MARHABA BIKUM FII DIMASHQ...WELCOME TO DAMASCUS

After a long flight and an almost complimentary tour of the city’s dark, dingy yet expensive hotels with my taxi driver, it was with a mixture of relief and exhaustion that I collapsed onto a far-from-comfortable bed at the Funduq Al-Haramein. Here I was, in a strange city, alone and surrounded by enough luggage for the next year. “What have I done?” was the thought running through my head.

I’d snapped at fussing parents in the departure lounge at Birmingham Airport, scared myself silly by reading the “warnings and dangers” section in my guidebook on the plane, and had already fallen for the airport-taxi scam. There I was on my own in my hotel room, no idea what the next year would bring. In fact I had no idea where to find the language school, or how to find a place to live, or even where to buy a bottle of water. Exciting? It was bl**dy terrifying!

Funduq Al-Haramein is one of Damascus’ best budget hotels, located in a restored traditional Damascene house down a quiet cobbled backstreet. OK, so the bed was as hard as nails, the shared bathroom not always spotless, and my room had next to no natural light, but the welcome was warm, the courtyard peaceful, and at less than £3 for a single, who was I to complain?!

By the end of the week, I’d moved out of the hotel and had rented a room with an amiable and rather animated Syrian family in an ancient house hidden in the winding lanes of Bab Touma, the Christian quarter of old Damascus. In some ways, the house was rather similar to the hotel…nothing special on the outside, a plain front door revealing a white marble courtyard strewn with vines, a fountain bubbling in the corner, centuries-old mosaics slowly decaying on the walls, a bird in a cage trilling away to itself. I never worked out just how many people lived there. The basic family consisted of a middle-aged couple and their two grown-up sons, but there was never less than ten round the table for breakfast. Lodgers would come and go, kids would appear from nowhere, distant relatives would pop in for tea and a home-made pastry and stay for weeks. Chaotic doesn’t do the house justice. Never mind a language course, this was a crash course in daily Syrian life!

Once classes eventually began, I had every afternoon free to explore Damascus. First I hit the majot tourist sites, so the obvious place to start was the mammoth Souq al-Hamidiyya. Sometimes called the mother of all markets, this souq is a maze of narrow, and at times claustrophobic, alleyways, jam-packed with shops and stalls selling everything you could ever wish for and an awful lot that you wouldn’t want to buy in a million years. Entering the main souq through the large entrance, passing under a larger-than-life portrait of the president, you will encounter the first signs that Damsacus has arrived on the tourist trail. Glittering souvenir shops offer enormous amounts of tack and the odd hidden treasure. Salesmen practice their sales pitch in a variety of European languages, while shady characters whisper “change money” at any likely candidate. But you could tell they were still fairly new to this game, not having acquired the pushy techniques found in tourist hotspots the world over.

It didn’t take me long to discover Bakdash, about halfway down the main souq, where sticky rose-water flavoured ice-cream is pounded in huge vats before being served with a pistachio topping. Bakdash became a regular haunt for me on the way home from school. If you keep walking, ice-cream tub in hand, you’ll come to the end of the souq, marked by Roman pillars and arches (the remains of a temple), and emerge in a pleasant square, the perfect place to finish your ice-cream.

MOSQUES

This was my first ever experience of a mosque, and I was impressed! Entering through what I’d call a “tomb garden”, you reach a vast tiled courtyard, surrounded by pillars. The atmosphere is very relaxed, with families dotted around chatting, young children playing ball or feeding the birds, lazy cats dozing in the sunshine or pouncing at the pigeons, students reading the Qur’an in a quiet corner. On a later trip with school, our teacher pointed out the mosaics on the walls…apparently they contain more colours than any other mosaic from that era. We were also shown the tomb of Hussein, an important site of pilgrimage for Shi’a Muslims and a place of raw emotion where women in black chadors wail and scream as they touch the green cloth covering his tomb. Inside the main prayer hall, another tomb supposedly contains the head of John the Baptist, attracting many Christian visitors.

MUSEUMS

One of the better museums in town is the Azem Palace, the former residence of an Ottoman Pasha. This surprisingly large palace complex is reached by way of the souq, and has been restored to its former beauty. You can tour the Ottoman baths and the banquet halls, before taking a glass of tea by the fountain in the shady courtyard. The exhibits are mainly mannequins in a variety of poses, all with exactly the same fixed grin, whether engaging in idle chitchat, feasting on a sumptuous banquet or having their head chopped off.

