Golan Hights!

This trip was supposed to be a bit different - after Syria and Jordan I was planning to go to Yemen. But just few days before my departure, a few tourists were killed, so I decided not to go there anymore.. but I still wanted to do something risky ;-) and this is why I decided visiting Golan Hights (it was not risky at all though ;-)).

I mentioned this idea to Agnieszka, already at the very beginning, but she absolutely didn't want to join me.. but thanks to my negiotiation skills, after a week of travelling around in Syria, she decided to go to the Heights with me. Of course I would go there even alone, but it's always better to have a company :-)

so we woke up very early, in order to get a permit from the Syrian Ministry of Interior. It took us some time in this crazy city to find the place, but when we got there, it went surprisingly fast - we just gave our passports to someone at the entrance, and after 15 minutes we held our permits. with the permits we went to the minibuses station and found the one, which was going to Quneitra. Asking the driver at what time we will leave is senseless - the answer is always the same: "when the bus will be full"... luckily the bus got full very fast and we could go!!!

Actually travelling through the Golan Heights is not allowed, but we could visit the town of Quneitra. Quneitra is a ghost town today. in 1973 Israelis evacuated all the Arabs and systematically distroyed the town. when we got to Quneitra, the driver of our minibus proposed that he could drive us around - of course for additional money. At the checkpoint we also got a Syrian intelligence officer, who officialy was making sure we don't wander off into any minefields, and in reality that we don't go in the places we shouldn't.

Quneitra made a very sad impression. The town was totally distroyed, all the houses were demolished, so the mosque, the church and the hospital. It was sad to see a once-normal town in which the life does not exist anymore. I loved this place and I think that getting there was a great idea. Although I cannot say that I enjoyed the place, it was a nother perspective of my Middle East trip after all these Roman ruins, crusaders' castles, mosques etc

Do you love Mohammad or we're visiting the North

Palmyra was absolutely marvellous experience!! we met amazing people, we had great adventures, without mentioning camels... ;-) our Bedouins wanted us to stay one day more and spend a night on the desert, but we decided to go to Hama. We met a Dutch guy and a bit crazy Italian girl, who were supposed to give us a lift.

it was probably one of the craziest trips I've ever survived - the car was totally old (1983) and could barely drive. Moreover after 20 minutes of drive we were surprised by the sandstorm!! it's actually impossible to see anything from 2 meters and the sound was everywhere inside the car.. and the guy was listening to some crap Dutch music from 70's... after the girl almost smashed Syrian soldiers standing on the road, I really wanted to finish this trip..

ok, we got to Hama - apparently Syria's one of the most attractive towns with its ancient wooden norias (water wheels), but for us it was a bit boring and stinking (!!) But the hotel was very nice and it organized some trips around Hama. we decided to see Krak des Chevaliers - apparently "the finest Crusader castle in the world" (or rather ruins actually..), which was indeed very nice and interesting, but I think that Polish Malbork Castle is much better :-)

but we have visited also Apamea - another Roman ruins. and it was it!! great place, I think I even prefered it than Palmyra's ruins. and the most impressive part of it was the 2km long Cardo - main street - marked out along much of its length by surprisingly well kept colonnades. It had to be absolutely incredible 2000 years ago!!

we've also seen the Dead Cities and Qual'at Samaan - the ruined basilica -built in the place where the pillar on which the Simon Stylites (Szymon Slupnik) was living. another great great place of Syria. and last but not least thing that really impressed us, was the landscape!! we were thinking of Middle East as of a place full of desserts and which lacks green colour. and northern Syria turned out to be the greenest place I've ever seen!! yeah, greener than my beloved Eire :-)

