Palmyra
If you are anything like me you will want, in the middle of the day, to look out of the window when travelling by bus or train. You will want to do this even more if you're travelling in a foreign country. In Syria, at least if you travel by the upmarket Karnak or Pullman buses, this may prove difficult. Presumably, to escape the glare of the midday sun, but conceivably to shut out the tedium of the ever-rolling desert as well, curtains are kept closed by all but the strange.
I was sitting by a window so I felt within my rights to open mine. Shortly, they were pulled shut by the friendly assistant who perhaps thought I'd failed to grasp the sensible precautions against sun and desert. I opened them again, just a bit, just a little, enough to give me light for reading, and he didn't bother me again. Stares were received from the man to my left, so I nudged them back again, just a fraction. The War of the curtain had reached a truce, about which I was glad.
Luckily, the desert is really fairly boring, once you've seen it for more than a couple of minutes, so since I had my slither of light for my book, I didn't mind that much.
Reading in cars or buses was never something I could do until I took a three month trip across South America with a travel adventure company when I was eighteen. Six hour daily journeys, combined with being far less sociable than I am now (though I'm hardly party HQ today) meant I was forced to read. Even my trusty Walkman and the plastic bag of those now defunct audio cassetes was not enough to keep my eyes from the page. I suppose I just must have grown used to the enclosed vehicular motion. The car sickness, which would rapidly seize me as a child, didn't bother me anyway. Perhaps the food I was eating had fortified my stomach, who knows.
Today, the importance of reading in motion is even greater. Unlike in South America, I am often surrounded by people whose language is meaningless to me (my fault, yes!) and who can't speak English. So I can't even creep out of social insularity when I want to, unless to engage in necessarily brief crumbs of very basic interraction, fun and energetic though that is. Added to this, my new MP3 player has only two Turkish songs on it, both of which threaten to kill by repetition and its radio only occasionally works. So there I am, needing to read, needing my slice of window light.
Kudos to the Syrian buses, at least the posher ones. The leg room is adequate, people come round with free water (which I, a coward, refuse), they are fast, and the air-conditioning is formidably good.
Palmyra is the easternmost part of what could be called the standard Syrian tourist circuit. This is reflected in the non-attention my Middle East Lonely Planet pays to anything further East. Now, less adventurously, I could at last rely on its brand of wise counsel to direct me to fine lodgings, in this case the New Aqua Hostel, ran by Mahran, a man famous for his Backgammoning skills. Actually, not having met any backpackers since Hasankeyf, I was glad to talk to some of these travllers whom I'm sometimes glad to escape. I'd pompously hoped I wouldn't meet any who'd been any further east, but no. Four Germans in the hostel, taking a break before learning Arabic in Damascus, had come from Deir Ez-Zur as well and, dammit, had even gone right up to the Iraqi border.
I saw Mahran praying on a mat next to the TV. Evidently a devout Muslim, we eased over tea into a discussion about his religion. He told me that if I were to become a Muslim I would discover something so great I wouldn't want anything else in life. Glad he'd found something so fulfilling, feeling slightly under pressure to justify my ignorant, infidel status, I said, perhaps provocatively, but not meaning to offend, 'never join a party you can't leave', referring to the Islamic injuction against apostasy. To this he didn't reply. We then discussed the Sunni-Shia problems in Iraq, a matter which I raised. He said that there are no such problems and never have been. It has all been deliberately provocated and inflamed by the Americans in order to divide the opposition and secure their domination. So the same line as I'd read in the Syria Times. I didn't really know at the time about the history of Sunni-Shia relations so had nothing to say. If Wikipedia is to be trusted (?), I have since read enough to suggest there has been sufficient pre-2003, let alone pre-1776, Sunni-Shite animosity to cast his understanding in significant doubt. Then I pointed out, apparently meaninglessly, the President's picture above the reception. I wanted to know what he would say. I was wondering if the pictures that adorn every hotel reception I'd been to were there by decree or because the owners put them there, in part at least from their own choice. He said the President was a good one. I didn't feel comfortable asking if he had to have the picture there but perhaps I should have. Problem was, I wasn't sure if he didn't find me a bit irritating as it was.
