Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Syria - Graeme Robin - Travel
Syria - Graeme Robin - Travel
From Hakkari, backtracking to Sirnak is 188 kms and it was the same trail as we followed yesterday
beside a river down on the valley floor – a gorge so tight at times there was barely room for the river
and the road side by side. You wouldn’t say the river was clear but it was not muddy either. It was that
pale aqua green colour that you would normally associate with rivers coming from a glacier, but that’s
certainly not the case here, so I presume that it picks up the colour from the rocky terrain. In places
where the mountains of rock spread apart a bit for a little flat land, there were villages, lots of them,
and small at that, all the way, until the road parted company with the river and headed skywards again
for that 2080 metre summit we passed over yesterday.
After leaving Sirnak we were then in an area we had not travelled before – flat country with a straight
road running parallel with the border of Iraq not far to the south. At the town of Cizre there is a left
turn to the Iraqi border crossing just 50 kms away. Its not a long border – maybe a couple of hundred
kms - and I find it just too hard to imagine the scenes, when Saddam Hussein was trying to extermi-
nate all of the Kurds in the north of Iraq. There would have been hundreds and thousands of refugees
trailing across this country trying to escape into Turkey. What was that? Twenty years ago or more?
Not far to the west of Cizre there must be a decent sized coal mine, well I didn’t actually see the
mine, but the coal had been trucked up to many ‘depots’ along the roadside and each ‘depot’ had
graded it in to big lumps down to little lumps and then the fines which were all but dust. You can
imagine the mess, but that’s the way they seem to do things in Turkey.
From there on we were driving on good roads on flat country and making good time, even though
I made a wrong turn and had to cut across on a minor road to rectify. There was a herd of goats,
maybe a hundred or more, in the care of two young shepherds about 13 years of age and one of
them had a pea rifle.
There was a lot of smoke in the sky because the Turks are burning off the stubble.
We are at the Turkish border and it’s a heap harder to get out of this bloody country than it was to
get into it – and we haven’t started on Syria yet.
Al Qamishli - My first stop in Syria, and two friendly and helpfull Syrians
Thursday 23rd September 2010
The single bed was comfortable, the room was quiet, the aircon good and the shower fabulous – the
best since leaving home even though the whole bathroom of basin, toilet, (no seat) and shower head
would be no bigger than one metre by two metres and you had to keep the door shut to keep the
water in. After more than twelve hours of shut-eye I was outside at the reception desk to be sure
that there was no breakfast included – and there wasn’t – but Zorro took me across the street and
down a bit to a small restaurant selling breakfast. Just two tables and six chairs. I had what the bloke
was offering - a sort of broad bean stew with a ladle of something that looked like yoghurt but
probably wasn’t and heaps of spices. A big round flat bread the size of a large dinner plate was folded
and put on the table. A bowl of sliced tomatoes, cucumber strips, green peppers and some sprigs of
coriander. It was only when I got to the bottom of the bowl that I worked out it was broad-beans
because all of the other flavours left little room for the taste of the broad-bean. There was miles too
much for me to eat but I did my best without even touching the bread. He makes an egg omelet too,
so I may try that tomorrow.
Zorro stuck to me while I ate what I could – not at the table but outside in the street - and then
with sign language he guided me a place to fit a Syrian sim card into the mobile phone and add a few
pounds to top it up as well. There’s another birthday coming up – Lachie, our eldest grandson is going
to be 14 tomorrow so maybe I will be able to get this one right. Then next week our son turns forty
something.
The morning was spent working on this journal and in the afternoon I went walkabout around Al
Qamishli and managed to find an internet place. I was put out though, because they would not allow
me onto the internet without sighting my passport. It’s hot! Very hot, and even though I have learned
to walk on the shady side of the street I was wringing wet by the time I got back to the cafe with the
prescribed document. Now I know that you need your passport to buy a sim card and also to use
the internet. It’s not only for crossing borders and showing to nosey army kids. The internet cafe was
a good place though and I did what had to be done in a couple of hours then back to the hotel and
the aircon for more work on this journal.
I had another chat with Aziz and Zero before they knocked off about eight o’clock – so it seems they
do a twelve hour day but possibly a four day week. I tried hard to find out by drawing calendars and
things and the response from Azia was a “7777” and I don’t know what he was meaning. Anyway they
have both been so very good to me, a complete stranger with not a word of Arabic. The language
barrier is bad enough but I have always found solace in other non-English countries with the fact that
the numbers are the same – sure they sound different when spoken but when written they look the
same. Not so in Arab land! The Arabic numbers are meaningless to me. I wonder how big a problem
this will be in the weeks ahead?
