Damascus!

Now we come to one of the most exciting parts of the story. Three Arabic-speaking college kids want to make the most of their 3-day weekend. Off they go, no guide books, no maps, only the relative location of a hostel which they had obtained from a classmate who had gone before.
Destination: Damascus, Syria, the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world.
Total length of trip: 31 hours.
Time in Damascus: 18 hours
Transportation: $35.00
Hostel: $7.00
Food: $12.00
Souvenirs: $12
Admission Tickets: $6.00
Border Fees: $20.00
Knowing that you went to Damascus for your equivalent of Spring Break: Priceless.

Syria: part of the Fertile Crescent of ancient civilization, and a center of trade and commerce for thousands of years, it retains an exotic mystique of inaccessibility in the West, particularly among Americans, due to the constant bandying about of insults and threats back and forth between the American and Syrian governments. Despite all of this political rhetoric, there is actually no Travel Warning from the US government against the travel of its citizens to Syria. Nor is there a ban from the Syrians on Americans entering its borders. So off we went, to see what we could see, to take in the history, the great souqs of the old quarter, and to penetrate that veil of mystery where few Americans dare to tread.

We traveled in supreme style from Amman to the Syrian border, in a spacious mid-1960s Dodge sedan, complete with original interior and Syrian plates. (USA! USA! Buy American! USA!) At any time of day or night you can go to the Abdeli Bus Station in Amman and find any number of service (a shared taxi- pronounced ‘Servees’) drivers who make their living taking passengers between Amman and Damascus. Once the driver had collected enough passengers to put two in the front and three in the back, off we went. It took us about an hour and a half before we reached the Jordanian side of the border, which we passed through smoothly, without a hitch.

Then we were back in the USSR.

Back in the day when Hafez al-Asad was chummy with the Soviet government, he appears to have bought out surplus Soviet uniforms by the metric ton to clothe the many members of the military and police. Soviet influence is also apparent in 20th century post-colonial Syrian architecture.

“Oh, the Tehran girls really knock me out; they leave the West behind
Damascus girls make me sing and shout,
And Pyongyang’s always (always) on my m-m-m-m-m-m-m-mind” Oh, I'm sorry. That's not how the song goes. Those aren't even former Soviet republics. What was I thinking...

Hey, spend seven hours in the immigration hall at the Syrian border and you too will be reduced to making terrible, awful jokes. Our lengthy stay was actually due to our own oversight, and not because the Syrian border guards felt like giving a couple of Americans a bad time, though nevertheless we did have to spend seven hours trying not to go crazy, and not to do anything that would get us kicked out of the country.

Things to do if you are stuck at the Syrian border for 7 hours:
-Play Go Fish
-Play Egyptian Rat Screw
-When you have exhausted all the card games that can be played with only three people, there are a number of things that can be done individually, such as playing Solitaire. Then playing three different variations on Solitaire.
-Read a book.
-Listen to music. I made a mixed CD especially for the occasion, using my increasingly twisted sense of humor.
-People watch. There are cute babies to make faces at, and there are manner of people to stare at and wonder who they are and where they are going. Curiously, one group of European tourists sported ski boots. Why anyone would be wearing ski boots in Jordan and then desire passage to Syria so attired is beyond me. My especial favorite was a man from one of the Gulf States with a white robe, a neatly-trimmed short beard, and Jesus hair. Who knew that the Messiah would be reborn as a Muslim?
-If you should be so unlucky as to need the technical facilities, a pack of tissues, a bottle of hand sanitizer (there is no soap and I really wouldn’t touch that sink if I were you), and a strong stomach are highly recommended. Wearing sandals is not.
-Of course, you could always make use of the palatial accommodations at the fabulous Duty Free Shop! I have never seen a nicer duty free shop in all of my travels. It was like entering a parallel dimension when I espied all of the price tags in US dollars, and actually purchased some candy and soda in dollars using the good old greenbacks that I have had with me all the way from the ATM in Worner Center. You know you've been in the Middle East too long when riyals and dinars look normal, and you gaze at the Presidential portraits in confusion, wondering where the other colors have gone. Funnily, US dollars are indeed like a second currency in Syria, and you may run into occasions when people will ask specifically for dollars, and refuse to take your Syrian pounds. Do not, however, engage in any currency exchange other than official government outlets, or you will face the wrath of the Syrian police. One nasty man did approach us on the street and ask us in English if we wanted him to change some money for us. When we refused, and started walking quickly away from him to avoid suspiscion of any mukhabarat (secret police) in pursuit, an abominably rude, "F--- you!" was his reply.
-When you are hopped up on sugar from your purchases at the duty free, and the immigration hall has pretty much cleared out for the night, leaving a wide space, make paper airplanes out of blank immigration cards.

