About david

I am a world citizen wondering at everything it has to offer.

The language of Jesus

Posted on June 10, 2006 by david

Today, I was planning on visiting the museum here in Damascus but my plans changed a bit when Ahmed,Â the son of the hotel owner,Â offered to take Gabija (A Lithuanian girl staying at the same hotel) and me to his favorite place around Damascus named Maaloula.

Since it is always nice to have someone taking you for a tour, the choice was not too difficult and I was not disappointed :).

MaaloulaÂ is the largest of three towns (pop. 2000)Â where western Aramaic is still spoken in Syria. Aramaic is one of the language that Jesus spoke and some scriptures of the Christians were initially written in Aramaic. For example, some of the Dead Sea scrolls I had the chance to see at the Jordan national museum in Amman were written in Aramaic.

The town is quite nice, nested against a mountain that gives great photo opportunities. Most of the population is Christian so the veil can hardly be seen around town. Also, as it is the case in Damascus, a lot of houses are sporting flags for Brazil, Germany, Italy, France or other countries engaged in the world cup!

The two main convents are interesting to visit and each of them was exhaling a nice spiritual karma. I really liked the St Sergius convent that is a very old church since it has been dated to the 4th century. It was built in place of a pagan temple and shows some features of old Pagan temples like a semi-circular high border altar in place of the usual flat altar just missing the hole for the sacrificial blood. This is because it predates the definition of how a church should be organized. A nice woman told us about the church and we got to listen to a prayer in Aramaic.

The whole round trip from Damascus in minibus including a nice lunch of Syrian Pizzas and the visit of the town only took 5 hours without any hurry. As my London readers would say: “It was quality!”

The Best of Both Worlds

Posted on June 7, 2006 by david

Today, I visited Syria’s number 1 attraction as the Lonely Planet calls it!

syria/palmyra/

Palmyra is an ancient city located at an oasis that was very important during the Roman period and hence, there lies today the ruins of a Greco-Roman city.

Palmyra is quite a well conserved and partially restored city with some impressive buildings like the temple of Bel and some interesting tombs but it is nowhere close to the quality of Jerash (or Baalbek from what I have heard. I should report on that soon ;)).

The interesting thing about the ruins is that they are now surrounded by the desert and sand is everywhere. The oasis starts a bit further of the ruins. I don’t know if the city was originally built in the desert or if the oasis shrank though. I would guess for the later. Anyway, it makes for an impressive sight and possibly harsh conditions. For example, yesterday, the wind was blowing very strong projecting sand at great speed. It made it difficult to walk against the wind and visibility was not that great.

So, an ancient roman city and the desert. Definitely my kind of place 8).

And call me a masochist but I loved visiting with the wind blowing through the old walls and columns. It made this hissing sound and you really feel like you are mother Nature is taking her rights back.

The best part was when I was at the top of the local Islamic castle that overlooks the ruins. It was quite thrilling to be walking on the roof of the castle as the wind was blowing me from one side towards another while I was looking at the sun setting over the ruins. The rest of the passengers of the minibus I used to get to the castle had decided to stay comfortably seated and protected of the wind inside the bus and were looking at the sunset through the windshield! Too bad for them.

The rest of the town around the ruins bears no interest. And if you order Mansaf at the Traditional Palmyra restaurant there, don’t forget to mention you want the real thing with Lamb or they will just try to give you a chicken dish for the same price pretending that it is a chicken Mansaf once you protest! Hum… thinking about it, just don’t go there! ;).

First Impressions of Syria

Posted on June 6, 2006 by david

Of all the countries I have visited so far, Syria is the country I knew the less before I entered its territory.

Most of what I had heard before was quite negative and it was the country that people were singling out as a place I should not visit when I started planning my trip.

So, my expectations were quite low and I had a bit of a bad feeling when I arrived at the border having heard (read) all the stories about how they would go through my passport page by page looking for a clue I had visited Israel.

Well… they did and when they found my Jordan entry stamp I got in Aqaba (coming from Egypt), the officer kind of got a bit suspicious and told me: “Where did you enter Jordan?” showing me the stamp whose bottom part was missing. And as it turns out, the bottom part is where the port of entry name is located! hum hum. “Aqaba” I replied. And the officer asked me 2 more times before taking my passport behind to some office (A superior I guess). After 5 minutes of slight stress, the officer came back and decided to process my entry. “Welcome to Syria” were his last words to me. Ouf! For the story, I checked the stamp again, and it appears another part of the stamp is saying Aqaba. This might have saved me :). So, my advice, make sure the stamp is complete when you cross the Jordanian border.

As it often happens, I was not the worst case of the bunch and one of the other passenger of my service taxi was refused entry and had to go back to Jordan. I think he was Iraqi.

After the immigration officers, the second impression you get of a country is usually through their taxi drivers and as it turned out, it was not that good. The service taxi I got in in Amman was actually Syrian and I (and the Australian couple that was ridding with me for that matter) had agreed on paying 8JD with the hotel reception. Arrived in Damascus, the guy is requesting 10JD and we get into a very long yet simple discussion that could be resumed as:

Taxi driver: 10JD each
Me: No, 8.
Taxi driver: No, 10.
Me: No, 8. Tamanya. It was the deal.
Taxi driver: No, no no. 3 people, 30JD, not 24JD.
Me: No, we agreed on 8JD each.
Taxi driver: OK, 1 more per person.
Me: No, 8JD was the deal. Khalass. Bye

As soon as we got out of the car, we already had 2 or 3 guys around asking us if we needed a taxi to the city center. That is the usual scheme: cheat the tourists as soon as possible before they get a chance to learn the real price of things. And as usual, we got cheated ending up paying 5 times too much even after I got his first price sliced in 2! Yeah, well, the guidebook says that even Syrian get cheated by their taxi drivers. I feel better now :).

To be fair, I should say that it has been a recurring aspect of my traveling in Middle East so far and that except for Amman where taxis are equipped with meters, I had to haggle with a taxi driver way too many times ;). So this did not really put me off with respect to Syria and its people.

And it is good because the rest has been quite good. People in the street are very friendly and helpful. They might well be the most hospitable people and I have been offered tea on many occasions without any hidden agenda (as it was always the case in Cairo).

I have been asked the fair (local) price every time I bought something in a grocery store while it was not really always the case in Jordan or Egypt.

I also spent yesterday evening walking around the new Damascus center with Firas, Syrian living in Lebanon, that I had met at the hotel the night before. He is a very friendly guy and we had very open discussions about life in Syria and Lebanon. It was quite interesting talking about the wedding ceremonies, how liberal were different part of Damascus, romance and sex out of marriage for young Syrians and other things related to religion and politics.

Surprisingly, the center of Damascus is as liberal as was the Zamalek district in Cairo. A lot of hip restaurants and bars with women that are having a drink and are smoking shisha and a lot of expensive shops were the young and beautiful (and wealthy) can be seen. I was expecting something very different and it has been quite refreshing.

All in all, Syria has been good so far.

Jerash, The Other Gem of Jordan

Posted on June 4, 2006 by david

Today, I joined a tour to visit the North of Amman with four Germans and one Norwegian. My main point of interest was Jerash but it was nice to see the Decapolis city of Umm Qais (Gadara) and Ajlun Castle.

Umm Qais

Umm Qais is quite large and has some nice monuments. The most interesting part for me was some Roman statues hidden in one of the rooms of the visitor center.

Ajlun Castle

Ajlun Castle had a nice cool feeling to it but nothing memorable. As it was the case for Karak earlier in Jordan, I think I have seen too many castles before in France to be moved by the ones in Jordan! They look more like fortresses than romantic castles ;). The “memorable” part is when the driver got lost in between Umm Qais and Ajlun and we ended up driving for 100km of curvy mountain roads in place of the 20km it should have taken. “Maalesh” I told him.

Jerash

jordan/jerash/

Not without loosing his path again :), our driver finally got us to Jerash (Gerasa), another of the ten cities of the Roman Decapolis. Jerash is just an amazingly well conserved and restored Roman city. It is huge with some great monuments.

I visited by myself and it was quite an experience to walk alone in the middle of this full city trying to imagine how busy it could be almost 2000 years ago with chariots and people walking down the amazing colonnaded street making there way through the shops, cooling down by the beautiful Nymphaeum (very elaborated fountain) or engaged in heated discussion in the middle of the enormous forum square.

Other impressive monuments are the hippodrome where they sometimes reenact chariot races and the two amphitheatres where spectacles are still offered during the Jerash festival every year during summer.

The procession path to the temple of Artemis was also impressive and the temple of Zeus must have been quite a place with its 15 meters high columns. This last temple is actually being heavily restored right now and it will definitely look fantastic once it is finished.

And the mind boggling part is that some of the old city is still lost under the current city!

Jerash is the kind of place that can keep me interested and entertained for hours and hours. I would definitely love to come for the festival.

Jerash is the other gem of Jordan and it should definitely not be missed. Rod might say “NYAFRC” but since I have not seen that many of them before, I loved it!

This is all for my exploration of Jordan. Next step is Syria starting with Damascus.

Mosaics A Go-Go

Posted on June 3, 2006 by david

Today, I decided to visit Madaba and Mount Nebo that are easily accessible on a day trip from Amman.

Madaba

Madaba is famous for its Mosaics that have been found all over the city and surroundings.

I decided to go by myself so I took the minibus to Madaba with the locals and it went all well except I did not know when to exit and ended up at the out-of-town bus station and got to walk back downtown.

Well, not too long as a shared taxi picked me up after 5 minutes and took me to the right place for the visit :).

The most famous of these mosaics is the map of the holy land located inside the Saint George Church in Madaba. The book was raving about it, people I had met were raving about it… so I went and I got very disappointed. It is very damaged and only a small portion is left. Don’t get me wrong, it is a very fine mosaic with great representations of famous sites (Especially old Jerusalem with its walls and some of its most important sites) and offered a lot of information to historians and archaeologs when it was more complete. I think the buzz killed it for me!

There are also two archaeological site very close by that present great mosaics. I enjoyed these more than the map one actually.

Mount Nebo

After lunch, I went to Mount Nebo located close by that is supposed to be where Moses was showed a view of the promised land by God and were God buried him later on.

There are great views of the surrounding landscapes from the top of the Mount. The church of Moses has been well restored by the Franciscans with some great mosaics.

The only thing is that I could have done without the tourist herd and their loud Shepperd (I mean guide) as I was trying to get a feel for the place :(.

Philadelphia’s Amphitheatre

I finally decided I had seen enough mosaics for a day and got back to Amman. It was even hotter than the day before but it was already too late to be worth paying for access to a swimming pool so I resorted to find a nice place to relax and read some of my book.

As I had done before in Petra, I went to the old Roman amphitheatre as I knew it would offer enough shade. Also, you can seat high and have a good view of the surrounding area and the tourists visiting the place always offer enough animation to keep you entertained for hours :). The amphitheatre is nice but you might want to think before paying the entry fee if you only want to see it and go.

On the same topic of value, I would only visit Madaba and Mount Nebo if you have time after Petra, Jerash, Amman and the Dead Sea.

30 Wonders

My little window on the Big World

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