Beirut 2000 (Beirut)

Member Name: maikli

Product:	Beirut
Date:	01/08/02 (309 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: nice seaside walks, interesting mix of old and new, lively party city

Disadvantages: expensive compared to other parts of the Middle East, not exactly a "traditional Arab city", lots of construction work going on

"Hi Mum, I'm off to Beirut tomorrow,"...there was a long pause on the other end of the telephone, followed by a quietly concerned "oh!". Not a bad reaction, I thought, considering the negative press Beirut has had in the last few decades due to the long-running civil war.

I'd been studying in Damascus for the past 6 months, and unexpectedly my school announced a week-long holiday. This coincided with my Syrian residence visa finally coming through allowing me to leave the country, so I felt it was time to relax by the sea for a few days.

Beirut is an easy hop over the mountains from Damascus, just $8 and 3 hours in a service taxi. A short distance, but Beirut is a world a way from Damascus. Syria is a part of the world which Coca Cola and Starbucks have yet to conquer, while Beirut, the Middle East's party city, has everything from HSBC Banks to a Hard Rock Cafe and joggers. However, it might be a different country, but the Syrian president's portrait is just as ubiquitous here as in Damascus...a sign of who is really in power here.

Three hours in a shared taxi isn't a long time, and I'd timed it perfectly so that I would arrive in Beirut in daylight, leaving me enough time to find somewhere to stay. But I had not accounted for the possibility of snow! Neither had anyone else, it would seem, as the snow fell thick and fast, and no road-clearing teams had anticipated it. I hadn't given snow a second thought; even though Lebanon has made a name for itself for winter sports, I was visiting in late March, the tail end of the ski season. Just across the border, in the town of Chtaura, the traffic came to a halt. The main square rapidly became a melee of lorries, taxis, buses and cars, all honking madly at nobody in particular while waiting for the road to re-open. 5 hours after leaving Damascus, the seven passengers in my taxi (on 5 seats!) were becoming impatient. Tempers began to fray, as one
by one the passengers left the taxi to stretch their legs and grab a bite to eat in the town. I didn't dare leave...I could foresee mass panic as soon as the road re-opened, and indeed I was right! All drivers simultaneously started their engines, each one vying to be the first to leave, while the passengers ran madly round the square trying to locate their vehicles! Eventually, we were off, speeding through the mountains, overtaking lorries on blind hairpin bends in typical Middle Eastern fashion.

Arrival in Beirut had not gone as planned, although to be honest I hadn't planned much and had only a very vague idea of where I was headed. This is where the shared taxi beats the bus hands down...buses disgorge their passengers at bus stations, which are never a good introduction to any city, whereas shared taxi drivers take their passengers right to their destination, even if it means driving miles out of their way. I'd asked to be taken to the quarter of St Georges, named after the gutted hotel by the seafront, where a cluster of cheap hotels are located, but all the other passengers left the taxi in the suburbs. My driver could have easily dropped me off anywhere and abandoned me, but he chose to navigate his way through the traffic of the city centre despite being hungry and very late getting to his home.

My chosen hotel, the Hotel Regis, had passable rooms for $20 a night. Here, that sounds like a real bargain, but I ought to explain that I was used to Syrian prices. In Syria, you can find great little guesthouses for as little as $3 or $4 a night, and $20 would get you a room in a good 3* hotel, so for me, $20 was a lot to pay for such a small dingy room. But it was late, I was tired, and I couldn't face wandering round a strange city looking for a cheaper alternative in the dark. And besides, the owners were friendly enough.

I decided to take a short walk to get some food, even though the weather had taken a turn for
the worse and it was now chucking it down with rain and bitterly cold. The first thing that struck me (apart from the low door to my bathroom...a small but impressive bruise developed overnight!) was how familiar everything seemed...cash machines, international hotel chains, MacDonalds...after such a long time in Syria, I was suffering from a kind of reverse culture shock.

The next day, I explored the western half of the city. During the war which lasted from 1975 to 1992, Beirut was a divided city...the west was predominantly Muslim, while the eastern portion was where Beirut's Christian population congregated...they were divided by the Green Line which has now been consigned to the history books.

The first thing I came across was the American University of Beirut, a sizeable and classy establishment, all red-brick and palm trees, surrounded by trendy shopping streets. I walked around in a kind of half-daze, and could easily have gone mad gorging myself on anything familiar. Luckily it was only a half-daze, not a full one, otherwise I would have blown my budget for the entire trip in one day! Most of that day was spent thinking things like "Wow, there's TGI Fridays!" and "Oh my God, its Starbucks Coffee!", generally relaxing in a Western atmosphere. But it soon wore off, and I longed to find something of the real Beirut.

