Year: 2004

here are photos from Allepo and the dead cities tour….

oh and i wasnt able to post if before since i hadnt uploaded it, but here’s a photo of the turks we hung out w/ in goreme. yavus on the left and kadir is second from right.

*v

i woke up today and it was thanksgiving. normally, this would be a really big deal, and i’d spend the first half of the day rushing about trying to buy groceries before stores closed for the holiday. people left and right would be wishing each other a happy thanksgiving, and everyone would be getting excited for the huge meal ahead. but today, since i was nowhere near the united states, nobody around could give a crap less about thanksgiving. for a while now i had really been wondering if we would be able to celebrate thanksgiving at all, and i was kinda bummed that we probably wouldnt be able to. at first, yesterday i had some grand ambitions of going down to the souqs and trying to find a turkey to eat, but i think it probably would have ended up being too much trouble.

several hours into the day though, i decided that i wanted to celebrate thanksgiving no matter what. instead of turkey, we decided to just go out and buy some of the roasted chickens that they sell around here. but what to do about the rest of the stuff? the main thing we wnated to make was mashed potatos and gravy, so we headed off to the souq. after a bit of searching around, we were able to get some butter, flour, garlic, potatos, milk and some greenbeans. it wasnt the easiest thing to do, since it’s not like there is one big grocery store where you do your shopping. we had to go from merchant to merchant, and buy each ingredient separately. it was confusing trying to get our needs across here and there, but we got everything… well, everything except for the main ingredient for gravy: drippings. luckily, we were able to fins a place with grilled chicken on a vertical spit, and asked the guy for some of the oil at the bottom of his pan. he wasn’t to pleased by our request… in fact i think he thought we were really bizarre. why the hell were we asking him for some nasty oil from underneath his roast chicken? but he gave it to us anyways, and we rushed home.

back in the hotel we cooked up a storm and actualy ended up w/ a really good thanksgiving dinner. it wasnt turkey, but it was still damn good, and caryn was able to whip up some really good gravy from what we had. it was a pretty random thanksgiving. us, sitting in Syria of all places, with 4 other people, none of whom were american, eating chicken… but it was still really really damn cool!

happy thanksgiving peoples!

*v

today we spent the day in Hamma, a smaller town in the middle of Syria. the town is most known for it’s huge waterwheels. these gigantic wooden wheels spin around and lift water to be used for the surrounding agricultural areas. sine they are made of wood, they make this loud groaning sound as they slowly creak around and around. we had read about them in lonelyplanet, and yeah, i wanted to see them since they were famous, but in all honesty, what could be so exciting about a big wooden wheel? well, actually, turns out these wheels are really cool looking. i dont know if it’s their sheer massive size, or the water trickling down all sides of them, or the creeky sound, but watching them is quite entrancing, and we walked up and down the river checking out these wheels.

so, here’s a little more about syria:

as i’ve mentioned before, the people ehre for the most part are quite friendly, and since there are hardly any other tourists in town (this is the off season, and in general syria isn’t the most touristy spot), we attract quite a bit of attention. in hamma, although people dont go totally crazy like they did in the small village where we got fallafel, they are still very curious about us. as we walk buy, most of the people look at us, and often follow us w/ their eyes as they pass us. tons of people yell out “hellloooooo” to us, or sometimes “welcoooome!”. we hear these from people walking by us, shop owners, people across the street, or even people driving by!! unlike in morocco, where everyone says hello and then tries to sell you a carpet, here the hellos are genuine and the people want nothing in return. often times, it’s more than just a “hello” too. random people keep stopping to chat w/ us on the streets. they ask us about where we are from, tell us about their town and what they do, etc. it’s so fun, to be able to just walk down any street and be greeted everywhere by the choruses of hellos everywhere.

