Syria 1999-2000 (Other locations...)

Member Name: maikli

Product:	Other locations...
Date:	22/09/03 (396 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Deserts, mountains, castles, ruined cities, nearly tourist-free, good transport system, food, hospitable people, cheap

Disadvantages: Litter, secret police (mukhabarat), bland restaurant food, disappointing coastline, bureaucracy

### Sorry about the choice of location for this review...but according to dooyoo, Syria doesn't exist at all! As soon as Syria and Damascus are added as locations, I can move this review to its proper home...can anyone tell me if it is possible to add locations to this site?###

If you've read my Damascus review, you'll know that I spent 9 months living in Damascus while studying Arabic, and saw nearly every corner of Syria. I'm not going to repeat myself with descriptions about Damascus or Aleppo, so this will be about the rest of Syria.

For an introduction to the Middle East and Arab culture, Syria is a good bet...not too "foreign", yet exotic at the same time. Travel there is very easy, and so is getting a visa (apart from at the border...go to an embassy in your own country, otherwise you'll be turned back!). Not wishing to sound like a piece of tourist literature, but Syria does seem to have everything to offer a tourist...friendly people, great food, cheap prices, deserts, mountains, ancient ruins, fascinating cities, castles, and a coastline. And it has the advantage of being one of the few places yet to be invaded by MacDonalds and Coca Cola.

But tourists seem to think of Syria as a dangerous country, until they go there themselves. Syria is nearly crime-free...virtually no street crime...that's not to say it doesn't happen, but I feel safer walking down dark alleys in a Syrian city than down a well-lit street at night in England. The main threat to your life will be from the traffic...crossing roads can be a nightmare. People often write that Syrian drivers are terrible, but I think they must be quite good...to be able to drive like they do and not have an accident is quite an admirable skill!! During nine months, I only saw a couple of minor traffic accidents, although experienced one or two hairy moments!

What are the downsides to travel in Syria...well, litter is one that sticks
in my mind. The Syrian mentality when it comes to litter seems to be "why throw rubbish in a bin, when there is a perfectly good beauty spot to dump it at?" And I suppose the lack of bins doesn't help either. It just means that wherever you go, there will be plastic bags and drinks cans surrounding you.

Then there are the mukhabarat...or secret police. Although they are trained mainly to listen out for Syrians speaking badly of their president or praising "the Zionist enemy" (i.e. Israel), there are two departments especially for foreigners. No-one knows who is mukhabarat...it could be the waiter in that nice cafe, or the old woman next to the carpet shop, you just don't know. So don't allow the conversation to progress onto politics...avoid at all costs, even if you think you know them well. Some foreigners use codes to talk about Israel, such as "Disneyland" or "Iceland". Don't panic if you do let something slip...more than likely you won't be hauled into jail and beaten...but you might not get that visa extension you were hoping for.

Bureaucracy was something that drove me mad...but getting an extension on a tourist visa should be fairly straight forward...it's only when you want complicated things like residence visas and permission to leave Syria (once you've become a resident, you have to get one of these), then you'll need a lot of patience and a fair amount of good luck (it seems to help if you are a female, and wear a low cut top just for the occasion...I did not have this advantage!).

Money can be a problem, as there is only one bank which is the government bank (at the moment...it is rumoured that foreign banks will be arriving soon). You can't get money to you once inside Syria, as credit cards are next to useless, and there are no ties between the Central Bank of Syria, and foreign banks. Travellers' Cheques are a pain to change, although it can
be done in banks and on the black market (but be discreet...try asking foreigners living there, who can recommend a good dealer), but cash is better, more specifically, US Dollars. If you run out, you can access cash machines (ATMs) in Beirut (Lebanon...about 3 hours by road from Damascus) and amman (jordan...six hours by road from Damascus), but make sure you have a multi-entry visa for Syria, or you'll end up stuck! (lebanon has no Syrian Embassy, and Syria has no Lebanese embassy...treated as "one nation, two countries" but not much help to the traveller!...and Jordan is a difficult place to get a Syrian visa...trust me, I tried!)

