Finally, I am getting off my lazy ass and will now post some details of my time in Syria and Lebanon.
My first day was spent in London, as I had a 8.5 hour layover. I went to British Museum to check out many of the pillaged treasures they've collected like the Rosetta Stone, the friezes from the Parthenon, and loads of amazing Egyptian and South American relics. Then I walked around a bit and stopped in for a few pints at the Dog and Duck.
It was still a bit early for pub food so I had Dim Sum in Chinatown before heading back to the airport. After another 5.5 hours of flying I arrived in Aleppo (Syria's 2nd largest city) only to find that the customs agent didn't know what a US passport actually looked like and so he had to have a 10 minute conference with all the other customs agents before he let me pass. At least my hotel actually had my reservation and gave me a huge, comfy, well appointed room. Luckily, I was able to sleep and jet lag never set in. The picture below is of the courtyard of the hotel, which was built inside some rehabbed Ottoman houses.
By the time I woke up the next morning my friends had arrived and we set off to explore the city. It's somewhat of a dreary place, every building made of grey stone, but had some interesting things to see and do. We stopped by the market (souk), which seemed to go on for miles, and also visited an old hotel by the name of The Baron, which had played host to loads of celebrities way back when. They had displayed Lawrence of Arabia's unpaid bar bill, and many period pictures and photos. Then we checked out the huge citadel at the edge of the city. A photo of the entrance is below.
Unfortunately, my friend's wife HAD TO GO HOME the very next day due to some court date being moved up (she's an attorney), and the guys were left to their own devices. We drove out to San Simeon (pictured below) that afternoon, which is a ruin of one of the earliest and best known churches. The basilicas were named after Simeon, who lived for 40 years as a hermit, outdoors on top of an 18 foot pillar eating only water and lentils a few times a week. He became famous and many pilgrims would visit him (by ladder) and ask him for advice and words of wisdom. When he died, a church was erected in his honor, and was the largest church in the world for many hundreds of years thereafter. All that was left of his pillar when I saw it was a 6ft boulder.
The next we started our journey which had us sleeping at a different place every night for the rest of the trip. Our first stop was Apamea. Apamea was a huge Roman city, which a main boulevard stretching 2km through the center of the city. Most of the city was completely destroyed by earthquake, but much of the collanade, and main boulevard is still there.
Later on that day, we went on to Hama, a really nice looking city famous for it's huge waterwheels. They also had a really great museum, and a quaint "old city" area which was fantastic for walking around.
From there, we drove on to Palmrya, which is a Roman ruin uncovered in the desert sands in the east. The place was near deserted, just because it was so huge (probably 2 miles square) and was fun to explore. We rode some camels too. The setting was pretty memorable.
The next day we drove east, from the desert to the mountains to the best preserved Crusader castle in the world, Krak de Chevaliers. We stayed at a little place overlooking the fortress. The owners were a couple of brothers and one of them took us to a party over at his friend's place. Unfortunately there were no girls there, but there was a load of singing, dancing and live music. As in this whole area of the world, their favorite liquor is licorice-flavored, which makes me barf so I stuck with beer. In the morning, we headed over for a tour of the castle, and got a really good guide. It seems that the town used to be INSIDE the castle until the 1940s (WW2) and our guide was born there, and even now lives only 100 yards away. Krak was close to impenetrable and was only taken by trickery in the waning years of the Crusaders.
After the visit to Krak, we headed for the Lebanon border which was an amusing adventure. We had no problem checking out of Syria, but there didn't seem to be any personnel from Lebanon for our entry visas. We just walked out the back gate of the crossing and there was a dirt road and nothing in site but some fields. We had a driver who was supposed to be picking us up at the border and he wasn't there either. I wasn't all that worried about entering with no visa, but I figured getting out might be more of a problem, especially as I'm Jewish. In the end though it wasn't a big deal. No one spoke english but we managed to figure out that the check in was 2 miles down the road (no idea of who owns the no man's land in between) and that was where our driver was waiting. Thank the gods for texting
We had a pleasant drive through the Becca valley which was really beautiful. Although, we did have to drive on dirt in some places since the road was still being repaired after an Isreali bombing late last year.
