PART 1 (LEBANON)

The idea of going to Lebanon, Syria and Jordan emerged sometimes in spring 2005. At first it should have taken place in October, but - as the Ramadan was to occur during that period of the year, we decided to postpone the trip a little and to go in November. Bogdan, the friend I had gone to Iran with, wanted to come too and we started with the preparations. The visas took 2 months to be ready and incertitudes were not out of the question, as the approval from Beirut for the Lebanese visa arrived just when we were about to change the flight tickets because of the fact that there had remained only a few days until the departure. "Traditional Romanian" situations were there as well, as Romanian and Czech citizens were about the only in Europe not to be granted visas upon arrival in Beirut, probably because of the dolce far' niente surrounding the people in the foreign affairs ministries of the two countries, that resulted in a lack of an agreement with the Lebanese Surete Generale. But all was fine when we finished with formalities, which, as always, made one want even more to get on the TAROM flight to Beirut. We were to cheat this time and fly instead of doing a gradual approach of the countries visited, as I would have preferred. While getting close to the Lebanese capital city, one could almost feel its "beat", with its busy streets, its packed restaurants and cafes, its multitude of colours and fragrances. After a quick and brief passing through the passport checking, we waved a car that stopped, taking us to Beirut. Similarly to Iran, there were both official (i.e. bearing plates saying "taxi") and unofficial taxis working as "service taxis" (i.e. going in a specific direction, price fixed, and taking people along the way, provided their destination matched that of the taxi) or as "private taxis" (i.e. going only with the person(s) that first waved them, price varying upon route). The city and its immediate neighbourhood were as heterogenous as possible. As we were to see later on, Lebanon was developing at a very fast pace. Because of the rocky ground that allowed it, people could set up relatively high buildings on an otherwise quite steep slope or on an abrupt sea shore.

After checking in at our hotel and dropping our luggage, we went for a long (and very welcome) walk through the city. As it was Sunday, the traffic was lighter than usual. There were people doing jogging along the palm tree-lined Corniche facing the sea. Merchants were selling boiled corn, others were "renting out" narghiles. Fancy hotels and restaurants looked very promising for a city which had disputed the "best party atmosphere in the Middle East" title with Dubai and was back in this competition after a long civil war. However, even though there were still many 15 year old war scars scattered across the city, Beirutis were certainly up and working hard for their future; the beat they granted the city with was an overwhelming one: just 100 m. from the place the former Prime Minister, Mr. Rafiq Hariri, had been killed half a year before our visit, an imposing high rise building was being completed. The restored and glamorous Intercontinental stood next to the desolated, shelled building that had hosted the Hyatt. Beautiful pieces of French colonial era architecture had been restored in great detail and some streets around them hosted elegant cafes and restaurants. People dressed up in smart clothes were driving fancy cars, but every now and then there would appear a Mercedes from the 1970s, speeding up and horning pedestrians: a taxi in search of passengers. I could not say whether I liked Beirut or not, but one thing I am sure of is that it was extremely impressive, striking the visitor with a life beat which was unique in its own way.

In the afternoon, we took a taxi (the "private" version) to Beiteddine, just to change the scenery. Beyond the concrete "rush" in and around Beirut, this was a good way to have a well balanced day, with smaller residences set up in lime stone, bearing a simple, but nevertheless beautiful architecture line. We visited the palace there, a fine and well restored building providing beautiful views over the valley beyond. More than anything, the collection of mosaics hosted in the palace (even though they did not originate there) was pretty appealing. Speaking French proved to be useful, as we were to see further on while in other parts of Lebanon: while many people (especially in larger cities) spoke English, others would speak French very well, and that applied also in the case of many museum caretakers and local guides.

We got back to Beirut, back to Cola "transportation hub", as the guidebook called one of the two bus / taxi terminals the city had. Actually this was about a quite big crossing under a long bridge on the valley exiting the city proper. We walked from Cola to the centre: this side of the city was different in a way, with main avenues, bordered by fine buildings and fancy-looking shops, surrounded by narrower streets where both buildings and their inhabitants looked poorer. Even cars would tell the difference: while in Tehran, the agglomeration of motorbikes was proof of poorer areas, in Beirut these were shown by a large number of old cars, some of which looked basically reconstructed. The difference between otherwise quite close areas was striking. However, just like in other countries I had visited, the best food was to be found with the poor, with a quite good variety of Oriental foodstuffs to be eaten in the street. In these neighbourhoods, locals would just hang around the entrance to the apartment building they lived in, or next to a green grocer's, smoking narghile, drinking tea or coffee and chatting, while in the other part of the city (or, sometimes, just around the corner), people dressed in the latest trends of world's haute couture designers, would smoke the same water pipes, enjoying the same tea or coffee, but in an apparently different environment.

