stories

Temples, cracs en dead cities

The last few days I’ve seen many things that I’m trying to put in a historical frame. That’s tricky, because there’s so much history here. There are no two or more clearly defined periods, like in Latin America where it’s simply pre-and post-Columbian. Roughly, it is very old, Roman, Byzantine, early Islam, crusaders, Ottoman, present tense. As you can ascertain from this list, European history lies not in Amsterdam, but here. Europeans find that annoying, which is why the media will tell you Syria is scary and terroristy and all, to prevent people from taking a look and finding out what it’s really like (we’ll leave poststructuralism out of it for now).

At my university, for graduation ceremony, we make a comparison between the recruits of the East-Indies Company and students. Similarly, one can compare the foot soldiers of the Crusades with backpackers. Foot soldiers were called by the faith of that time: God, in the form of the Pope called for the liberation of Constantinople and Jerusalem. Backpackers also feel called by Faith, but today’s Faith is individual self-realisation, which can be obtained by staying away from home for as long as possible with as little money as possible. Both are really about exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new civilizations and making new friends (visitors of my site now clearly recognize the star trek manifesto). The foot soldiers, for example,  slept in the barracks of the Crac des Chevaliers with about 399 other foot soldiers when they were on the road. I sleep in dorms with about 3 other backpackers - there is progress of course. That castle (the Crac) was built from 1031 and looks exactly like what you expect of a castle. There are two moats, 88 secret passage ways and special tilts through which you pour oil in case of a siege. You understand we were playing Prince of Persia there. The Crac des Chevaliers is the supreme crusaders castle, but this place is scattered with citadels and fortresses where you can wander around undisturbed by tourists.

Syria’s  greatest tourist attraction is Palmyra, a Roman city that flourished in the 3rd century AD. Palmyra is located in the desert and that situation makes it the location for ultimate photos. Beautiful shadows of long rows of intact pillars reflect on large temples. All photos are completely tourist-free by the way (the highest goal of the backpacker), because it’s just you and one or two other tourists there. Well, just you… A camel driver kept me company. He kept saying "we invite you to ride our camel, for free, we invite you". I got so enthusiastic about the tourist-free photos that I ran and tripped. I just managed to save my camera (otherwise it would all have been for nothing!), but my hands, elbows and knees did not make it. As you see, just like crusading backpacking is not without risk.

Risk in Syria isn’t murder or theft. Syrians are - like my buddy Koko always says - 'friggin' friendly' and theft just doesn’t exist. I was talking about this father of Mohammed the Cute (see below) and he showed me the lost and found box of his hotel. In it were different stacks of money, each with a note detailing room, date and name of the backpacker who’d left it in his room. Incredibly honest. No, the danger lies with the men ...

You have a total social retard not to get invited to people’s homes, and this is how Koko and I ended up with this Japanese lady married to a Syrian. She was in Palmyra as a tourist once and fell in love with a Syrian local. They fell love, she converted to Islam and they now live in a huge palace that felt like a prison to us. Now, they’re thinking about taking on a second wife because she (at least, that’s what he claims of course) can’t bear children. Exit the romance. So I didn’t pursue a holiday romance with Mohammed the Cute ;-)

Mohammed the Cute worked in the hotel in Hama in which I sinked for four days. 'Sinking' is backpack lingo for completely sinking in a town and not doing anything for a few days. The hotel is the place to be in the middle east, and when I arrived it was already awesome. I had decided to go to Hama with Koko at around 11 AM and we got to this middle-sized town around mid afternoon. At the reception, I spotted a note addressed to Linda and I thought, “cool, a girl also named Linda has a message”. The message turned out to be for me, from this guy I’d met in Damascus. Did I want to meet him at 8 PM in the common room? Huh? How did he know I was going to be there when I myself had only just decided to go? Abdulla from the hotel said he was secret service, and said he knew the whereabouts of all tourists across Syria. Now I had some doubts, because they do keep close track of you in hotels and buses, but it turned out to be – of course – a confluence of circumstances, but I felt still very popular.

Merry Christmas everone, I wonder what's on in Aleppo tonight!