Things not to do at the Syrian border:
-The longer you tell three politics students that they may not under any circumstances mention anything about international politics at all, the harder a temptation it is to resist. So, that enormous picture of Bashar and Hafez al-Asad above you on the wall? "He's looking at you..."
-Mentioning that you have been to Israel. If it is absolutely vital to refer to previous Israeli travel (in the case of my friends), speak of, "that other non-Jordan country."
-Sing songs. First of all, making a scene is not a good idea. Secondly and lastly, the more we wanted to sing, the more songs we thought of that were absolutely inappropriate to the occasion. Most of our choir songs were of a religious nature, which would undermine the secular nature of the Syrian state. The Sound of Music score involves subversion of the regime, as does Les Miserables, The King and I is sympathetic to monarchy and the British Empire, and Fiddler on the Roof is right out.
-Bringing homework from your political science classes. Government censors would not approve.

Finally, after 11:30 at night we were free to proceed onward to Damascus. The border officers were polite and courteous at all times, and some particularly friendly ones even offered to share their supper of bread, hummus, and foul with us, which we politely declined. We felt bad turning down their hospitality, but we wanted to get on with the show. If I ever do have dinner with members of the Syrian military, however, I pray that it is under such friendly circumstances as those. At no time was there any indication from them of any tensions between our governments or any personal anti-American sentiment on their part.

At 11:30 at night at the Syrian border, the options for transportation are few and far between. Around midnight, we were approaching a state of sugar and exhaustion-induced desperation, and were about to ask some Kuwaiti guys for a lift. Instead, another service finally appeared. The driver had, for some reason, come with an empty car all the way from Amman, so he made us pay the equivalent fee to get from the border to Damascus as it would have been to come all the way from Amman. We did attempt to bargain with him, but he wouldn’t budge. I spent the next hour or so in a daze, trying desperately to stay awake so that I would not miss the sight of my triumphant entrance into Damascus. When we arrived within the city limits, the service driver asked us where we wanted to go in Damascus. I told him the relative location for the hotel as I had copied it down from the business card that a classmate had shown to us. Of course, I had left the piece of paper where I had all the letters in my neatest Arabic hand back at home, so it was up to my memory to conjure us up a hotel for the night. The driver repeated back to me the directions, but his pronunciation differed from mine. I thought only that perhaps I had butchered the words, or that the Syrian accent was markedly different from the Syrian one. Nope. He screwed up the directions, though I didn’t know it at the time.

We all wish that we had been more awake that night, for before we could really register what was going on, the service driver had spoken to a taxi driver to take us the rest of the way to our destination (using the bad directions), and our bags were moved into the trunk of the taxi. Except that it wasn’t a real, licensed taxi. We asked him where the meter was, and he said there wasn’t one. There are no meters in fake taxis that try to rip you off. This guy only understood Arabic, which was alright with me, since I can argue with the most stubborn of taxi drivers (or posers thereby), though my taxi driver arguing skills diminish somewhat after 1:00 AM. Woe to the traveler to Damascus who does not speak Arabic. He asked us where we wanted to go, and I repeated the directions, still wrong. I asked him point blank if he knew where the hotel was, and I told him that I wasn’t sure of the validity of the directions. “No, sorry, never heard of it. Oh, you want to go to a hotel? Well there’s a hotel right there.”
“No, that’s not the right one. It has a different name. Don’t you know where the one I asked you about is?”
“Sure, we’ll go right there. It’s in that area, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I replied, with confidence. We got to the area where the hotel supposedly was, and the driver said that he didn’t see it, but that there was a very nice hotel, and wouldn’t we like that one?”
“No, I want the hotel that I want to go to, and that is not it.”
“Well, why don’t you go inside and ask them for directions. They speak better English.” That was a lie if I have ever heard one. They spoke no better English than the driver, nor did they know where the hotel was. Back in the car with us.
“Oh, look at that hotel, isn’t it a nice one?”
“No, I want my hotel, not that one.”
“Let’s stop and ask for directions, then.” We stopped. I got out, and asked for directions, whereupon I discovered that the very first directions that I had remembered from the absent piece of paper were right all along. Directions conveyed to the driver, we piled back in the car, when I heard him remark, “Oh, you want the such-and-such hotel? Well, sure, I know where that is.” It turns out that it was not one block from where the service driver had spit us out onto the streets of Damascus. Some racket they had going, huh? The kindly hotel owner came outside and interceded for us in our negotiations over the price of the meter-less fake taxi ride, and then it was off to bed, in a room with wood beams and oriental hanging lamps.