the town of Hamma itself is fairly modern looking. everyone has a cellphone, there are plenty of cars in the streets, and there are huge builboards advertising cola etc. at the same time though, there is no doubt that you are in Syria. little kids run around trying to shine people’s shoes, old muslim men sit selling various nuts or fruit in the streets, beautiful mosque minarets rise above the buildings, and as everywhere in the middle east, 5 times a day the call to prayer rings out. i’ve mentioned before that the call to prayer is very beautiful sounding and is an amaing “soundtrack” to any place you happen to be standing, but lately we’ve witnessed another even more amazing phenomenon. often you’ll find yourself in an area that happens to be close to several mosques, sometimes up to 8 or 9 of them. when the call to prayer rings out, you hear the call coming from all the mosques near you, and since each call is different and start at a little different times, you hear this overwhelming loud cacophany of overlapping sound as the calls come from every direction, and reverberate through the air.

the men in town dress fairly modern. most of them wear western clothing except for their head covering is often the usual red and white checkered cloth wrap. the women in town vary. some of them wear western clothing, while others wear the long flowing outfits you typically see in the middle east. although we didnt see it as much in allepo, her in hamma, almost every woman we see is wearing a kerchief to cover her head. maybe like 10% of them wear the full face covering that just has their eyes showing, but most of them just have their head covered and face open. a lot of the women wear makeup, and we’ve noticed this interesting style where some of them have *tons* of white powder on their faces and accented makeup so their face looks almost like a china doll.

the food here is really good, and as i said before, ridiculously cheap. tonight, we had a huge feast. in fact, we accidentally odered too much food, and soon the table was overflowing w/ different dishes: hummous, kebabs, babaganoush, yogurt, soup, etc etc. we barely had room enough on the table for it all, and none of us were able to finish all of our food. at the end of dinner the bill came: just over 4 bucks a person. nice! we’re staying at a hotel that’s much nicer than what we’re used to… it even has tv in each room with english channels. still, a double room is only 9 bucks! entrance fee to some of the dead cities we went to yesterday was just twent cents each. we’ve been *easily* getting by on 20 bucks each per day, and actually i think we might be spending less than that!

by the way, we are so excited about the tv in our rooms. heh, i know that tv should be the least of our concerns when visiting new and exciting countries, but while traveling, you definitely end up missing the little things from home. all 6 of us were completely overjoyed to have tv to watch, and we’ve watched even the most crap movies, just cause they’re on. yesterday we went to the liquor store nearby and bought a bunch of beer to drink in our rooms. alcohol is techniccally forbidden to muslims, but many of them drink it anyways. at the store, they put our beer in these thick black non-seethrough plastic bags, and we’re not sure if that was so no one would see us w/ alcohol as we walked around. we walked back to the hotel with our black bags of shame. heh.

one thing that we’re really sad about is not getting to celebrate thanksgiving. but, we’ve heard that there is a place in town that sells turkeys. although, from what the guy said, we got the feeling that these were real living turkeys!! now, no matter how bad we want thanksgiving, i doubt any of us would be ready to butcher a turkey ourselves and pluck it! so we’ll see. if there are pre-plucked turkeys for sale, the six of us just might spend tomorrow cooking in our hotel and have a little mini-thanksgiving!

heh, anyways, despite all this stuff about being nostalgic for home, i am really really gald to be in a place so different from home. the trip started out in europe, which is pretty standard (but of course fun), and then after a wild crazy detour in morocco, i ended up back in europe for croatia. i had a really really good time in croatia, but a part of me was really hoping to hurry up and get to more exotic locales. turkey was much more unusual and was a huge step in the right direction, and now syria is even more so. i love walking around and getting new surprises everyday. i love the fact that hardly any tourists come here. i love trying to interact w/ the people and seering their curiosity. it’s funny how for everyone, the things that are new and exciting are so different. for instance, on the dead cities tour, all of us were so excited to see the sheep grazing and whipped out our cameras. the people there must have really thought “crazy tourists! havent they ever seen a damn sheep before?!”. and yet for us sheep are so new and excting. and for the people here, americans are new and exciting! they walk around and peer and stare at these bizarre people in their midst.

