Lebanon – home to Prada and Palestinians

A short 3 hour taxi ride (including border crossing) took us from Damascus to Beirut, ‘Paris of the East’.  Besides the 10 degree temperature drop from a scorching 40C to 30C, Eug was ecstatic to see girls wearing tank tops, shorts, and skirts again… something he hasn’t seen since Istanbul.  Even I caught myself staring at some girls.  We were too accustomed to seeing women in burkas everywhere that it was almost strange to be able to see girls from head to toe again.  For the first 3 nights we stayed in the Hamra area close to the American University of Beirut.  We heard English being spoken in every corner of the streets.  We also found the comfort of Starbucks once again.  And as good as middle eastern cuisine is, we couldn’t take anymore hummus or shawarmas after 3 months of them, so we headed straight for some wholesome western food.  A hamburger and Lipton ice tea never tasted so damn good!  We were both excited and relieved to find the long lost western refuge again and decided to slow down and nestle in its welcoming familiarity.

 After Eug recovered from Damascus belly, we did our usual routine of finding the hostels listed in Lonely Planet to look for the tours we wanted but weren’t able to do on our own.  They usually offer the same tours as the nicer hotels but at a much more reasonable rate.  And we could usually recruit interesting, independent travellers to join us to share the fun and the cost.  It’s been working out great so far.  We ended up renting a Honda Odyssey van for 2 days with 4 other travellers; two of which we’ve been running into almost daily since Turkey (so it was no surprise to see them again in this hostel), 1 girl from Germany, and 1 guy from Uzbekistan.  Yes, Uzbekistan!

The first day we explored the eastern part of Lebanon, Baalbek and Aanjar.  The impressive Baalbek ruins were known as the Heliopolis or ‘Sun City’ of the ancient world.  There were a few spectacular temples, a theatre, and 6 huge standing columns.  What we also found interesting was that the town of Baalbek is the administrative headquarters for the Hezbollah (Party of God) party and we could see the yellow and green Hezbollah flags fluttering along the main street of the city.  Outside the ruins people were trying to sell us Hezbollah souvenir T-shirts.  Eug double-dared me to buy one to wear for when we crossed into Israel.  We didn’t find Aanjar’s 1300 year-old Umayyad City to be extraordinary but we had a great time chatting with our fellow travel mates while strolling along the site.  And some local visitors picked some fresh mulberries right off the trees and shared some with us.  We also visited the stunning Jeita Grotto, a huge limestone cave (the biggest I’ve ever seen) full of stalactites and stalagmites.  Just imagine a cave full of icicle-like rocks that might just fall down and jab a hole in your skull, and big rock tubes that look like white half-melted candles all morphed together (like the ones you see in Subeez cafe).  We walked through the upper cave and took a boat ride in the lower cave.  It was like an awesome Disneyland ride!  It was hard to imagine that the cave was used as ammunition storage during the civil war.

The next day we headed north towards Byblos (Jbail), Tripoli, Bcharre, and Qadisha Valley.  The Qadisha valley (picture above) was particularly stunning, as it is extremely steep and deep.  The other Canadian girl in our van was gripping the seat handles in fear the whole way up.  On either side there are many towns, predominantly Christian with cave chapels and churches all around.  Above the town of Bcharre is the Cedars, a ski resort in the winter with an ancient grove of the cedar trees.  The cedar tree has been synonymous with Lebanon forever and is the centrepiece of their flag, like our maple leaf.  We chilled in Beirut for the last few days in Lebanon.  There are nice high end malls with LV, Prada, and Jimmy Choo, etc. stores, tall modern glass buildings, a Parisian like boardwalk, and bubbling-hot nightlife.  It’s not uncommon to see a new Mercedes or Porsche driving by you.  However don’t let this fool you into thinking Beirut is a rich happy oasis in the Middle East, as a 20 minute drive from the city centre will take you into areas riddled with poverty.  In the midst of all the modern glitz and glamour of downtown stands the remains of the infamous deserted Holiday Inn Hotel.  During the civil war that started in 1975, snipers would shoot from it as it was the tallest building around, and the returning gunfire has left the scars that remain to this day.  Now it’s just a skeleton of a building, a gloomy reminder of this cities’ recent past.

Lebanon is an extremely interesting place and no matter what you read in books or papers you really need to be here to experience it.  You’ll get many who are extremely proud of this small country, and yet there are others who seem to want to identify a lot more with the West than Lebanon.  All around you’ll hear Lebanese speaking English with a heavy Arabic accent to each other.  A waiter (educated in the States but back for the summer) at a really nice restaurant confirmed that this was his greatest annoyance, people speaking to their friends and the service staff in mediocre English instead of their native Arabic tongue, even when he would respond in Arabic.  In the mountains you’ll see stunning Christian towns that look untouched by war, and yet in a town like Baalbek you’ll see mosques, Hezbollah flags and pictures of Ayatollah Kohmeini.  In downtown Beirut you’ll see signs marketing new steel and glass high-rise developments saying Beirut is the new “it” destination, yet you venture south and you’ll find poverty stricken Palestinian refugee camps whose inhabitants care a lot more about their next meal than if Lebanon is considered cool on the world wide stage.  Overshadowing all this contradiction is a sense of fear that war could easily return.  It was only 2005 when former Prime Minister Hariri was killed in a car bomb.  This led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops, troops which had been occupying Lebanon for 30 years.  It was only 2006 when Hezbollah killed and kidnapped 10 Israeli soldiers, with the resulting Israeli military response leaving over 1000 Lebanese civilians dead.  Peace will be hard to find as long as Hezbollah (who has strong ties to Syria and Iran) wants the destruction of Israel, and Israel has the military might to inflict seriously tragic damage.  Beirut is hoping economic growth and stability will unite people and pave the way to political reform.  Unfortunately Lebanon cannot just count on itself to bring peace, as all the other players in Middle Eastern politics also have a part.  Even with all the hope in the minds and attitudes of the people and government, you can feel that everything is currently resting on a delicate equilibrium, an equilibrium that could easily be upset.