Lattakia, Syria

Five nights in Syria

4th-9th June 2009

Bad news for the guys who went on the trip from Iskenderun to Nemrut Dag, and did the 3am ascent to the mountain top. The rally organisers decided to move south to Syria a day early to avoid the strong southerly winds forecast for the next day. So they all arrived back at the marina and we had 2 hours to clear out and leave. After our overnight sail/motor to Lattakia harbour, we arrived very tired at the entrance, but being a day early the local boats had not been moved to accommodate us, so we all bobbed  around outside the entrance for a long time while this was sorted. The usual professional organisation of berthing by Dave and Kath, broke down into chaos, a group leader went aground in the shallow part of the harbour. While we were all trying to lay anchors and tie back to the quay wall on opposite sides of the small port, someone decided to try and pull the grounded yacht off – causing absolute chaos and many frayed nerves. It wouldn't normally be a problem for a few boats in Lattakia, as they would not have to use the shallow area, but arriving en masse creates all sorts of pressures. Stu had to take charge of the marina's RIB to lay the last few anchors, as nobody in the marina had a clue, and there was a high risk of someone losing fingers or worse.
Checking in and getting visas was very smooth for Syria. We've heard that it can take several days to clear formalities if you arrive independently. We signed up for a 2 day tour leaving at 7am and went off to enjoy the rally dinner. We were one of the last to return at the end of the night and we were invited for a drink with the marina accountant and his family and friends. They were very friendly, but we just could not get away, and he insisted on taking us to see his apartment at 3am, waking up all his children to meet us. We attempted to decline the invite, but were told by one of his associates that it would be impossible to do so, as it was such an honour to be invited to a Syrian's home. We finally got back to the boat at 5am in time for 1 hour's sleep before we had to leave for the tour.

I've always been obsessed by Crusader castles, and Krak de Chevalier is the king of Crusader castles. It is a superb example of concentric design, with one defensive wall built within another, to allow successive stages of retreat if under attack. The art of stone-masonry of that era is incredible. Whilst the bloody history of the Crusades is perhaps nothing to be proud of these days, the knights sure did know how to build fortifications in 1144. The stables of the Knights Hospitallers are immense caverns of trodden earth, and gigantic cisterns served the inhabitants with years of water supply when threatened by siege.
Krak was never conquered, majestically guarding the Homs gap between Antioch and Beirut, controlling the trade and supply lines from Arabia to the Med. Even Saladin, having conquered Jerusalem in 1188, took one look at Krak's defences and marched away.
In the last years of Christian influence in the Middle East, the castles became isolated and undermanned outposts.  After a month long siege, the knights accepted an offer of safe passage and left the region for good.

Our trip continued on to Damascus, a truly exotic city of churches, mosques, ancient buildings kept upright by metal rods, narrow streets and souks. It claims to be the world's oldest continuously inhabited city.
We visited a church dedicated to St Paul (Saul), a Roman sent to keep those naughty Christ followers in check (approx 32 AD), who converted to Christianity on the road to Damascus, when he apparently had a vision of Jesus, whom he had never met. Whether he was lowered over the city walls in a basket, or not, is less interesting than the evidence of his travels throughout the Med. The scale and difficulty of the routes that he took make the minds boggle, visiting Asia Minor, Europe, Corinth, Cyprus, Jerusalem, Ephesus and ending up imprisoned and dying in Rome sometime in his 50's. He spoke Greek, Hebrew, Latin and Aramaic.
Without him, Christianity would probably never have left the Middle East.

Our tour next took us to the Umayyad Mosque in the centre of the city. This was built in the 8th century when the new Islamic Umayyad dynasty had Damascus as it's capital, reigning over an empire from Central Asia to the Atlantic. Today it is still a fine mosque, where people come to pray, read, sit and reflect in the shade, to sleep, children to play, women to meet. It has a very laid back feel as people wander and mingle with the tourists cloaked in special robes to cover heads and knees. Mosques always appear plain and barren to us Westerners, as we are used to the idolatry of the Catholic and Orthodox churches. This one has a certain majestic air, cavernous interior, with a thick-piled, deeply coloured carpet, elaborate stained glass, tall columns and twinkling chandeliers.
It does smell of feet though, as in every mosque, everyone has to remove their shoes to enter! It has a practical reason, that in Muslim prayer the head touches the floor. Many minutes are spent in ablution in the water fountains outside all mosques by the faithful, so it must be our heathen feet that make it smelly.