Mahran suggested I should go with him and the Germans to the castle overlooking Palmyra to see the sunset and the views. I hadn't planned to do this and was glad about the suggestion. Driving up there in the open air, in the back of a truck, along the bumpy road, short hair ruffled by the breeze, I realised I'd not had a similar experience since I was in Botswana in 1990 with Operation Raleigh. Then such open air trucks would take us from Phuduhudu, where we were building a hospital clinic, to Maun, to collect cement bags for the bricks we were making. Huddled in the back, sometimes for hours, was a vivid, painful experience. But today it was just beautiful.
Nobody seems to know who built Palmyra's castle. To get in is relatively cheap (3 dollars) but fifteen times cheaper if you have a International Student's Card. I decalimed rather dramatically that I should have got one forged, which provoked loud laughter from a nearby Englishman and information from his Syrian companion that I could do just that by going to the bazaar in town. Actually, I was sort of joking, but still, an interesting idea. Good for the Syrians, it must be said, for giving such discounts to students. I supposed this may be an expression of the Baath party's Socialist ideology, an ideology steadily being eroded in other areas as the Syrians try to open up their economy to private money.
The sunset was wonderful. Falling into conversation with a Dutch woman, I got separated from the Germans and couldn't find them. Mahran had been a bit imprecise about when he'd come back to collect us. Feeling worried after a while that he'd already come back and left again with the Germans, thinking I'd gone down with someone else, I feared being stuck there alone and having to walk, there being no taxis. So, agreeing with the Dutch woman that that would be a hideous fate, I went down with her and we had a lovely dinner together. As I suspected might have happened, however, Mahran had not yet come and the Germans were still there, high up in the castle. They waited for 30 minutes and Mahran even walked around calling out my name. Embarrassed, I later apologised for what I'd done and explained my overly paranoid motivation. I was very impressed that he didn't charge me extra money for his kind trouble.
I was sitting by a window so I felt within my rights to open mine. Shortly, they were pulled shut by the friendly assistant who perhaps thought I'd failed to grasp the sensible precautions against sun and desert. I opened them again, just a bit, just a little, enough to give me light for reading, and he didn't bother me again. Stares were received from the man to my left, so I nudged them back again, just a fraction. The War of the curtain had reached a truce, about which I was glad.
Luckily, the desert is really fairly boring, once you've seen it for more than a couple of minutes, so since I had my slither of light for my book, I didn't mind that much.
Reading in cars or buses was never something I could do until I took a three month trip across South America with a travel adventure company when I was eighteen. Six hour daily journeys, combined with being far less sociable than I am now (though I'm hardly party HQ today) meant I was forced to read. Even my trusty Walkman and the plastic bag of those now defunct audio cassetes was not enough to keep my eyes from the page. I suppose I just must have grown used to the enclosed vehicular motion. The car sickness, which would rapidly seize me as a child, didn't bother me anyway. Perhaps the food I was eating had fortified my stomach, who knows.
Today, the importance of reading in motion is even greater. Unlike in South America, I am often surrounded by people whose language is meaningless to me (my fault, yes!) and who can't speak English. So I can't even creep out of social insularity when I want to, unless to engage in necessarily brief crumbs of very basic interraction, fun and energetic though that is. Added to this, my new MP3 player has only two Turkish songs on it, both of which threaten to kill by repetition and its radio only occasionally works. So there I am, needing to read, needing my slice of window light.
Kudos to the Syrian buses, at least the posher ones. The leg room is adequate, people come round with free water (which I, a coward, refuse), they are fast, and the air-conditioning is formidably good.
