Home with the fellas

Am now officially home, at least for the next few weeks. Rocky was so glad to have me home he jumped right in one my "shopping" luggage bag and said don't leave again without me! Carlos doesn't care so much....

Piccies of Beirut

Piccies of Syria

Beirut's defence

OK, having dished Beirut a little in my last blog I better tell you quickly how it redeemed itself... I gave up on the search for an ideal waterfront experience and decided instead to head for the centre of town to see what it had to offer, and my what a surprise! It was like stepping out of the Middle East and straight into France. First, it was the cleanest city centre I have ever seen in my life anywhere in the world. Second, the streets were filled with fantastic restaurants, bars and outdoor cafes. In between the shops and restaurants were beautiful churches and mosques side by side. Most fascinating of all were the buildings. Here and there as you approach the city centre you see buildings riddled with the marks of bullets and shellings still remaining from the war, along side brand new glizty constructions, but when you get to the city centre it is all these fabulous restored buildings which are clean and perfect but old, french colonial era in style. In the end Beirut did live up to its reputation of being a very liveable city.

Home time!

Beirut did redeem itself! and I will tell you about it but now off to the airport to catch the plane home! Hooray! Flying Amman, Bangkok, Sydney, Canberra, arriving Canberra mid morning Friday.

The Bombs of Beirut

After Syria, I jumped back in the car and drove across the mountains and into Lebanon, down to Beirut. To be honest Beirut was more of a mixed experience. It started well and ended well, but there was a shaky bit in the middle where I wasn’t sure about Beirut! When I arrived in Beirut I was full of the recommendations that Beirut was the “French Riviera of the Middle east” etc etc, and a modern, funky city. So with this in mind, I headed out to enjoy the sea. I was in a hotel right near the corniche (the esplanade along the Mediterranean), so I headed off the find the beach at the end of it. Most of the waterfront is of course not beach but rocks and rock wall, but according to the map there are were a couple of long sandy beaches at the end of the 5km Beirut Marathon route along the corniche. I decided it would be a nice walk and I would be rewarded with a swim at the beach at the end of the 5km. It was a nice walk and once again I found myself reflecting back to our beloved Gong… the cars lined up along the waterfront with young Lebanese guys gave me new insight to south beach! Anyway, I finally reached the promised beach and by this time was well ready for a swim, but I guess I made some mistaken assumptions about how modern and progressive Beirut was. It indeed was a nice long sandy beach, but there was barely a woman on it and certainly not any swimming, bar two women in full hijab in the shallows with their kids. Needless to say I realized the thought of ducking in for a swim was clearly a bit silly, so I decided to go back to the hotel “beach club” (aka swimming pool near the water). I got a taxi back and got a crazy taxi driver who when we got near our hotel pointed out oops that there behind that yellow tape on the corner is the bomb site where the former prime minister was recently blown up. Always reassuring to be reminded you picked a holiday spot where there have been a few too many car bombs lately. About this stage he starts yelling “Beirut no good! Very dangerous! You finish your business and GO! You understand me!? Finish your business and go!!”. He then proceeded to rip me off so I suspect he was the main danger…Anyway, never one to be deterred by a crazy taxi driver, headed off the beachclub anyway. Of course, it turns out also to be right at the bombsite, cos when I ask directions, they say just go around the police tape and under the bombed bit… which I do. Then I get in and they do have a lovely pool just behind the bombed area which appears unaffected, so I go in, but they don’t let me in because I don’t have the right voucher. I ask if they can just phone back to the hotel to confirm I am staying there, to which they respond “sorry, there are no phones down here. All the phones were destroyed by the assassination car bomb…” At this point I decided maybe it was a bit much for an R&R swim, so I retreated to the indoor swimming pool at the hotel proper before being brave enough to venture out again. Out of time, more on Beirut’s redemption later….

Down the highway in a big yellow valiant…. To Damascus!!

Actually, I wasn’t in a big yellow valiant, but I was jealous of the people who were, and the cars weren’t exactly valiants but they looked like them! I drove to Damascus on Sunday from Amman- it is less than 3 hours from Amman. All the Damascus-Amman taxis are these hilarious yellow beasts of cars which looks like big old valiants or something like that (not being a car person can’t be more specific, but think, big, wide and yellow).The road from Amman to the border is essentially desert (as is most of Jordan) but once you hit Syria it seems to get more fertile and the road fills up of all these trucks laden with fantastic looking veges (we had to dodge a few apples and capsicums coming off the back). I spent two nights in Damascus, near the old city. I am pleased to say that Damascus completely lived up to expectations in terms of being a fascinating and what you imagine an old Arab city to be. I spent most of my time wandering through the old city and the souks, which I think you could just do endlessly and still find more fascinating and beautiful things. The nicest thing about Syria was how lovely and gentle the people where. In one walk of about 2 hours I counted about 10 people who I met and who did something nice for me, from the woman who helped me ask for apple juice in Arabic (tufah) and then walked me the few blocks to the place I wanted to go, and then turns out she spent 30 years living in Bankstown and then returned to her beloved Syria once her children were grown up), to the young artist who gave me directions, then showed me his little gallery and then directed me to a lovely hidden little café where I could find some nice lunch. With everyone I met there just seemed to be this unique gentleness.