Beirut

Downtown Beirut is marked by the intersection of six broad, clean, well-lit boulevards, lined by cafes, upmarket boutiques and bars and eerily deserted, its lifeless sidewalks and tables controlled from barb-wired checkpoints by armored personnel carriers and men with machine guns. The once-upon-a-time diva of the Middle East is still an amazing city, two civil wars, one Syrian and two Israeli occupations down the line.

There is still much that is "American" about Beirut. Although the city once hailed as the Paris of the Middle East now seems more like its second Jerusalem. The mix of "western" shops, American diners, and Falafel joints is strongly reminiscent of Israel with its crowds of young students and security checkpoints, barriers, random violence and highly visible, machine-gun toting police and army officers. All too often, the view from the diner, bar or seaside cafe offers a cityscape of bullet-scarred facades: Constant reminders of a violent past--and indeed a violent present--of pervasive sectarian infighting.

The divisions running through Beirut and Lebanon have taken different forms over the years, the Sunni-Maronite conflict of Lebanon's founding years eclipsed by the influx of largely Shi'ite Palestinian refugees after Jordan's "black September" and the concomitant erosion of the sectarian checks and balances written into the country's political system. These days, political violence has regrouped around two symbolic dates. The March 8th coalition commemorates the Syrian national holiday (when Hafez, once upon a time, dispatched his Baathist competitors) and the Hizbullah rally held on its anniversary in 2005 asking the Syrians to stay in Lebanon. The March 14 coalittion takes as its namesake the counter-rally that sparked the Cedar Revolution.

The eights and the fourteens, as they are affectionately known in Lebanon, agree about very little. This, apparently, is the problem. Even the fourteens, amongst themselves, have their share of political differences. At least, however, they can agree that they are Lebanese--something March 8 with their pro-Syrian orientation and the strong Palestinian identity of many of its backers--cannot.

Guns and tea in the Axis of Evil

Syria welcomed us with moustachioed bureaucracy and heart-warming hospitality. In Palmyra, we had somehow managed to acquire a pair of creaking Chinese motorbikes from a man who owned a grocery store and headed out into the sand. Nothing lay between us and the Iraqi border except a hundred miles of empty dunes and a few scattered Bedouin encampments. Naturally high on our customary sense of self-congratulation, we sped off down a single strip of tarmac that led into a completely empty expanse of yellow wilderness. As we’d already established, the Syrians are a friendly lot, and so we weren’t surprised when a distant figure on the horizon waved over to us and we quickly turned towards him, looking forward to the delicious spread of mezze and hot drinks this rustic sheep-farmer would no doubt lay on for us.

The fact that he was carrying an AK47 did not immediately trouble our elated minds – after all, the desert is no doubt a dangerous place at night with wild dogs and man-eating geckos and god knows what else. It did seem slightly strange, however, that he was clad in military fatigues. “Army surplus”, Josh whispered to me reassuringly as we drew near. “It’s all they can afford.” As we came to a stop our affable companion unceremoniously pointed his gun at us and, in an unexpected move, demanded our passports. This, we reluctantly accepted, was not the standard behaviour of lone sheep-herders. Only when a further soldier came over and ordered us off the bikes with a moody scowl, gesturing with his weapon that we should stand back whilst he removed the keys, did the situation stop being pleasantly amusing, and instead took on a rather alarming tone. Without a word of explanation the first soldier drove off with one of the bikes, leaving the other to guard us under the baking heat of the mid-day sun.


Miles from any other human habitation, it appeared that we had unwittingly stumbled across a Syrian army base. Although I have long expressed a strong wish to experience all facets of Middle Eastern society first-hand, I had to grudgingly acknowledge that this was not an ideal introduction to the military forces of one of the world’s supposedly most dangerous states. Matters took a turn for the worse when we attempted to utilise our pidgin Arabic and engage our captor in conversation. Clearly well-trained in resisting subtle psychological subversions by foreign spies like us, he refused to answer any questions. Nor would he have one of our cigarettes, which he looked down on with a mixture of suspicion and contempt before lighting one of his own. The weather was scorching. Our phones didn’t work. Our passports and means of transport had gone. A man with a gun was holding it angrily towards us. All in all, our circumstances left a lot to be desired.

