traffic accompanied by a symphony of beeps and toots.

Divided into quarters - from soft toys to iron mongers, everything has its place - the Old City’s ancient gates once welcomed Saul after his eventful journey to Damascus; now they choke with the SUVs Syrians tend to favour and tour buses. Ancient this area may be but its real magic rests not with myths but amongst the ebullient bustle of the souks. Imagine Ali Baba’s cave with the treasure swapped for tack - here exists a cornucopia of consumer goods over which the dense wail of Arab pop carries. Great golden piles of baklava tempt while juice bars pulp oranges, bananas, mangoes, kiwis and apples into great pints of pure fruit cocktails.

Vegetarian alert - Syrians’ like to eat meat: a pyramid of cooked sheep heads rest silently next to noisy cages full of live rabbits and poultry, while a restaurant banner advertises ‘Boiled Oily Meats’. Large portion or small? Thanks but I’ll stick with falafels. Syria's also a taxidermist's paradise. Around the souks youths insist the one gift you need from Damascus is a creature - anacondas, wolves, vultures and birds of prey - mounted for eternity on a wood plinth. Tiring of one merchant's spiel I suggested the magnificent specimen he held - a hawk frozen in flight - was surely a protected species. “Protect? No! We hate! It eat the sheep!” “What’s a few sheep?” “Bedouin people love the sheep!” Gobsmacked I fell silent so he added “there! Is nice hawk for you!” Oh, alright, think you could wrap it to fit in my backpack? Ta.

Everyone male - and Syria remains an extremely male dominated society – seemingly smokes, whether it’s the throat stripping Al Sham cigarettes (12p a packet!) or the honeyed tobacco that fills the nargileh (hookah) pipes and allows you to wile an afternoon away in Al-Nawfare Coffee Shop (tho’, tea’s the Syrian tipple). And if you fancy something stronger? Don’t even think about the puff, pills or powders that may nourish your London existence. Yet the Christians who make up thirteen percent of Syria’s populace are allowed to sell alcohol.

That said, Syria remains a fine place to give the liver a rest as the wine’s mediocre, the arak headache inducing and the beer as potent as Uncle Russell's homebrew. Still, having spent all afternoon wandering in the heat, it's easy to convince yourself you desperately need beer. Which means you'll probably pitch up at The Piano Bar, a generic sub-Hard Rock Cafe joint, and a favourite for travellers and locals. "Beer good?" asks my waiter. "Beer very good," I reply which keeps him smiling, tho' I should really be saying "beer pissy and expensive for Syria (£2)".

Throughout the souks and bars everyone watches basketball on TV and wants to talk about Manchester United - “you want carpet? You know David Beckham?” - and tries to flog bootleg Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys CDs. The most popular contemporary Syrian singer is George Wassouf. George may look like Mr Michael after a weekend on the tiles, but he sings like a veritable hurricane and to mention his name is to be received with veritable squeals of joy.

Here’s Syria’s favourite singer. George was discovered aged 12 and is popular throughout the Middle East. Being associated with the Assads may mean he’s exiled for a while.

Wandering in the Old City you can’t escape the epic Umayyad Mosque (Great Mosque), one of Islam’s holiest sites and home to John The Baptist's head... Yes, it’s open to appropriately dressed infidels. There’s also several museums in the Old City, all more impressive for their Ottoman architecture than their actual contents.

Some dismiss Damascus as a 24-hour city (ie arrive, observe, depart). Yes, it's hot, noisy, dusty and, so far, doesn't give a damn about tourism. It's also a fabulous mesh of ancient and contemporary, a confident city that feels engaged. Where Beirut's sacrificed to commerce, Amman's uninspiring, Cairo too polluted and Tehran traffic choked and paranoid, Damascus retains its tough, vital Arab character.

General information

Best time to visit Syria is spring or autumn - summer boils, winter freezes. There's no ATMs, Mc Donalds, internet or Coca Cola but there is Seinfeld and The European Championships on TV. As long as you don’t insult Islam (or Assad), Syria’s one of the safest places on the planet.

Food and drink

You like falafel, shawarma, humus? You better. Restaurants are scattered throughout Damascus and many serve traditional Arab (and Bedouin) fare. Italian and French fare can also be found if you so desire - the most expensive restaurant will cost no more than £8 for a multi-course meal. Juices remain a culinary high point in Syria.

Entertainment

Clubbing hasn’t hit Damascus although there are places around Martyrs Square where you can meet Russian/Romanian prostitutes (if that’s your thrill). The luxury hotels have nightclubs attached if you really want to hear Dancing Queen again. The British Council's Tuesday night drinks is where ex-pat's gather. Cinemas showing the latest Filipino and Hong Kong releases abound.

Palmyra’s Arch Of Triumph - this structure was destroyed by ISIS in 2015.

