From a Distance

The bare ice-covered trees are etched by the clarity of the blue sky. Behind where I am sitting, the edge of the forest forms a front line guarding untold secrets, not to be violated. In front of me are the mountains, white to their feet, keeping the line too. But there is so little wonder left in the hearts of men and women. Their heads down, missing the scent of the rose. Their lives all they know, all they want to know.

There is a road before me, leading ever on. The road to Damascus and beyond. I know I will continue to have amazing experiences, meet amazing people, everywhere on this wide, blue planet. And knowing that, my every thought, my dreams, my waking moments, are all imbued with a sad-sweet melancholy, a deep longing, a door ajar and beyond it a bright light. The thousands of faces, the innumerable destinations that I carry within me blend and fuse. Past and future, existing in every moment of the present, travelling with me.

And this melancholy, this longing? It is the longing one day to come home. It is an essential part of being an eternal being in a finite context. Every day and every night, waking and sleeping, a chance to open one’s eyes and see the infinite that envelopes the finite bubble in which we float. True love comes through understanding said the Buddha. Yes, love is that door ajar, leading to eternity.

Aramaic, the Desert Fathers, Nag Hamadi, Qumran, the Celtic Fringe, a swift sunrise, a white shore, a far green country, a never-dying land. This is my holy grail or better said, these are the signposts to my holy grail. The grail an objectification of the eternal longing in all of us. Of the divine in all of us, longing to be fully reunited with its source and issuer.

And these are the tales from nine days that have brought me closer to it.

The End of the Adventure

I arrived at the airport and found myself with a couple of hours to kill. So, I mused, the end of the Great Levant Adventure, Part II and I’ve survived (part I was 2 months of travel in Egypt, Israel/Palestine and Jordan in 1996 but that’s another story). I felt good, sitting by myself in the departure lounge. Empowered. I remembered how I had been rather fearful upon arrival in Beirut and on my first daytrip to Saida but how it had become rapidly easier from then on. My fondest memories were of Damascus, easily the highlight for me. My experiences there will remain to guide my future path. Damascus is reality, Damascus is the world as it really is, the Divine as close as we can get in this existence. I will always treasure it.

I felt glad that I’d travelled alone – only that way was I able to experience what I did.

Byblos

Byblos (Jbail or, its older name, Gebel) is a charming and unnervingly pristine town for anyone who’s just come from Syria. The drive down the coast was also enlightening – miles and miles of tent-camps on either side of the road, housing refugees either political or economic. Probably mostly economic. Syrians seem to lose their charm and humanity when they come into contact with rich Lebanon.

That evening, I went to Pépé’s “Byblos Fishing Club”, which has played host to every imaginable celebrity over the decades since Pépé (originally from Mexico) first moved to Lebanon. I ate dinner alone, including some fine red wine, Cuvée Reserve from the Bakaa Valley – strong but light with a mead-like, honey quality. I finished it off with a coffee and as I was waiting for the bill, the younger woman on the other table of three (they had arrived perhaps 15 minutes earlier) came over and invited me, on behalf of her mother, to join them, which I promptly did. Zena, her mother Mona and their friend Thierry from Geneva had been speaking French but switched mostly to English to accommodate me. Mona and Zena were Maronites from Jbail/Byblos, very wealthy no doubt, and full of warmth and openness. Thierry too. It goes to show that one can be rich and good! Mona lost her husband and her son (a genius she said) – I didn’t ask how but one must not wonder too long in this place. Zena, 40, looked 30, studying education in Joumeih but has never worked. Thierry a masseur – saved Mona’s legs once in Geneva! Just here for 24 hours to visit his friends. Byblos/Jbail is the St.Tropez or Portofino of “Liban”. And this is the Middle East as well – gentile, wealthy, quiet. Walking down to the tiny harbour for dinner, I was met by the sickly-sweet perfume of mandarins rotting under the trees, of clematis flowers and frangipani. Beirut lies within view just across the water and looks much more New World, American than European. Pépé greeted us personally as we sat chatting – he must be well over 80. On the walls were photos of him with all of the beautiful people. Especially prominent were the Miss Europe 2002 photos – the contestants must have been billeted here. I suppose Miss Israel would’ve been asked politely to stay at home in “occupied Palestine” thank you. I felt distinctly underdressed for most of the evening – a roughneck traveller, just blown in from the desert, the wild frontier further east. Zena had never been to Syria – only once to Arwed island near Tartus on a private yacht.

The next morning, I sat alone on the terrace of the Abi-Chmou restaurant run by the owner of the room I had found to stay in. There was a mass being held in the tiny “Our Lady of the Gate” church opposite. Lovely chants in unison, lead by the priest, wafted across to me. Other than that there was nothing stirring in the old town except for the distant sound of traffic from the motorway to Beirut. It was warm enough that I felt no chill even in a sleeveless t-shirt and shorts.