I gave Zorro some money and Aziz a little more plus koalas for each of his three kids. I don’t know if
they appreciated it but they both knocked on my door before they went home to shake hands and
say goodbye. Maybe they don’t work tomorrow.
That would have been enough. But that’s not how it’s done in Syria so it came with diced tomatoes,
green peppers and some cucumber. Nice and better than yesterday – especially the second cup of
tea after I confiscated the sugar bowl. But it was good sitting and being a part of the morning traffic
through this part of the town. I must have overdone it on the peppers – I thought they were mild but
by hell did that last bite set my mouth on fire! Water didn’t help and neither did a bite of banana and
the tea being scolding hot seemed to do more damage than it was worth. Just had to wait for time to
do the healing. And it cost 100 Syrian pounds – so very cheap.
One of the main streets in Al Qamishli - best to walk on the shady side of the street!
Right now the land may look hot, barren, dry and bleak, but another town and more huge grain silos
so it can’t be like this all of the year round. They must rely on rain at the right time in the growing
cycle.
A couple of ten year olds when I stopped for a breather in a small village.
“Good morning. How are you?” with perfect English pronunciation. He didn’t have a “What is your
name?” like the Turkish kids, but I am sure what English I got was all he had to give! – but at least it’s a
start. Then something different because I had been accustomed to seeing men only on their own but
this time it was a family group – a man, his wife and two kids all walking together and all crowding the
car window as I asked for direction. Apart from the language, I could have been at home. So I gave the
little kids a Koala each.
What great fun it is asking for directions because the next time, in Hasakah, there were four blokes
together in a fish shop I think it was, and they were all pouring over the map trying to work out
where I was heading for – Deir Ezzor - and no matter how many times I spoke the words they just
couldn’t recognise the town and of course they could not read the English writing on the map. Had
it been in Arabic it would have been a breeze, but when the penny finally dropped they were all over
me like a rash, and I am sure, pronouncing it much the same as I had.
All morning the countryside had not changed one little bit although we are about 300 metres above
sea level so certainly not in ‘high country’ and there were a lot of settlements with a few houses ,
then a gap and another small settlement . It reminded me very much of Morocco where the houses
are made out of the local dirt and blend in so well you can hardly see them. But I must be missing a
beat somewhere because all of these people would not be settled out here without reason – but I’m
darned if I can work out what it is.
Oh yes, its dust alright now that the breeze has risen a notch I can see little willy willys travelling along
and the dust being picked up from the side of the road – the ground is all but bare so it stands to
reason that dust will be picked up. Then there are signs of artesian water, so that may be the link I was
missing.
But suddenly the road changes from a fabulous single lane surface to an unmade surface, rocky and
bumpy - but no problem because Phe is tough and can hack it.
But then it does become a problem when the unmade, rocky and bumpy road changes to a dirt track.
Throw in a few forks without signs and suddenly we are not looking too good. I stopped a bloke on
a motor bike and my pronunciation of Deir Ezzor was all he could go by because he had no idea of
reading the English on the map. He pointed for us to keep going But I was not at all confident he had
actually understood the question.
Then another man on a motor bike came to meet me from one of the farm houses and recognised
the town as I pronounced it and told me, by sign, to drive “Towards those trees (a picture in the air
of a tree) but don’t turn left, (and pointed to the left and then chopped his hand off) but when as
far as those houses (a picture in the air of a house) then turn left!” I then got a “boop, boop” – that’s
the train line! Such a nice guy. First of all he wanted some American dollars and I said ‘not American
– Australian and no US dollars in Australia’, so he gave up and then he invited me in for something
to eat. Twice he did this. Should I have accepted? I don’t know. It gets terribly strained having tea in a
room where no conversation is possible. Wonderful and no words that either of us could understand.
I followed the instructions exactly as he had given them and it worked out perfectly. From the time
we crossed under the train line, it became easy because I could see vehicles moving on the highway
maybe 3 kms away so it was only a matter of following a track leading in that direction. We were back
on the first class sealed road all the way to Deir Ezzor. How the hell I lost it in the first place I will
never know and I was not going back to find out. It is 180 kms from Hasakah to Deir Ezzor and the
road has been flat, straight and true for all of those 180 kms except for that itchy, titchy, little bit in the
middle where we managed to lose our way.
When we arrive at Deir Ezzor there was a hotel that looked okay from the outside and stood up
alright on the inside but the price was 1600 pounds – makes the last two nights at 500 per night look
pretty good. (But this one comes with a toilet seat and a roll of toilet paper). I was tempted to try
somewhere else I must be getting old because I couldn’t be bothered. Instead I found an ATM, a car
wash inside and out for Phe and a fill of diesel – A price I couldn’t believe, just 20 pounds a litre. That’s
even cheaper than Tunisia and about a quarter the price of Europe.