but the greatest came at the end and it was the city of Aleppo. Very conservative and different than Damascus, but in our opinion much more interesting. First of all a very spectacular Citadel, splendid souq (where we bought a lot of beautiful jewelery, scarves etc. for apparently good money. we keep on saying we're poor students from poor Poland and we have really good deals ;-)), impressing Christian quartier with churches of each rite and of course all these muslims. since we're there on Friday, which is the kind of our Sunday in Islam, we decided to visit the main Mosque of Aleppo. we were observing people (much more conservatively dressed - many women had totally covered face (!) and the best place to do so, was of course inside of the Mosque. it's really funny to watch what the people do there - some of them were eating, some of them sending messages, playing with children, laying on the carpet, reading something (ok, probably Quran), 80% staring at us and just some of them praying.. two girls wanted to chat with us, but they knew just few words, and completely couldnt understand us.. after the question: "you Muslim?", I answered: "no, I'm Christian", but the girl probably couldn't understand the reason of our stay in the Mosque, so she asked: "you love Mohammad?"... well, I lost my words and sincerely couldn't answer. what to answer on such a question while being in the Mosque..? so I wanted to explain her with these five words she knew, that I love Jesus, but she kept on asking: " do you love Islam?", "do you love Muslim?"... it was the most surrealistic conversation I've had for a long time, and yes, at the end I had to admit that I loved Mohammad... I was glad though that I made this girl's day.. :-)

Palmyra

After 2 days in Damascus, our next destination is city of Palmyra. Very surprisingly (it's not always the case) all our taxi drivers have meters and none of them was trying to cheat on us. at the station, we were the only persons who were not obliged to scan the luggage. Syrian government is doing its best to prevent the terrorist attacks. Apparently we didn't look very suspicious.

I think it will become a tradition, that the worse the beginning, the best the ending.. we have heard that after 9/11, the number of tourists arriving to Palmyra has significantly decreased and competition between the hotels became a bit nasty. and indeed, before even arriving to Palmyra, our bus driver unilaterally decided that we should go out already and go to the hotel in front of which he stopped. after our refusal, he was very unhappy, but he continued to drive. he stopped at the station. and number of people shouting and trying to convince us to follow them, was really impressive. but as we follow Lonely Planet advices, we decided to stay in recommended by LP the Sun Hotel.. the owner indeed was very nice, but the hotel... I was taking shower with closed eyes and slept in my sleeping bag, without any will to touch the duvet..

the quality of our room pressured us to leave it ASAP - we decided to head to the main city attraction and actually one of the most splendid historical sites. the ruins date to the 2nd century AD an cover some 50 hectares!! they are really impressive!! but before we got there, an amusin story has happened. we've heard that the president of Syria was in Palmyra that day, and while we're walking to the ruins we saw a caravan of at least 15 cars - police cars and black government cars. they were all driving very slowly just next to us, so we do believe that although we couldn't see the president (because all windows were also black) - he definitly saw us!! :-)

in the ruins we also met Bedouins with camels - I absolutely wanted to do a small ride on camel. his owner - a boy called Ali - was very nice, didn't want actually money and proposed that he could come the next day with two camels and show us the sunrise in the ruins. I agreed straight away, Angie after a little while :-)

Palmyra offered us also a very delicious Syrian food, a very delicious Syrian wine, a delicious shisha and amazingly friendly company of locals :-)

the day after, at 5am, two Bedouin boys with camels arrived in front of our hotel. we were so lucky - the sky was blue (what was not that sure as the previous day it was raining) and without any single cloud! 20 minutes later we were admiring a sunrise, beautifully lighting the ruins of Palmyra. after the sunrise, boys invited us to the bedouine tent for breakfast. kardamon coffee, houmus and scrambled eggs with naan were the most delicious breakfast we had so far!! and after they decided to show us the desert, where we got on their motorbikes!! absolutely amazing feeling to visit the desert at this time of the day and with this mean of transport!!! we ABSOLUTELY loved our Palmyra adventure!!

Damascus

First general remark - Syria seems to be more restrictive than Iran, and I cannot open my blog here -Blogspot (without mentionning Facebook of course...) is BANNED. anyway I'm trying to convince internet points' owners to open it for me with proxy.. so I might write this blog with some delay, but I'll try to write at least few comments about the place and upload few pictures from time to time.

