While Amy and I were visiting my brother and family in Baltimore over Christmas, we spent a Friday to take the DC Metro from Silver Spring into the city for the purpose of getting a couple Syrian visas. In the good old days, we used to be able to get visas on arrival for $16. As our last attempted trip there proved, this is not the case any more. At the embassy in DC, however, we were able to get 2-entry visas good for 3 months for $100/each.
This weekend, Amy and I made trip #1 up to Aleppo (or Halab in Arabic). With a population somewhere between 1.5 and 2 million, it is Syria’s second-largest city after Damascus. It features an extensive souk, a massive medeival citadel, and a confluence of Turkish and Armenian culture not really found in the capital.
If your conveyance is swift and travel-lanes and border officials comply, the trip from Beirut to Aleppo can supposedly be made in a little over 5 hours. It took us about 7 and a half hours. We took a less-trafficked route through Aboudiye, as opposed to the coastal crossing of Arida we attempted to pass last time. The surrounding countryside is actually quite pleasant; the narrow tree-lined roads through the fields reminded me of places in Georgia and South Carolina. The border itself, however, seemed less equipped to deal with travellers of our “distinction” and we held up the bus for many minutes while they decided what to do with us.
Eventually we made it to our destination in the mid-evening and thence by cab to the hotel. Amy had been to Aleppo before with our friend Carrie and had access to some helpful details (such as 100 Syrian pounds (~$2 USD) being way too much to pay to get to the hotel). The hotel, Beit Wakil, was really remarkable. The owner had more-or-less faithfully restored two adjacent 400 year old Ottoman houses and established a courted hotel in one and a courted restaurant (which we were later to discover was the best we would find in town) in the other. During Amy’s previous visit, they dined at the restaurant. Apparently they befriended the owner and were offered the bargain deal of $50/night during the off-season. So we spent most of our nights in the finest suite in the hotel. Thanks Carrie.
The owner, Habib, was particularly jovial and friendly. After we arrived and checked in, we were eating at the restaurant and he came over, made his greetings, and drank whiskey with us. Amy discovered she likes black-label Johnnie Walker. He ensured us that if we needed anything whatsoever, we needed only to give him a call. He wrote his mobile number on the back of a business card and impressed upon us that we “always have a good friend in Aleppo.”
The following day, being Friday, was quiet and nearly everything was closed down. It was quiet and gray and rainy, but we decided to walk around the souk anyway to get a lay of the land without the inconvenience of it being thronged with the bustle of commerce. It was wet and muddy, but not altogether unpleasant. We also visited a khan and spoke with the owner of the only open shop within. Amy had met him on a previous trip, but had neglected to tell me that he was a little…odd. His name was Anthony and he was, of course, Christian (Catholic in fact). He spoke at length (if not depth) about the history, culture, and religion of Syria. He said, “Here in Syria, everybody gets along…Christian, Muslim, everybody.” Now, I’ve been living in this part of the Middle East long enough to know that when someone makes such a statement, it is almost inevitably followed by disparaging statement about some religious group in particular. For instance, in Lebanon, you often hear this from people and they mean “everybody” = “all the Christians” or “everybody” = “all the non-Palestinian Muslims.” So of course, Anthony eventually said something like, “There are no problems in Syria because the Muslims are all Sunni. Not like in Lebanon where you have the Shi’a…” and made a face. He also grilled us on why we didn’t go to church, which was unusual. Later, he showed us the spot on the street where demonstrators had painted Danish, U.S, and Israeli flags for the purpose of stamping them in protest of the depictions of Mohammed in the Jyllands-Posten cartoons. (The following day, of course, demonstrators would attack Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus.)
In the evening, we dined at a place called Kasar al Amil (another hotel/restaurant in a restored Ottoman house) and had a nightcap in the subterranean pub of a place called Sissi (down the street from Beit Wakill and yet another Otto-resto-tel). The latter was interesting in that the walls and ceiling the underground bar featured rough-hewn carvings of various faces and characters. It is a pity we didn’t take photos. Though it was Friday night in the Christian quarter, the only other people in establishment were a trio of Irish tourists. Amy said later that when we left, one of them said, “Where are they going?” Aleppo is like Damascus in that there is not much of a night life.
Saturday was clear and relatively warm and we took advantage of the weather to roam around the citadel. The site of the citadel is a huge, anomalous, natural mound in the middle of the city. Initially a pagan worship site in 10th century BC, it was a significant defensive structure for the Muslims during the Crusades in the 12th and 13th centuries. Saladin’s son is apparently buried there. Being a nerd of the Dungeons & Dragons variety, I was excited to point things out to Amy, such as where there would have been a slitted roof in the barbican through which defenders could drop rocks and boiling oil on assailants. For her part, Amy was mildly impressed when details in the guidebook confirmed my statements.
We spent a fair portion of the day in the souk, now buzzing with activity. We preferred walking through the parts where business focused on sale of meats or spices or…mattresses. In short, things for which we obviously had no immediate need. A large part of the souk is devoted to shops selling rugs, jewelry, and oriental curios. In those sections, there are many young men wandering about attempting to solicit business for the shops. It was merely a minor annoyance (and Amy assures me nowhere near as aggressive and cutthroat as in Morrocan souks) but something that I hadn’t really seen in Damascus. The technique is basically: “Hi. How are you? Where are you from? Ah, I love New York. I have a sister in Michigan. Come and sit with me in my shop and have tea. I have many nice things. You’re not shopping? Ok, just to look then. I have local jewelry. Of course you don’t wear jewelry, but for your mother-in-law.” We’ve been told that the word shopping is actually Arabic in origin. I’m skeptical, largely because of the facts that “ing” isn’t really an Arabic convention and there’s no “p” in the Arabic alphabet, but I heartily invite somebody to prove me and dictionary.com wrong.
In the evening, we were able to sneak in under the wire (or rather, run in while someone was leaving) to see the Umayyad mosque. Naturally, it was large and impressive like all structures associated with the dynasty, but nothing like the grandeur of the one in Damascus (which was apparently built a decade earlier).
Eventually we retired to the hotel room to drink beer and watch CNN, where coverage basically vascillated between the aforementioned “Cartoon Controversy” and the ferry tragedy in the Red Sea. Later, we dined at Beit Wakil. I felt like a somebody as the friendly staff directed us to our “regular table”.
Sunday morning we rose relatively early so that we could have one last look around town before heading back to Beirut. Afterwards we walked to the bus station and my deft grasp of written Arabic enabled us to immediately find the ticket window for the bus company our friend and hotel owner had recommended. The ride home was long, if relatively uneventful. We passed into Lebanon at Arida this time, where we waited in November for 10 hours before they gave us the bird. A young boy named Akhmed, thrust into an early adulthood by working long shifts at the Syrian border house, remembered us from our previous visit and brought us coffee, jokingly motioning for us to have a seat for the wait. Although we ended up spending nearly two hours at the border, luckily it was not us that was holding up the show (though I do think we caused some confusion by having November stamps leaving and entering Lebanon without complementary Syrian entrance stamps).
We made it home by 8:30pm and invited our friend Bjorn over for dinner. It was he who told us that the Danish embassy had been attacked and burnt earlier that day.
The entrance to the citadel (note the barbican on the right). No orcs in sight.
A vaulted dome in the souk.
I just can’t get enough of those mosque doors.
Amy relaxing in the salon of our suite.
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