We spent a night in Damascus, sadly not in the old town, but in a modern luxury hotel that could have been anywhere in the world. We were entertained for the evening with touristy Whirling Dervish dancing and belly dancing.

The next day our trip continued on through the desert, sprinkled with Bedouin camps. We drove for hours to reach a grand ruined city in the middle of the desert called Palmyra 'Queen of the Desert'. Once a fabulously wealthy city controlling the ancient trade route between China, Northern India, Iraq, Syria and into the Med, lying on a water-fed oasis. Its quadruple colonnaded street extends for 1.6km and ends with a triumphal arch and temple. It has been preserved in sand since it's destruction in 745 AD.
The wide view makes Palmyra look like a matchstick model, but it allows you to understand the scale of the grandeur that it must have inspired in travellers, coming across it for the first time on the trade route.

The intricate stone carvings are fascinating and to this day our British ceilings are decorated with faux stone ceiling roses copied from this Assyrian design.

Having become quite jaded by the whole mindless tour bus experience, we hired a car and driver the next day and set out with a guide book to do our own thing. Given more time to work out our surroundings we would have also taken public transport to Aleppo and many other fascinating Syrian sites, and spent more time exploring Damascus. Whilst the guides are usually excellent and informative, we just don't like the flash mobbing effect of large tourist buses, which always include a 2 hour lunch stop, a real waste of time when there's so much to be seen.
On our own mini-tour we pottered around Ugarit (Ras Shamra) , where the basis of the alphabet as we know it was developed. The oldest ruins date back to the Stone Age 6500BC, and also shows 5 successive ages of habitation, before disappearing around 1200 BC,destroyed by earthquakes and 'Sea People' from the north. It was rediscovered by a farmer's plough in 1928.

That afternoon we travelled onto Salah Al-Din Citadel (Saladin's castle) a fortress perched high on a rocky spur. It was fortified by the crusaders and shows many of the typical crusader stone-masonry features on a smaller and more accessible scale. Without a tour guide, and with my wonderful book 'Monuments of Syria' we had time to explore all sorts of underground passages and secret hide-holes. It's name derives from its taking by the Muslim leader Saladin, who also took Jerusalem from the Crusaders.

Our short stay in Syria has just given us a small taste of the country and we would love to return there independently. The easiest way to get a visa is to visit by boat, so that the marina will arrange this, but the cost of keeping our yacht (12m) for 1 month is higher than most places in the Med -US $500, and many of the interesting sites are inland. We were told by some people who worked in the Syrian tourist office that you can obtain a visa through the Turkish tourist office for free. We don't know anyone who's explored this. The alternative is to apply  in your country of residence, or take a chance on getting one at the border. It is easy and cheap to travel around by public transport between the cities and inexpensive to hire a car and driver, so if I were visiting again I would leave the boat in Turkey and go by bus on a back-packing adventure, with a good guide book. Syrian people were so friendly and helpful, and many spoke excellent English, so you would have a really interesting time there. Unfortunately I will need to get a new passport before this is possible as despite refusing a stamp many times in and out of Israel, I got a land border stamp at Taba in Egypt. The Syrian officials will spot that the only way I could have been there is from Israel, and I will without a doubt be refused entry.
For more info on visiting Syria independently by boat, read this excellent article:
http://www.noonsite.com/Members/doina/R2008-05-25-1



Matador's bibliography for Syria and the Middle East:
Monuments of Syria: an extremely informative guide book
From Beirut to Jerusalem, Tom Friedman
The Templars, History and Myth, Michael Haag
From the Holy Mountain, William Dalrymple