The countryside after the Ar Raqqah turnoff has not changed one little bit with people in amongst
the crops, harvesting, and the visibility poor. I don’t want to keep harping on about this dust, but how
the hell they live with it I don’t know. I suppose that is a stupid question because they have no choice
because the dust is going to be around whether there are people here or not.
I had decided to give Ar Raqqah a miss and head instead directly to Aleppo for - hopefully - a nice
hotel with wifi so I can get some business done with the publishers in England. There doesn’t seem to
be much of a ‘journey’ in today’s march. It looks to be just Dier Ezzor and Aleppo – the two destina-
tions and not that much in between, and what there is was pretty bleak.
But then quite suddenly the landscape changed as we left the desert behind – I still can’t resolve in
my mind the need for another big batch of huge grain silos – so where then hell is the grain com-
ing from? The improvement is gradual but definite. There are plantations of small olive trees still a
few years away from their first crop and there is some water lying around in places. The Euphrates
broadens out into a lake a way to our right out of sight but there are a number of channels that are
bringing water to the area. Then for the first time all day – and it’s now almost two o’clock – the sun
has managed to peak through the dust and is shining on Phe. We may have left the worst behind us.
Aleppo looks to be a nice enough sort of city, clean and tidy with buildings a concrete colour rather
than the colour of the earth. A few street trees. It is a big city of more than two and a half million
people and bigger than the capital, Damascus.
I drove around for a while before I started asking the locals about hotels, and it took four asks before
this middle aged guy, who had tried to direct me (in Arabic,) then suggested – I think – that he hop
in and guide us to one. I accepted the offer and away we went. For the next 15 minutes or more he
guided and pushed us through the tooting traffic to a 4 star at what looked like the centre of town
but even at 5300 pounds they were full for tonight. (Remember I paid just 500 Syrian pounds at Al
Qamishli for our first night in Syria) The receptionist suggested another hotel around the corner but
they were also full at 4200 pounds. This receptionist fellow was good enough to ring another three
hotels until at 4100 pounds he found one that had a vacant room and also wifi. My new ‘best friend
in Aleppo’ guided us there, found an illegal place to park, and got me to reception where I did the
normal things needed to book in. But then he disappeared. I looked all over but there was no sign of
him. I had intended to offer him some money but obviously that wasn’t part of his plan. One of the
hotel porters walked back to the car to lead me to Phe’s park for the night but there was still no sign
of him.
Syria - From the big city of Aleppo to the Mediterranean coast and Latakia
Sunday 26th September 2010
We made it out of this big busy bustling city of Aleppo, and if it wasn’t for Compass we would have
had no bloody hope at all. We had driven for three quarters of an hour I guess, by heading towards
the south-west whenever an intersection came up, before there was the first road sign in English that
I could recognise – and that was to Daret Azzah , a little more west than south-west but there should
be no problem with that. In fact the road looks to be a minor road which suits Phe and Me down to
the ground.
It was a nice hotel last night and I got chatting to a German couple who had been travelling around
Jordan, Lebanon and Syria for four weeks. They gave me a few tips on places they had been to and
enjoyed and were good enough to give me their Syrian maps. Courage is a very precious thing to
me and I don’t want to use any of mine up in trying to walk to – and then, maybe, find – the Tourist
Information Office just on the off chance that there would be some good info coming from them and
for the sake of getting a good road map of Syria. Aleppo is a strange and confusing city and the risk of
not being able to find my way back to the Hotel and Phe parked in a nearby car-park, was too great.
So thank you ‘German couple’ very much for your maps.
A street in Aleppo but it is now in the best light because we had three solid torrents of rain last night.
Each one only lasted for maybe five minutes but it really pelted down and would have freshened the
place up, so the photos are a bit brighter than they would have been had they been taken yesterday.
Then there was this big up-market housing development with three stories homes
on large blocks of land.
They looked to be very much the same shape and style as I discussed when travelling through Turkey,
but up to now I had not noticed the repetition of design here in Syria. There are about 30 on this side
of the road and maybe half as many on the other side and all about to the same (early) stage of de-
velopment. A couple look to be well on the way to completion, but the rest a long way off. It is about
10kms short of Daret Azzah so a fair way from Aleppo.
Another encounter of the happy kind this time at the small town of Daret’ezzeh. I suppose it happens
because I am a novelty, being old and scruffy with a car to suit, and with no Arabic at all – maybe even
a challenge to some people.
