Welcome To Lebanon

"Where are you from?"
"England. You?"
"Jerusalem."

I do an obvious and not very subtle double take. An Israeli, in Syria? Never!

"Jerusalem, Palestine".

Aha. That makes more sense. Omar is a 24 year old Palestinian Christian, who works in his family's "import-export" business, splitting his time between the West Bank, Dubai and Beirut. We're sharing a taxi from Damascus to Beirut, and he's very kindly helping me through the border formalities, which are complicated by the fact that visa fees must be paid in Lebanese Lira, unavailable outside the country itself. In effect, therefore, to obtain Lebanese currency to pay for my visa to enter Lebanon, I have to sneak accross the border into Lebanon, change some currency, then return to obtain my visa and enter legally.

Omar and I approach the smiling, heavily-armed border guard and explain my predicament.

"Where you from?", he asks me with a grin.

"Britain"

"And you"

"Palestine", Omar responds casually.

"Syria, or Lebanon?", the guard asks.

"Palestine."

"Yes, yes, but are you Syrian Palestinian or Lebanese Palestinian?"

"Jordanian Palestinian".

My confusion at this point aptly sums up the wretched plight of the Palestinians. Omar is Palestinian, lives in Israel, but has a Jordanian passport. The guard, however, is satisfied.

"Ok, you British. British are trustworthy and honest - I let you go. Don't run away now..."

And with a wink, he waves me across the border. Omar doesn't comment on the savage irony of British "honesty": the decades of betrayal, broken promises, and lies with which Britain damned his people to eviction, occupation, and persecution at the hands of the Israelis. No, instead Omar is much more interested in talking about Beirut's legendary nightlife, "the best in the Middle East", he calls it. While I'm saving that particular brand of hedonism for the coming weekend, I have to say that Beirut is something of a culture shock after 5 weeks in Syria.

My initial joy at finding cafes and restaurants not only open during daylight, but packed with customers actually eating and drinking, was tempered slightly by the discovery that prices here are even higher than in London. In fact in many respects downtown Beirut resembles London, Mayfair to be exact: its 19th Century architecture, plethora of ludicrously expensive designer boutiques, exquisitely dressed women tottering from cafe to cafe on their impossibly high heels, giant sunglasses protecting them from the Autumn sun. The large mosque at the end of the street seems rather incongruous amid its opulently Western surroundings; with conversations in French and English far more common (in this area at least) than Arabic it's easy to forget this is the Middle East.

Yet this is the Middle East; in many ways more so than anywhere I've been thus far. Beirut's mass of contradictions and confusions is a microcosm of the cultural schizophrenia that afflicts the region as a whole. For 17 long years those contradictions found expression in a brutal and bloody civil war in Lebanon, in which Beirut was both the symbolic heart of the conflict and the physical epicentre of the fighting. After 16 years of relative peace and stability, the Lebanese capital was once again turned into a warzone by the failed Israeli invasion of 2006. Tensions from that catastrophe and the ongoing campaign of political assassinations still simmer here; you don't have to walk more than a few blocks to find clear evidence that this is a city on edge. While Damascus has its fair share of armed soldiers on the streets, the young men with machine guns here seem a different proposition entirely. Unlike their poorly-equipped, lethargic Syrian counterparts, the soldiers here seem professional, well-trained, and ready for action. Unlike the Syrian youths and their rusting weaponry, the Lebanese have tanks, barbed wire, and roadblocks on the streets.

Yet while I may find it odd to see a couple of artillery pieces parked outside McDonalds, the locals don't seem to notice. Equally they appear to happily ignore the odd bombed out building that clutters the otherwise impressive skyline, picking their way past the rubble to get to their valet-parked BMWs, Porsches, and quite unbelievably, yellow Lamborghinis (of which I've seen two already). In the circumstances, there seems little else for it but to follow suit. For all its political turmoil and violent history, this seems a beautiful, engaging city populated by beautiful, engaging people; it's hard to believe that somewhere so chic, so consumerist, so Western is little more than a couple of hours from Damascus.

Of course not all of Lebanon, or its people, resemble Park Avenue or Belgravia; countless thousands of Omar's Palestinian kin live in squalid refugee camps outside Beirut, Tripoli and other major cities, while south Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley are home to mostly Shi'ia populations, natural supporters of the much-maligned Hizballah. I doubt Hassan Nasrallah will be joining us for an all-night rave at BO18 on Saturday, but you never know...

For those that are interested I have finally managed to upload my remaining photos of Turkey and the first batch from Syria. Al hamdu lillah for Lebanese computers.

Lies, Truth, and Propaganda

"I loove history feelm. Gladiator, Braveheart (you know, with Mel Jeebson?), Troy. You like history feelm Jeems?"

"Yes, I like history films too. Have you seen "Munich"?

"No, what ees thees feelm?"

I proceed to explain the plot of Steven Spielberg's Hollywood epic to my 24 year old Syrian Arabic conversation partner: the kidnapping and subsequent massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics by the Palestinian Black September group, the resultant Mossad death squad that hunted down and executed the perpetrators, the growing sense of unease and regret among the Israelis, the parallels with the modern "War On Terror".

"Why? Why they make up such oreeble storee? Why they say thees bad thing about Filistinian? Israel always keeling people, not Filistinian, they never keel people."

"This isn't a story, it really happened. More or less at least."

"No, thees never happen. It ees lie."

Somewhat fittingly, this surreal and somewhat sinister conversation took place on October 6th, a national holiday here in Syria, commemorating the famous "victory" in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. A rough equivalent in Europe would be Germany celebrating their famous victory in World War II in 1940, or Bayern Munich celebrating their famous victory in the 87th minute of the 1999 Champions League Final against Manchester United. But just as many of the Syrian populace seem unaware of the reprehensible actions of their Palestinian brethren in Munich in 1972, they are also, rather conveniently, apparently not informed of the successful Israeli counter-attack in the October War a year later.

Like many Arabs, my Syrian friend (who shall remain nameless for his own safety - discussing politics with foreigners can be a tricky occupation here) also holds forthright views on a number of truths, apparently self-evident to us in the West. The Israelis were behind September 11th - a cunning ruse to draw the Americans (and their humble servants in Britain) into a global war against Islam. This I've heard before of course, and while clearly absurd, it at least has the benefit of plausible motive, unlike the claim that the same Zionist government was also responsible for the assassinations of Princess Diana and Dodi al-Fayed. My source doesn't elaborate on the logic of this assertion; I can only speculate it's part of a fiendish plot concoted between the late Robert Maxwell and his comatose friend Ariel Sharon to boost the sales of the Daily Express, a publication which seemingly exists solely to print outlandish theories on the demise of "The People's Princess".

Encountering the products of brainwashing is a frustrating experience. It's virtually impossible to explain to someone that something they've heard a thousand times is patently false, or that some major event they're totally unaware of actually happened, particularly when that event might pose some uncomfortable questions about their worldview. Yet meeting the brainwashed can also be enlightening and thought-provoking. Who is brainwashing who? Who has been lied to and who knows the truth? Is it possible that I am the one who has been misled?

As I read Robert Fisk's epic history of the Middle East, The Great War For Civilisation, told through the quite staggering scope of his own experience as foreign correspondent in the region for The Times and The Independent, I am reminded of the extent to which we in the West are lied to just as much as - perhaps even more than - the Syrians whose naivete I gently mock here.

How many Americans still believe Saddam was behind the atrocities of September 11th? How many Brits still believe Libya was behind the Lockerbie bombing? How many remember the US Navy shooting down Iran Air flight 655, with the loss of all 290 passengers and crew, in July 1988? (An action Margaret Thatcher described, incidentally, as "totally understandable". She seemed less understanding five months later when the Iranians and the Palestinian Abu Nidal - not the Libyans by the way - returned the favour by blowing Pan Am flight 103 out of the sky over Scotland, with 270 deaths.)

Whose government speaks the truth and whose government tells lies?

How many in the West are aware of the "First Holocaust", the Turkish genocide of 1915-1920 in which 1.5 million Armenian Christians were systematically annihilated. A genocide which, incidentally, was keenly observed by the Turks' German allies (among them a young Rudolf Hoess, later Kommandant of Auschwitz) who learned such innovative techniques as the use of cattle trains and gas chambers from their Ottoman compatriots. Yet despite the parallels, indeed the direct causal linkages between the two genocides, denying the Jewish Holocaust is a crime, while denying the Armenian Holocaust is official government policy in many countries, including Britain.

Who is brainwashing who?

My young Syrian friend and I also debate the indiscriminate use of the word "terrorist" - irhabi in Arabic - and its slippery definition. It's a well-known truism that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter": such now-revered figures of the Twentieth Century as Nelson Mandela, Lech Walesa, and David Ben-Gurion were all "terrorists" at one time or another. Nevertheless, most in the West would baulk at ascribing the label of "freedom-fighter" to everyone's favourite Pakistani cave-dwelling bearded Saudi, yet here in the Middle East it's a sobriquet by which Osama bin Laden is widely-known, even by many liberal Muslims. What is the difference, they ask, between the Allied slaughter of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq and Al Qaeda attacks on Western cities?

The issue of "terrorist" versus "freedom fighter" was brought home to me with particular resonance this weekend, as I visited the picturesque Syrian town of Hama. In 1982 the peaceful sound of the gently spinning water wheels on the Orontes River was shattered when Syrian army and intelligence forces converged on the town to crush a putative uprising against then President Hafez al-Assad by the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Estimates of fatalities vary between 10,000 and 40,000; the centre of the town was razed to the ground by artillery fire and hundreds of political prisoners disappeared. Today the peace is restored and a pretty park and elegant new apartment blocks stand where once fire rained from the skies.

Hama is no stranger to violence. Its environs boast two of Syria's greatest tourist attractions, the last stronghold of the Crusaders at Crac de Chevaliers and the castle of the legendary Assassins, a mysterious Ishmaili Islamic sect famed for their unparalleled efficiency at executing the leaders of any enemy. (From their name, derived from the Arabic word for the marijuana they smoked in copious quantities, hashish, we get the English word "assassin".) These sights provide a picturesque reminder that the clash between East and West, Christianity and Islam, predates Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush by some thousand years. (The Saudi construction magnate might play up his similarities with Salah ad-Din; I can barely bring myself to mention Richard the Lionheart and George the Buffoon in the same sentence.) Yet the events of 9-11 colour our relationship with the Middle East, our relationship with Islam, perhaps even our relationship with truth itself, to an enormous extent.

In 1982 the West condemned the atrocities in Hama as gross breaches of human rights against a legitimate political opposition movement. Today the Muslim Brotherhood and many of its offshoots - among them Hamas, Jammat al-Islamiya, and various Mujahideen groups in Afghanistan - are proscribed in many Western and Western-allied Arab countries as dangerous extremists. Freedom fighters to terrorists in 20 years.

I'll let my anonymous Syrian friend have the last word, however. Totally unaware (of course) of the Hama massacre he brushed it off with the observation that:

"in Amreeka and Britaan there have two parties which both same, and many people not like. Thees is not democrace. In Syria we have real democrace. I love my President, I love my government, so do all Syrians. Thees is democracy."

Tony Blair and George Bush might well agree.

Golan: Forgotten Occupation

"Why?" I ask rhetorically. "Why did they do this?"

"Because they are Israel", my Secret Service guide answers with a wistful smile.

My Arabic is woeful, but it's a simple answer to a simple question, and I understand easily enough.

