Damascus, Beirut - December 30th

Beirut, December 30th

We left Damascus, in a shared taxi, bound for Beirut, from the San Maria Pullman bus station. Lebanon is a stone’s throw from Damascus: indeed it was carved out - along with Palestine - from Syria, after the end of the First World War. As the Ottoman Empire collapsed so the Middle East was redefined by the Allies. The Entente forces. To the victors the spoils; and how they carved it up. Mesopotamia became Iraq, under British mandate, ruled by the King Faisal Husayan. The Hashamite kingdom of Transjordan popped into existence. Well, when I say popped, I mean it was also carved out of Syria by the Allies and handed as a kingdom to be ruled by Abdulla Husayan, also under British mandate. Syria became a French protectorate and the coastal, predominately Christian areas, of Lebanon and Palestine were divided again between France and Britain respectively. Thus the board was drawn up and the pieces were set in place by the progenitors of the modern Middle East for the game that is still being played out today, of course now with America as the principal antagonist. The consequences of the gluttonous division of this turbulent area of the world lies on our shoulders now, and I wonder if our forefathers realised just what a devastating affect this would have on World peace in the 21st Century. The war against ‘terror’; The invasion of Iraq; The muhadjein warriors; the suicide bombers; The calls to jihad; the misrepresentation of Islam by the West, to the people of the West, in our culture, today. The insurgencies and hushed civil war in Algeria; the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and its subsequent withdrawal. It is a wonder things have not degenerated into a right mess before now. Oh, whoops, What I am talking about? They have.

Entering Lebanon for the first time evoked such a feeling of nervous excitement I could barely contain myself. The nervousness came from knowing absolutely nothing about this country, other than what I have read online and in the Lonely Planet - and by advice online I don’t mean the advice of the Home Office. [If people would to adhere to the government website for British tourists abroad, I would be taking a tentative holiday in Skegness at this point; and even then I’d be dubious] The excitement came from the immature schoolboy sense of adventure I still have from doing something ostentatiously stupid and dangerous – this is, of course, nonsense. Lebanon is home to 4 million people and has a thriving economy. The fifteen years of civil war that envelope its past are still fresh in the memory of its inhabitants, however. The question is, whether it is likely to change in the near future.

… I am buying a cup of tea – hot, sweet, and black - from a vendor in San Maria bus station. We are in the shared taxi area. We have a luggage in the taxi – a big 1950’s Mercedes with two front seats in addition to the driver’s – and we are now just waiting for it to fill up. Someone approaches me and addresses me from my left: “Are you a yankee boy?
“Pardon me?”
“You look like a fuckin’ yankee-boy. Are you a yankee-boy?”
“Err… no. I am English.” I say.
“Well fuckin' hell, would you like a cup of tea? Let’s have a cup of fuckin’ tea!” I appraise the source of the expletitives. He is a old guy, with a Mafioso hair-style, brushed straight back in a window’s peak. He must be about fifty. He looks European rather than Arabic, he is dressed old-school – in a suit and trousers. He also has his right leg amputated below the knee. He is walking on a crutch. He shakes my hand and introduces himself as Charlie. We are to get to know Charlie quite well as we will meet him on several occasions. He speaks English with an American accent, with an emphasis on his masterful use of swear-words. These, he tells me later, he learned from the British and American Navy, in Lebanon, where he grew up.
“I’ve already got one, thanks.”
“Aaaah, you’ve got some tea. Would you like some fuckin’ sugar with that?”
I call Marcus over from where he is perusing for some chocolate. He is going to fuckin’ love this guy…

We ended up arsing around in San Mario for an hour or so, waiting for our shared taxi to Beirut to fill up. Standard price is $15 or 750 Syrian pounds per person. During the interlude we bumped into the fantastic Charlie. A Lebanese guy who works the Bus Station, helping tourists and back-packers by stopping them from getting ripped off by the touts. His unique pitch was to speak English like an Bronx gangster and interject profanities into the most obscure and mundane sentences in such a innovative segways that made offers of tea sound like a threat to your life. He was quite a funky old character and he kept us entertained whilst we waited for our taxi to depart.

Our taxi finally filled up and we left for Beirut around 7pm. It was cold in Damascus but Beirut was supposed to be much warmer. We crossed at the border with relatively no problem. Snow lay heavily on the ground. We had to get in and out of the taxi three times, which was fun. The Lebanese fourteen day visa cost around $20 and could be purchased on the border. We queued for hardly any time at all, despite it being pretty busy, and we observed some ridiculously overt displays of baksheesh going on between soldiers and taxi/bus/drivers, as cigarettes and wads of money were handed over in between passports and under tables. The only thing missing was nudge-nudge wink winks, Sid-Jamesesque cackles and the music from the carry-on films.