For museum fans, I’ll mention a couple more, like the Museum of Calligraphy, housed in a stunning old building not far from the Omayyad Mosque but almost always shut. The Army Museum (opposite the Turkish-style Tekkiyeh Suleymaniyeh Mosque in the new city) is for those who get their kicks from wandering round a poky garden strewn with sad-looking planes and tanks. My partcular favourite was the fantastically named Banorama, which is a special treat for invited guests only. As you are unlikely to get an invitation, I will divulge a little more. Our class was invited, so we all trundled off in a worse-for-wear bus, none of us knowing what to expect other than it was apparently “beautiful”. It turned out to be a most amazing piece of anti-Israel propaganda, complete with a mini battle in the garden. Some beaten-up captured Israeli tanks face off a fleet of far superior polished Syrian ones, while the icing on the cake is the state-of-the-art revolving rooftop gallery, offering a reconstruction of Liberation Day, the day the Israelis pulled out of Al-Quneitra in the Golan Heights. Our numerous guides all looked stunning and could waffle on at length about the dimensions and costs of the building, but ask a simple question about the exhibits and the subject was abruptly changed. An intriguing day was had by all…

EXPLORING THE OLD CITY

OTHER OLD DISTRICTS

Saroujeh is another atmospheric district, falling rapidly into disrepair and getting smaller by the day as houses tumble into themselves, modern blocks springing up in their places. This district is severed by a new highway, but you can still find quiet, shady backstreets where men sip on coffee and argue over tawila (backgammon). The al-Haramein Hotel and a couple of similar hostels will hopefully breathe new life into this area and save at least a few old houses from the demolition ball.

FOOD AND DRINK

Shawarma stalls abound (my favourite being just inside the gates of Bab Touma) as do cheap felafel sandwich stalls. The water in Damascus is fresh from the mountain springs of Boukein, so if your stomach isn’t susceptible to instant diarrhoea the moment a drop of tap water passes your lips, then don’t neglect the excellent fruit juices made to order…orange, apple and pomegranate are the main staples, but you can find sugar cane as well as banana smoothies at most stalls. In some of the older neighbourhoods, you might come across a delicious brown juice called tamar hindi, made from the tamarind fruit.

ACCOMMODATION

- the Christian village of Ma’aloula, where Aramaic (the language of Jesus) is still spoken by the inhabitants of brightly coloured houses stacked on top of each other under a clifftop monastery.
- the mountain resort of Bloudane, a welcome breath of fresh air after stuffy Damascus, and high enough to afford great views towards Lebanon.
- the amazing Roman towns of Bosra and Shahba.
- the abandoned town of al-Quneitra in the UN buffer zone in the Golan Heights, where an army guide will point out the bullet-ridden hospital, the shell of the main mosque and take you down the gutted remains of the once-lively souq.

I’ve mentioned mosque etiquette above, but have a little bit more to add about clothing. Syrians only ever wear shorts in bed or on the football pitch, and although tourists frequently do wear shorts, it isn’t recommended. Women should show a certain amount of respect…I don’t mean full-length chador or anything like that, but the less flesh you bare, the less hassle you’ll get. I remember listening to a pair of Aussie girls dressed for Bondi beach mouthing off about how many guys had tried to touch them up in the souq, and my response was hardly sympathetic. Damascus has its fair share of Christians, so take a walk through the Christian areas of the city for an idea of what is acceptable for a woman to wear. Headscarves are always useful if you want to visit any mosques or churches.

To wrap up, I had a fantastic year in Syria, and would encourage anyone else to give Arabic a try. If languages aren’t your thing, don’t be put off by the constant bad press the Middle East gets…not everywhere is a hotbed of violence and terrorism. Damascus has a lot to offer, and the longer you stay, the more the city gets under your skin. First impressions might make you wish you’d never stepped out of the airport, but persevere and Damascus will reward you. That said, it certainly isn’t for everyone. My parents found it a challenging destination, and although my mother enjoyed exploring the souqs, neither expect to be Damascus-bound again in a hurry. My older brothers came with an idea that they’d hate it, and guess what?…They hated it! If you come with an open mind and don’t expect everything to run as smoothly as it does back home, then Damascus might grow on you. I’m itching to get back!