Back to the nice things...well Syria has an awful lot to see.The standard tour group will visit, the spectacular desert ruins at Palmyra (Tadmor in Arabic), Crac des Chevaliers (one of the best preserved Crusader castles), the roman ruins at Bosra, and the cities of Damascus and Aleppo. These sights are the most touristy in Syria, which is not saying much...at least not yet, anyway. For instance, I took my parents to Palmyra in the height of the tourist season, and we counted at most 50 other people...which spread over a huge site (mostly free to enter, by the way) is hardly crowded...in fact at times it felt as if we were the only ones there.

But I would recommend leaving this "tourist trail" and visiting some lesser-known sites. Hama is a beautiful small city (half of which was demolished in 1982 after an Islamic uprising against the government, but we don't talk about that....) on the banks of the Orontes River. Its main attractions are the norias, or water wheels...they are enormous, and if the river is in full flow, then the noise they make is tremendous...but if you go during a dry period, they will be a little bit disappointing to say the least, so come after rain! Homs is mainly an industrial city, but interesting for its souqs and the Khalid Ibn Walid mosque.

Nearby are
some deserted ruins, the best being those at Afamia (Apamea) which rival Palmyra for size and beauty, but when I went, it was just me and a few sheep. This part of Syria is surprisingly green as well, lying between two mountain ranges, and getting a fair amount of rain in winter. The mountains are nice, but not nearly as spectacular as Lebanon's mountains (the white peaks you can see from the Damascus-Aleppo highway and Tartus looking south are in Lebanon). It should be good for hiking, but the Syrians aren't great outdoor enthusiasts ("why walk, when you can go by bus?") so there are no paths marked, and of course the government would never allow a foreigner access to detailed maps.

The coast is disappointing...don't come to Syria for a beach holiday. Passable beaches do exist north of Latakia (at Blue Beach, which is privately owned by two huge hotels, and at Ra'as al-Baseet, probably the best of a bad bunch), but for the most part the coast is polluted. Tartus is a pleasant city, but there isn't much to do there, apart from taking a boat out to Arwad Island (marketed as a Syrian version of a Greek Island, with added rubbish...a LOT of rubbish) and making trips into the mountains to see villages such as Safita, and less well preserved crusader castles.

South of Damascus is the Hauran region, which includes Bosra...if you are into ruins, then there are plenty here to see, like Shabwa (half ancient roman city, half lived-in village) and Qanawat. And a bit further to the west is Jolan, more famously known as the Golan Heights. This might strike fear into some readers...I mean, who would dream of visiting a war zone...but you can visit Quneitra, a city which was demolished by the Israelis when they withdrew in 1973 (?) and now lies within the UN Buffer Zone. This is an essential part of a trip to Syria, if you can stomach all the propaganda. You have to get a permit from the Ministry of the Interior in Damascus (take
your passport...it will take five minutes), then take a bus to the nearest vilage to the "front line" where you will be assigned an army guide. Your guide will tell you (or rather point out to you, if you don't speak Arabic) where you can and cannot go, and will show you the main "sights"...the ruined mosque (climb the minaret for a great view, it will be your only chance to climb a minaret in Syria), the deserted shopping street, and the Golan Hospital, now little more than a shell. There is a restaurant right next to the Israeli frontier, and you can sit and look at Israel with rented binoculars while sipping your tea. It seems to me that it is a bit of a game of cat and mouse...the Arabs blast nationalistic music across the frontier, and the Israelis retaliate by sending jeeps hurtling down the dust track on their side, causing huge dust clouds to engulf the restaurant. A very peaceful war zone!

Near to Damascus are several Christian villages, some of which still speak Aramaic, although this seems to be a bit limited nowadays, and the only Aramaic you are likely to hear is on a folk cassette or at one of the monasteries in the pretty village of Ma'aloula.