After a good hour, the first soldier returned with a higher ranking officer. Delighted that we would have a chance to explain our case to someone senior and offer our apologies to the Syrian armed forces for trespassing on their secret nuclear facility/desert gulag, we surged towards him. However, he too was not in the mood for polite discussion, and promptly confiscated our phones and camera before disappearing again. I tentatively suggested to Josh that we make a break for it and flee towards the Iraqi border in the hope we would be picked up by some kindly American marines. Josh didn’t dignify that with an answer and we relapsed into apprehensive silence. I decided that if I was going to be summarily executed in the middle of the desert, I would do so with the national anthem on my lips, as a last defiant act of patriotism. Then I remembered that I was unaware of the words of the national anthem, and depression engulfed me again. I turned to Josh for some consolation but the poor chap was lying on the floor playing with some dung beetles, and had obviously given up all hope.


Finally, the ‘general’ returned again, this time with a veritable platoon of footsoldiers. Rather improbably, he was carrying a kettle. By gum, we thought, is this how they kill prisoners in these godforsaken wastelands? He then produced some cups, and swiftly poured us several cups of tea. We sipped them hesitantly, but they did not appear to be laced. A few moments later, our passports and electronic equipment (with photos wiped) was handed back, along with the keys to the bikes, and all the soldiers gathered around us jovially, wishing us well. We will never know which impenetrable layer of army bureaucracy had deemed us, with good reason, to be idiotic tourists and not a major threat to national security, but wherever he is we thank him from the bottom of our hearts. With cheerful waves the whole gang bade us farewell; we drove sharpish back to Palmyra and pondered a valuable lesson. It seems that even when pointing guns at you, these lovely people can’t help but offer you some tea.

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P.S. Apologies for the lack of updates recently – the Syrian government periodically blocks access to a load of websites they deem dangerous, and our blog, apparently, is one of them. Hence we have to do a lot of funky technical wizardry to get on to it…
P.P.S. Shout out to Nabeel.

4 pm and all

Friday, Fetiye, that`s right bitches

Sunday, Göreme, 5:45am

Tuesday, Ürgüp, Satan and friends

Thursday, Şanliurfa, Castle

Heathens in Caves

The good people of Cappadocia never saw it coming. Later, the owner of the gas station on the outskirts of Ugrup would claim he had had premonitions from the moment two shadowy figures set up camp across from him on the intersection at 5:30 on a cold Sunday morning. In the early morning light, he said, they radiated a faint, but menacing, red aura. Although this claim has never been substantiated and, like the museum attendant’s claim that he was shown the picture of a vampire on a ghoulish press pass, is dismissed by the region’s more sober inhabitants, it is undeniable that something odd was afoot. If, dear reader, you will bear with me, I will try to reconstruct, from interviews, local records, and the official report of the exorcists called in to re-consecrate all mosques and churches, those cursed, fateful days that turned fairy chimneys into Satan’s furnaces.

We now know that the two shadowy figures at the gas station were foreign travellers of unknown origin. One is described consistently as bearded, with two small horns protruding from his matted mass of shaggy hair, the other as being of a gaunt, Vampire-like aspect with sideburns as pointy as his fangs. Both were first seen at the Ugrup gas station. At dawn that same day, they were observed engaging in some strange pagan ritual near Goreme, involving chants in strange tongues, spirits, both ephemeral and alcoholic, and disturbing, mirthless laughter, staccato ha-ha’s, which, in the words of one witness, “made all the hairs on my neck stand on end.” At sunset, they were seen, smoke rising from their arms and heads, emerging from an ancient cave dwelling in Rose Valley. Police investigations revealed evidence of a fire and unearthed the charred bones of a young child, thus sketching the disturbing outlines of a grotesque human sacrifice in preparation for the next days’ activities, for the worst was still to come.

On Tuesday, four figures were seen ascending Ugrup castle. The aforementioned two unsightly strangers had been joined by two young women, described by an old man who witnessed all from behind a rocky outcropping nearby, as cat-like, dark-haired witches. These four erected a monumental pagan idol overlooking the village. It gazed down malevolently on minarets, homes, and shops, its horns glinting in the sunlight, its exposed breasts mocking the modesty of the town’s God-fearing inhabitants. From this point forward the chronicles of strange and disturbing events multiply. Temperatures fell dramatically mid-day, 13 villagers died in a freak cave-in, and wolf-dogs began running the streets. Haddj Mustapha Beyoglu had to watch, horror-stricken, as one of these creatures made off with his hand, leaving him to helplessly wave his bloody stump.