Beirut's most famous and probably most surprising landmark is the Pigeon Rocks. These two "stacks" of rock surrounded by crashing waves are an unexpected sight. This is the perfect place to come at sundown, to enjoy a carafe of Lebanese wine at one of the clifftop cafes, or, for those less well off, a glass of tea at the 2-seater cafe perched halfway down the cliffs with the best views of the Pigeon Rocks.

The Corniche makes for a pleasant stroll, and in the evenings, this is where you'll find Beirut's beautiful people (I felt I fitted in well with my flip-fl
ops, ripped t-shirt and tatty jeans!!). Couples walking hand in hand, groups of good-looking men ogling at groups of stunning women, families enjoying the street food, joggers, rollerbladers, cyclists, dog-walkers...the ideal place to see and be seen.

After the first day's snow and rain, I had been lucky with the weather...clear blue skies, hot sun, temperatures in the mid-20s. Over a glass of tea, I sat on Raouche Beach and wrote postcards home, gloating over the fact that Britain in March is wet, windy and cold, and here I was in Beirut getting steadily sunburnt!

A walk to the east from my hotel took me past the ruined Hotel St Georges (once an exclusive yacht club attracting the rich and famous), to what was once the heart of Beirut, Martyrs' Square. Postcards for sale depicted the pre-1975 square as a busy tree-filled piazza, flanked on three sides by buildings from the French Mandate era, and on the fourth by the Mediterranean Sea. the scene today is completely different, and quite a shock. The only thing recognizable from the postcards is the sea, the rest has disappeared, either destroyed during the war, or deemed unsafe and demolished to make way for an ambitious new development. The French company in charge of it all, Solidere, have erected enormous billboards showing what the square will eventually look like...an upmarket and rather soulless-looking real-estate development. They hope that it will once again become the heart of Beirut, but looking at it today, it is hard to imagine that.

One good thing to come of the war is that it has given archaeologists a unique opportunity to excavate the Roman and Phoenician remains uncovered by the square's demolition. However, they are in a race against time, as construction workers want to cover these remains with modern city as soon as possible.

A walk behind the square is a strange experience. Spanking new luxury hotels rub shoulders with bullet-ridden 19th centu
ry buildings which seem about to collapse at any minute but are amazingly still inhabited. It would be easy to visit Beirut and view the city through rose-tinted glasses, but stray away from the newly repaired shopping streets and Beirut's recent history is very much in evidence. Pockmarked houses, amputees selling bread in the gutter, the National Museum still undergoing extensive repair work, the shell of the former Holiday Inn standing as an ever-present reminder of the tragic war. the city has recovered fast, but it will take a long time to heal all the wounds.

Head south from the beachside resort area of Raouche, and eventually the 5* hotels begin to thin out, the rich and beautiful people replaced by shabbily dressed street traders, the sports cars exchanged for beaten-up taxis, the street scenes become more and more chaotic. You soon reach a very poor suburb, almost a shanty-town. Near here are the infamous Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila where the atrocious massacres took place at the hands of the Israeli Army in 1982. A walk in this part of town is not particularly risky, although don't flash any wealth if you have any, and don't hang around too long, especially if you go unaccompanied...it might be best to bring some Lebanese friends along with you. I found out later that the British Foreign Office warn against visiting the southern suburbs...oh well, I was never one to take much notice of their advice!

Beirut has a reputation in the region as something of a party city with excellent nightlife...but everything comes at a price in Lebanon. Costs are comparable to Europe, and Beirut has been described as one of the most expensive cities in the world. Walking past so many luxury hotels and posh restaurants, I can well believe it, although it is still possible to get by on a shoestring, as long as that shoestring is a longish one. Street food is good, filling and cheap, and you can go to any Lebanese restaurant an
d just order a couple of starters such as hummus (chick-pea dip), baba ghanouj (aubergine dip), fatayer (cheese and spinach pastries), tabbouleh (buckwheat and parsley salad), for relatively little. Of course, if you have a fat wallet, the you are in an ideal position to enjoy the city's fine reputation for its cuisine. Luckily for me, Syrian food is very similar, so i didn't miss out on too much by sticking to street food (the Lebanese pizzas and sesame rings were life-savers!!).

On the whole, Beirut is a fascinating city to visit. It isn't very traditional, yet it isn't wholly modern either. Beirut offers a unique chance to see how a city can bounce back from a long war. For those coming from the East, it is like returning to Europe, while for visitors from Europe it has a distinct Eastern and exotic feel to it.

If you're looking for the traditional Arab way of life, then you'll have a long search...it does exist in Beirut, but it is not obvious. A better bet would be to spend a few days in Beirut before heading to the mountains or historic towns such as Tripoli (Tarablus), or even through the mountains into Syria.

However, if you choose to come to Beirut, you can almost guarantee a good time. Don't expect a conservative Arab city, but don't expect a war zone either...just sit back and enjoy it.

Summary: