traveller's tales

I was going to write this on the plane. I had my little Eee all charged and on my lap and nearly five hours ahead of me to write down my first impression while they were still reasonably fresh. My plans were foiled the night before already when violent stomach turmoil kept me from having a restful night. On the flight, I was so exhausted and droopy that I couldn't do more than watch the in-flight entertainment like a vegetable in a slow cooker. While Angles and Demons bored me to death, my guts kept churning and my limbs felt powerless.

Now, several hours after arriving in London, things are looking up a bit. Shopping in a real supermarket felt strangely invigorating. I bought cardamom, a required ingredient for good Turkish coffee. Now I just need to go to the local souq to get a mortar and pestle. Then I'll be able to make coffee like the Syrians do. But hang on for a second. That doesn't sound right. While food and drink were good on our trip, it was really history and the people that shone.

The single most impressive sight we saw was the Krak des Chevaliers, a marvelously preserved crusader castle. This is truly the mother of all castles and after visiting it, no other castles will hold much interest. We spent nearly four hours exploring the humongous structure, lower castle, upper castle, towers, terraces, roofs, galleries – all parts were accessible to visitors. There weren't any barriers to hold you back or banisters to guide you along. Simply by stepping close to the edge of a high defensive wall, one could make the visit as exciting and dangerous as one liked.

Palmyra, the famed ruined city in the desert, was another stop on our way. Its extent is staggering and walking around the vast terrain is very evocative, but I thought the place wasn't all that it's cracked up to be. I haven't seen many ruined cities, but this wasn't my favorite. The Roman city of Dougga in Tunisia packs a much stronger punch in a smaller space. There, it really feels like walking through a city that might be alive if the parts above hip level weren't missing.

We got around these places by car. Against the express advice of a Syrian friend of mine, I rented a car, and I'm glad I didn't miss out on the experience of driving in Syria. My friend said driving was very dangerous. My guidebook, on the other hand, claimed it wasn't any worse than in Italy and went on to describe it as chaotic and courteous – and that's exactly what it was. There are no rules on the streets of Syria (besides the red light, which is as holy as the word of the prophet). People drive as fast as they can and push and shove skillfully. Frequently, there's not much more than the width of a postcard between two vehicles. That's the chaotic part.

The courteous part is that everyone is aware of the lack of rules and the need to make up. Driver are always ready to pull back to let another vehicle cut in. They drive into the ditch to let cars pass against oncoming traffic on a winding two-lane road. Words don't do it justice, but let me assure you that driving in this madness was positively hilarious. Traffic is only dense and crazy in the cities and on motorways, however. On smaller roads and out in the desert, there's hardly anyone around. For me the biggest challenge was driving into Aleppo, Syria's biggest city, at rush hour to return the car. We had no knowledge of the town and only a poor map and the silhouette of the mighty citadel to guide us, but we made it right on time and without much grief.

Aleppo is a much nicer city than Damascus. It has several very distinct neighborhoods that are worth exploring, most with their networks of narrow lanes and maze-like alleyways. History is alive in this city that prides itself in being continuously inhabited since the dawn of time or just a bit after that. But there are also appealing modern areas that are not far from the old town and can easily be reached on foot. Aleppo sees more tourists than Damascus. Busloads are dumped in front of the citadel and can be seen marching through the main souq or the Ummayad Mosque. The numbers are minuscule compared to Italy or Turkey but surprised me nevertheless. Last year in Damascus, I felt like the only foreigner in town. Maybe the country is waking up to its possibilities.

That would be good. What I haven't mentioned at all yet are the people of Syria. I don't think that I've ever met so many friendly, generous, curious and simply kind people (with the possible exception of Romania). We were invited for tea and for lunch. People we had barely met bought us fruits at the markets and covered our taxi ride back to the hotel. Children in the street would inevitably stare and say 'Hello' or 'Welcome', the word you're bound to hear most often in Syria. Adults would only look with curiosity, but when I waved at them or said Salaam Aleikum, their faces would light up in an explosion of joy. They would return the greeting, wave, laugh, and often ask us to stay for tea. Often kids approached us with the single goal of finding out where we were from and what we were doing. They would talk to us for five or ten minutes and then saunter off.

From Aleppo and after ten days in Syria we flew to Amman to spend three days in Jordan, mostly because my sister wanted to see Petra. I had gone last year but was happy to go again. Petra is an amazing place. Once you start contemplating the effort it took to chisel all these structures into the rock, you despair at the insignificance at your own existence. From Petra we were off to the Dead Sea, which I had very much regretted missing last year. Floating in brine while the sun beats upon you, tanning but not burning you because of the protective layer that forever hovers over this salty lake, is a unique experience. Owing to all the dissolved salt, the water has a high viscosity. It is almost slimy. Waves break only reluctantly and air bubbles pop slowly. Entire rocks are covered in crusts of salt – under water. The water is really nearly saturated in salt, and a swimmer bobs like a cork in a bowl of champagne.

We went back to Amman to return the car, and this time it wasn't the traffic per se that made things difficult for us. It was the weather. The Middle East is completely dry from June to September. Fall sees the start of precipitation, and when we entered the city, the first storm of the season went down. It didn't look too bad, but as Amman is built on quite a few steep hills, all the water was funneled into town down the roads. In the downtown area, a good six inches of muddy filth, carrying the dust of the summer months, was sloshing along the streets, making crossings on dry foot impossible for pedestrians and driving challenging. It was also, though I didn't appreciate that at the time, a harbinger of things to come for me. My vacation is over, and the sun is gone. London greeted me with rain and more clouds than I would possibly see in Syria in a year. Back to normal.