All around us lies the devastated remains of the once-thriving town of Quneitra. I have seen some ruins in my travels, a dizzying array already on this trip, yet nothing compares to what I see before me now. The eerie silence of the deserted streets, the twisted masses of concrete and metal, the glass and rock that lie scattered across the wasted earth; all have a visceral effect that grabs hold of your emotions and twists them from shock, revulsion and incomprehension into anger and hatred. This is what war looks like.

This reaction is by no means unusual, and by no means accidental. When Syria first reclaimed what remained of Quneitra in 1974, their outraged President Hafez al-Assad vowed to rebuild the town as a symbol of his country's stubborn refusal to yield to Israeli oppression. He changed his mind soon enough, reasoning that the pathetic ruins of a town of 40,000 people reduced to rubble would be much more effective as a monument to Zionist belligerence than as a sign of Syrian steadfastness. It was an astute decision.

Quneitra's pathetic ruins sit just a few hundred metres from the Israeli-Syrian border in the hotly-disputed Golan Heights an hour's travel southwest of Damascus. Actually the word "disputed" is somewhat inaccurate: only Israelis dispute the illegality of their occupation of Golan - even the UN Security Council, usually unduly lenient on Zionist misdemeanours as a result of the oft-used US veto, condemns Jerusalem's continued refusal to give back the territory seized in the June War of 1967. UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338 stipulate that Golan, the West Bank and Gaza, were illegally occupied by Israel, and must immediately be returned to their rightful owners, respectively Syria, Jordan and Egypt. Unlike UNSC Resolution 1441, however, which provided the justification for the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003, the international community has proved unwilling to enforce these resolutions: Israel retains ownership of all three areas to this day, claiming they are necessary to maintain her security.

Golan is at the heart of Syria's continued immense hostility towards Israel; the two countries remain technically at war and are likely to do so until Jerusalem returns all occupied Syrian territory. Yet beyond the relatively straightforward issue of territory, Quneitra is evidence of something more sinister. After an agreement to station UN peacekeepers in Golan, it was decided to give the town back to Syria in May 1974. Between that decision and the physical handover in June of the same year, the IDF totally destroyed the town in an act of singular barbarity. This gross breach of international law, human rights, and basic morality was roundly condemned by the international community; as usual, however, the widespread wailing and gnashing of teeth were not matched by actions.

As I stroll the devastated streets, pausing to photograph innumerable demolished houses, dynamited hospitals, and forcibly collapsed schools, mosques, churches, banks, restaurants and shops, it's the small details that hit me hardest. The Hebrew graffiti scrawled on walls by gleeful Israeli soldiers, apparently bearing such delightful sentiments as "you want Quneitra, rebuild it first", "there'll be another round, we'll finish you then". The pockmarked walls evidencing the use of the former hospital for target practise. The systematically-gutted Catholic Church, formerly dedicated to Saint Paul, whose conversion on the road to Damascus supposedly took place just outside Quneitra. A deflated football lying sadly in the rubble of a school.

On one of the few walls still standing, a crudely-daubed swastika bears evidence of the maelstrom of hatred the Israelis brought upon themselves with their senseless destruction here. As always, that symbol evokes thoughts of another era, another continent, and other appalling, incomprehensible, reprehensible atrocities. For once, however, the usual revulsion is dimmed by what I've seen this morning. Just as in Gaza and the West Bank, just as in Lebanon, Israel's actions here have more in common with the Nazis than they might care to admit.

As we pause to gaze over the barbed wire fence at the neatly manicured green fields of Israel, I feel real anger for what was done here, real sorrow for the innocent Syrians whose lives were destroyed.

Symbolically, I throw a stone over no man's land. My rather sinister Mukhabarat escort emits the kind of hysterical guffaw I suspect he usually reserves for torturing Zionist sympathisers. "Be careful. Israel fires missiles at people who throw stones."

Put Your Hands Up For...Damascus

5 minutes ago this was one of the worst clubs I'd ever been to. Not really surprising I guess, after all, I am in Damascus, and this is, after Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, the fourth holiest site in Islam, and we are currently half-way through the holiest month in the Muslim calendar.

Now, however, after an instant metamorphasis, it's one of the best nights I can remember, anywhere in the world. Gone are the cheesey europop classics, the kitsch disco lighting, and the bizarre ensemble dance routines of the locals (which resembled nothing so much as an odd Michael Flatley/Whirling Dervishes hybrid). Instead, dry ice swirls across the floor, bathed in a strangely cool green light, and the mixed crowd of hip young Syrians and Western Arabic students groove to the latest electronic dance "choons" imported from Europe. There's something very odd about throwing yourself around the dancefloor to a brilliant remix of Pink Floyd's "Brick In The Wall" while sipping a potent gin and tonic, surrounded by beautiful scantily-clad Syrian girls. "Are we really in Damascus?" seemed the most-uttered phrase of the night among the ajnabi (the Arabic equivalent of "gringo", "farang": "foreigner") crowd - at times it was hard to believe.

Four songs into the Ibiza-style electro-dance session, the music abruptly changes track again. Suddenly we're no longer in a Shoreditch warehouse, but are instead in a Walkabout full of snakebite-guzzling antipodeans in rugby shirts as the cheese returns with a vengeance: Men At Work's backpacker classic, "Land Down Under". The Syrians love it, as do the by-now totally bemused Westerners; everyone drinks and dances with complete, gleeful abandon. For a second I'm back at Crush, LSE's "famous" Friday night chaos, as the dj plays a succession of student anthems, culminating in the cult Latin classic, "Bomba", which I sing along to, as always, in complete ignorance of the Spanish lyrics. No-one seems to mind.

Again, after four songs the mood, music, and lighting changes abruptly: suddenly Arab pop predominates, Arabesque lighting illuminates the everpresent clouds of dry ice, and Bollywood-style synchronised dancing rears its ugly head once more. The songs are incredibly catchy even in spite of the almost totally-incomprehensible lyrics: aside from the ubiquitous "habibi" ("my baby, my love") I can't understand a word. For a few minutes at least we're reminded we're in the Middle East - though I suspect this is closer to most people's image of Dubai than Damascus.