I spent the day wandering the ruins of old Gebel, alone and with time to take in everything around me. I sat for a long time in the tiny Roman theatre, thinking that a performance there would have been very intimate. In contrast to the previous few days, it was nice to have a day free of travel. I sat looking at the worn stones of the amphitheatre, the Middle Eastern sun warming my back, the sea stretching out before me into the endless West, the breeze ruffling the thorn trees. Looking out to sea, especially in a place as ancient as old Gebel, inevitably encourages one to consider questions of meaning and purpose. Is this what the rest of my life will consist of? I asked myself. Travelling alone to all sorts of exotic places, taking a few photos, scribbling a few words, gazing at the horizon and asking myself what it all means? Perhaps – and there would be nothing wrong with that, it just feels rather lonely thinking of it. But what would I rather have? Companionship? Not always and certainly not just for the sake of not being alone. Tintin comics, Al Stewart lyrics and a myriad other romantic influences – that’s what shaped me as a child and as a teen and gave me an unquenchable desire to strike out, explore the world, have adventures.

I walked later through a cypress grove, fragrant, alongside the wall of a Bronze Age temple (2300 BCE). What did the Bronze Age people of Gebel believe? How did they attempt to come to grips with their mortality? What belief systems did they develop to attempt to comprehend the incomprehensible? Eternal life and reincarnation are both just limited attempts to understand and explain something beyond our grasp. The basic convictions, that we surely cannot cease to exist entirely and that we are all somehow connected, seem to be shared by all humanity.

Fossils in the rocks made a mockery of the human history built from them. The wind-whipped waves continued breaking on the rocks below. Dark clouds started gathering across the sea to the West.

The 4300 year old temple was dedicated to our old friend of the outstretched wings, Baal.

I spent some time that evening sitting in the kitchen of the restaurant chatting to the maid Linda. 58, widowed 16 years ago by the “troubles”, 3 sons, 3 chickens, a rooster and a small dog in the mountains behind Byblos in Bchelé. She asked me for help at one stage for her son who was in need of medical treatment so I gave her LL3000 ($2). What if she was lying? What if her son wasn’t sick? What if she didn’t have a son? What if she actually earned three times the $200 a month she claimed? It was all irrelevant: I am by her standards (and those of most of the world’s population), exceedingly rich. She is, in comparison to me, exceedingly poor. Giving her something is a flow of money in what I consider to be the right direction. A Saudi man last night gave her LL40’000: a Muslim, she said. The Muslims here look after each other, she continued. She is a Maronite, but so is the tight-fisted owner of the restaurant and guest rooms. I paid $40 for a tiny room with no hot water, plus $10 for a meagre breakfast that Linda in part supplied with fresh eggs from her chickens. The Christians just look out for themselves she said. She had asked a few people here for help but they all found excuses – just paid the bills, why didn’t you ask sooner, etc. etc. Having wealth makes me uncomfortable – I am often possessed by an urge to divest myself of it. None of my heroes were wealthy.

Before I left the following morning, I gave Linda $50 – a small amount for me but enough for her to pay for the medical treatment for her son. She was of course very touched by my gift and told me to come and stay with her family next time I was in Lebanon. I will, if I return one day.

Blood Brothers

The next morning I rose early and walked the 20 minutes or so over to the ruins. I was blessedly alone for an hour, not another soul in sight. It was cloudy and the sun only broke through occasionally. I left later on the bus which conveniently stopped in front of the hotel to pick me up.

Upon boarding the bus I was confronted by three beaming faces. Abdul, Mohammed and Ahmed said they were on their way to Beirut and were ecstatic to have me as their travelling companion. We had an hilarious time “conversing” with “ma bif ham” – “I don’t understand” becoming a favourite way for one of them to get me to tell one of his mates to pee off. The desert rolled by outside, punctuated by an occasional Bedouin alighting in the middle of nowhere (although, on close inspection a tent could always be found nearby). The banter became a bit tedious towards the end when a younger guy joined us from the back of the bus and wanted to fly back to “Suisa” with me or at least to have my address. The lads all disembarked in Homs so who knows if they were really continuing to Beirut. If they did so, they would no doubt be treated with disdain by their wealthy neighbours there. The whole bus was full of people (almost all men) from the town of Shakna, a little further up the road from Palmyra. Looking back at them, I was met with a sea of red-turbaned, sun-tanned faces, observing me with gentle curiosity. The boys also knew the English word “donkey” and for a while used it on each other to great effect.

In Homs I was shuttled efficiently into a taxi (for which I paid £200, about $2) that took me straight to the greatest of all Crusader castles, Crac des Chevaliers, known to the locals as Qa’alat Hosn. Before I’d been there too long the place was stormed by German and Japanese tourist-troops in a bizarre Axis-alliance world-domination re-enactment. I resorted to guerrilla tactics in order to avoid them – hiding out in various obscure parts of the castle until the various heavily armed (with photographic equipment) platoons had passed by. In spite of all this, the place truly moved me. Especially the attention to detail that was evident – such as the delicate gothic touches in the Knights’ Hall and in a cupola halfway up one of the towers. In the latter, tiny flowers were carved into the stone around the architrave. A little piece of western Europe, so far from home. There was a young boy wandering from room to room in the castle, singing haunting Arabic songs in some of the acoustically perfect rooms (such as the chapel). Outside the castle again, I walked up the road further to get a view of the citadel as a whole. There was something about the place, I can not despise the foolish men who built it, in the end they are my brothers somehow, however misguided they seem when looked back on by us smug 21st century know-it-alls.