Our first stop was the Ksara winery, the largest in Lebanon and makers of pretty good wine. Syrian wine was swill, so we drank Lebanese wine the whole trip. We got a tour of the place including the aging caves and bottling area. Our guide was a serious hottie which was not an anomaly, a huge percentage of Lebanese girls were beautiful.
After a huge dinner at a revolving mountainside restaurant we checked into our hotel and spent some of the evening and next day exploring Baalbek, a Roman temple complex. The scale was unbelievable. The base of the temples here were comprised of single cut blocks weighing about 800 tons each (about the weight of 2 747s). During the day I was offered a free Hezbollah T-shirt, which I really wanted to take, if only for the irony, but didn't want to get caught trying to bring it back into the US.
I wish we could have spent more time in Lebanon and done some skiing, swimming and seen Beirut, but we had no more time and headed to our last stop, Damascus. The last two days were mostly spent relaxing, looking for souvenirs and walking around the old city. Damascus was a really great mix of modern and historical. We saw a load of wonderful things at the Damascus museum (no pictures allowed though), watched part of a pre-wedding celebration (complete with music, swordplay and dancing) in the Jewish quarter, saw some Easter services going on the Christian quarter and ate some great meals.
Before we left, we also visited Basra, a preserved and still used Roman theatre.
So that is the trip in a nutshell. Overall the people were incredibly warm and friendly. Syrians didn't like Bush, but they liked Americans just fine (I feel the same). In addition, no one in Syria or Lebanon had a bad word to say about Jews or any other specific group.
Ok, back to work for me. I'll be at the Holiday Club for the SG event on Friday. Hope to see many of you there.
My first day was spent in London, as I had a 8.5 hour layover. I went to British Museum to check out many of the pillaged treasures they've collected like the Rosetta Stone, the friezes from the Parthenon, and loads of amazing Egyptian and South American relics. Then I walked around a bit and stopped in for a few pints at the Dog and Duck.
It was still a bit early for pub food so I had Dim Sum in Chinatown before heading back to the airport. After another 5.5 hours of flying I arrived in Aleppo (Syria's 2nd largest city) only to find that the customs agent didn't know what a US passport actually looked like and so he had to have a 10 minute conference with all the other customs agents before he let me pass. At least my hotel actually had my reservation and gave me a huge, comfy, well appointed room. Luckily, I was able to sleep and jet lag never set in. The picture below is of the courtyard of the hotel, which was built inside some rehabbed Ottoman houses.
By the time I woke up the next morning my friends had arrived and we set off to explore the city. It's somewhat of a dreary place, every building made of grey stone, but had some interesting things to see and do. We stopped by the market (souk), which seemed to go on for miles, and also visited an old hotel by the name of The Baron, which had played host to loads of celebrities way back when. They had displayed Lawrence of Arabia's unpaid bar bill, and many period pictures and photos. Then we checked out the huge citadel at the edge of the city. A photo of the entrance is below.
Unfortunately, my friend's wife HAD TO GO HOME the very next day due to some court date being moved up (she's an attorney), and the guys were left to their own devices. We drove out to San Simeon (pictured below) that afternoon, which is a ruin of one of the earliest and best known churches. The basilicas were named after Simeon, who lived for 40 years as a hermit, outdoors on top of an 18 foot pillar eating only water and lentils a few times a week. He became famous and many pilgrims would visit him (by ladder) and ask him for advice and words of wisdom. When he died, a church was erected in his honor, and was the largest church in the world for many hundreds of years thereafter. All that was left of his pillar when I saw it was a 6ft boulder.