In the West we tend to forget that a large minority of Arabs are actually Christian - in Syria it's somewhere in the region of 10% of the population - even among Muslims the British and American tabloid stereotypes of a monolythic mass of rabid religious zealots, frothing at the mouth as they scream "death to the West", are not so much an over-simplification as a total nonsense. While there are clearly a huge number of Syrians for whom a night of drinking and dancing in a club would be total anathema, there are many who couldn't live without it. Alongside the mosques and madrasas, Damascus has its share of ritzy restaurants, designer boutiques, and pretty young girls who'd no more wear a hijab or a burqa than something from GAP or H&M.

It's this contrast which I find so fascinating. As I stroll a little unsteadily homewards at 4.30am , a few blocks from the "Jetset Club" I sense the familiar scent of grilling meat and pitta bread: latenight kebab joints. Yet the shwarma and falafel stalls of Damascus are open not to satisfy the alcohol-inspired munchies of stumbling clubbers, but rather the early-morning hunger of the devout, who with the approaching first rays of sunlight will shortly commence the Ramadan fast.

A few minutes earlier the evening had culminated with a dance track familiar from countless east London clubs. As everyone sang along I realised the locals had changed the lyrics slightly, replacing the home of Motown with the home of the Umayyad Mosque: "put your hands up for Damascus... I love this city".

Quite.

Among The Bedu

The glowing embers of the fire illuminate the faces around the circle, and the charcoal scent of roasting meat wafts from the makeshift grill. Glass cups of sweet black shai glint in the flickering red-orange light as they're passed around, while overhead an astonishing canopy of stars dots the dark, moonless night sky with pinpricks of light drifting across the celestial wasteland of remote time and space. The wind blows gently across the silence of the desert, the only sounds the protesting grunts of the camels penned just behind us and the animated patter of rapid fire Arabic from my amiable Beduin companians.

Suddenly, as if by magic, there is the sound of loud music. The chords seem familiar, yet perhaps my mind is playing tricks on me? It couldn't be, surely? It is. A well-known husky voice growls the opening line, then another gravelly-sounding baritone interjects. Before Sting can add his guttural whine to Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart's wailing, a medley of heavily-accented cries rises from the manically-grinning Bedu as they sing along.

I'm in eastern Syria, sitting in the garden of a Beduin family with whom I'm spending the weekend. I came to visit the fabled Roman ruins of Palmyra; once, in another epoch, a hugely significant outpost on the Silk Road to the Orient, at its zenith ruled by the semi-mythical Queen Zenobia, purportedly a descendent of Cleopatra and Marc Anthony. The Zenobians, and the Romans, may have disappeared into the sands of the desert 18 centuries ago, leaving behind only dusty brown ruins, but not all the inhabitants of this area have been lost in the mists of time. The nomadic Bedu endure here, much as they have for countless millennia, eking a patchy living from the forbidding wastes of sand with camels and small flocks of livestock, wandering the desert with their black goat-hair tents, distinctive red and white checked keffiyehs, and legendary code of honour and hospitality.

Or so the story goes.

Few peoples have been as romanticised by Western travellers as the Bedu. Deified as timeless, immovable, immutable, much like the desert itself, the Bedu long ago ceased to be mere men in the eyes of awestruck orientalists. This race of supermen captivated desert explorers from the earliest days of Western encroachment in the orient. Revered by great men like Burton, Lawrence, and Thesiger for their apparently stubborn resistance to the influence of modernity and their refusal to alter their ancient way of life, these fairytale nomads perservere with their traditions of hospitality and welcome amid the inhospitable landscapes of the harshest, most unforgiving environment on earth.

I was introduced to Ahmed and his bewildering array of brothers, uncles, and cousins through a classmate in Damascus. Bedu hospitality being what it is, I was assured that "of course" there would be no problem in our showing up unannounced for a weekend. The welcome was predictably warm, the smiles sincere, and the tea predictably sweet. Yet far from anachronistic desert-dwellers, rejecting the advances of technology, "civilisation", and modernity, I found my expectations confounded by the often-confusing and contradictory reality of 21st century nomads. Camel-riding desert wanderers who use mobile phones and 4 wheel drives. Devout Muslims who worship Enrique Iglesias and Bryan Adams. Keffiyeh and jalabiyya-wearing fashion victims who argue vehemently over the relative merits of Giorgio Armani and Calvin Klein. Fiercely loyal traditionalists with a strong belief in the purity of their bloodlines who like nothing more than bedding Western tourists awestruck by the otherworldly beauty and exoticism of men who live in the desert.

Despite the late hour (it's well past 2am when we arrive), dinner is prepared and served with gusto. We sit cross-legged on the floor in the living room, a dizzying mosaic of carpets and rugs beneath us, low slung cushions at our backs. An ancient television in the corner shows reruns of what i take to be an Arabic version of Pop Idol. In the modern, globalised world, some things apparently cut across all cultural and linguistic boundaries: talentless masochistic wannabes lobotomised at birth included. The men, and they are all men, eat hungrily. Though it's late, or early, depending on your perspective, it will soon be dawn: the first rays of sunlight will bring the resumption of the Ramadan fast. The plates of humous, salad and chargrilled chicken are cleared away: we sleep where we eat.

Next morning Ahmed's designer jeans and t-shirt have been swapped for austere white robes and checked head-dress. The transformation is startling: suddenly he is no longer an urbane Westernised Syrian, but a desert-dwelling nomad. I fear my own borrowed keffiyeh effects less of a total metamorphasis on my appearance, though it does at least keep me cool as we ride camels to the nearby ruins. Palymra is certainly spectacular: in size, setting, and state of preservation it dwarfs anything in Turkey by a factor of at least ten. Yet given Syria's post 9-11 classification as a "rogue state" and "supporter of terrorism" by the West, the site is deserted. No tour buses or cruise ships here, al hamdu-li-Allah. Yet my hosts might disagree - the family business is tourism - as well as leading trips to the ruins and longer excursions into the desert, Ahmed owns a hotel in the nearby town of Tadmor. Other Bedu families earn a living (or not) in similar fashion: as a result of the slack market numerous camel-drovers and souvenir keffiyeh salesmen loiter languidly in the shade of Palmyra's ancient stones, scarcely a customer in sight.

Despite the tough times, Ahmed blanches at the suggestion of payment for our stay. As friends of a friend, Mauro and I are entitled to the full gamut of Bedu hospitality. Although their way of life is changing rapidly, some things remain the same. The Bedu will adapt their customs, just as they always have (contrary to popular belief, camels were a relatively recent addition to the nomads' arsenal of defences against the ravages of the desert), but Inshaallah their traditions of generosity and kindness to strangers will endure.

As I write this in a Damascus internet cafe, a familiar song plays on the radio. Bryan, Rod, and Sting croon the theme tune to The Three Musketeers. It occurs to me this makes a fitting motif for the Bedu and their ancient code of hospitality: "one for all and all for one." I prefer "Summer of 69" myself, but anyway...

Feast, Famine, and Men Who Hold Hands

As the sun slips behind the dusty brown mountains to the West, Damascus is bathed in a beautiful golden light. As the muezzins tune up for their hauntingly beautiful renditions of the call to evening prayer, the usual noise of rush hour traffic falls eerily silent as this bustling city of five million people quickly becomes a ghost town. As the dusk twilight fades into darkness, shutters come down and the last few stragglers hurry home, leaving the Syrian capital devoid of any outward signs of life. Yet behind the closed doors of countless houses, apartments and mosques in this, the fourth holiest site in Islam, friends and family sit down to celebrate.

For this is the holy month of Ramadan, a time of introspection, observance, and self-denial. All across the Islamic world the faithful eschew the pleasures of the flesh: eating, drinking, smoking, and sex, fasting during daylight hours and feasting in darkness. For one month of the year, Muslims remind themselves of their devotion to Allah, studying the Qu'ran, praying more often and with more focus than usual, and strengthening their communal ties by sharing the hardships of the holy month. Come sunset, hungry eyes turn to the home, where the traditional meal of Iftar ("breakfast") is served.

The feast begins with a bowl of dates, passed from (right) hand to (right) hand, and copious cups of "shai", the ubiquitous sweet black tea on which the Arab world appears to run. (My dentist should be in for a bumper payday come January) My own flat's Iftar has a particularly African feel: my landlord Djbril hails from Chad, and as far as I can tell runs an open house for every Chadian in the Levant. The boundless hospitality and generosity of the Chadians ensures I am invited to join their Iftar, despite my less than monastic adherence to the rigours of Ramadan. Although I am not, nor ever will be, a Muslim, I began the month with the noblest intentions - "when in Rome" and all. Yet ideals of cultural assimilation tend to fall by the wayside when the mercury is pushing 40 degrees Centigrade and you're struggling with the peculiarities of a language whose speech patterns often resemble the last desperate breaths of a strangled kitten and whose written form neglects to mark any vowels. Not eating is one thing, but not drinking is simply impossible. Still, while I may not share the parched throats of my fellow diners, I'm certainly hungry.

After the dates, we settle down to a huge feast of chicken, rice, potatoes, salad, and bread. Simple, yet delicious, African food served with a hearty helping of laughter, affection, and community spirit. While I can barely understand 5% of the rapid-fire Chadian "9aamiya" - dialect- in which Djbril and his compatriots usually communicate, when I understand the odd word they're kind enough to slip into "foussa" - the Modern Standard Arabic with which I'm struggling - for my benefit. Conversation quickly turns to politics and history; like almost all the Arabs I've ever met the Chadians' grasp of world affairs is simply mind-boggling. These are by no means educated people, yet as well as the obvious topics of Palestine and Iraq, beloved of all Arabs, they talk about such diverse and esoteric subjects as the American political system, the IRA (it took a while to work out, but "Adam Gerry" is their endearingly erroneous rendering of the bearded Sinn Fein leader's name) and demand to know if I am named after James I of England/James VI of Scotland, James Bond, or former American Secretary of State James Baker. The depth and breadth of their knowledge is staggering; even more appealing to me is their apparent inability to take any of these weighty matters seriously. As a Brit I'm gently taunted about the occupation of Iraq; one of my tormentors points out the sad state in which the British Empire finds itself in 2007, reduced to the Falkland Islands and Basra Airport.

After dinner we drink yet more tooth-rotting tea and retire to watch television: a four part dramatisation of the overthrow of Egypt's King Farouq by General Nasser in 1952. This provokes jokes about Britain's very own Egyptian would-be usurper, Mohammed al Fayad, and his son's near miss with the throne. Like many a Daily Express reader, the Chadians are in no doubt that Dodi and "Dina" were killed by the all-powerful British secret service. The question of quite where the omniscient and omnipotent SIS' powers went when it came to finding WMDs in Iraq is politely ignored.

The Chadians are typically Arab in many ways. This is a masculine society, where intimate physical contact between members of the same sex is totally normal. As in innumerable cities across the Arab and Muslim world, it's perfectly normal for men to hold hands in the street, to kiss each other's cheeks in greeting, and to share personal space in a way unthinkable in the West. Although I won't be attempting to verify this assertion myself, I imagine that in some ways life for homosexuals here must be much easier than in the West, despite Islam's virulent hatred of gays. (Interestingly there is apparently no non-pejorative term for "homosexual" in the Arabic language: "deviant" is about the least offensive word). Is it a coincidence that many of the greatest Western "Arabists" - Lawrence and Thesiger, to name but two - were perpetual residents of the closet?