I caught a minibus back down to the main road after refusing to pay £600 for a taxi to Tartus (4 times the going rate). On the way down I noticed a church in Hosn village (if it sounds like you’ve a cleft palate whilst saying that one, you’re pronouncing it correctly) and tried to imagine what the many local Christians thought when their “brothers” from the West arrived 900 years ago to liberate them. I don’t suppose they thought much because they were killed indiscriminately, along with everyone else, regardless of race or creed. But no doubt the church or its predecessor was there in the village before the Crusaders came, whilst they ruled from their stone citadel and after they were given safe passage and left, never to be seen again. I was dropped on the side of the highway at the bottom of the hill and spent about 20 minutes trying to hitch a ride to the coast. It’s during moments like that, that I often become aware of what I’m doing, i.e. standing alone in the middle of nowhere on a highway in Syria for goodness sake, trying unsuccessfully to flag down a taxi, bus, anything. No doubt I provided an exotic spectacle for the locals. I finally got a lift in an “unmarked taxi” into the city of Tartus, which sits on the Mediterranean, and somehow found my way into the centre of town and stumbled upon a reasonable looking guest house. Mission accomplished!

I wandered a little later up to “Our Lady of Tortosa”, another Crusader construction which is best described as a pseudo-church-cum-fortress. It was simply wonderful inside and out and in contrast to Crac, I was completely alone here, except for the rays of late afternoon sunlight slanting in through the narrow, high windows. I had the same feeling as I had had in Crac: somehow there is a light still shining somewhere in these places. At least in part, some of those men were driven by higher ideals. But even the best of people can be seduced by the easy success that violence promises.

I left Our Lady and strolled through the littered, “Beirut”-looking streets of the old town and joined the many residents taking a walk along the beach before sunset. There were waves crashing on the sandy beach, unfortunately also strewn with rubbish, an all too common sight in the Middle East. The sun inched its way down towards the sea, casting its blinding light onto the water. Families were out walking on the beach, shoes remaining firmly on. To the south lay the mountains of Lebanon, snow-capped but blurred by haze.

So out of the west they came, the Salabi, with blood-red crosses on their chests. And they ruled this town for 180 years until they finally left, sailing no doubt from the island of Arwed, which sits guarding Tartus, into the blinding light of the west.

I was reminded of Sting’s song about his home city of Newcastle, an “edge-of-the-empire garrison town”:

they lived and they died and they prayed to their gods

but their stone gods did not make a sound

and the empire crumbled and all that was left were the stones the workmen found …

Men go crazy in congregations, they only get better one-by-one.

The next day was the most difficult day of travel I experienced on my trip. I went for a wander at about 7:30 down to the pier and considered a trip out to Arwed but in the end decided I’d rather get on the road. I walked again through the very compact old town back to my hotel. I checked out and headed to what I considered the “main” bus station but according to everyone I attempted to communicate with, there were no buses to Lebanon, just taxis. No one spoke any form of English. I got a local taxi to the main taxi area in town (which turned out to be about 400m away from the “main” bus station!) where they informed me it would cost $50 for a taxi to Beirut or $10 if shared with 4 others. I agreed to share and sat in the car for 45 minutes with no sign of anyone else turning up. A forlorn hope, surely. I don’t think any locals would travel to Lebanon in that way. To keep up the pretence, the driver shouted out “Beirut” occasionally but there was no one to hear him except the 10 other taxi drivers standing around chatting and smoking. Eventually I got talking to a guy who knew a bit of German – the prices got worse – $20 just to border, in a shared taxi. So I gave up and returned to the hotel. The girl working there, Rania, and another guy were shocked at the prices. They suggested I stay in Tartus. So I decided to try my luck by going to Lattikia (completely in the wrong direction but a more significant transport hub) but the guy suggested going back to Homs and catching a bus from there to Tripoli (in Lebanon). As a last resort I walked to the train station and realised as I approached that I’d found the right place. It was swarming with buses, minibuses and taxis. I found myself immediately on a minibus to the Al-Aarida border. I asked “how much” and suggested £100, thinking that would be lower than the going rate. The driver accepted very eagerly and as it turned out, everyone else only paid £10. But, I was more than happy. An attractive dark-eyed girl got on and sat next to me – after a while, she looked at me once or twice. Eventually I returned her gaze, she said “hello” and “welcome in Syria”. She asked me if she could help me. I said I needed to get to border but she misunderstood me and thought I had asked her to travel with me to the border. She was a little embarrassed and said, no, she was disembarking before then. But she spoke to the driver and told him I wanted to be taken to the border and she attempted to pay my fare. He, however, was not ready to give up his cash-cow quite so easily and in the end she had to give up. She got out a couple of minutes later and once again said “welcome in Syria”. What a lovely soul.