This is the Sanaan Citadel but there was not a skeric of information in English so I will have
to google it to get details.
One of the villages up in the rocks. It is almost invisible being the same colour as the rock
and the dirt.
As we drove away they were all outside to wave us off.Wonderful friendly, helpful Syrians.
Syria - The Roman Ruins near Apamea and some cotton picking
Tuesday 28th September 2010
Last night’s hotel was in the ‘old town’ of Hama. Nice. This morning I have checked out, got all of the
gear into Phe and fully expect to be back here tonight – but at least we are not committed at this
stage. We are going to head back north to Apamea and its Roman ruins but on a different road and
on the way we can check out the cotton thing.
But we have to get out of this town first and someone said that life wasn’t meant to be easy! You can
say that again! Oh for Karen to lend a hand! But her maps all stopped on the other side of the Medi-
terranean so its up to Compass alone - no good looking at Me because Me hasn’t a clue. Every bloke
I asked had a finger and it pointed in the opposite direction to the direction we were travelling.
We were getting nowhere until I asked three young twenty year olds walking together and as an
answer, they all hopped into Phe and gave directions until, after only five minutes or so, they called a
halt, all piled out and signed ‘straight ahead for Apamea!’ Smiles and handshakes all round - but not
the slightest hint of money. Wasn’t that nice. These blokes – it’s nine o’clock , a Tuesday, and if they had
jobs they would be at work. So what were they going to do for the day? The three of them neatly
dressed and clean, just going walk-about. They seemed to be good mates and enjoyed each other’s
company but what is their outlook for life? Sad I reckon.
They are impressive but I found it particularly difficult to visualise how the city would have looked
when it was brand new all of those centuries ago. The row of columns is 1850metres long! And not
very wide. First the Roman baths with the exposed plumbing, then an arch – the rest of the building
has collapsed but the arch remains - then the row of columns and it looks very, very, very straight af-
ter all of these years – amazing people these Romans! Pity they didn’t teach the Italians how to drive!
I got suckered into buying some stuff that was most probably die-cast in Damascus (or China) and
buried underground for six months to give it some “age.” It was from a nice bloke on a motor scooter
who led me up here. I gave him 200 Syrian pounds for the guidance but then another 1500 for four
Roman coins he had “Found here on the site myself.” It sure was his lucky day when I came along! You
would reckon I would know better!
I really have no idea how original this site is but if it really is original then it is amazing.
At Apamea, as well as the Roman ruins there is also an ancient city up on the hill but the ruins were
enough for me for one day so I left the ancient city for next time.
We made it to the line of cotton trucks about two thirty and I sat for a while and watched as three
empty trailers came out but no full ones got inside, but then Phe managed to get us onto a side track
that went around the back and up onto a rise overlooking the site, and I was able to see that this was
not a cotton gin at all. It was simply a depot where the bales are stored under tarps for as long as it
takes before being trucked off to the gin. Makes sense because the gin would want to operate at an
even pace all of the year round and not just at harvest time. It is almost three o’clock, knock off time,
and the workers are tidying up the last of the bales into the giant ‘hay stack’ for the day and I guess
the farmers who own the fifty or a hundred trucks and trailers out on the road will sleep with their
cotton until the morn.
We are back to Hama for our sleep until the morn.
It seemed to be only sheep and goats although it’s ten o’clock and it’s probably all but wound up. It
seemed a lot less frantic than the last market we went to - where was that? That’s right! Next door to
that five star hotel in Tunisia! At this market there were ropes and chains fixed to the ground and ever
so often what looked like a loop of rubber which could be easily slipped around the front hoof and
the animal controlled easily and simply. Didn’t see any cattle ramps though, but these Syrian farmers
are a pretty tough bunch and the lift of a sheep from the ground onto the tray of the truck was never
going to be a problem.
As we turned the corner and started driving south the country became hilly and terribly arid. I was
surprised. I expected the arid alright but not the hilly. No villages, no people, and no traffic on the
road. A breakdown out here would mean a long wait. But Phe’s tough and “breakdown” is a word
hardly in her vocabulary at all.
I still have not seen one sign in English that tells us we are on the road to Palmyra, but I think this road
from Hama could be the less preferred route to the one a bit further south that comes from Homs
and another from Damascus. It has been a beaut drive though – the sort that Phe and Me both love -
on a sealed road without lines.
When we entered Syria I noticed the mud brick houses with domed roofs. Well the mud brick is
still prominent but the domed roofs have been replaced with the normal flat roof, probably out of
the same mud brick but supported on poles. Then there is the more modern type of house made
from concrete or concrete blocks and with a reinforced concrete roof. And the tent villages that look
pretty permanent. I wonder if this is the camp of the Syrian Berber?