Regardless of the inherently homoerotic nature of much of Islamic and Arab culture, life for heterosexuals here is certainly difficult. The schizophrenic attitude to procreation is perhaps best evidenced by the numerous Arabic equivalents of MTV. Pop music is ubiquitous here, most of it emanating from Lebanon and Egypt. While the music is mostly appalling, the videos are quite incredible. Impossibly good-looking young women cavort onscreen in outfits that would make even Britney, Christina, or Shakira blush, thrusting their crotches in a most provocative manner and titillating the viewers with lingering closeups of cavernous cleavage and tanned thighs. It's enough to send even hardened (pardon the pun) Westerners running for a cold shower; Allah only knows what it does to frustrated young Arabs.

Yet in amongst the nubile nymphets and their soft porn shoots are pop videos aimed at a wholly different audience. Saudi artists, all male, croon saccharine ballads with lyrics like (forgive my woeful Arabic here) "I love God, God is my love, my life is all for God". Meanwhile, their faith in Allah and their submission to the dictates of the supposedly austere Wahabist Islamic creed of their homeland are rewarded onscreen with shiny watches, gleaming droptop Mercedes, and of course a couple of "pimping hoes". Unlike Fifty Cent or P Diddy, however, the Saudi stars' bitches are covered from head to toe, and sport wedding rings. All three of them. The message is clear: love God and a harem of devoted (though virginal) women will be yours. Inshallah you'll get a German sports car to drive them around in too.

As the shahada rings out across the now darkened city, a couple of middle aged men hurry past me, arms linked gaily. On the other side of the street, a young man and his stylishly dressed girlfriend walk side by side, a couple of feet apart. And in houses across the country, across the region, across the world, self-starved Muslims desperately gorge themselves in a feast of gluttony before tomorrow's resumption of the fasting, praying, and abstention of the holy month. Allah-uh akbar!

Syria: Souqs and Surprises

It's said that of all the senses, smell is most closely linked to memory. Certainly the odour of the souq is unforgettable: a heady cocktail of charcoal smoke and exhaust fumes, grilled meat, blood, raw fish, sweat, the perfumed aromas of cardamom, coriander and cinammon, mint, coffee, tea, and apple tobacco, baklava, leather. Yet all the senses are overwhelmed by the onslaught of the bazaar. The clamourous noise of feet on cobbled stones, vendors calling out their wares to the masses: "yallah yallah yallah", engines and horns advertising the improbable progress of cars and vans through the slender passageways of the market, the racket as tea sellers clash their pots and pans like cimbals, the Arabic pop music that blares from innumerable tinny stereo speakers, the hammering of cobblers, sparks flying from their stone wheels. Charcoal smoke drifts across the narrow cobbled alleyway from the kebab stalls on either side, dappling the late afternoon sunlight as it seeps in through the leaking roof, illuminating the colours of cloth, spices, fruits in a beautiful orange glow.

All manner of humanity mingles together in the teeming crowds: Iraqi refugees, the women in their conservative black chadors and the men in their white robes and distinctive red and white keffiyehs, fashionably dressed Syrian teenagers, an occasional Western tourist, small boys in European football shirts boasting the names of all the usual suspects: Beckham, Zidane, Ronaldo (x2), and a few more prosaic ones besides: Mido, Haji, and the various stars of the recent Asian Cup-winning Iraqi side.

If Istanbul's famed Grand Bazaar was something of a disappointment, a Disneyfied, Westernised perversion of the Oriental souq of romantic myth and legend, Aleppo's vast medieval marketplace lives up to every expectation. Stepping through the ancient wooden gate from Bab Antakya street is like taking a time machine back to the 15th Century. While outside is a congested, polluted, 21st century city, in here the only concessions to the modern world are the babbled conversations into mobile phones and the occasional transit van struggling through the throngs of shoppers. In many other respects little has changed here since the Ottomans held sway over this western outpost of the Silk Road. Aleppo vies with its more famous neighbour to the south, Damascus, for the title of 'oldest city in Syria'; both compete with Jericho, just across the Green Line in the Occupied West Bank, for the honour of being the world's oldest metropolis. Wandering the glorious covered souqs, it's not hard to believe the claims of "Haleb", as it's known to locals, to be the oldest surviving outpost of human civilisation.

Yet it would do Syria's second city, and the country as a whole, a grave disservice to dwell too much on ancient history. Much to the surprise of many I suppose, I can confirm that Syria is a booming modern nation far removed from the nightmarish Islamist stereotypes of Western governments and media. Rather than the monolithic mass of Muslim extremists, baying for Western blood, religion (and politics) seem as nuanced here as in the West. Different sects, interpretations, and branches of Islam provide a huge diversity of appearance, behaviour, and belief. Somewhat surprisingly off-licences and bars aboundhere, as do scantily clad teenage girls, for many there seems no contradiction in wearing tight jeans, plunging necklines and layers of makeup with a (jauntily-angled of course) Islamic headscarf. Mobile phones, and irritating ringtones, are as ubiquitous here as anywhere else, while camera phones enable every moment, no matter how banal, to be preserved for posterity.

But old habits die hard. The famous Arab hospitality survives here as well as anywhere. If I had a pound, even a worthless Syrian pound, for every time I'd heard "Ahlan wa Sahlan" ("hello and welcome") since I arrived here, I'd be a rich man. It's a tough call, but I think Syrians might be even friendlier than Egyptians. There's certainly no hint of hostility towards Westerners here, not that I expected there would be, but I'm sure some did. I've had my picture taken with three or four random locals, had dozens of conversations in halting English, French, and Arabic with passing Syrians, and even chatted with a couple of delightful Muslim girls, students at Aleppo University, who despite wearing the hijab, seemed totally oblivious to any perceived negative implications of flirting with strange Western men like myself. I even had a brief exchange with a charming Iraqi gentleman, one of the 2 million refugees who have swelled Syria's population by more than 10% since the disastrous "liberation" of their homeland in 2003. Admirably Mahmoud bore no discernible malice to me personally, realising, like most in this part of the world, the difference between individuals and governments.