I arrived at the border and walked through, getting the appropriate array of stamps from a variety of offices situated along the way. I ended up at Lebanese customs where a border guard started chatting to me. He gave me a coffee and we yakked a bit about wives, marriage, children, divorce (it’s easy for Muslims, he said – she just left). I continued on a hundred metres or so and asked some loitering taxi drivers about the fare to Tripoli or Jbail (Byblos – where I was heading). Once again “ka-ching”, dollar signs in their eyes and $45 to Jbail, no, no “service” sharing possible. I walked back to the border guard and asked him what the best way was to continue travelling south – he was dismissive of the local people and instead organised a ride for me with a truck driver heading for Tripoli. It cost me nothing. He dropped me at the edge of town, I started walking in, a local taxi picked me up and took me to the bus station where I boarded a bus to Jbail and Beirut. LL1000 each for the taxi and the bus and nought for the truck ride = a grand total of $1.33, not $20, not $45, not $50. Just to make my day a little more interesting, the bus driver didn’t stop at Jbail and I ended up scrambling off a couple of kilometres further on after realising what had happened.

Paying too much doesn’t bother me because of the cost but because these people have ceased to relate to me as a human being. I have become an object of wealth, to be abused in any way. Trust no longer exists in the interaction and therefore everything becomes unpleasant. For example, the two guides I had in Palmyra. The first related to me as a human being, the second did not. On this day of travel, the hotel people, the girl on the minibus, the border guard, the truck driver, the taxi driver in Tripoli, the bus people, the falafel people I bought my lunch from – all of them were just great. The experience was only soured by the Tartus taxi drivers, the “cash-cow” minibus driver and the loitering taxi drivers at the border. All of these individuals did not hesitate to take advantage of my vulnerability. Travelling by oneself and being willing to be vulnerable inevitably draws out this contrasting response – it seems to amplify the good and the not-so-good in human interactions.

Old Stones in the Desert

The next morning found me bumping along in an “air conditioned” coach, the term simply meaning that the windows could not be opened. The sun was hot on the glass but I leant my head on it all the same and stared out at the brown stones of the desert, flat and lifeless. My companion in traditional dress sat working through his prayer beads with one hand and occasionally opening his Koran with the other, mouthing its words silently. A corny Arab film blared and flickered its way from the video screen at the front of the bus. We flew past a turn-off with a sign in Arabic and English indicating the way to Baghdad. There was not a tree, a bush, a single blade of grass to be seen anywhere. With time the plains gave way to more mountainous terrain, in short, a truly biblical landscape, a place to cleanse oneself, to find that savage clarity the Desert Fathers sought and sometimes found. 40 days and 40 nights in a place like this and the angels ministered to him. I suppose in Aramaic. Just a man like me.

By some prior arrangement of which I was blissfully unaware, I was dropped on the outskirts of the sprawling township of Palmyra, by shear coincidence directly opposite the Hotel Al Faris. Mr. Faris was there to greet me and physically coerce me into his rather empty looking establishment. I decided to take the path of least resistance and acquiesce. It turned out to be just fine.

A few hours later I found myself hiding back in my hotel room having been rained on by a desert storm of an entirely meteorological nature. Thanks to tourism, I suppose, the people of Palmyra have developed a whole new way of relating to visitors, which could stand in no greater contrast to my experiences of the day before in Damascus. Come to think of it, there’s nothing terribly new about it – it’s already been tried and tested in tourist traps in Egypt and countless other places. Pestering kids who rudely and loudly ask where one is from in order to then demand that one purchase something from them, a tour guide too on the make to be honest about the price he was charging. Others trying to flog t-shirts, headdresses, whatever, whether you’ve said no once or a thousand times. No one interested in anything other than extracting money from the filthy rich foreigner who is so wealthy that he could afford to fly across the sea, just to look at a pile of old stones in the desert.

Walking back to the hotel, kids shouted “baksheesh” at me, one even made a half-hearted grab at my pocket. So this is the future for Syria. The desert rains had passed, the kids were playing football again on the level ground across the road. Dark, dark clouds, along the horizon to the southeast, guarded the border to Iraq. They cast no shadow on the light earth here.

The sorry residents of Palmyra guard one of the world’s greatest archaeological treasures. The well preserved ruins of a city that lived for millennia here on one of the great trade routes of the ancient world. An Aramaic city, ruled in the end by a queen, Zenobia, whose hunger for power (read: to take Caesar’s job) was her eventual downfall. I wonder if news of her spread all the way across to the other edge of the empire, Brittania, where some of my ancestors shivered and coughed in a hovel somewhere and never dreamt of a place so cultured and civilised as this.

Central to old Palmyra was the ancient temple of Baal – even in Zenobia’s day old beyond all memory. Baal pops up everywhere in this part of the Near East – for all ancient cultures in the region, he was the supreme god amongst many, creator and life-giver. Often he is depicted nobly as an eagle with wings outstretched. Perhaps it was him who old father Abraham was worshipping in a ziggurat in Mesopotamia when he heard a voice telling him to leave his home and journey to Canaan, a migration that his father Terah had embarked on but never managed to finish. And the sons of Abraham? At least two of them are still quarrelling –Jacob (Israel) and Ishmael still unable to live together in the Land of Promise.