We got up later in the morning at 10:00, refreshed and ready for a day of exploring. While I was off down the hall in the bathroom brushing my teeth, my friends had struck up a conversation with the Italian man adjacent to us. I came back, and my trusty traveling companions made gestures and mouthed to me not to speak to him. “Don’t talk to that guy, whatever you do! Just don’t! He’s crazy!” Apparently he had offered to obtain for them Italian passports of dubious legality, and he had some kind of drug connections. Who knew that the mafia liked to hang out in Damascus at cheap hotels?

Much to our surprise, the hotel owner offered to store our bags for us until we went to check out in the afternoon, so we went out on the town, unburdened with nothing save our camera cases. Our first stop of the day was the famed Great Mosque of the Umayyads, which far exceeded all expectations. If you only have time to see one thing in Damascus, go to the Great Mosque. We got our entry tickets (foreign tourists, read: non-Muslims, must pay a small entrance fee) and my female friend and I got our fake abayas, and we went in through an outer wall into a corridor which led to the entrance proper. We were having fun with our Jedi suits, which were olive drab cotton robes with hoods that really wanted to be abayas or jellabas but really just looked like Jedi suits, when we spotted some other American tourists and asked each other to take pictures. I looked at the blonde mommies pushing little ones in strollers, all with 21 carat gold earrings and Southern accents with no males in attendance. They just had to be from the Gulf. Sure enough, they all lived in Dubai, and thought that they’d pop over to Damascus for a lark, sans husbands. Only expats from the Gulf would do anything like that. They had never seen anything so funny as the abayas. “Look at this get-up! What is this stuff? Oh, this is great! We’ve just got to get our pictures taken!”
“It’s an abaya.” Oh, I forgot. They live in Dubai. Of course they’ve never worn an abaya before.

Entering the courtyard of the Great Mosque is a spectacular experience. If you have ever been awed by an architectural creation of sacred space, walking into a cathedral or a temple and being overwhelmed by an almost tangible grandeur that is manifest from the lines, angles, and proportions of the design, then that can give you an inkling of my first impression of the mosque. I wanted to see it because I knew it to be an important historical site full of innovations that later became standard features of mosques, but I was not prepared for it to be ‘just so darn cool.’ You know the famed Arab architecture of Morocco and Andalucia? Well, all of their most famous designs are really Umayyad works. And the Great Mosque is the Great-Grandaddy of them all. Enormous courtyard. Minarets. A mihrab. A fountain. At the time of their construction, they were revolutionary accessories, but now who can imagine a truly splendiferous mosque without them? A last, but most important attraction of the courtyard are its fantastic mosaics. This multicolored masterpiece was inlaid before Islamic art had developed into abstract repetition of geometric patterns, while it still had much influence from the Byzantine style, at least in the case of Damascus. A lush village scene of the wonders that await in Paradise runs the length of the courtyard. Rivers and waterfalls lined with trees and grapevines flow past houses of varying sizes and designs. The perspective, theme and media (its use of bright colors and gold tiles) are much the same of its Byzantine contemporaries, so what really makes it an Islamic artwork? Not one person or animal appears in the scene. That’s it. Stick in a couple of icons, and I’d never know that I wasn’t in a church. Oh, wait. It was a Byzantine church. Why, the caliph even hired some Byzantine architects to retrofit the church into a mosque. But that is another story which I will return to later.

