ALEPPO, Syria—It’s just before 10:30pm, and I’m bedding down in Syria for the first time. We’ve been on the road since 7am this past Friday morning; in that time we’ve made it from Alanya to Tarsus to Urfa to Hatay (Antioch) and, now, across the border and into Aleppo.
Wow, is it different. Sure, we’re a couple of days’ bus travel from home base in Alanya, but it feels like we’re a world away. In many ways, we are. We’ve left more-or-less-democratic, EU-accession-hopeful, secular Turkey for a piece of the honest-to-goodness Middle East. After trying so hard for so long to communicate in Turkish, we now have to leave that impulse behind and go back to relying on English and whatever shreds of French we might happen to know in order to communicate here. We got a 30-second lecture on important Arabic words, but the only one that seems to have collectively stuck is “shukran” (thank you). Life comes at you right to left and in Arabic script; fully-covered women (both traditionally burqa-ed and the so-called “Muhajibabes”) pass you in the street; pictures of the president stare down at you every 10 to 15 feet. Suddenly, Turkey and Turkish seem quite a bit more approachable/manageable than they first appeared.
It’s been a long journey. It started last Thursday night, when my roommate and I went out to a Turkish barber together to get matching haircuts for the Syria trip. It was an amazing experience: my first buzz cut and my first proper shave all in one wonderful package, finished off by a flaming ball of cotton torching off all my ear and nose hairs and a wonderful upper-body massage to send me on my way. Certainly got my 20 Liras’ worth out of that experience. I don’t have much hair left on top of my head (don’t worry, Mom, it wasn’t a full-fledged buzz: I still have some of my golden locks and they should be more or less normal by the time you visit in November), but there’s plenty on my face. Over the semi-objections of my girlfriend, my roommate and I have made a No-Shave Syria pact; I’m currently way ahead of him in the beard-growing standings, but still haven’t quite exceeded the acceptable-scruffiness zone in my girlfriend’s estimation, so it’s good both ways.
The ride across southeastern Turkey was exhausting but incredible. Tarsus, our first stop, was no great shakes as a city, but we did get to see a great ruined Roman village on our way there. Urfa, where we spent the next day and a half, was the consensus pick for the group’s favorite city since Istanbul. It’s a very different feel from Istanbul—everyone felt really foreign for the first time in a while and it’s a much more conservative and agriculturally-based place—but the people were unbelievably friendly even by Turkish standards and the city had a great energy to it that everyone enjoyed. There was also a lot to see: the still-impressive citadel, the cave in which Abraham was born, the fountain full of fish that would supposedly turn anyone who ate them blind, and a particularly happening bazaar.
The past two days were spent in Hatay/Antakya/Alexandretta/Antioch (nobody really knows the name of this city anymore, apparently). Hatay was a big let-down after the fun of Urfa. It was nice to spend two consecutive nights in the same bed for the first time in days, but the city itself seemed to rub everyone the wrong way. It was gritty, small, and unfriendly—even the citadel we’d gotten excited to see turned out to be a hilltop with a café and a few old-looking stones on top of it. We did get to see the ancient Church of St. Peter—essentially a worship space in a cave with a nice façade—which was interesting, but it was a long couple of days there nonetheless.
This morning, we got on our new tour bus and headed for the border. It was about a 45-minute drive out of Hatay to the border crossing point, and it became clearer and clearer as we drove that we were leaving the semi-Westernness that reaches even into southeastern Turkey for the undeniably Other of the Levant. The last few kilometers were essentially a no-man’s land, with barbed wire fences springing up from the semi-desert landscape, guard towers, and a constant though not overwhelming flow of military traffic towards and away from the border itself.
Once we reached the crossing point, we had to dismount from the bus, walk up to the customs officer, hand over our documents individually, and then walk across a few hundred meters of empty concrete parking lot to get to the Syrian side. Once across the open space, we walked into the Syrian immigration control station, where we sat on benches for what must have been about a half-hour while our tour guide and professors wrangled with our passports and group visa to get everyone over the border in one piece. Eventually, we got the word that we were good to go, and got back on the bus to head into Aleppo proper.
Our first stop outside of the border area was a part of the old Roman spice road that intersected the main road to Aleppo. We paused for a few minutes of picture-taking, then boarded the bus again to get into town and lunch, which we ate at a nice café right outside the walls of the famous Citadel of Aleppo. Sated, we got ourselves checked into the Baron Hotel, which has hosted everyone from Lawrence of Arabia to Agatha Christie to Atatürk. It’s lost a little of its edge since then, but it’s still fun to be staying where all those famous people did.
fter lunch, we got a quickie tour of the local bazaar, then got turned loose with what felt like oodles of cash (the Syrian pound is roughly equivalent to two U.S. cents, so we’re all walking around with wads of 500-pound notes in our pockets like it’s Monopoly money). I spent a productive afternoon racking up the brownie points by playing Brinks truck/bag man/attentive white man for my girlfriend and one of our other (girl) friends as they shopped the bazaar for scarves and little wallets and such. Thoroughly shopped out after a couple of hours, they took pity on me and we resurfaced from the covered bazaar to take a sunset walk around the citadel, which was glorious. Wanting to see the butchers’ and spice merchants’ section of the bazaar, we decided to go back in and see what we could see.
Turns out that closing time is sunset around here, so the sides (and heads) of lamb and chicken were coming down off the meat hooks, the steel curtains were rolling down over the storefronts, and everyone was rushing to get home. After tourist hours, the bazaar became a much more intimidating place, and we started looking for the exits ourselves. Thankfully, no less than four or five Syrian men decided to lighten the mood by complimenting me on my two wives. One of them even called me “Superman.” I might be the Man of Steele, but where I come from we keep it to one girl at a time.
Once we’d worked our way out of the bazaar, we emerged onto some kind of a surface road but were still amongst crowds of men and without a solid idea of how to get back to the hotel. After skedaddling up towards a better-lit portion of town and taking stock of our surroundings, the “wives” proved their worth by coming up with the bright idea to ask directions at the Aleppo Sheraton across the street. (This is why Superman always travels with at least two wives in tow: it doubles his chances of having a good idea.) The Sheraton’s bell captain came to the rescue, providing a map of the city with clear directions on it for us to get back in time for supper. We followed his directions, made a lucky guess on which left to take (street signs have not caught on yet in this part of the world), and made it back to our rooms safe and sound—and with a new appreciation for the power of sundown in an Arab town.
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