On Wednesday things went from bad to worse. Suleiman Ahmad, the farmer who, alerted by the red glow of fire in an ancient church, went to investigate and lived to tell the tale tells us the following: “In the morning these evil creatures, their ranks swelled to six, lit a crackling bonfire in the ancient church of the temptation. Whirling and dancing around it like deranged dervishes, they only interrupted their crazed cavorting to erect a grotesque idol, a sphinx to guard their freakish frolicking.” Then the black madness began in earnest. As four went off to roll snow boulders on the unsuspecting town below, two proceeded to consummate the black mass on the Altar of Temptation. That evening, the sun set blood-red on Goreme as the call to prayer was replaced by howls that turned husband against wife and brother against brother. In the Church of Temptation, the six sat smoking glowing hookah, boasting of their wicked exploits. Where they are now, nobody knows. But they will be up to no good.

Gonzo-Göreme

I’d been revelling in madness’ throes all day. The last night in Fethiye was one of those insanely depressing, disconcertingly comforting kind of nights, a microcosm for everything and nothing. Sipping Efes in an empty bar, watching an empty game of football – mid-table Germans bashing each other with mind-numbing mediocrity – we’d been to the so-called ‘ghost town’ earlier but this was the real fucking thing. Not a tourist attraction, not a clump of ruins on a daisy hillside, but a real fucking town with a real fucking dearth of people. I wanted to go to Club Bananas, god knows why. Josh vetoed it, which proved wise when we strolled past, bottle of vodka in hand – a deserted barn, with a sprinkling of greasy cruisers dotted round the entrance, preening to nobody. I was frustrated that there was nowhere to go, and frustrated that I was frustrated, a double dose of self-loathing that always stemmed from the same thing. I had texted her the previous night, when I was bubbling and raging and crying, and now I was empty as well.

It looked like it was going to be another night of spliffs and Portishead, dancing around our freezing room yelling platitudes from the Goo Goo Dolls and other teenage memory-jerkers. But Josh hauled himself up on the gangplank of some vessel and we kotched there, whilst he tried to unsuccessfully persuade me to tightrope walk across the bay. He was wavering on the right end of the drunk-introspection spectrum, nudging the border affectionately. This was after we got thrown out of the hotel courtyard, and before we finished the bottle. I knew the next day would be hellish.

And of course it was. The bus ride seemed standard enough – snow and dark and Johnny Cash and dollops of Mahfouz and salami – but fourteen hours is enough to wear anyone down. I spent one particularly unnecessary stop prowling about in the falling ice, chasing after a pack of stray dogs. Times like that I know I’m falling into my own personal depressive-hedonistic hell, which has become a home from home, but fuck it, the groove is too worn down to escape from. So when we left dog-white middle-of-nowhere-ville I finally fell asleep in the back of bus, dreaming of her.

Josh woke me at 5.30am, announcing with measured concern that we were being ejected from the vehicle. Of course we were, the one time we take the only ‘reliable’ bus company in the country they dump us in some frozen back-corner of Cappadocia in the early-morning light, shivering our arses off. We didn’t even know what fucking village we were in as the behemoth sped off, taking my hat – the last refuge of my addled mind, the one adornment that gave me the veneer of the man I wanted to be, not the shit I’ve become – with it. All I had left to stave off pneumonia was my bloody beanie, a woven joke that Josh said made me look like a cross between a four-year-old and a condom. A dozen dickheads passed our flailing arms before one kind soul drove us a few kilometres towards Göreme. Even so, it was too far to walk with our bags, and the sun was coming up and the snow was falling harder, and we were by the side of the road in the middle of the Anatolian wilderness, and I knew by Josh’s face – and the fact he had begun to belt out Maccabee drinking songs – that he was on the elevator down to his personal hell as well. So we did the logical thing – cracked open the 12-year old malt whiskey that she had given me, and lit some cigarettes. I wandered off to some cliff-top to piss and sight-see through the haze. Josh carried on singing.

Fast-forward ten hours and we’re warm, but gluttons for punishment. So we head off to the tuff, the phallus-shaped fairy chimneys of Volcanic ash and cave-holes. I’ve got frostbite on the right foot, and Josh is harbouring delusions of spending the night in one of these troglodyte-relics, so we climb into one and start a fire, choking on our own fumes as we sing Third Eye Blind and sigh over a semi-charmed kind of life. And now we’re playing it again, while silent restaurant-boy shags his fit girlfriend in the room next door and Josh ponders the patriarchal-significance of squat toilets. And talks to the dog. And now restaurant-boy is back to answer his phone and check we’re not nicking beers, and he has a self-satisfied post-coital glow. And there’s nothing left to do but write and think and dream and squall.