But my favourite region in Syria has to be along the Euphrates River, around Ar-Raqqa, Deir ez-Zur and the Iraqi border. Next to no tourists venture this far east, so you will have all the attractions to yourself. There are loads of ruins along the banks of the river...Halabiyyah, Dura Europos, Mari, and Mayadin...and don't miss swimming in the river (apparently it is bilharzia free, and seems to be fairly clean).

Getting around Syria is easy...there is always a bus going to wherever you want to go, so you rarely have to wait longer than an hour at any bus station. As long as you are not picky about comfort...there are some exceptionally comfortable buses, but they only do the main routes, and for outlying villages you will be relying on minibuses, or
service taxis, where there are no limits on the number of passengers inside! It is extremely cheap to travel, though....you can cross the country on one of the better buses for US$10 (a ten hour journey from Damascus to Qamishle in the far north-east).

Not knowing Arabic is not really a problem...of course, it does enhance a trip to Syria, but there are enough English (or French) speakers around. But even the most badly pronounce Arabic word will go down well!

Clothing deserves a mention...Syria is predominantly a Muslim country, with a large Christian minority, so dress doesn't have to be as conservative a many people might think. A few basic rules...no shorts (you certainly won't argue with this if you visit during the winter months!) for men or for women, and if you want to "fit in" a bit better, most syrian men wear long sleeve shirts, not t-shirts. For women, you don't need to cover your face or hair...Christian women and some of the more liberal Muslim women dress pretty much as they like in the main cities, although they never expose much flesh, so you should do the same. Leave behind suntops and shorts! Don't wear anything too tight...unless you want a lot of harrassment from the men. If you plan on visiting any mosques (and you can't come to Syria without at least visiting one mosque) then women will need a headscarf to cover their hair. Some mosques used to foreign tourists have special gowns for hire, but in smaller, more out -of-the-way places, you'll need to bring your own. Don't forget that Syria gets surprisingly cold in winter, sometimes even getting a smattering of snow on the ground, causing the country to slip momentarily into chaos! Bring warm clothes for winter, and at least one warm item for summer...it gets quite cold in the mountains, as well as in the desert at night.

One thing I have noticed tourists do is try to "go native" by wearing "traditional" clo
thes...well this is OK as long as it only goes as far as wearing a keffiyyeh (the Arab head-dress, or Arafat's tablecloth, as my Mum calls it!) as a scarf...but others go further, and risk the ridicule of the locals, who dress pretty much as anyone else does...jeans and a shirt. One of the worst cases of a tourist going native was an American man on a tour in Damascus...he'd bought a white jellabiyya (one of those long flowing robes which men wear in the countryside)...but forgotten that his rather loud Garfield boxer shorts were on view to everyone!!

One of the main attractions of Syria is the genuine hospitality of the people...on a number of occasions, I have been stranded in villages, and invited to stay with a family...all payment is refused, although you can try to repay them via the children by giving them sweets or postcards etc...especially at Eid time (Eid is Arabic for festival). Don't give sweets, money or pens to children who accost you in the street though...this is one of the negative effects of tourism, and one not limited to Syria.

The food has a reputation of being tasty but dull...and most restaurants have exactly the same menus...lamb kebab, chicken kebab, hummus, tabbouleh (a type of salad) and various other dips, all served with flat Arab bread which is delicious when hot, but boring when cold or from a supermarket. In the home, it is a different matter...you won't find this type of food in restaurants, so if you get the chance, don't turn down an invitation to eat with someone at their home.

Summer is hot...very hot, so not really the best time to visit. Winter can get cold, but it is a short winter...I had sunshine well into November, and winter was over by mid-February. spring and autumn are the peak seasons...more visitors (still not many though) and good weather.

If you are looking for a slightly different destination for your holiday this year, but don't want anything too &qu
ot;exotic", then Syria may well fit the bill. Ehlen wa sehlen fiikum ;@P

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