The journey to Beirut was relatively uneventful. Well, I say relatively: we saw two accidents. The second one involved a car being run off the road into a lamp-post. Beirut drivers are, as Charlie would aptly describe them, fuckin’ lunatics. The road to Beirut snakes through a mountain pass and then descends into the city via a sharp twisting series of chicanes and hairpin bends. Down this road, the denizens of Lebanon fling themselves like the cast of the Cannonball Run films. Horns are beeped in a fluid and dynamic orchestra of frenzia, cars swerve in and out of incoming traffic with gusto and aplomb. It was terrifying [I know this sounds like an exaggerated description but I assure you, it isn’t. I was checking a news article, the next day, in the Lebanese Daily Star to gauge what New Year’s eve would be like in terms of expected civil unrest. The main concern of Beirut’s citizens were having to drive or cross main roads on New Year’s eve. Cross main roads? Mmmm..] Fortunately, however, our taxi driver was an old-hand at whacky races and we arrived in one piece. Physically.

… We are in a local taxi driving along to the Cornice in West Beirut. Our taxi driver points out a building on the opposite side of the road. He tells us this is where Harriri was assassinated. We peer into the night and observe a cordoned off series of buildings. All of their windows are blown out. The plaster and the outer structures of one of them, that looks like it took the main force of the bomb, is completely shredded and peppered with shrapnel. This was two years ago. “That must have been quite a bomb.” I say to the driver.
“Yes, Harriri.” He says, by way of explanation once again. “Boom!”
I nod in agreement – Boom. Behind the buildings looms the infamous Holiday Inn. The entire building is riddled with bullet holes and shrapnel.
“It’s good here.” Marcus says. Quoting our encompassing catch-phrase for anyplace that is a) diabolically boring b) an unbelievable shite-hole and, in the last five minutes, c) potentially life threatening…

Our taxi dropped us off in West Beirut, near the Cornice, the predominately Arabic area of the city. We were staying at a place recommended in the good book, for being cheap but clean. Well, to be fair it was cheap. It was also a shite-hole (It’s good here). It was situated by a car wash round the back of all the nice hotels. One of the rooms didn't have an external wall. We stayed three nights. Ok - Mainly the last night – on New Year’s day – was on account of having mild alcohol poisoning. The first night I took a single room after winning the coin-toss. Marcus took a camp-bed in a dodgy looking dorm. This was fine though, because after coming back late that night – twatted - Marcus found himself locked out of the dorm and decided to sleep in my room, on my bed, after dragging a mattress he found into the hall into my single room. My room, btw, was smaller than Harry Potter’s room under the stairs at the at the Dursley’s in Privet Drive. Needless to say I was up early the next morning.

For our first night we decided to walk into central Beirut. The place is weird. Really weird. By this I mean there is a heavy military presence everywhere. This in itself is not strange but the ambience, The feel of the place itself, is strange. The shops and restaurants are open but virtually empty. Everywhere is brand new and pristine, but with very little, or no, atmosphere. It’s downright eerie. It wasn’t until we were out having dinner, nearly a week later, with a very shrewd and switched on guy we met in another hotel, did he surmise the feeling elegantly for us: The whole of central Beirut is like a film-set. It is like the town the characters in Blazing Saddles knock up in a night to fool Hedley Lammar’s (I love that name) group of libertines. Everything looks and appears working and functional, yet you get the feeling that the moment you leave the place, people are going to just start dissembling the whole thing and put the buildings into boxes for the evening. This is augmented by the physical presence of armed military personnel, private armed security personnel, armed police, barricades, razor-wire, gun placements. military vehicles, and small cannons, here, there, and everywhere.

Rue Monot however was not so contrived. This place is one of Beirut’s hot spots. It is a series of clubs, bars, and drinking dens, situated just by St Joseph University, focused into one small area of the city. Of course, being the good, adaptable, travelers we are, we embraced it with alacrity. We spent most of the first evening getting twatted in and around the bars there. We also ate a mammoth Chinese meal for dinner. Then we stumbled across a great club and went dancing.

.. We are in a very busy bar on Rue monot. It's karaoke night. People are dancing on the bar, and on the tables. Marcus and I have just arrived from Damascus and we are experiencing something of a cultural adjustment. The last time we had a drink it was a glass of red wine at a friend's house. We have forgotten this sort of thing went on in the world, but it won't take us long to remember...