*v

11/22/04

after writing my post the other day, we went to a restaurant nearby to have dinner. this place was decorated all fancy, and yet the meals were still dirt cheap. they had all sorts of freakt things on the menu that we ended up being too afraid to try such as lamb brain, lamb spinal cord, lamb medula, and whole sparrows. another funny thing about this place was that they dont have any free napkins to use, but charge you for a box of napkins that they put on the table. at the end of the meal, we figured that since we paid for the napkins, we may as well take them home, so several of us grabbed 4 or 5 napkins each out of the box. the syrian family sitting across the room from us just thought this was the most hilarious thing they’ve ever seen and were totally laughing at us. heh, silly tourists…

11/23/04

after only a short 2 day stay, we left allepo to go on a tour of the dead cities. these are a string of cities between allepo and hamma that were built in the 6th century and then completely abandoned. our tour took us to 3 or 4 of these cities and we got to wander through the remains of the towns. the areas that these towns were in were completely full of rocks and debris. in most of them, you could barely even see the ground cause there were so many rocks strewn about. amidst the debris, there were many half formed partly destroyed homes built from the same kind of rock. we climbed into and through these demolished structures. these cities have been abandoned for centuries, but in recent times, some families have moved back into a couple of the towns, so here and there we would see a random person hearding sheep or bunch of chickens running around. it’s kinda crazy that people in modern timesd live in these ruins, farming their animals in primitive conditions in stone buildings. it’s like if you went to greece and visited the parthenon only to find a few ancient greeks in togas still chilling there. although, i guess in some ways, these stone houses aren’t all that different than a lot of the structures that people in small syrian villages live in.

halfway through the tour, we stopped in a small town to get some fallafels since we were all starving. we walked into the small shop and the ownder started making fresh fallafel for us. here, the fallafel balls are small and have a hole in the middle like miniature donuts, and they have a special tool that they can use to scoop falafel balls extremely quickly. soon enough, there were 6 *huge* fallafel sandwchiches waiting for us. total cost for 2 fallafels (so big that caryn couldnt finish hers) and a large coke? one dollar!! one thing that we werent prepared for, was the welcoming we got at this shop. i dont think this town gets very many tourists (or any actually). as soon as we came in, people from around the town started pouring into the shop to look at us. pretty soon, the shop was literally full of little kids and adults just standing around, talking to each othern, and gawking at the bizarre tourists. at one point, there were actually peoiple lining up at the windows peering inside!! heh, we were such a spectacle. the few people who could speak a tiny bit of english, tried to struggle their way through converstaions w/ us. it all was such a funny scene! on the way out, i all of a sudden remembered that i had my camera, and everyone who was still left got extremely excited that i would take their photo. after taking the photo, everyone clammored around me to get a look at the sceenshot on my camera. all the little kids were unbelievably psyched to see their photo!

the final stop on our tour was apamea. this is another ancient city, but this one instead of the old rock house structures, had more of a roman kind of feel to it, and the rubble was mainly this long promenade w/ huge columns on either side. in certain parts, you could see indentations that were left by chariot wheels from a long time ago.

one done with our tour, we continued on to Hamma, where we stayed for the night.

*v

yesterday morning, the 6 of us got to syria after taking the night bus, and as usual, were pretty trired. the city we’re in right now is Allepo and is one of the two largest cities in syria. syria is very different than turkey.. actually, in some ways i’d kinda say that it has some similarities to morocco. unfortunately, it was pouring like crazy yesterday, and so we were hardly able to go out at all. we went and barved the rain to go hit up tha atm, but when we got there, the atm was broken. out of the blue, this guy comes up and offeres to show us where another atm in town is. we ended up talking to him and his name is Ahbit (sp?).

