“Why do you go to Syria?”

A good friend recently visited Syria with her brother. When she told me that she was going, I was extremely envious as I too wanted to go badly. I had to settle instead for her impressions and the lovely photographs she brought back. Here, she writes about why she went in the first place and about her impressions.

"Why do you go to Syria?"

"Let He who tries to distance himself from a country where life has become impossible: Pray to one day live in Aleppo, for there you shall find Bab el Faraj, the gateway to freedom ".

As I was planning my trip to Syria this fall, I was encountering the blank stare of many educated people asking me: "Why do you go to Syria?"

I go to places to get away from the boredom of living in a comfortable, clean, rich place such as the USA. I go to places to see things from a different point of view, to remind myself of the bigger picture, to let go of the day by day preoccupations with unimportant things. I have been fortunate to grow up with an older brother with a passion for archeology since he was a young child and a cardiologist father who loved traveling more than his career. Memories of driving in an old Citroen in Turkey to see impossible ruins stayed in my heart as one of the loveliest memory of my father, having lunch at the house of our guide on the Bosphorus, playing with his children who were my age, my father letting me drink Raki (Arak)...

Traveling is essential to my happiness. The farther the place, the better I feel. We were planning to go to Niger but something happened there. I always wanted to be in Damascus, may be out of my romantic infatuation with Lawrence of Arabia or may be because of the poetry of Qabbani. Syria seems an “easier” destination with more archeological sites for my brother, may be less exotic than Niger for me with my passion for the desert, but with the enormous attraction of having the oldest inhabited city in the world, “the rival of heaven”. Even for an Italian acquainted with the middle- east, Syria turned out to be a spectacular jewel, a well-kept secret, a really magical place.

I love places with no tourists. We found no tourists in Syria; a blessing for us, but a bit sad for the people there. “Even the French do not come anymore since the Hariri assassination” people told us. Spanish and Italian are the most common tourists there.

People were very friendly: friendly in a genuine way, no hidden agenda. They seem a bit resigned to the fact that we were not there to shop (like most Italians do) but to visit. They still liked to talk and find out what we thought about Syria:” So, did you like Damascus best or Aleppo?”

The family of a Syrian friend in the USA took us out one night in Damascus- wife and three children- and drove us to the Kassioun mountain to see the spectacular view of Damascus at night. This was during rush hour with crazy traffic, and in the middle of the week with the kids having to wake up early next morning for school. They were just so happy and proud of taking us around Damascus. The warmest smiles, jam-packed in a small car, speaking no common language: all this for perfect strangers.

We stayed at the Zenobia Hotel right in the middle of Palmyra’s archeological sites, a now rundown place once visited by archeologists from all over the world; Aghata Christie and Lindberg stayed there. A man working there told us about his imminent wedding, about how much money he needed to save in order to provide for his widow mother and to get married. He was dreaming one day of moving to Greece where people in the hotel industry get paid better. He needed to get enough money in an account in Syria, so that the government would let him get out of Syria without being too suspicious. He asked me if I have kids. We wished each other good luck.

A guide at the temple of Bell told us about the time when he took Catherine Deneuve around Palmyra, got two kisses on his cheek from her, but unfortunately she declined to kiss him on his lips! People seem happy even in these hard times of poor economy and no tourism.
It felt like a very isolated place, isolated from tourists: a man in the Aleppo souk told us they have never seen American tourists, but even Europeans are less common now. Italian and Spanish are still coming. He offered me a Gauloise. We had a smoke together after I bought a beautiful Syrian (“not Egyptian” he insisted) backgammon tawla. The rain was pouring down, the traffic in the old streets was unreal, and we paused in front of the illuminated citadel, admiring it: what an amazing place!

Pictures of Bashar Al-Assad, frequently together with his father and Nasrallah, were everywhere: on every car, bus, wall and building. This was particularly spooky in the center of Hama. We called the young Bashar “Signor Rossi”. He was a constant presence.
How can places like Apamea, Crack de Chevaliers or Sergiopolis be completely empty in October? Syria’s treasures could easily make the tourism industry one of the main economic resources. What is wrong in this picture?

The big Cham Palace Hotel in Palmyra was surreal: we went there for a drink one night. The power going off every 15 minutes; one group of Japanese tourist, that’s it: a big empty place.
My brother was in Syria in the eighties. He drove from Turkey. He remembers the Aleppo citadel been closed to tourists as it was a military zone then. But he was almost in tears seeing the conditions of places such as the Archeological Museum in Aleppo (no lights, electrical cables hanging in dust over unprotected statues from Ebla) or the small museum in Apamea with mosaics out of this world laying in the dark, covered in dust and without any light for us to see. I have seen better kept Museums in Khartoum.

He could not believe the poor conditions of these incredible treasures: “This is much worse than what I remember in the eighties”. We could tell that tourism was once prosperous here. What happened? Is this thanks to Signor Rossi and his gang?

Why did I go to Syria?

To see the moon reflected in the Euphrates, to drink fresh pomegranate juice in the streets of Damascus, to hear the doves flying in the court of the Ommayadd Mosque, to smell the jasmine flowers while the darwishes dance, to eat the sweetest figs in Ma’lula, and to sit in silence in the desert of Palmyra looking at the sun rising.

Tell me: how do you explain this to someone who has never been there and thinks Syria is a dangerous place?

(Photograph by E.C.)