The inside of the mosques itself isn’t much to look at from an artistic point of view, since it has been redone multiple times as a result of fires and looting and such, though it is magnificently large, carpeted with an emperor’s ransom in fine rugs, and has a nifty dome. No, what is really the attraction of the inside of the mosque are its various shrines. I saw the tomb of Salahuddin, hero of the medieval Arabs (Muslim, Jew, and Christian alike), and scourge and villainous rogue to the Crusaders and their kindred back in Europe. Moving along in my descriptions and to another part of the mosque, it must be remembered that we did not visit on any ordinary day. We came on Prophet Mohammed’s Birthday (pbuh), quite by coincidence, but there was an added air of festivity to the whole city with banners and flags everywhere for the occasion, and perhaps what would be a more than usual number of visitors to the mosque. If our presence as non-Muslims were unwelcome, the officials would have barred us entry or kicked us out. Besides, it was nowhere near prayertime, at which point we would certainly have been required to leave. Muhammed’s Birthday being a decidedly non-Sunni holiday, the religious pilgrims were mostly Shia, with the foreign ones mostly from Iran. I know so because the leaders of their tour groups had banners in Farsi. At one point I almost got trampled by grannies in chador as they were all in a rush to visit the shrine of the head of Hussein, grandson of Muhammed, and son of Ali. See what happens when you go places without guidebooks and don’t know what that room is around the corner?

Then I prayed in the mosque. Oh, not like that, sillies, I haven’t made a sudden conversion to Islam. It was at a decidedly Christian site. Remember how the mosque used to be a Byzantine church? Well, it’s got an enormous shrine to another famous person’s severed head, John the Baptist, right in the middle of the prayer hall. Why his head would have been taken to Damascus instead of buried with his body or at least buried somewhere in Jerusalem in the grounds of King Herod’s palace is beyond me. And for the record, the church was actually built on top of a Roman temple to Jupiter.

After a quick stop outside the mosque walls for the most delicious fresh-squeezed orange juice ever, post returning of the abayas and the re-putting on of the shoes, it was time to go shopping! If you like covered bazaars that go on forever without end, if you like having an entire street for blacksmith work, another for baskets, and another for candy, etc., then Damascus is the place for you. A damascene (I’ve been waiting for years for an excuse to use that word in a sentence!) souq contains reams of silk damask and brocade. All of those mother-of-pearl and wood inlay boxes and furniture that outfit every ‘oriental’ souvenir store that you’ve ever seen? Well, it’s better quality in Syria, and cheaper, too. For those who enjoy produce markets, open piles of exotic spices, and apothecary shops in the same place they have been for centuries, selling the same merchandise, Damascus will not disappoint.

Throughout our wanderings through the souqs, we passed by stores which had their tvs on, mostly tuned to the Syrian state channel. When we stopped in one store, my attention wandered to the live broadcast of a religious service in honor of Mohammed's Birthday. Bashar al-Asad was among the congregation. When the service was finished, the announcer launched into a long, flowery exposition on the many virtues of the great and glorious leader.

Damascus is also home to the best pistachio ice cream, which in of itself could easily compete for best overall ice cream, in the world. Its curious elastic properties and sweet, pleasing flavor are just right for a warm spring or summer day. The yougurt-covered almonds are also mighty tasty. Aside from sweets I bought two souveniers for myself: a coin scarf (best price in any country I have seen), and a pair of handmade leather sandals for the grand total of $12. I saw no t-shirts, however, so I hope to return this weekend and buy all the t-shirts for those who need a t-shirt from Syria. I would have loved to get some damask tableclothes for those of you who own fine dining tables, but I have no idea what size or shades. Tablecloth shopping is something you really need to do your own self.

Before returning to Amman in the evening, we wanted to see one more historical site. We didn't have a guidebook, as you may recall, so we don't know what wonders we missed that we should have seen instead, but we saw a sign for an Ottoman palace, and went on inside. Built sometime around 1750, the palace has been restored and turned into a museum of court life of Damascus's Ottoman governor of the time. Music, glassware, clothing, embroidery, and scenes from everyday life fill the various rooms and passages. The multicolored gilt leather wallpaper is a sight to behold, as are the magnificent oriental chandeliers and the original multi-tiered mother-of-pearl inlay ceilings. We were, however, forbidden to take photos of the ceilings, so you'll just have to go all the way to Damascus if you want to see the ceiling. If you only have time to see one other site in Damascus aside from the Great Mosque, the Ottoman Palace is a good plan, or so it seemed to us at the time. We went back to the hotel, got our bags, settled the bill, and asked for a good, cheap restaurant that was not a shwarma stand. The hotel staff, sure enough, had given us directions to the cheapest, freshest little hole-in-the-wall kebab shop. Bread for the whole table was about 10 cents, and a feast for three hungry young adults came out to be no more than $10 in total.