We made it to Palmyra early in the afternoon and straight away found a nice friendly hotel facing the
citadel.
A back street just off the main drag in Damascus.Very easy to buy an ice cream or a kebab
or a cold (soft) drink.
It was easy to find a hotel without breaking the bank, but devilishly hard to find somewhere for Phe.
In the end one of the hotel’s porters came with us to find a parking spot in a street nearby – not the
best but the only place on offer.
This photo is a good illustration of the method of building modern houses and apartments, not just
here in Syria but all over this part of the world from northern Europe to western Europe and now
in the Middle East. I reckon it’s great and far superior to the ‘stick by stick’ method I am used to in
Australian and New Zealand where houses consume tons of trees and are then clad in clay bricks or
more timber, or some other product.
Here construction is simple. Pour a concrete floor with plenty of steel reinforcing, a few vertical pillars
with plenty of steel reinforcing, another floor this time with light-weight bricks as well as the concrete,
more pillars, another floor, or maybe the roof. The stairs are poured – with plenty of steel reinforcing
- at the same time. Then they use some large but lightweight clay bricks for internal and external walls.
The walls are not load-bearing – just filling the hole. Finally the walls are cement rendered on the
outside and maybe cement, or perhaps plaster or tiles, on the inside. The windows are mostly double
glazed in aluminium frames with sashes that open into the room – and with just a flick of the lever
they can open in as a casement window for maximum air flow, or tip in from the top as an awning
window. And I have never found one that doesn’t work! Terrific. I am a fan for this type of construc-
tion for a number of reasons. Surely it is cheaper than our way. Heat, cold, and sound insulation is
excellent. Even in a room with an occupied floor above, there is no sound that comes through. The
intermediate floors are solid with no sign of bounce.
The only problem I have found has been with the plumber - wouldn’t you know it!
In many, many cases the bathroom on upper floors smell badly because of inadequate traps from
the shower or from the drain hole in the bathroom floor. Without the trap the smell from the whole
drain system drifts straight into the bathroom. Easily fixed, I reckon, by getting the painter to do the
plumbing!
I had it worked out in my long-term forward planning diary, (what long-term forward planning diary?)
that tomorrow would be a day for looking around the ‘old town’ of Damascus and the Tourist Info
people, just a short walk from our new hotel, would be just the ones to lead me in the right direction.
But - there always seems to be a but – they were closed by the time I got there at six o’clock and
tomorrow, being Friday and a holy day, means they will not re-open until Saturday morning. A bit late
as we could be heading south on Saturday. Towards Jordan.
It is a holy day today and the bulk of the stalls are closed, but it is easy to imagine what it
would be like here tomorrow
Hear more about Graemes’ travels at http://robingrahamtravel.blogspot.com
There were a lot of men scrambling through the pile of shirts and slacks and even a jacket or two, so
evidently they must be cheap even by Syrian standards.
I had a joke with the owner of this small furniture shop because I thought the timber was inlaid with
mother of pearl. Silly me! How far away are shellfish from the middle of Syria. First of all I thought the
bloke said the white inlay was camel horn. “Camel horn?”
I tried to confirm ‘camel horn’ with a couple of forefingers coming from my forehead. He looked puzzled.
And I looked puzzled too because “Camels don’t have horns!”Then the truth – not horns, stupid. He is
saying camel bones! He said the furniture was made in Syria but when he said the camel bones were also
from Syrian camels, I laughed out loud because the only two camels I had seen in Syria so far were the two
giving the tourists a ride at Palmyra yesterday. He said there were heaps of camels in the desert around
Palmyra and Deir Ezzor where we were a week ago! Maybe they had been lying down when we were in
the desert! Anyway he took the kidding in good nature and we had a good laugh.
I had assumed that Syria would be all but 100% Islamic but not quite true with about 10% following
the Christian faith. There are a number of the Catholic churches in Old Damascus.
If spices are any way to judge, then Syrians love their food!
We left the hotel around nine and had a quick drive into the hills to the north-west for a couple of
photos looking down on Damascus. The area was nice but really an extension of the city itself.
One good thing though, was that it should be easy for Compass to set sail to the south so that
sooner or later we will see a sign that will take us to the border with Jordan.
Not so!
The first sign I saw was to Lebanon and it’s capital, Beirut, and a quick check with Compass showed
that for some unaccountable reason best known to Italian/ French sheilas, Phe must have done a
couple of right angle turns without either Compass or Me noticing and had us driving north instead
of south!
So I pulled over and had a good look at the map.