The things I write to earn a living… Anyway, as with Lebanon, Syria was far more interesting outside the nation’s capital. The first trip Gary and I took involved travelling by minibus to the ancient desert ruins of Palmyra (5 hours each way). This complex attracted much attention when ISIS took control of great swathes of Syria several years ago: Palmyra is Syria’s foremost historic site and, as ISIS were/are barbaric thugs dedicated to destroying anything deemed “un-Islamic”, it was feared that they would use dynamite to literally ruin the ruins. ISIS did murder the man who oversaw Palmyra and embarked on acts of spiteful destruction but, thankfully, weren’t in control long enough to do destroy the majority of the complex.

The scattered ruins of the great oasis city of Palmyra rest in the middle of the desert and are a stark monument to what happens when you disobey the ruling colonial power – Palmyra being sacked by the Romans when Queen Zenobia thought she could go it alone. Tthis stretch of ancient ruins is extremely evocative, a monument to how this territory has been fought over for thousands of years.

Hama, in-between Damascus and Aleppo, is a tranquil, river city notable for its historic buildings and waterways – waterwheels still stand throughout parts of the old town. After Damascus’s humidity and bustle, Hama felt chilled, peaceful. Yet this ancient city – its mentioned in the Bible – was home to an Islamist uprising in 1981 that saw Assad the elder employ the same scorched earth tactics his son would to quash the uprising in 2012: over 30,000 people were killed and an entire neighbourhood levelled. Not that there was any trace (or mention) of such in Hama.

A day trip by taxi – taxis were very reasonably priced and were happy to be hired for the day – took us to the formidable crusader castle Krak des Chevaliers. This huge edifice represents the medieval era when the European mercenaries dictated to by the Pope determined that they must take control of Jerusalem (and loot the surrounding lands). ‘Crusader’ remains a flash word amongst Islamists, the thousand years of loathing amongst the Arab people not having faded. Krak des Chevaliers is huge, squat, brutish, what you might expect from a medieval colonial fortress. History rarely suggests trade, culture, engagement in Syria – that said, Hama does bear traces of the Ottoman rulers in beautiful squares and buildings.

Aleppo, five hours north, is Syria’s second city and further north than Hama. We didn’t visit Aleppo, something I now regret as that city has suffered extreme destruction by the Assad government in 2012. Instead, Gary and I headed into Jordan, a more stable nation than Syria or Lebanon. Here we visited the remarkable red rock structures of Petra – yes, it is an ancient wonderland – and the enchanting Wadi Rum desert (where we stayed overnight sleeping outside – Gary had wisely packed a sleeping bag, I hadn’t so endured the coldest night of my life).

My main memory of Jordan – beyond the aforementioned locations – is the Bedouins, these nomadic people who had learnt to cater to tourists. They were straightforward and gracious and their children, who learnt English young so to engage with visitors, were funny and charming. Thinking on such reminds me of when we were in a taxi in Syria and, seeing a family camped by the side of the road, I asked our driver who they were. He replied “Gitan.” I was aware the Roma existed in the Middle East but that’s been my only glimpse of them.

As music tends to drive my travels I purchased plenty of cassettes, often buying on the recommendation of the seller. In Beirut one cassette shack (they often occupied small structures) owner spoke proudly of his Armenian heritage – Lebanon has a considerable Armenian populace – while in Hama we stumbled on a spring fair where musicians were performing on a makeshift stage (the only performance we encountered on our travels). The music of this region – and Beirut was once a music industry hub to match Cairo – is enchanting, eerie in its solemn power, rich and potent in its many varied genres. I will never tire of listening to Fairuz or Munir Bachir.

As for Syria today – who knows how that brutalised nation will take shape now the Assad dictatorship is over? Russia, Iran, Israel, the USA, Turkey, the Saudis/UAE, Lebanon and others all have their own interests to pursue here. The nation’s Kurds have fought ISIS and the Turkish military and now they will be wearily watching the power struggles in Damascus. As Islamists led this successful uprising the Alawites (the tribe from which the Assads hailed), Jews and Christians – alongside other minorities – will be fearful of what might be forthcoming.

The overthrow of dictators in Iraq and Libya only led to greater suffering and, the Assads, for all their cruelty, pursued a secular rule that let everyone practise whatever faith they wished and allowed women a far greater degree of autonomy than most Muslim nations. To witness Syria being taken over by fundamentalists akin to the Taliban would be a tragedy, one that would only serve to increase the nation’s suffering.

I have no insight to offer beyond offering the weakest of words – “hope” – that a stable, peaceful future awaits a nation whose history is dotted with violence and upheaval. I doubt I will ever return to Syria but I enjoyed my travels there, a young man in an ancient land. May peace be with the Syrian people.

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Courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus old town.