The friendliness, tolerance, and hospitality of the Syrian people is staggering, especially when compared to the negative stereotypes propogated so often in the West. This is a modern, economically developed, surprisingly liberal country, And yet, for all its modern accoutrements, the hospitality and generosity speak of an older, more gentle age, while the physical reminders of the past are all around; nowhere more so than in the incredible souq. Turkey is well-known for its east-west, ancient-modern, secular-Islamic contradictions, perhaps Syria should be too?

Be Careful What You Wish For

It's 5am. I sit in a dingy smoke-filled room with fake wood panels on the walls, drinking my thirty-fourth cup of tea of the evening. It seems my fervent prayers to the travel gods have been answered, and I will after all get to see the real Turkey, away from the tourist hordes. I'm in a motorway service station somewhere between Antioch and Alexandretta, waiting for a bus. Glamourous though it may sound, those two cities stopped being interesting around the seventh century AD; regardless of which, I'm not sure this tea and kebab joint by a highway was ever really a highlight of the country even in Seljuk or Mamluk times. No-one here speaks English, I've asked three people to point out our location on the map of Turkey in my Lonely Planet "Middle East" and got three totally different answers, and I can't quite shake the feeling I've been abandoned to my fate by the Sula Bus Company. Still, looking on the bright side, at least there are no tourists here...

To pass the time I read. As I turn the pages of Alexander Maitland's compelling biography of the late Wilfred Thesiger, the legendary British explorer as famed for his total rejection of modern Western civilisation as for his incredible desert traverses in Sudan, Ethiopia, Libya and Saudi Arabia, I wonder what the likes of Thesiger would make of my predicament. Not a great deal probably; when you're the first man to traverse the impassable "Empty Quarter" of southern Arabia, you've lived with the Marsh Arabs in southern Iraq for seven years, and you count the Abbysinian Emperor the Ras Tefari Haile Selassi as a close personal friend, you probably don't regard Turkish truck stops as much of an adventure. Nevertheless, after a couple of weeks spent hanging out with people whose idea of "exploring" is finding a Starbucks in Istanbul, I feel suitably off the beaten track. Particularly because as time passes it seems more and more likely that I'll be seeing out the rest of my days here at this Anatolian version of a Happy Eater.

I console myself with the fact that given twenty years of sitting here I should at least have grasped the rudiments of basic Turkish. Until this morning I was rather proud of the fifty or so words (twenty of which are the numbers 1-20 I must admit) of Turkish I'd picked up; the ability to order a beer, some hummous, and a chicken shish kebab, and ask the price all earned me much appreciated kudos from the locals - on one occasion, at Ephesus I chuckled smugly to myself as a barechested Brit with a Cockney accent and a Manchester City tattoo on his left bicep (glory supporter?) paid 4 euros for the same glass of orange juice I'd just picked up for 2 lira using my amazing new Turkish skills. Now, however, as I attempt to enunciate such complex phrases as "no I don't want more sodding tea, where the fuck is the bus?", I realise the limit of my capabilities in this particular tongue was reached just after I learned "thank you" ("teshekur ederrim" if you wanted to know).

Eventually, after a couple of years, the relevant bus arrived, and I was charged a further twenty lira for the privilege of a seat, thus leaving me with the princely sum of six Turkish lira to my name. "Still", I thought, "there's bound to be a cash machine at the bus station in Antioch". After around five hours of travelling through scenery that alternated between the spectacular vistas of mountains, plains, and Mediterranean in the countryside, and the slightly less spectacular industrial dystopias of steelworks and gas refineries that dot the towns along Turkey's southeastern coast, we finally arrived at the desolate and remote Antakya Otogar: situated, of course, a good few miles from anywhere, and notable for the singular absence of any holes in the wall from which to remove hard currency. Once again I faced the less than ideal prospect of taking up permanent residency in a remote Turkish bus station.

On this occasion, however, I had not taken into consideration the legendary hospitality of the Arabs (for the cynics out there, no, that doesn't involve orange jumpsuits, beheadings, and YouTube). For the bus company was Syrian, the passengers were all Syrian, and as a guest in their country (well, nearly), they were obligated to look after me. Code of the desert you see: one day they may be passing my, er, tent, and be in desperate need of hospitality. Most of the Arabs may not live in the desert any longer, but the old ways live on. "Only six lira, no problem! Welcome to Syria! Have a chocolate chip cookie." "Mmm...don't mind if I do. Shukran". It will doubtless surprise many of you to learn this, but because of Islam's roots in the Arabian desert, such hospitality is customary not just in Arab states, but across the Muslim world (though some of the Iraqis might admittedly have let standards slip a little lately). In Rory Stewart's "The Places In Between", the former British diplomat's incredible tale of his walk from Tehran to Kathmandu in 2002, the Afghan mujehideen's desperate desire to kill an infidel Westerner (and what's more, a Brit) in their midst is tempered by Stewart's status as a visitor in their lands. Instead of chopping his head off they kill the fatted goat and let him sleep in their front rooms. I'm not recommending you try this at home or anything, but...

Anyway, after a very pleasant sojourn through the formalities at the Turkish-Syrian border, I arrived in Aleppo. Syrian immigration is quite something: polite and friendly guards sit beneath posters in a multitude of languages advising guests to report any "troublesome behaviour" from Immigration officials to their supervisor; furthermore "if this does not resolve you issue, please call Minister of Interior, phone number 337676". No, I haven't tried it yet, before you ask. You're welcome to give him a call though. Next to each of these posters, indeed all over Syria from what I can see, stands the image of a shy-looking man, seemingly much more suited to the life of a provincial optician than military dictator of one of the founder members of the infamous "Axis of Evil". This is, of course, President Bashar al-Asad, Syria's number one opthalmic surgeon, and also lifetime ruler. At least I know where to go if my contact lenses start playing up in Damascus then. As a fellow University of London alumnus I'm sure old Bashar would love to hear from me. We could compare notes on Crush and Cocktails, and bemoan the expense of being a student in London. No?