Fethiye, motorbike style

An engine, two wheels, brakes. The motoring experience reduced to its essentials. Wind in hair, wheels rolling, winding serpentine tarmac, loose change clatter of the two-cycle engine. The freedom of the open road. Breathtaking vistas. Sand, aquamarine ocean, secluded bays, vertigo-inducing cliff faces, terraced fields, not a soul in sight. Silence. Sun, olive trees and spring grass. Conveying the experience requires more narrative power than I can muster on the best of days. Words fail me. Silence.

The Epic of Ephesus

Istanbul came and went. After the bleakness of Sofia, Turkey’s cultural capital was a veritable riot – turbofolk rooftop raves, goal-frenzied Galatasaray matches and the celebration of Bob Marley’s birthday at ‘Babylon’ (Istanbul’s finest live music venue, boasting that evening a smorgasbord of the country’s “finest reggae connoisseurs”). Not to mention the haunting minarets rising up over the city’s hills, the breathtaking scope of the Bosphorous, and the steady diet of three doner kebaps per day. Our two heroes – modest, affable chaps – could have stayed there forever, coasting along most pleasantly. But what can one do? Such simple fun isn’t conducive to the rip-roaring travel anecdote; unfortunately no-one is interested in hearing about an agreeable afternoon spent in a nargileh cafe, whiling away the hours with a novel. You want the drama of catastrophe, tales of near (or, better still, actual) disaster. So reluctantly the pair dragged themselves out of their comfort zone, and headed forth to Ephesus.

Ephesus, now the scattered remains of a once-stunning classical city on the banks of the Aegean, has seen its fair share of cataclysmic ruin in its two and a half thousand year history. Today it’s a more sedate affair, especially in the winter when the tourist buses rolling in and out of the site are few and far between. The adjacent town of Selcuk is small and sleepy; any visitor looking for trouble here really has to go out of his way to find it.

Thankfully, find it our heroes did. Things began uneventfully enough, with a stroll into the nearby mountains. After negotiating their way – in no particular order – through an orange grove, an airstrip and several fields of cotton, all baking under the midday sun, the pair emerged high above the countryside. The views were awe-inspiring, a patchwork of gleaming ocean, dense forest and speckled stones, many of which made up the outer perimeter of the ancient walled city. Congratulating each other on their success, the intrepid couple boldly struck out amongst the clouds.

Looking back now, when the dust has settled on the whole affair – recriminations exhausted, horrors abated – it is hard to recall the first warning-signs. Certainly there was no panic when the sun began its graceful descent over the horizon several hours later; nor was there much consternation when the last sesame-seed husks had been washed down with the last dregs of water. After all, the lights of Selcuk were still faintly visible in the distance, and anyway, our two warriors were hardy souls, unperturbed by such irrelevancies as the onrushing blanket of darkness in the sky, or the lack of essential supplies in their bag.

What can be said with confidence is that by the time the first wolf howl echoed through the twilight peaks, our protagonists were experiencing their first wave of self-doubt. The rocky outposts that had been guiding their way back to civilisation suddenly looked confused; the acres of woodland that had looked picturesque when stretched out in every direction in the afternoon sunshine now appeared terrible and foreboding in the evening light. Thousands of metres in the air, miles from any other human life forms; our heroes shared their now-starlit prison with none save the small cluster of vultures circling them silently overhead.

At this point in proceedings, hero number one (for the sake of propriety he shall remain anonymous, known only as ‘JR’) decided that as the pair’s predicament (near-certain death by starvation and cold on a remote mountain-top) was not quite exciting enough, the most sensible way forward at this stage would be to resurrect his long-term knee complaint, which reduces this otherwise immaculate specimen of a man into a pale and fragile geriatric, incapable of taking more than a few steps an hour. This transformation was accompanied by an appropriately loud yelp of pain, which reverberated endlessly through the black valleys below.

Shivering and groping blindly through the darkness, hero number two briefly pondered abandoning hero number one to his fate. However he admirably rejected this course of action after realising that hero number one would be a useful source of meat or wolf bait as the hours dragged on. Our duo duly staggered on: lame, tired and hungry, fighting their way through thorny thickets, plunging off unseen parapets, they knew they were not long for this world.

In the end, it was two things that saved these young crusaders. One was an inner fortitude, obvious in both. No matter how icy the wind blew around them, or how terrifyingly the rocky slopes gave way under their weight, they retained a smile on their lips and a song in their hearts. The other was the discovery of a path down to the bottom. Thus did our two heroes emerge triumphantly back into the world of men, and thus does the epic of Ephesus end.