The next we started our journey which had us sleeping at a different place every night for the rest of the trip. Our first stop was Apamea. Apamea was a huge Roman city, which a main boulevard stretching 2km through the center of the city. Most of the city was completely destroyed by earthquake, but much of the collanade, and main boulevard is still there.
Later on that day, we went on to Hama, a really nice looking city famous for it's huge waterwheels. They also had a really great museum, and a quaint "old city" area which was fantastic for walking around.
From there, we drove on to Palmrya, which is a Roman ruin uncovered in the desert sands in the east. The place was near deserted, just because it was so huge (probably 2 miles square) and was fun to explore. We rode some camels too. The setting was pretty memorable.
The next day we drove east, from the desert to the mountains to the best preserved Crusader castle in the world, Krak de Chevaliers. We stayed at a little place overlooking the fortress. The owners were a couple of brothers and one of them took us to a party over at his friend's place. Unfortunately there were no girls there, but there was a load of singing, dancing and live music. As in this whole area of the world, their favorite liquor is licorice-flavored, which makes me barf so I stuck with beer. In the morning, we headed over for a tour of the castle, and got a really good guide. It seems that the town used to be INSIDE the castle until the 1940s (WW2) and our guide was born there, and even now lives only 100 yards away. Krak was close to impenetrable and was only taken by trickery in the waning years of the Crusaders.
After the visit to Krak, we headed for the Lebanon border which was an amusing adventure. We had no problem checking out of Syria, but there didn't seem to be any personnel from Lebanon for our entry visas. We just walked out the back gate of the crossing and there was a dirt road and nothing in site but some fields. We had a driver who was supposed to be picking us up at the border and he wasn't there either. I wasn't all that worried about entering with no visa, but I figured getting out might be more of a problem, especially as I'm Jewish. In the end though it wasn't a big deal. No one spoke english but we managed to figure out that the check in was 2 miles down the road (no idea of who owns the no man's land in between) and that was where our driver was waiting. Thank the gods for texting
We had a pleasant drive through the Becca valley which was really beautiful. Although, we did have to drive on dirt in some places since the road was still being repaired after an Isreali bombing late last year.
Our first stop was the Ksara winery, the largest in Lebanon and makers of pretty good wine. Syrian wine was swill, so we drank Lebanese wine the whole trip. We got a tour of the place including the aging caves and bottling area. Our guide was a serious hottie which was not an anomaly, a huge percentage of Lebanese girls were beautiful.
After a huge dinner at a revolving mountainside restaurant we checked into our hotel and spent some of the evening and next day exploring Baalbek, a Roman temple complex. The scale was unbelievable. The base of the temples here were comprised of single cut blocks weighing about 800 tons each (about the weight of 2 747s). During the day I was offered a free Hezbollah T-shirt, which I really wanted to take, if only for the irony, but didn't want to get caught trying to bring it back into the US.
I wish we could have spent more time in Lebanon and done some skiing, swimming and seen Beirut, but we had no more time and headed to our last stop, Damascus. The last two days were mostly spent relaxing, looking for souvenirs and walking around the old city. Damascus was a really great mix of modern and historical. We saw a load of wonderful things at the Damascus museum (no pictures allowed though), watched part of a pre-wedding celebration (complete with music, swordplay and dancing) in the Jewish quarter, saw some Easter services going on the Christian quarter and ate some great meals.
Before we left, we also visited Basra, a preserved and still used Roman theatre.
So that is the trip in a nutshell. Overall the people were incredibly warm and friendly. Syrians didn't like Bush, but they liked Americans just fine (I feel the same). In addition, no one in Syria or Lebanon had a bad word to say about Jews or any other specific group.
Ok, back to work for me. I'll be at the Holiday Club for the SG event on Friday. Hope to see many of you there.
VIEW 17 of 17 COMMENTS
Thanks for the "congrats;" I'm super pumped.. and anxious.. and a little terrified.
i had a blast last night and i know Char did too, man. good times. and thanks a ton for the ride home.