Middle East 2009

Some Lebanese food for breakfast, and we headed out of the city to visit the nearby limestone caves, Jeita Grotto. The caves are one of the biggest of their type in the world.

Using a bus, a service taxi and an another taxi we arrived to the caves, just 20 kilometers outside Beirut. The place was surprisingly crowded by tourists, which was a fact I wasn't particularly happy of. Even less I was happy of the fact that it was strictly forbidden to photograph inside the caves. You actually had to leave all cameras into a locker outside the cave before entering it.

I do understand forbidding flash use in museums and this kinda places, as it can actually cause damage to the environment, but I really do not like places forbidding photography totally. It just signals that the organization responsible for the place wants to retain all rights to commercially photograph there and control the pictures released, and that's what I do not support under any circumstances. Touristic and journalistic photography of public places should always be possible and either free or for a small charge.

Anyway, the caves itself were cool. We walked through the upper cave admiring the stone formations, and had a boat ride around the lower cave, where an underground river flows. Check out the Wikipedia link below for further information and for a few photos of the caves.

From the caves we got a quite cool ride back home. We took a taxi all the way back to Beirut, and the taxi car was a really classical one, probably around 40-50 years old Mercedes :)

Jeita Grotto on Wikipedia

A random couchsurfer girl messaged Don earlier, telling us she would like to meet up for a beer or something. We had nothing special to do for the evening, so we answered the call and the girl picked us up by her dads car around 10pm. We went out a bit outside of downtown Beirut, just having some beers in random restaurants and chatting about everything. Around 1am we decided it would be time to move back to the hotel, as the girl had to go to school tomorrow and Don was feeling a bit tired also. She drove us back to our hotel, but I really wasn't feeling like going to bed yet.. So, I went out.

I walked to Gemmayneze, the main night life area of the city, but at 2am on Wednesday there was practically nothing open anymore, just a few private clubs. Through the area I walked, to the second nightlife center of the city, Monet Street, without having any better luck in there. The places were either closed, closing or having private parties which I would not have access. Finally, when I was about to give up and I was on my way home, I stumbled across a night club still open.

Obviously there was a private party going on, with only like 10 people inside but I was still let in. I just had a beer or two in there, chatted for a while with the guys and headed back home :)

Last night we were out pretty late, so we didn't wake up that early either. When we finally got out of the hotel, it was like 2pm already..

We took an almost 10 kilometers walk alongside the coastline in the hot and humid air, for sightseeing the city a bit. The city looks kinda different from all the other middle eastern cities we have been in so far, as there are a lot of new, fancy looking buildings and the city is almost entirely build on the shore.

The damage done by Israeli air strikes exactly 3 years ago in July 2006 can still be seen everywhere in the city. Beirut is full of ruins, reminding me a lot of the Bosnian cities of Sarajevo and Mostar. Looks like every other building has a few shrapnel or bullet holes on them. The combination of the modern newly erected buildings and the ruins makes the cityscape kinda unique.

By the way, there are probably more +100000€ cars than I have ever seen in any other city. Only during last night we saw a bunch of Ferraris, not to mention all the other sport cars and limousines.

Back in the hotel now, just cooling down a bit and enjoying our air condition.. Later in the evening we could probably call the bartender guy we met yesterday and go have a beer somewhere.. :)

Note: I added some videos, as we now have a decent connection again.

As Beirut is known as the night life capital of the Middle East, our original idea was to go out tonight for a couple of beer. We did not have an exact idea where we should go, so we just sat down in the hotel for a while having a couple of beers, and then headed to the Monet Street, which was said to be the other one of the nightlife centers here in Beirut.

Obviously the situation has changed nowadays, and the nightlife is mostly concentrated around Gemmayze district of the city. We started walking towards Gemmayze from the Monet street after finding basically nothing in there, and just stumbled across a metal bar.

The bar was totally empty, and from the bartender we got to hear it was the only metal bar in Lebanon nowadays. Well, even still we ended up sitting down on the bar and getting beers, and starting a conversation with the bartender: "Where are you guys from?" "Finland" "Fuck, I was in Tuska". For the non-finns reading this blog, Tuska is a metal festival in Finland, which was held just a week before we left the country. We ended up staying there for a couple of beers chatting with the bartender, and Don even exchanged phone numbers with him, the guy might guide us to the Lebanese night life tomorrow :)

On the way to our hotel from there we stopped by an another bar, and immediately after entering the bar we were greeted by a random guy offering us free shots. So far everything I have seen this night is proofing the information I had about Beirut. The people are really nice and hospitable, the nightlife is wild and the bars are fancy, people dressing beautifully etc.. Even though it was Tuesday today, so this was not exactly the best day to observe the nightlife :)

One thing I have to complain about Lebanon. It is definitely an expensive country. Even in the cheapest of the bars a beer can easily cost 3-4 euros for a 0.33l bottle, a kebab was around 3-4eur also.. So, basically Lebanon has Finnish prices.

Link: The band of the bartender, Kimaera. Probably there aren't that many death metal bands from Lebanon.. :)

Getting a shared taxi to Beirut turned out to be a bit more challenging task what we had thought, so we took a bus instead. And, the bus drive wasn't even nearly as short as I though it would be.

To the border we got fairly quickly, but crossing the border took maybe two hours. After the border began the mountains of Lebanon, which didn't speed up the bus at all. Slowly the bus crawled up the mountains and finally also curvy downhill to Beirut.

We had been warned beforehand that the traffic in Beirut would be really slow, and so it was... I guess we came here exactly during the worst rush time, and it took like another hour for the bus to get through to the city. From the bus stop a taxi (really old crappy Mercedes) took us to the hotel where we were thinking of staying. At that point we were starting to be really hungry, and finding out the hotel not having any rooms left didn't exactly make us happy. Well, after walking for a while we found an another one, so we are all set for taking a shower and going out in Beirut now..

The climate in here is totally different from Syria. We are on the Mediterranean Sea coast, so the air is really really humid, even if it is a few degrees cooler than in Damascus..

Yesterday evening we went to meet a few local Couchsurfer guys and their Czech guest, to spend the evening together. We took a bus outside the city to the fair center, but finally decided not to visit the international fair going on there but walk to see the largest restaurant in the world. Yes, the largest restaurant in the world according to the Guinness world records actually is in Damascus, unlike you would ever imagine.

A friend of the local guys had said it would just be 20 minutes walk, which obviously wasn't quite correct. We walked alongside a highway, and walked, and walked.. It took around one and half hours to reach the restaurant, I guess we ended up walking 6-7 kilometers at least.. Well, eventually we did reach it and had a nice meal for a couple of euros each.

The restaurant was a bit odd experience. In addition to being the largest restaurant in the world, they also for some reason have the largest part of a meteorite ever landed on earth on display there, claiming it's the largest one in the western world (Syria being western world??). That meteorite was found in Siberia, Russia by the way. They also do have a karting racetrack..

The earlier mentioned friend of those local guys also arrived there after we had eaten, and gave us a ride back to the city in his car. Probably it was 20 minutes by car, not by walking by the way.. Through the chaotic traffic of Damascus we drove back to the area where our hotel was located, and went to the outdoor cafe just next door of the hotel. After a short discussion we found out they were not officially selling beer as they were not allowed to do that, but they would unofficially do it. We just had to have the beers inside, not on the street. That was fine for us, so first we just spent a while on the street smoking nargila, and then went inside for the beers and some languages-related chatting :)

Pretty nice evening altogether. Now as we are heading towards Beirut and Lebanon, I guess I should write up some opinions about Syria so..

We only saw a small part of the country, just a few cities. Aleppo which we didn't have time to visit should be a really beautiful and historical city, and Syria also has some supposedly nice coastline. Of the cities we visited I would definitely want to return to Damascus and I guess I also will do that in near future. Damascus reminds me a lot of Istanbul which I have visited like three times in the last three years, and these three days in here really do not give justice to the city. It is a big city with tons of stuff to explore, and I could easily spend a week or two in Damascus just enjoying and exploring.

The town of Palmyra itself was not really worth of a visit, and at least not worth of doing it again. But, once again, the main attraction of Palmyra are the ruins, not the town. The ruins were interesting, beautiful and one more Unesco world heritage site on my growing list of those visited, but maybe one visit to those is also enough. Most of the stuff there can easily be seen during one day.

About the border town Al Kamisli I really don't have much to stay, as we just passed through it. Neither do I have much to say about the deserts in between the cities, as we were just watching them through the bus windows and there's nothing in there. But, I'm pretty sure there are a lot of places in Syria to discover in addition to Damascus, and I feel like this country deserves another visit with more time.

As other notes of Syria, the Syrian people seem to be very well educated and competent. Everywhere we were getting good and professional-feeling service, and practically everyone we met could speak at least basic English. Getting around was really easy, as all the random guys met on the streets could speak a language understandable to us.

