Damascus catch-up: The Omayyad Mosque

A must see in Damascus is the Omayyad mosque, built by the Omayyad Caliph in 705 when Damascus was capital of the Arab Islamic empire. The mosque took ten years and eleven million gold dinars to build, and became an architectural model for hundreds of mosques throughout the world. The mosque has a large prayer hall and an enormous courtyard. The interior walls are covered with mosaic panels, made of coloured and gilded glass, portraying scenes from nature. The dome is greyish-blue, and is celebrated for its magnificence. The prayer hall contains a domed shrine venerated by both Christians and Muslims, the tomb of St. John the Baptist.

All the women in the mosque were having a good laugh at Caroline.

Last Night in Damascus

Our last night in Damascus was the most random ever. We were supposed to go to our friend Said's house for a supper of stuffed zucchinis made by his wife. When we met, however, he said we needed to do something else first. We said OK and followed him to a fancy office in some nearby shopping district. The office was the executive room for some Syrian wholesale makeup company, but the man at the office also produces and publishes Arab music CDs. Apparently our friend Said, who is an English teacher, was helping some Islamic singer-songwriter (who doesn't know a word of English) with an English song on his upcoming album for the American market. Our job was to (1) listen to the song to point out grammar and pronunciation problems; (2) edit the English liner notes in the CD booklet; and (3) assure them that they didn't need to write an apology for the musician's English in the CD booklet. So, before our fantastic supper of stuffed zucchinis we hung out in a bling bling exec office, drinking coffee, listening to and editing some cheesy religious song by a guy who speaks no English but whose album heads to America for release this week! The weirdest and most random things happen in Damascus. You have to visit here.

Krac des Chevaliers

Then we were off on yet another minibus ride with switch-back turns to see what must be one of the most impressive castles in the world: Krac des Chevaliers, built by the Crusaders and defended successfully for hundreds of years. This is the view from our hotel window.

Aleppo

Our first stop in Syria was Aleppo. Due to more lack of planning on our part ("want to go to Syria tomorrow?", "Sure, why not?"), we couldn't find a cheap hotel. (BTW, cheap in Syria means really really cheap. A three hour bus ride is $1.50!) However, this kind of worked out as we were forced to blow some cash and stay in the Baron Hotel, which had a tonne of character. Agatha Christie used to stay here with her archaeologist husband, and it was here she wrote the first half of Murder on the Orient Express. The place was right out of the 1930s and also had the most ancient hotel staff we had ever met.



We took a trip outside of Aleppo, to see the ruins of the Basilica of St. Simon, built around a column from which he preached for 40 years. Now it looks a bit like a boulder.


We also really liked the markets in Aleppo (souqs), which were full of smells and vendors selling everything.

Our vote for friendliest country

Last week in Lattakia, a nice city on the coast, we were adopted by a shopkeeper named Ali who took us out for dinner. His taxi driver friend gave us a 3-hour tour to a Crusader castle and didn't want any money. We talked to several students on the street for an hour. And that was just one day! Since we arrived in Syria over a week ago, about 200 people have said "welcome." Taxi and minibus drivers have bought us coffee and juice.

Syria is also one of the safest countries in the world for travelling. Basically the only chance of hostage-taking is being removed somewhere by a local to drink tea or coffee. We arrived in Damascus yesterday, and after 20 minutes met a friendly English teacher named Saeed, who took us to his apartment for some ping pong, tea, coffee, and shawarma.


Jerome gets his ping pong ass kicked.

Syria update

We're in Damascus now. Internet connection is unreliable (I think we might be on dial-up -- and it doesn't help that the electricity is shut down for two hours every day!). But I'll try and post a few things we've been up to since we arrived.

In Syria

We are now in Syria! After Capadochia we took a long bus ride to Mt. Nemrut and saw the famous face statues at the top (pics to come) and then went to Urfa, where Abraham was allegedly born and turned something into fish. Near Urfa we also saw the beehive houses of Harran. From there we went to Antep, home to an amazing museum with mosaics from the Roman city of Zeugam. Then we crossed the border into Syria. Now we are in Halab (Alleppo). There is a very good citadel and souq (market) here, and today we saw the basillica where Saint Simon sat on a column for 40 years. It was a great site, but Saint Simon seemed to have been a bit weird. Apparently the game 'Simon says' comes from him. Tomorrow we are of toLAttakia where we plan to see Saladin's castle.