Watching over Palmyra is the relatively new citadel of Saladin – less than 1000 years old. I sat after a forgettable dinner on my balcony looking up at it through the power lines in front of the hotel. A crescent moon hung fittingly above the motionless landscape.

A Damascus-Road Experience

I ate breakfast on a table by myself the next morning and narrowly missed being joined by the tour guide – attractive in a the-only-other-one-here-under-60 sort of way. The apricot jam was absolutely superb. On the road after checking out I was picked up immediately by a minibus heading for Chtaura, my only fellow passengers for the entire journey were young women. In Chtaura I transferred almost immediately into a service taxi bound for the Syrian border. The driver was very helpful and through a soldier-translator told me not to pay any more than $2 for the ride from the border to Damascus. Crossing the border out of Lebanon took ages but I was through eventually and into a giant yellow yank-tank Syrian taxi. It all seemed a little too easy and sure enough, I realised my mistake when we arrived at the Syrian border 5km further on. Formalities there took even longer but once finished, we continued the journey on a curving mountain road at 150km/h whilst the driver dialled on his mobile phone (which he very sensibly held on his lap whilst dialling, taking his eyes off the road for alarmingly long periods of time). He dropped me at a crowded market area in Damascus and I walked from there to the hotel I had booked in about 10 minutes (by dead reckoning – I didn’t have any sort of map).

I left the hotel and headed into the old city. Damascus is overwhelmingly dusty, quite grimy, peppered with rubbish and generally looking a bit run down. It looks like it would benefit greatly from a quick flood! The walk in was through a covered souq – reminiscent of the great old train stations of Europe. I arrived at the Umayyad Mosque, which dwarfs everything around it. I continued on, eager to explore as much of this oldest of cities as quickly as I could. Undoubtedly like many before me, I got completely lost in the labyrinth of alleyways before stumbling unexpectedly onto Via Recta, the Street called Straight. I soon came upon a church with only Arabic inscriptions but a colourful statue looking suspiciously like the Apostle to the Gentiles. As I’d finished looking at the façade, I turned to go and was approached by an elderly man who asked me if I’d like to see inside the church. I’d love to, I replied, so in we went. Inside, he showed me a bible in Aramaic in a script that looked a little like Arabic, just a bit "rounder" (I have since discovered that it was the Syriac script). He showed me around the different shrines within this church of St. Paul, telling the various stories of the apostle’s life. As he started the Damascus road story he noticed that I knew it but I said please continue, it’s nice to hear it again. Two saints converted the king of "Asyr" as this region was then known after they miraculously healed his sister's skin condition. Another painting showed St. Moses of Ethiopia killing a dragon. As we parted "God bless you", "and you too" in reply. He was born and grew up in Damascus, a warm, gentle son of old Ananias.

Ananias’ and Paul’s chapels were both closed so I walked back to the great Umayyad Mosque (formerly the church of St. John but was taken over by the Moslems when they conquered Damascus, on the condition that the Christian residents were allowed to retain a number of the other churches in the city). I sat eating a falafel at the southeast corner of the mosque and was approached after a few minutes by a young man and his video camera-wielding friend. Hossein, from Baghdad, and his friend were on holiday just for 3 days. He runs a shop in his home city he said. He asked where I was from and knew where New Zealand was, "south of Australia". He said his family had emigrated all over – Australia, Lebanon. Only he was left in Iraq, and his mother. He paused and said rather sadly that it wasn’t good for New Zealanders or Australians or Americans or any other foreigners in his country at present. Don’t come, he finally said, obviously disappointed and wishing that things were different and that he could have invited me to his homeland.

Hossein and his friend continued on, filming every step of their holiday. I had finished my falafel so I walked around to the other side of the mosque and entered. I found Saladin’s mausoleum, removed my shoes and walked in and slowly around his sarcophagus with the many other pilgrims. The place smelt rather strongly of sweaty socks, no doubt from the many travellers from distant lands who have come here to pay homage to this great man over the centuries. I was happy to add my own unique aroma to such an illustrious collection. Before I entered, however, and as I was looking up at a chronology of Saladin’s life in Arabic, a man standing next to me asked me if I would like to know what was written there. Yes! I replied with some enthusiasm. Saladin was born in Tikrit, the same place as Saddam Hussein! the man exclaimed, in the year 533 (approx. 1150 C.E.). He died at the age of 57 here in Damascus. We continued talking, New Zealand? he looked pleased. We are also visiting, from Palestine. Really, I said, from Palestine, that’s wonderful! I wished I knew how to say God bless you in Arabic, it would have been very appropriate. His wife spoke too and said it was their first time here too. As we chatted, she clapped her (cupped) hands together as she smiled, I think as a greeting or sign of respect. New Zealand? her husband said again. New Zealand has no soldiers in Iraq. Australia yes, New Zealand no. No, I said, vigorously shaking my head, no. That’s good he said, that’s good. We parted, I thanked them again. In such a brief exchange of words, there was such warmth between us – I’m sure they felt how touched I was to have met them.