Then we headed in the vague direction of where we thought the services to Amman might be. Four different people gave us for different directions until we finally got to the bus station with the services. Beirut-bound on the right, those for Damascus on the left. We contracted our return trip with the first one in line, and waited around for him to collect a few more passengers. We heard an English voice calling to us, and we turned to see who it was. Was it the service driver, all ready to go? No, it was a small, toothless old man hopping around on a crutch and one leg.

"Hey, howya doin'? Are you American?"
"Yes, we are."
"Well, no shit! Hey, long time, no see! Don't get much Americans around here. So, howya doin', Charlie? Is it OK if I call you Charlie?" he said to my male friend in an uncanny dockside accent. "I miss talking to Americans. Yeah, I used ta have lotsa American friends, y'know? Whaddaya say, come over there and have some tea with me?"
"Oh, no thanks. I don't think we have enough time. Say, your English is so good, and where did you get that accent?"
"Well, y'see, I'm from Beirut, see, and I used ta' have alotta American friends, yeah... The Marines. I used ta be on comission, right? Yeah, so I used ta show 'em around a little bit, the Marines, translate for them in the stores, get my commission, show 'em where all the bars, and I picked up English from 'em, real good. Yeah... We was real good buddies. Then I had my accident, see, I used ta jump offa cars alla time, real stupid, and then I had my accident and I couldn't work no more. I been workin' here five years for tips, doin' some translating for the foreign people in the bus station. Yeah, but I don't see too many Americans. I miss talkin' to 'em, yeah..." He really did learn English from the Marines in Beirut, no shit. And no, there aren't very many Americans who come to Damascus. He was probably not as old as he looked, but malnutrition and no teeth gave him an ancient appearance. One of my friends gave him a tip. I hope he was able to eat well that night. God bless him, wherever he is.

Fourth passenger accounted for, we piled into our service and headed for the Jordanian border. At the first stop, we handed our passports to the driver, who handed them to the immigration official. As a point of making conversation, we thought we'd ask the lady in the front seat about her nationality.
"Are you Jordanian?"
"La." She shook her finger and inclined her head upward in a 'no' motion.
"Are you Syrian?"
"La." Same response. Seing that she has stumped the university students, she grinned a patriotic grin and said, with pride, "I'm Iraqi."
"Oh, that's nice."
"See, I'm Iraqi and you are American."

I encounter Iraqis (Arab, Kurd, Assyrian, Chaldean, Sunni, Shia- everybody) all the time in Amman. Some are refugees, and some are just trying to make a living. I see their cars, they visit our house, no big deal. All the Iraqis whom I have met are glad that Saddam is gone, and although they seem to dislike the American and British occupation on principle, they begrudgingly recognize the necessity of foreign troops to keep the country together. I had never before met anyone who had personal reason to be bitter about western occupation.

Making further conversation with her after we got out of the car at a snack stand, we were curious about conditions in Iraq.
"Where are you from?"
"Oh, I'm from Basra, in the south."
"That sounds nice."
"Oh, it is a very nice city, there are many green trees. But I had to leave. When the British came, some of the Shia got very angry. Oh, they said that we Christians were helping the British, so they attacked us. They took my honor, and they said they would kill my family. Those were very hard times. But really, it's better now. Now I am working in Amman."

I was not expecting that response. I could see some of the anguish still in her face as she told her story. Despite her negative experiences, she did not reflect them personally onto us as Americans. She was super nice, and kept trying to buy us food, just like every other Arab mom. If I ever see her again, the strawberry milk's on me.

It was a short trip, but I saw a thousand sights and found a thousand stories, written over the past five thousand years. And that was my trip to Damascus and back again. The moral of the story? Truth is stranger than fiction.