Well, bus adventure aside, I certainly feel I'm off the tourist trail here in Aleppo. Crossing the border from Turkey was like crossing into a different world. Arab and Muslim dress abound here, everything closes early today, the Sabbath, and people in the street address me in Arabic, not cliched English of the "lubbly jubbly, good price for you friend" variety. Syria's second city is everything I hoped it would be: the great souk is like every fairytale of the Orient come true at once, the Christian Quarter is an openair archaeology museum, and the locals couldn't be friendlier. I even saw my first roadsign for Baghdad earlier, as if to emphasise the fact that this is the real Middle East. Still, I think I'll stick with Syria - I hear Iraq is overrun with British and American visitors these days, and something tells me the locals are a little more welcoming here.

Ancient Cities of Anatolia

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

With these words Percy Shelley famously damned the legendary Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II and his vainglorious dreams of immortality through architectural achievement. As I wander the ruins of Troy, Pergamum, Ephesus, Hierapolis, and Aphrodisias, and survey what little remains of some of the greatest civilisations in human history, I am constantly reminded of Shelley's biting irony. As I stroll between the piles of rubble, decapitated statues, and precarious-looking columns that represent the only physical legacy of the great empires of antiquity, it's difficult not to wonder what will remain of modern Western civilisation 2,000 years from now. In future millennia will people stroll down Picadilly or Fifth Avenue and gaze upon a few tangled metal girders, some piles of broken glass, and fragments of a green and white coffee mug and ponder about their by now semi-mythical forebears and their worship of the great god Starbuck?

Ancient cities always fascinate me, not just for their aesthetic beauty and historical resonnance, but also because I can't help but be amused by the often ludicrous assumptions presented as fact by archaeologists. Just as their colleagues in paleontology blithely assure us that from the four fragments of leg bone they have found they are certain Tyrannosaurus rex was olive green, could run at 28.72mph, and generally liked to eat rare roast pheasant accompanied by a starter of quail's eggs, so too do archaeologists offer ridiculously unprovable claims about the everyday lives of our ancient ancestors. For this reason, I tend to prefer visiting archaeological sites alone rather than with a guide, thus allowing me to silently admire the spectacle, be awestruck by the unanswerable questions, and generally take in the very special ambience of ancient places, without some well-intentioned halfwit blathering on about the imagined culinary preferences of Roman/Greek/Inca peasants. At a couple of sites here ın Turkey I have been able to indulge my no doubt idiosyncratic tendencies and wander unmolested through ruins of staggering scale and resonance. The spectacular location of Pergamum in particular, sitting high on an exposed peak with staggering views over the windswept plains below, will live with me forever.

Quite why this particular gem is not overrun with busloads of tourists I'm not sure; I'm certainly not complaining, however. One site which is rather 'blessed' with a bounty of visitors is Ephesus, arguably the most famous of Turkey's archaeological treasures, and generally regarded by most authorities on the matter (though not by me I might add) as the most spectacular. By happy coincidence, Ephesus is located just a short hop from the major port and tourist resort of Kusadasi, thus allowing all manner of cruise ship passengers to disembark and venture inland. While the ruins are admittedly quite spectacular, for me the real spectacle was the other visitors. (Particularly once I learned that by far the most notable part of the complex, the Library of Celsus, was actually rebuilt from bare rubble by a team of German archaeologists in the 1970s. This revelation, while disappointing, did at least clear up the nagging doubt ın my mind as to where the Romans had sourced their concrete in 200AD.)

Confusing my ancient history just for a second, Ephesus today is a veritable Tower of Babel, with every language under the sun audible on a casual saunter around the mammoth site. Each linguistic grouping, each nationality, seems to bring its own idiosyncracies to the party. It gives me no great shame to admit the Brits are among the most heinous of the visitors, dressed uniformly in badly fitting beach attire, with a skin colour that closely resembles either freshly driven snow or a recent victim of napalm and a physique that recalls nothing so much as a hippo wallowing on the banks of the Limpopo. Yet the Brits are far from alone. The Americans wander around gaily in their knee length white socks and khaki shorts, pointing at things and loudly saying "aww gee" and "shucks"' while quietly wheezing as their aged respiratory systems prepare to give out. Indeed, most of the American tourists I've seen in Turkey appear so ancient that one might reasonably assume they're returning to visit old haunts, rather than touring the remnants of long-gone ancient civilisations. One particular specimen I witnessed staggering down a once-colonnaded Roman street, portable dialysis machine/colon/heart trailing in his wake might perhaps better have stayed at home. Then there are the parasol-toting Asians, some of whom wear something highly akin to a Nuclear Biological and Chemical warfare suit in a desperate attempt to prevent their skin colour lightening even a shade darker than ice. I could go on: the fat middle aged Russians and their whores, the totally obnoxious French, superior and condescending despite their inherent ugliness and lack of style, or the Italians chattering excitedly on their mobiles while their guide drones manfully on in the background; but I won't.

Why is it that tourists always revert to being tired cliches of their nationality? Actually, I don't care. All that matters is that Turkey, or at least the Aegean coast and Cappadocia, is full of tourists. While the language barrier clearly doesn't help, I feel the overwhelming presence of fellow tourists and the near impossibility of seeing any of the sites without using a tour guide leaves me totally incapable of making any kind of connection with the Turkish people or of understanding the country at all. Every interaction I have is purely on the basis of tourist-native. Of course this is always the case to some degree, though less so when language is less of an issue, and especially when there aren't so many fellow tourists. In this respect it's probably a good thing that I finish this post to board an overnight bus bound for Aleppo, Syria's second city, and supposedly the most conservative place in the country, complete with what is reputedly the greatest medieval souk in the whole region.

Turkey has been great, but the Middle East starts now. Er, that is unless the Israeli Defence Force crosses the border before I do:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6981674.stm