Whilst sitting earlier eating my falafel, children had come up to me and asked me for the time, just to speak to me and practise their English. One young man, Zida, sat next to me and chatted for a while. He was still at school and said he would like to become a teacher. Another family came and sat next to me on the other side. American? the father asked, smiling at me hopefully. No I said, New Zealand, but I almost wished I was American, just for the chance to SAY SORRY!

George Bush and co, you fools, you damned fools. The people of Damascus are full of openness, love, gentleness. They would love you too if you came as a humble traveller, to look and learn, instead of as an ignorant, misguided neo-crusader. "Salabi" we call them, said the man from Palestine – because of the cross. But George, the cross is a symbol of sacrificial love – you are just making stronger the blasphemous link between the cross and violence and power. These people ARE already free, they don’t need your stupid McDonalds, your rapacious free market, your trans-national slavery. Don’t you dare come here and commit the murder and rape you are perpetrating on Hossein’s fellow countrymen. These people are more free than you will ever be. And they are more cultured, educated, gentle, open and tolerant than your poor, misguided supporters in the "land of the free".

After paying homage to Saladin, I continued on into the mosque. A mass of people jostled jovially through the narrow entrance and I literally bumped into Hossein again. "Welcome to Islam" he beamed at me, euphoric, as I was, to be here in this most important of mosques in all Islam. Once inside I was approached by more adults and children, and we chatted about New Zealand and Europe and America. Two pretty and cheeky little girls asked me to take their photo and when I showed them the result on the screen of my digital camera they could hardly believe it and laughed uproariously. Soon a crowd of kids all wanted their photos taken and I duly obliged. There was such a beautiful atmosphere in the grand courtyard – families enjoying time together and happy to include me.

One of the little girls got a bit too excited with the camera and tried pulling it away from me but this was soon stopped by a nearby adult and she let go, looking a bit sheepish and thanked me, "shukran", politely.

In the end I found myself "talking" to Mosu – he in Arabic, me in English. We left the mosque together and he guided me back to the Ananias chapel (I had mentioned I wished to visit it). Before he left me, he raced off for a minute and came back with a note written in shaky Latin letters and numerals – his name and phone number. I swore to myself that if I ever learn Arabic, I’ll give him a call!

I sat in the little underground chapel of Ananias, hewn out of the rock 600 years after he had lived and died in this place. And I imagined what it would be like to come and live here for a few months and learn Arabic. It was hard to imagine anything more amazing or rewarding. I wondered what "Damascus" meant and thought it should surely be called the city of peace because it is filled with it. I was deeply, deeply touched by this city.

And, I thought, tomorrow I’m off to Palmyra to talk to some old stones instead. Wonderful but not to be compared to today. God bless them all, all these lovely people, so full of Christ-like peace and goodwill. Everyone of them an angel sent to smile upon me and warm my sad old traveller’s heart.

The old man at St. Paul's church reminded me strongly of the priest who had showed me around the catacombs in Rome a couple of months earlier. And both of these men reminded me of my father - small, vigorous men, alight with living faith.

Is it possible that love can be communicated even when nothing is said or understood? I sincerely hope so.

And running through my head all the while, were the words to a song about the road to Jericho, the Good Samaritan: "his name I did not know, just a kind man on the road to Jericho".

10 years after Rwanda, all the demons that had possessed the people there with a murderous madness have now gone to Iraq and possessed not only too many mad insurgents but also more than a few American soldiers. May Hossein and every other dear soul like him be protected in that God-forsaken place.

Of Empires and Occupiers

The next morning I once again caught a service taxi to Cola and was herded immediately onto a minibus bound for Baalbek, on the other side of the Mt. Lebanon range in the Bekaa Valley region of Lebanon. We scoured the streets for potential customers – Baalbek, shibi Baalbek shouted the tout from the passenger seat at everyone we passed. A old man sitting at a café, smoking a sheesha water pipe, looked up startled and waved us on. Two women crossing a side street shook their heads, soldiers on duty smiled no. But somehow we filled the van and set off into the mountains in what I was beginning to realise was typical Lebanese style – squealing tyres, on the wrong side of double yellow lines, speeding along at over 100 km/h in a 50 km/h zone, ignoring red lights. We passed through 4 or 5 checkpoints along the way, 2 of which were manned by Syrian soldiers. In and around Beirut there was no sign of the occupying power but once we had crossed the range they became much more visible.

I chose to stay at the Hotel Palmyra in Baalbek, once an opulent port of call for the rich and famous of another era. It has a faded charm today, hanging on to its former glories in the face of change, dank and silent and overwhelmingly empty. Baalbek was for centuries, spanning a number of different eras, a place of great religious significance. The ruins are colossal, monumental, impossible to capture with anything other than wide open eyes. I spent a day amongst them, the first few hours of which were alone. As the day progressed, groups of tourists joined me, many of them Middle Eastern. I sat for some time in the Temple of Bacchus watching people shuffle through, surrounded by its intricately carved walls. In a number of places were inscriptions in what looked like Arabic but I discovered later that they were actually in Turkish. Not until Ataturks reforms in the 1920s was the Latin script adopted for that language. The Germans excavated Baalbek in the 19th century – thanks to a contract with the Turks, the then overlords of this region. It took me some time to guess the language I was hearing one group of tourists speaking – the former imperial overlords now sending tourists to their lost domains. I wonder when Lebanon was last completely self-governing, not having to "cooperate" with some much more powerful nation. It seems this tiny scrap of land is simply too important to be left alone in peace.