The thing that would keep the city together, as a whole, was the traffic. In the whole city there were only a dozen (if ever) of crossings endowed with traffic lights (some of which did not work). In most cases, drivers would not stop at the red light and the whole traffic would be a matter of mutual understanding between drivers, which relied on being bold, horn blowing and different gestures. Except for those living in that very neighbourhood, and for shopping or cafe / restaurant - filled areas, pedestrians had no reason to exist, as most people seemed to rely on service taxis, vans or driving their own car, motorbike or scooter. Crossing the street was a matter of being self-possessed, bold and nevertheless fast, sliding among the car flow of Beirut. However, having visited other cities with a fairly similar traffic, as well as coming from the city we lived in, made the whole thing look rather familiar and - up to a point - funny. After all, the streets of Beirut had a music of their own, granting the city with a unique beat, starting with official or ad hoc taxi drivers horning pedestrians as a sign that they were available, and ending with everyone horning everyone else for matters linked to traffic priority. In the evening, we were back in our small hotel near the sea shore, but it soon started raining. The following was dedicated to Saida, where we went from the same Cola "hub". We took a bus, and it seemed to be the fancier version of a bus, with a TV set, elegantly dressed (unlike us) people and no stop all the way to the destination. We were to return in a cheaper (i.e. older) bus, which did not even go along the highway, rather going through villages and stopping quite frequently for people to get on and off. The reason: it was 2000 LL for the "fancy bus" and 1500 LL for the "regular bus", and the difference in price meant something like 30 cents, an amount that mattered to some.

Saida had an interesting souq area, with a lively crowd and picturesque small shops. It was one of the couple of places we visited in Lebanon which did not seem greatly affected by tourism / visitors, or maybe this was just my impression. The fortress by the sea was picturesque and people living or merely transiting the place accomplished a fine scape.

We went back to the big city and the many planes passing along its fancy hotel-bordered promenade in order to land on its airport by the sea. The day came to and end after walking in the streets bordered by recently restored French mandate era buildings. These were well lit in tones of light yellow that nicely met the beige stone their facades were made of, and only echoes coming from the busy avenues score meters away would bring one's senses back to the city he / she really was in.

Another day meant yet another trip, this time across the mountains, as we took a van to Aanjar, near the Syrian border. This early Muslim site which used many Byzantine and Roman architectural elements made it for a different visit, while the fact that the town was nowadays inhabited by many Armenians, only showed once again (if needed) the extent to which Lebanon was diverse and therefore unique in its own way. The afternoon was dedicated to Baalbek and its impressive temples. Strangely, the site did not impress only through the proportion of its structure, but mainly through the images that would come to one while walking in the shadow of those huge columns: scenes from Ismail Kadare's "The Pyramid" unwillingly came to my mind. History is indeed repeating and everything, as large it might be at a certain moment, turns into an archaeological site and into a line in a history book in the end, or at a certain moment of its existence, to put it in a more optimistic way. The way those people carried and lifted stone pieces weighting up to 1000 tons was irrelevant at that moment, as long as we were looking at a motionless picture, using our cameras only to immortalize reflections of past millennia and former glory.

When we were about to start on the way back to Beirut, we witnessed a "minor" accident, as a car rushed and hit a van running "regularly" (whatever that could mean given the traffic). Without shouting or making any fuss around the matter, the two drivers got off their vehicles and shook hands, then one called the police, while the other one was looking for his documents. In a place buzzing of drivers blowing the horn every minute for various reasons, that "event" showed in the best way that balance does exist, should we take the time and open our eyes to see it. Back to Beirut for the last night there, we took a long walk, just to discover the place we had been told to visit as the main attraction of the whole city: Hamra. It was a busy and trendy quarter, I reckon, the cosmopolitan air was impossible to miss, but - with all risks implied by this statement - I preferred the area around the noisy and grill smoke - filled Cola crossing. Maybe it was about the people, I could not and would not either ask myself or attempt to say because this is what I felt there and then.

The last full day in Lebanon was dedicated to the North. While on the bus en route to Byblos, at a certain moment, many passengers rushed to the windows to the left: there had been a car accident with two casualties: an old woman and a little girl had unsuccessfully attempted to cross the highway and now they lay in a pool of blood. Life, or rather the day went on and we reached Byblos with the picturesque quarter made of stone-made dwellings by the sea, with its tourist-oriented commercial area near the entrance to the archaeological site, and with its fortress providing fine views over the surrounding area. The history shown by different layers of archaeological finds was impressive, however, as far as the town itself was concerned, I personally preferred Tripoli we visited later that day. Tripoli was gleaming with life, it was noisy, dusty, crowded with people selling and buying, filled with what some might consider as rubbish, while others might take for the results of the living. The main square, hosting a once "elegant" park was bordered by buildings on the facades of which, if carefully looked at, one could have noticed great elements of decoration. Some score taxis, all of which were Mercedes models from the 1960-1970s, were waiting for customers, while their drivers were shouting their destination every now and then: "Jbail!", "Beirut!", "Homs!"...

The local fortress was raising over the older part of the town, with its small and crammed houses, with its twisted, narrow streets filled with children shouting and playing, with a very poor (if poverty is of any relevance here) neighbourhood, standing just across the river... As evening came, I had a water pipe on a terrace boasting green plastic chairs in front of a once superb building now partly abandoned, partly ruined one could freely dream upon the past of, in the only music there was, provided by the horning, the loud talking and that trading only life can be about.

The following day, after the large coach slowly made its way among all types of vehicles... (click here for the sequel)

THE LEBANESE SECTION (you are here)

THE SYRIAN SECTION

THE JORDANIAN SECTION