back home, a lot of people hear “middle east” or “syria” especially, and immediately imagine a place filled w/ angry terrorists who despise america and probably have a few bombs chilling in their hut back home. when i first told people that i was going to come here to syria, a lot of people freaked out. i heard “dont go” countless numbers of times. “it’s dangerous!” etc etc. i think many people thought that i’d be basically entering a war zone. on the flip side, i kept reading on lonely planet etc that the people of the middle east are extremely friendly… among the friendliest people around, and that they are very welcoming.

i knew that i had to see this for myself, so that i could have my own opinion. were the people in america right? i was definitely apprehenisve on coming here, but hoped for the best. one of the things i am most curious about is what people here think of america. back home, i also heard people urging me to tell people here that i was from canada, or anywhere else. so anyways… we talk to this guy Abhit for a while. turns out, that he has some family that lives in NY… but when i ask him if he’d ever go there, he says that he would never. he tells me that he absolutely hates the american government, esp bush and condoleeza rice.. but then stresses very strongly that in no way does he hate the american people.

and i think thats the main thing that everyone really needs to remember. hating a government isn’t the same as hatig the people from that country. all of the people here in syria that we’ve told that we are from the US have been extremely friendly to us. no one has hassled us about it or made rude remarks or anything at all. later on that night, we randomly ran into ahbit again (he keeps popping up around town) and he was telling us about how syria has lots of mosques and chuches side by side. when i asked him which he visited, he said that he is a muslim, and followed that up by saying “i am muslim, but not terrorist! not all muslims are terrorists! not all syrians are terrorists either, even though your president says so…”.

i dunno… all of this is really disturbing to think about. the syrian people here have open minds about us americans despite our governmet, but so many people back in the states dont have an open mind about them. heh, and i’m just talking about people from liberla california… not even to mention the conservatives in the middle of the country who want the whole middle east blasted back to the stone age! i guess, really, this is why traveling is so important. part of it is to gout into the world and gawk at all the differences in the way people live… but another every important part of it is to see just how much people are all the same. the syrians etc are people just like us… and not evil diabolical killers.

anyways.. enough on that. when we wewre hungry enough that we just ahd to go out and find food despite the downpour, we found this nice restaurant serving traditional syrian fare. no menus! when we walked in the door, the guy just montions for us to come back into the kitchen w/ him! he uncovers pot after pot after pot of different kinds of foods and tells us what each thing is and we got to choose right there in the kitchen. all of the food was great! and fairly cheap. in fact, everythig here is cheaper than turkey. our hotel room is 9 bucks. you can get street food (like a wrap or something) for like 50 cents. nice!!

later at night, as i mentioned before, we ran into Abhit again. he took us out for a “drink”. of course, in the Us, going out for a drink means alcohol, but he took us out to get fruit smoothies. the smoothies were really really good, and abhit insisted on paying for all of us. nice!!

we got up tofay and walked to go check out the citadel on the hill. it stopped raining finally. getting through the streets here is sometiumes really difficult. it’s just madness. first off, allepo has for some reason, a billion and one taxis. taxis taxis everywhere. and the streets are jam packed w/ these taxis and other cars. traffic runs rampant, and when you try to cross a street, it’s like that game frogger. you run this way and that, avoiding cars, and hope for the best!

on the way to the citadel, we walked through dsome fo the covered souqs here. it was not quite as crazy as the souqs in morocco, but also wayyyy less hassley which was really nice! despite the fact that i’ve seen a ton of souqs in morocco, and some souq-like shops in turkey, i still find it so fascinating to wander through these. it’s definitely something very unoique to the middle eastern countries. everyone yelling, spices gallore, rugs, weird meat, strange smells, silk scarves, etc etc. so fun! on the other side of the souqs, we wandered through the citadel on the hill. the price for the citadel was a mere 150 syrian pounds (3 bucks!) but with our student cards, it came down to 10 syrian pounds (about 20 cents!). it’s nice being a student!

after the citadel we wandered a bit more. lots of random people just walked up to us off the streets and talked to us, and even gave us mini-tours without asking for anything in return!! caryn and the girls went off to the baths in the afternoon, and the rest of us just headed back to our hotel…

*v