A little later, a young man and his betrothed came in hand-in-hand, cuddling. She was wearing a silken scarf on her head. A friend took a photo of them sitting on the high altar.

The saying "a woman’s glory is her hair" can be confirmed in only a few minutes in Lebanon. even by many of those who wear some sort of head covering.

Another group walking amongst the ruins consisted of Arabs and Americans. It was nice to see and hear. One young woman, speaking only English, looked at me quickly as they entered the temple. She had long, silken black hair and dark eyes. I suppose she was part of the family that had emigrated and were returning now to their homeland for a visit. I was sitting, alone of course, in a corner, looking up and around at the walls, the delicate stucco work in the stone, the soaring columns. I caught her eye briefly but then looked away. When she returned from looking outside, she looked at me again, this time for much longer. I looked away again but caught her eye before doing so, just to let her know I’d noticed.

Now, every time I’ve ever followed up a spark like that, my hunch has turned out to be correct. Somehow though, I have no real desire to chase these things anymore. What’s the point? Unless there is a real, deeper connection, a woman can be as physically beautiful as she wants to be, I’d still never be happy together with her. And the only way to find that connection is by spending time together – something that cannot happen normally with a chance encounter, even if it’s in the Temple of Bacchus.

Later on, I sat opposite the 6 giant columns of Jupiter. A group of local lads came by and insisted on having their photos taken with me. Due to the altitude (about 1000m), it was noticeable cooler sitting there than what it had been on the coast in Beirut. To the north and west was the Mt. Lebanon range, behind me the Anti-Lebanon range and Syria. Outside of the walls of the ruins was a small cypress forest. For most of the afternoon, fireworks exploded on the streets of Baalbek. I couldn’t help thinking that some of the locals perhaps like exploding noises, whatever the cause may be. The main street of the town was ablaze with Hizbollah banners – the telephone pole outside my hotel window was shared by such a banner and some Christmas lights.

I ate that evening at the hotel, in the company of a mostly French tour group with a few Norwegians (speaking English) thrown in for good measure. I retired to my room afterwards and considered making a start on the Dostoyevsky I had brought with me but decided against it. Somehow I didn’t want to be distracted from where I was.

Cruising the Corniche

The taxi ride from the airport to my hotel gave me my first taste of what I was embarking on. We flew past the new national stadium, immaculate and empty and hurtled along the motorway into the city proper. In comparison to what I’d left a few hours before, everything looked on the point of collapse, covered in grime and dust, overwhelmed by waste and rubbish. The driving style of the taxi driver matched what I was seeing.

Night fell not long after I reached my hotel, a humble establishment a block behind the Corniche, Beirut’s famous esplanade, that curves its way along the Mediterranean coast on which the city perches. From my balcony I could hear the never-ending drone of traffic, overlaid by the muezzin’s call from a nearby mosque. Later on I heard church bells ringing. The tower of the American University not far away up the hill was floodlit against a clear blue-black sky. Firecrackers detonated repeatedly to celebrate the end of Ramadan, replacing the more sinister explosions that filled this city in the 80s and 90s. Arabic music blared from a lad’s car as he slowly cruised the Corniche, looking for action.

I made an early start the next morning and caught a “service” (i.e. shared) taxi to Cola Bus Station then an express bus south along the coast to the ancient Phoenician city of Sidon (Saida). I found the Crusader Sea-Castle after asking for directions from a kiosk owner. It wasn’t open at 8:30am, neither was the nearby citadel of Khan al-Franj. The gatekeeper was already there, however, and he and a loitering soldier wished to move an illegally parked car from directly in front of the entrance. “Monsieur?” they asked me hopefully. I helped them push it over to a legal area once the soldier had released the hand brake. In annoyance at this obvious breach of the law, he let down one of the car’s tyres. The gatekeeper, by way of thanks, let me into the castle early (at 9:05) and told me to buy a ticket on exit. At least, I assume that’s what he suggested, as I only understood the word “ticket”. I spent a couple of hours wandering around the ruins, joined only briefly by three local sightseers. The sun was hot, making the land hazy and blurring the sea’s horizon into the sky. The apprehension I had felt slowly began to ebb away as I acclimatised myself to the new barrage of sights, sounds and smells around me. But most of all, the encounters with people helped to relax me.

I climbed up onto the remaining part of the roof of the castle. 900 years ago, another European had stood there on that rampart, looking down on the small splashes of the waves on the seaweed covered rocks. And looked out to sea, into the west, towards the barbarous lands whence he had come. The scars from his sword still make this land bleed, weep. Ultimately though, all that most people here want, whatever their heritage or religious persuasion, is to be left alone to their mobile phones, their internet connections, their Hollywood blockbusters, to be fully-fledged members of a consumerist society.