Palmyra is the easternmost part of what could be called the standard Syrian tourist circuit. This is reflected in the non-attention my Middle East Lonely Planet pays to anything further East. Now, less adventurously, I could at last rely on its brand of wise counsel to direct me to fine lodgings, in this case the New Aqua Hostel, ran by Mahran, a man famous for his Backgammoning skills. Actually, not having met any backpackers since Hasankeyf, I was glad to talk to some of these travllers whom I'm sometimes glad to escape. I'd pompously hoped I wouldn't meet any who'd been any further east, but no. Four Germans in the hostel, taking a break before learning Arabic in Damascus, had come from Deir Ez-Zur as well and, dammit, had even gone right up to the Iraqi border.
I saw Mahran praying on a mat next to the TV. Evidently a devout Muslim, we eased over tea into a discussion about his religion. He told me that if I were to become a Muslim I would discover something so great I wouldn't want anything else in life. Glad he'd found something so fulfilling, feeling slightly under pressure to justify my ignorant, infidel status, I said, perhaps provocatively, but not meaning to offend, 'never join a party you can't leave', referring to the Islamic injuction against apostasy. To this he didn't reply. We then discussed the Sunni-Shia problems in Iraq, a matter which I raised. He said that there are no such problems and never have been. It has all been deliberately provocated and inflamed by the Americans in order to divide the opposition and secure their domination. So the same line as I'd read in the Syria Times. I didn't really know at the time about the history of Sunni-Shia relations so had nothing to say. If Wikipedia is to be trusted (?), I have since read enough to suggest there has been sufficient pre-2003, let alone pre-1776, Sunni-Shite animosity to cast his understanding in significant doubt. Then I pointed out, apparently meaninglessly, the President's picture above the reception. I wanted to know what he would say. I was wondering if the pictures that adorn every hotel reception I'd been to were there by decree or because the owners put them there, in part at least from their own choice. He said the President was a good one. I didn't feel comfortable asking if he had to have the picture there but perhaps I should have. Problem was, I wasn't sure if he didn't find me a bit irritating as it was.
Mahran suggested I should go with him and the Germans to the castle overlooking Palmyra to see the sunset and the views. I hadn't planned to do this and was glad about the suggestion. Driving up there in the open air, in the back of a truck, along the bumpy road, short hair ruffled by the breeze, I realised I'd not had a similar experience since I was in Botswana in 1990 with Operation Raleigh. Then such open air trucks would take us from Phuduhudu, where we were building a hospital clinic, to Maun, to collect cement bags for the bricks we were making. Huddled in the back, sometimes for hours, was a vivid, painful experience. But today it was just beautiful.
Nobody seems to know who built Palmyra's castle. To get in is relatively cheap (3 dollars) but fifteen times cheaper if you have a International Student's Card. I decalimed rather dramatically that I should have got one forged, which provoked loud laughter from a nearby Englishman and information from his Syrian companion that I could do just that by going to the bazaar in town. Actually, I was sort of joking, but still, an interesting idea. Good for the Syrians, it must be said, for giving such discounts to students. I supposed this may be an expression of the Baath party's Socialist ideology, an ideology steadily being eroded in other areas as the Syrians try to open up their economy to private money.
The sunset was wonderful. Falling into conversation with a Dutch woman, I got separated from the Germans and couldn't find them. Mahran had been a bit imprecise about when he'd come back to collect us. Feeling worried after a while that he'd already come back and left again with the Germans, thinking I'd gone down with someone else, I feared being stuck there alone and having to walk, there being no taxis. So, agreeing with the Dutch woman that that would be a hideous fate, I went down with her and we had a lovely dinner together. As I suspected might have happened, however, Mahran had not yet come and the Germans were still there, high up in the castle. They waited for 30 minutes and Mahran even walked around calling out my name. Embarrassed, I later apologised for what I'd done and explained my overly paranoid motivation. I was very impressed that he didn't charge me extra money for his kind trouble.
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