There are some odd things about Syria which we randomly found either annoying or just funny. Facebook and many other web sites are blocked by the government, but all the net cafes can easily give you access to them just by asking. They do it by using a special software that encrypts the connections and forwards them through a proxy server in the US or sometimes in Lebanon. Alcohol is only sold in really rare places which made getting a beer on a hot day a bit annoying and challenging task, but even more annoying was the total lack of ATMs. Obviously credit cards are not allowed in Syria, and there are a very few ATMs in Damascus working with foreign credit cards. In the other cities, there were none.

There's countless other small annoyances and specialties to list, but.. They are mostly minor things, in general the country was really nice, and the people were feeling really welcoming for us.

Now, off to Beirut, Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea :)

Blah. Yesterday was some kind of a religious festival day, and beer was not sold in the whole city. So, we just had a tea or two and some nargila with the Danish and the US guys..

Today we had a long walk around the Damascus old town, which is a labyrinth of small alleys and bazaars, very easy to get lost in. I guess we walked something like 10 kilometers with no idea of our exact location, just for fun and for seeing the area. Like yesterday the hot afternoon was spent taking a nap and hanging around in the hotel.. Like predicted, we are just chilling out here with not much to write about :)

Tomorrow we are probably moving to Beirut, Lebanon by taking a bus over the border. Beirut is only about 100km from here, so that shouldn't be a long journey.. And they have sea, so maybe we finally will get to swim.

Enjoy a few more pictures of Damascus below.

Today we slept late, until noon and during the day we haven't been doing almost anything either. Just walking around the old town for a while, visiting the bazaar and Umayyad Mosque wearing cute skirts.. No much to document, so just enjoy some pictures of Damascus streetlife.

During the hottest time of the day we had a nap, and for the evening we have some nargila smoking and tea or beer drinking scheduled..

The hotels are kinda interesting in here. Almost all of them have beds also on roof, and the roof beds are usually a bit cheaper than having a room. The first picture is taken of our last nights hotel, we did take a room though as there were some ants on the roof.. It hasn't been raining in 5 years in Palmyra, and I guess it's about the same in here so no wonder they also like to use roofs for accommodation :)

The town of Palmyra was kinda small and in bad shape, with just a few tourist restaurants. So, yesterday evening we really didn't feel like wandering around the city a lot, but just went to have a quick dinner in one of those restaurants. I ended up sharing half of my chicken with a cute four-legged Syrian..

In the morning we took a taxi to the ruins of Palmyra and wandered around them a bit under scorching sun. There were ruins of an ancient Roman-influenced city, a few tombs and a crusader castle. Not much to say about them, take a look at the pictures for a better description. They were kinda cool and an Unesco world heritage site though. We also picked up a geocache in the ruins of Temple of Baal, just to log a cache in Syria.. :)

A few hours of wandering around and melting, and then via our hotel we took another taxi and bus towards Damascus. The bus ride took around 3 hours, after which we found our self in the capital of Syria and the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world.

We booked ourself into a hotel, unfortunately not the best one but I guess we can do something about that tomorrow. All the hotels in Damascus seemed to be a bit fully booked today, tomorrow the situation should be better.

In the hotel we met a few fellow travelers from Denmark and the US, which whom we have been spending the evening together having dinner and chatting. So far we don't have any plans for the upcoming few days, we are probably just staying in Damascus and chilling out since we have been continuously on the move. Maybe on Tuesday we will cross the border to Lebanon for seeing Beirut.

My first impression of Damascus so far is pretty fine. The city looks like a busy, big, civilized city and probably we will be finding it a comfortable place to spend a couple of days.

One big problem we have been having in Syria, and that is the total lack of ATMs. Even in Palmyra, which was a tourist city, there were no ATMs at all. And no ATMs means no cash. We have been running on the last remainings of our cash stash, exchanging even our last euro coins to Syrian pounds this morning. Luckily the country is relatively cheap and we finally found ATM in Damascus today. So, no more cash troubles for now..

Urgh. My ass is aching. This was so far the most boring day here. Don got through the border around 2pm, and we took a taxi to the bus station. Unfortunately the taxi was a pick-up truck, so I had to travel outside.. Then, for about 5 euros we got tickets to a bus that would take us to Palmyra.

We rode on that bus basically through entire Syria. Now, about 8 hours since we left the border we just arrived to the town of Palmyra and checked in to a hotel. Getting to the hotel was a bit tricky, as we did not have basically any Syrian money, apart from 25 Syrian pounds, which is around 40 euro cents. After negotiating for a while a taxi driver actually took us to the town for that.. I guess he figured out he wouldnt be getting anything better.

Tomorrow, the ruins of Palmyra, an ancient Roman city.