Baalbek into Syria

Above:  Temple of Bacchus.  See the size of the man at the bottom?

Roman Ruins of Baalbek

Today is a big day. We plan to start from Beirut to Baalbek for sightseeing, then hopefully continue to Hama in Syria.  I have concerns that the border in the north of Lebanon may not be open to us for the crossing, and that we would have to take a detour route via Damascus.

We had breakfast at our normal time of 0730 and checked-out around 0930.  Zakaria, our driver now for the third consecutive day was waiting for us to take us to Baalbek.

On the two-hour drive, there seemed to be less Syrian presence at checkpoints compared to our previous trip.  It was also rather hazy and dusty compared to before.

Arriving at Baalbek’s town, we saw lots of Hezbollah logo posters, depicting a hand holding up machine gun.  There were also lots of Ayatollah and martyr pictures, plus the emblem that’s found on Iran’s national flag.  This was a mainly Shia area.

Walking through Baalbek’s ruins, I was keen to capture it on the digital camera.  Since we starting using a digital camera two years ago, I had this wish to re-live and re-capture on digital camera, some of the more special trips we’ve had in the past.  It takes away the hassle of negatives.  [Edit:  And this was before the days of Google Photos when we would have the facility to do smart searches based on subject, location, faces etc.]

The most significant of Baalbek’s ruins date back to 138-161 AD, during the Roman era, but discovered and excavated around 1900.  They are namely, the Temple of Bacchus (god of wine) and the pillars of the Temple of Jupiter.  Together with other buildings they formed Heliopolis.

Both are ginormous if you can notice the size of people standing at the base of them.  As for the Temple of Jupiter, I like standing next to the 20m columns for photos to get this scale.

Text continues after this gallery.

We spent over an hour walking through Baalbek’s site and took lunch at the bus park outside.  A few hawkers hassled us with their sale of souvenirs.  I guess it means that Lebanon’s tourism industry is growing, which is a good thing for locals.  But maybe it’s because we ate on the main street last time rather than just near the ruins today.

Not knowing what to order, we went with the Lebanese Pizza which was suggested by the staff.  Fiona was apprehensive with food, I guess, and said “I can’t eat pizza.  What’s in it?”

I replied “I don’t know.  We’ll know when it gets here”.  We all enjoyed the lunch.  I forget how adaptable and resilient I am, and it’s different when there are other people with us.

Crossing into Syria

After lunch Zakaria took us around town looking for a service taxi to Hama in Syria.  I had expected that there would be difficulty as I didn’t think the border north of Baalbek to Hama would be open, especially to foreigners.

Zakaria didn’t think it would be a problem when we had discussed this before.  I think he told us what we were hoping to hear so that he would get the job.

In the end, we found that no one would take us from Baalbek to Hama.  I’m guessing that it wasn’t possible due to that border crossing being closed.  Disappointed but somewhat as expected, we chartered a shared taxi to Damascus, with the hope of continuing to Hama if it wasn’t too late by then.

We left around 1400 in a yellow V8 Dodge.  The drive took us south, in the opposite direction of where we wanted to go.  We passed vineyards, much like those we saw this morning, coming from Beirut.  There were significantly more Syrian soldiers in this part of Lebanon too.

Close to Aanjar, our Syrian driver stopped at a bread factory to buy his bread.  He bought us four bread rolls topped with pistachio.  I was surprised to see through the glass window how mechanised the bakery was.

Past the town of Aanjar, we turned left and exited Lebanon.  We then went across no-man’s land into Syria.  At the Syrian checkpoint I was allowed to enter visa-free FOC on my Malaysian passport whereas Pat, Fiona and Kim needed to pay for at visa at USD60 per head.  Both Pat and Fiona looked visibly upset once our passports had been stamped and we were heading back into the car.

Pat said “We’ll charge them for visiting New Zealand too”.  I explained that New Zealand does!  And it’s goddam more than USD60 and involves pre-application months ahead at the embassy.  Not just pay-and-go at the border.

Fiona has this idea that Kiwis are very special and loved by all the world.  The Syrian visa payment of USD60 seemed to have burst her bubble.  I guess it was the second visa payment in a few days, the first one being at Beirut airport when she said “I thought the Lebanese would be welcoming us rather than asking us to pay for a visa.

Perhaps with a dose of spite or envy, Fiona quipped “I would rather travel the world on a Kiwi passport than a Malaysian passport”.

Continuing to Hama

Arriving at Damascus’s pullman station kinda outside of town, it was quite chaotic.  It was 1540 Syrian time, or 1640 Lebanese time.

Amongst the chaos, people were touting for business but they were good to direct us to the right place for the right bus.  We bought four tickets for about NZD2.50 each for the 2h30 ride north to Hama via Homs.

The landscape from the bus was desolate.  It turned dark soon after.  We arrived at Hama’s new bus station around 1830.  I was a little surprised as I had expected to be dropped off across the road from Hotel Riad, where the stop used to be.

On the way from Damascus to Hama.

Walking upstairs to the hotel we found Abdullah, the receptionist we had met last time.  He was pleased to see us.  We were welcome with a cuppa tea and we chatted about our plans.  He seemed to remember our daytrips from two years ago.  We also organised excursions ourselves and separately for Pat and Fiona because we would be leaving them here while we go to Aleppo without them.

We took a walk down the road to look for dinner. There were very few eating places but lots of cakeshops.  I had forgotten about this imbalance.  Rather than play “Twenty Question” with Fiona when it came to food, we ordered four falafel sandwiches.  I told her it was deep-fried and it seemed to agree with her.

When the food came, we chowed down on ours while Fiona starting unwrapping hers partially, chucking out bits of tomato and cucumber which she normally loves.  I guess the environment must cause hygiene concerns for her.  Pat left half of his sandwich behind.

Seeing that there were so many cake shops around, we stopped at one on the way back.  We had a semolina cake with nuts on top, plus the pistachio knafeh (vermicelli-like pastry).  Kim got really grumpy and shouted at his parents and me.

As we continued or walk back, Fiona was looking for a bread roll.  I suppose she hadn’t eaten all her dinner.  Back at Riad Hotel, it was shower and bed for us.  It had been our latest night so far, and with a one-hour time change, the oldies have done well.

Costs

I had to be reminded how cheap the hotel was.  Our spacious triple-room (due to hotel being quite full) was USD10 per room.  I think we charged us more than just a double-room even though we hadn’t voluntarily booked the larger room, but it doesn’t break our budget.  Levels 2, 3 and 4 had marble-lined stairs and room floors.

Light meals outside were cheap.  The four falafel sandwiches cost about USD3.  The hotel breakfast felt like a rip-off at USD2 per person.