After long long plannings, which country/countires will be my next destination, I decided to continue with my beloved Middle East. And this time it will be Syria, Jordan and Lebanon - not necessarily in this order, as I don't have my return ticket yet :-) so the trip will be spontaneous - as I like :-)

Damascus didn't welcome me very warmly in both senses. First of all it's quite cold, not to say very cold. when you go to Middle East, you expect it to be hot, while I'm freezing when I sleep in jumper, in sleeping bag and under two blankets. During the day it's not that bad, but only if it's sunny.. Second thing which - not very pleasant - was the crowd of taxi drivers in front of the airport. they were all shouting and wanted me to go with them. only the price they proposed seemed to be much higher, than the one that Agnieszka paid few hours earlier.. after few minutes I've found an official stand with taxis, with official and negotiable prices. it seemed to be much more reliable, so I paid and I went to the hotel. unfortunately the taxi driver was not that reliable as I used to think - after he drowe me to the hotel, he demanded additional money.. I complained to the owner of the hotel, so they fight a bit.. I'm not sure if I like Syria that much...

On the first day we did a very classical tour, which means Umayyad Mosque, Azem Palace and Christian quartier. Umayyad Mosque is one of Islam's most important buildings and indeed it's absolutely gorgeus! Although we had very modest clothes (long dresses, coats etc.), we were obliged to wear long, shapeless and a bit disgusting coats.. inside we have found out that actually there were quite fewI did like especially, because in the mosque there's a shrine of Hussain - grandson of the Prophet, which means it's a holy place for Shiite (Ali is regarded as a founder of Shiisme), which means plenty of Iranians visiting this place. The courtyard - although made of marble - turned out incredibly clean... after at least half an hour of a walk, me white as snow socks, remained white as snow... :-)

Umayyad Mosque contains another big attraction - Mausoleum of Saladin, although it doesn't look like very impressive. His tomb is in a very small and modest building, and it's very surprising that this big personality's tomb is in such a small a modest place!

Two other Damascus' sights we've seen were Azem Palace and Christian Quartier. Actually I'm quite disappointed with Damascus, it's really pretty city, but I think that after Iran very few things can really impress me. When you go to the kind of legend city, which is one of the oldest World cities you expect really incredible monuments or palaces, and those that you find are nice, but none of them really stunning.

Before I came to Syria I thought it's quite liberal country, and so I was really surprised with women, of which at least 90% wear chadors (although they're not obliged to do so). Some of them even cover completely (sic!! with no hole for the eyes) their faces. I haven't seen in in Iran ever. Another thing that surprises is a huge amount of billboards with president Bashar al-Assad. they're much more numerous than images of Khomeini in Iran!!!!!

On Sunday we went to Maalula - a small village with two not so interesting monasteries. A very interesting thing though was that it's one of the last remaining places where Arameic - the language of the Christ - is still spoken. In Monastery of St Sergius we met a very nice priest who recited 'Pater Noster' in Arameic.

The afternoon we decided to spend in hamam and it was absolutely fantastic decision. a thing that shocked me a bit was attitude of Syrian women towards their sexuality. when you see them on the streets most of them are completely covered and don't look in other people's eyes, as if they wouldn't like to have any contact with another person, while in hamam all this barrier disappears!! I was quite surprised how intimate a visit in hamam is. there were at least 15 completely naked women at all age, who were not ashamed of their (not always pretty) bodies. moreover a massage and body scrubbing implied a very close contact with both - mine and her - bodies, and it was not at all problem for her. Also a quite funny story happened to me in hamam, as some woman decided that I would be a perfect wife for her son and proposed in his name!!! it was not a problem that I'm Christian and I don't speak Arabic. the only fact that counted was that she saw me naked, and apparently she decided I would be a perfect wife for her son.. ;-) I refused, saying that I have a fiance and I even showed her my ring - she didn't want to give up and said she would buy me prettier... :-) I learned later that hamam is a perfect "wives' market".