Another late start, and as we left we encountered our hotelier/agent friend, about to leave on his cycling expedition to the "dead cities", which Anne had already informed me about. He was quite a sight to behold, on his bike - a huge front light powered by an even larger battery behind the saddle, water bottles and tea flasks everywhere, the obligatory siren/lambada player, etc. The bike must have weighed a ton. We left our bags and set out to do some more exploring - the Christian Armenian quarter interested us the most. As we trudged through it, a guy approached us and offered to take us to one of the old Armenian houses. We were a little wary, but we agreed. It turned out the house was a beautiful courtyarded affair, now acting as an orphanage for girls from broken homes. The lady in charge was a French teacher, so we ended up having a long conversation with her, as the guy who had brought us there stood by a little awkwardly.
When we left, the guy accompanied us further, and lo and behold, we were standing in front of his antique shop. We declined his offer to show us around, and headed off once more. By this point in our travels our sustenance consisted mainly of toasted cheese rolls and freshly squeezed fruit juices. We then returned to our Parisian café for another disgusting Nescafe (except I opted out in the last minute and went for tea - imagine me taking tea in preference to coffee - it must have been bad). Then we returned to the hotel for our bags, and the bus to Damascus. On the way to the bus station the sun caught the pollution beautifully to form an effect of dense fog, but unfortunately the photo I took of it didn’t capture it properly. While in Aleppo we spotted some interesting sights. We walked past one building which looked like a bomb had just gone off outside. But no, it was just the Commercial Bank of Syria on a good day! There was also a marvellous statue in Socialist Realist style. We had no idea what it signified, but it was wonderfully hideous!
The bus journey was pretty uneventful. The actual vehicle was an awful, old coach in Karnak livery with Karnak upholstery and curtains and sun visor, etc., which was pretty grim inside, and we had to suffer this for 5 hours to Damascus. Sitting at the front we were able to take some good photos of the road ahead, and especially of the mad traffic one encounters on the Syrian motorways. The stop in Hama was evocative, reminding me primarily of the dose of dysentery I picked up here. One of the Noria was working, groaning away. Or at least, it appeared to be working. In fact, someone had given it a push! It was also in Hama that we finally found a couple of young beauties to pose for a photograph. It may have been hard work, but we got there in the end.
Once in Damascus we caught a cab to the Martyrs’ Square, after having a row with a cabby over the price en route, which entailed my getting out of the cab, only to be called back by Eric as the driver agreed to our price (which was more than reasonable). He scowled at us as he drove off, and we scowled back. We went to the Grand Ghazi hotel, which had been recommended to us as cheap and clean. It was, and we managed to get a triple room overlooking the police station for 375 Syrian per night.
We went out to the juice bar on the corner, sat down and made ourselves comfortable with a large squeezed pomegranate. Soon enough we were being pestered. So we tried to find out whether the hammam were still open. We asked someone. They smiled and said "Hama, yes Hama good. I from Hama." Thank you, we replied, and decided to go and ask somewhere else, especially after a policeman arrived and told them to remove the tables from the street. It seemed an entirely random use of the policeman’s powers, a bit of showing how big and important he was. He didn’t have a smile for a couple of western tourists, either, so we felt it was time to make ourselves scarce. Some Yemenis we met did what so many other non-Syrians we met did - they took the piss out of the place for being such a dump. Syria really is the but of jokes in the Arab world, a second-class country. In the end we worked out that people thought that the hammam were not open anymore at 9pm, so we’d be better off going to find some food. Pity - I could really have done with a massage and steam bath.
Finding food was another adventure. First of all we were beckoned into a seedy looking place that did shish kebabs. I said I wanted some "food no meat", which appears to be the Syrian English for vegetarian cuisine. The bloke smiled and said they had bread, hommos...I lost my temper. I’m sick and tired of bloody hommos, I’ve been eating nothing but hommos all bloody week, don’t you Syrians have any bloody imagination when it comes to cooking, etc. The guy looked shocked, then beckoned me into the kitchen. Now what, I wondered. He wanted to show me the other vegetarian food he had on offer. Bread, a hard boiled egg, feta cheese, apricot jam. "No, that’s breakfast," I barked. "I’ve been eating that all week, too!" I stormed out, and Eric followed, somewhat sheepishly. After much umming and aahing, and trying to work out if we could find this street or that restaurant, we ended up in the Cham Palace Hotel, which claimed to have a pizzeria. The food looked affordable, and the place looked OK, so we decided to risk it. We pretended to be American tourists, bad pronunciation and awful manners and all, but in the end we felt sorry for the waiter, so we told him what we had been up to. I’m sure he didn’t understand a word of it, but he looked grateful for the large tip we left him, so we didn’t feel too bad about it. After an edible pizza (the first decent food in ages) we retired to our hotel.
Last Updated on 13 November, 1999