So perhaps the crusades were a success after all …

After the castle I spent a couple of hours wandering around the old souqs. At one point I stumbled on a Greek Orthodox church, complete with congregation singing mass with their priest. The door was open onto the narrow alleyway so I sat and listened for a while. Later on I returned and wandered inside. There was a good collection of gold icons on sale in the foyer.

I caught a bus back to Beirut and got out at the Cola intersection. As I was trying to work out how to get into town, a man said something to me in German and even the standard greeting in Zurich dialect “Grüezi”. I ended up spending half the day with Ahmad, speaking German the whole time because he didn’t speak English or French. He’d lived in Oerlikon for a number of years (a northern suburb of Zurich) and had been married to a Swiss woman. He showed me a bullet wound in his hand and said he had been caught in the crossfire in a shootout whilst living in Switzerland. He’d been away from Lebanon for 20 years and had just returned. He didn’t have any scars to show me from Beirut. We drove around in his clean yellow Mercedes taxi. He took me through Sabra, the Palestinian part of town, then the Hizbollah controlled area complete with TV studios, army and a secure area for their leader Hassan to live in. I asked him what he thought about Hizbollah, what most Lebanese thought about them. He paused for a moment then said that Hizbollah is like a sleeping tiger – as long as you do not attack it, it remains beautiful and peaceful and will even allow itself to be stroked. But if you attack, it will defend itself.

He showed me a street in Sabra which he said had a street under it – the Israelis used it with help of certain Maronites when they invaded in the early 80s. Seeing these things first hand made the Israeli invasion real instead of just a theoretical television memory from 20 years ago. The inhabitants of Sabra are just normal people. Just like the normal people a few hundred kilometres from Beirut in Iraq. And just like the people of Baghdad today, they had to suffer whilst a war raged around them, stealing their loved ones from them, heaping untold misery and hardship upon them. And for what?

We continued on into the centre of town – in comparison to Sabra sterile, new and empty by day. The city centre of Beirut has been completely rebuilt since the cessation of hostilities and it really is very impressive – it has been done in a uniform style which is quite stately and monumental. Just on the edge of the city centre is a memorial which had been caught in the crossfire many times during the war but which has remained largely intact. A figure, pockmarked with bullet holes, is standing, straining, reaching his hand out towards the Christian hills behind the city, where there is a similar monument reaching down to the city. To one side of this monument, a small Orthodox church is being restored. And further down towards the harbour, a giant mosque is being built with foreign money for “all the people of the world”.

As we drove around Beirut, we saw two Hummers – Ahmad pointed and said “Saudis”. He made jokes and told stories about how rich they are. He also told stories about prostitutes working in Beirut, especially Russians, some who would always request him when they needed a taxi. Not once did he make a snide or degrading remark about them. He’s engaged again he said, to a local girl, a teacher. A good woman. His Swiss ex-wife had just wanted to go to Jamaica all the time for holidays.

We continued on to one of Beirut’s famous landmarks – Pigeon Rocks and had a coffee and a falafel. He dropped me in the Hamra district, from whence I walked back to my hotel near the Corniche. It seemed that half of Beirut was out on the Corniche that Sunday evening, still the day off in this once predominantly Christian country.

A matter of life and death

I had been to the Tonhalle that evening for Bach’s Mass in B-Minor and had sat for over two hours, letting the surging waves of divine perfection wash over me. Afterwards, I walked alone along the river into town, careful with every step in the snow. It had fallen the night before and covered everything, lending a muffled, indoor feel to the sound of my footsteps upon it. I continued on through the Old Botanic Gardens then across into Zurich’s Old Town and to the Café Zähringer.

I ordered a tea and sat, sipping it, still in the thrall of the music. It had evoked in me a deep longing. A door ajar and beyond it bright light, promise. A door ajar, leading to eternity. It seemed that every moment of my life was with me as I sat, pondering; past difficult to distinguish from present and imagined futures hovering like unborn memories. Life and death just two sides of the same page, both filled with illegible scribble. But when held up to the light, the two sides becoming indistinguishable, fusing to form a whole, finally making sense. It seemed to me too, at that moment, that my long deceased father was somehow with me. In the same way that my distant but very much living family accompany me even when I am away from them – through love. Love is that door left ajar, leading to eternity, to the divine.

On the table next to me two young proto-scientists, one Swiss, one German, pored over their books together, united in their quest for knowledge.

On the other side sat a pretty, young blonde, playing draughts with a male friend. It seemed I was the only person there by himself. I thought about my flight the following morning, my imminent baptism into a world profoundly foreign to the one I was sitting in. I couldn’t help feeling a bit apprehensive about it – perhaps this was amplifying my awareness of my own mortality. It’s easy to become too comfortable living in one of the wealthiest and safest countries in the world. The reactions of my friends when I told them I was planning a 9-day trip alone to Lebanon and Syria had done nothing to calm any sense of uncertainty. They ranged from disbelief to outright horror. But perhaps that said more about my friends than about the actual dangers facing me.

A draughts piece fell on the floor, I lent down, picked it up and handed it to her with a quiet smile.

Photo Album

 Photos here