An American traveler spends three weeks in Egypt, Lebanon and Syria. Reporting and photography by Daniel Chamberlin. From the Dec/Jan 2006 issue of Arthur



In Parts 1 and 2 of “Dr. Moustache and the Egyptian Gentleman” (presented in the previous issue of Arthur), a dispirited Daniel Chamberlin left his Los Angeles home for a three-week July-August tour through the Middle East at the invitation of his brother Paul, a graduate student spending the summer at the American University in Cairo as part of his study of US-Arab diplomatic relations. Ignoring warnings from family, concerned friends and the American government, our man Dan and his brother made their way from Cairo's markets and funereal tomb-squatter communities to the liberal-minded party scenes of Beirut and the Hezbollah gift shops of "Liberated South Lebanon." They are joined by Paul's friend Blake, a political writer in his mid-20s who has recently expatriated to Cairo. We join them as their travels take them into the friendly, cosmopolitan Baathist police state of Syria...



Part III: Syria
The journey to Syria from Lebanon begins with a hijacking.

Paul and I order a taxi from a service that my friend Kate, a Beirut-based freelance reporter and producer for PBS' Frontline, said may be helpful at negotiating our passage into Syria with the border guards. After a few minutes of the taxi drive—I’m just settling in, taking in the sights—our driver suddenly stops the car under a freeway underpass, where some Lebanese fatsos are chilling. In broken English he lets us know that these guys in their sweaty Chevy sedans will be taking us on the hour trip to Syria. For more money, of course. Our guy had hoodwinked us: he was not really part of the service that he had said he was when he picked us up at the hotel.

In the yelling that ensues I am useless. The only Arabic I know that conveys my frustration is muhahafa, or car bomb, so I end up saying variations of "bad, not what I want!" Paul knows a few heavy curses like "May god destroy your home in a wave of hellfire,” but you never know when something that sounds funny in translation might come across as a bona fide threat, and it wasn't so long ago that Westerners were regularly kidnapped here in Beirut, so we yell our "no good!" phrases for another round and then pay the guy.

The ride to the border is uneventful, which gives me plenty of time to worry. Tensions between Syria and Lebanon have been high since the assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister Rafik Hariri, an outspoken opponent of Syrian influence in Lebanese politics, in February. There have been widespread allegations of Syrian involvement in his death, which of course Syria denies. Also, we've received conflicting information about getting Syrian visas. The Lonely Planet guidebook and some of Paul's contacts say there's no way for Americans to get visas at the border. But Kate travels across the border all the time, and she says that since Syria still considers Lebanon to be part of its territory, we should be able to pass through with relative ease—as long as I don’t indicate that I’m a journalist on my entry card. Syria is an authoritarian police state with strict media controls and if I let on that I'm writing about my experiences it's possible that I'll be delayed or assigned a minder. So starting today I'm a high school English teacher. I come up with a list of authors to talk about if somebody decides to quiz me.

It turns out that Kate was right. As I shift fitfully under fluorescent lights in the hot, dirty border security station, the guards stamp our passports and ask us for the Syrian equivalent of $15. Nobody asks me to expound on Ernest Hemingway.

The actual border security checkpoint is a real mess. The line of commercial semis, cargo vehicles and taxis stretches back for miles. Pomegranate juice vendors with giant silver canteens work the crowd. Our driver is getting fed up waiting and gestures for us to walk with him through the cars to the actual border checkpoint. We wonder if maybe he "knows a guy" or something. He presents us to the Syrian border guards and then says to Paul, in Arabic, "Talk to him." It becomes clear that our driver wants us to negotiate with this Syrian soldier for permission to walk through the checkpoint and hail another cab on the other side. We're of the same mind with the soldier: No thanks. The idea of trying to hail a cab and negotiate another fare in the no-man's land between these two countries is not an attractive option. After another hour we make it through the crossing. We descend from the Anti-Lebanon mountain range onto the plain below where Syria's capital Damascus sits beneath clear blue skies.

Damascus is full of Asads. The cult of the leader is in full effect here. There were a lot of pictures of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, but it's nothing compared to Syria.

The rule of Hafez Asad, which ended with his death in 2000, is synonymous with Syria's stability and domestic safety, and its sense of itself as a defender and champion of pan-Arabism. Asad’s reign was also characterized by massacres, censorship, repression of dissent by the secret police and state control of the media. Asad was a Baathist, as was Iraq's Saddam Hussein, but he was neither as decadent nor as brutal a leader. He was also an Alawite—a member of an Islamic minority often viewed with suspicion by both Sunni and Shiite Muslims. His rule was generally secular and socialist and although he expanded the civil rights of oft-persecuted Syrian Jews, he also remained staunchly anti-Zionist: Syrian forces played a considerable role in both the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli wars which, curiously, Syria seems to believe they won. In the photos that sit in shop windows Asad is a genteel, gray-haired old man; in the poster-size portraits atop buildings and overlooking intersections, he’s a crafty deal-maker with kind eyes.

Upon Asad's death in 2000, his 34-year-old son Bashir inherited the presidency. This was not the way it was supposed to happen. Bashir’s older brother Basil was being groomed as Syria's next dictator, but he died in an automobile accident in 1994. There are pictures of Basil everywhere. You gotta admit he looks right for the job, in combat fatigues with a Pete Townshend beard underneath his aviators. It's easy to imagine a nationalist fantasy of this bearish soldier-president leading tank divisions to recapture the Golan Heights area lost to Israel in 1967.

But Bashir? This Arab dictator is a would-be ophthalmologist who returned home from school in London to take over the family business when his brother died. Even in the propaganda images meant to bolster confidence in his regime, he looks every bit the pensive nerd: a sad, chinless fellow in a drab suit who would rather be outfitting patients with contacts than negotiating mutual protection agreements with Iranian ayatollahs. His pictures are as common as his father's, and you get the sense people are pulling for the guy. One image has his melancholy face surrounded by purple hearts. There are even sparkly red Bashir decals that people stick to the windows of their cars.

--
Damascus seems mellow, and not at all European like Beirut. The cabs in Damascus are all new and yellow and while the traffic is still chaotic, it's not nearly as deadly as Cairo. Even the cab drivers agree. When we tell them that we've just been in Egypt, their eyes get wide and they make jokes about hash-crazed Egyptian cabbies. They poke fun at Paul for speaking Arabic with an Egyptian accent.

The Damascus souk is closed on Friday when we first walk through, Friday being equivalent to Sunday in Christian cultures. It's a beautiful old market that blends in with the residential portion of Damascus's Old City, which is possibly the oldest continually inhabited human settlement in the world. We pass by Roman columns and huge fortified doorways in the former city walls. The souk is covered as well, which means it's a welcome refuge from the heat of the day. There are bullet holes in the arched metal roof, apparently from French airplanes suppressing an anti-colonial uprising in the 1920s. The light that pierces through from above makes lovely patterns on the pavement.

We spend the day eating fattouch salads and cheese pies and smoking flavored tobacco from ornate water pipes at a café set in the courtyard of an old Damascene house. The walls are a dazzling pattern of black and white bricks and there's a fountain in the center of the dining area. A huge antique mirror sits on one wall, and partway through our meal a lute player descends from somewhere within the house and completes this lush fantasy of an Arab luncheon by strumming away on a balcony. The rooftops of the surrounding buildings overflow with gardens and a sun-shade is pulled out three stories above us, diffusing the light into a sleepy, soft glow.

--
The third most holy site in the Muslim world is the Umayyad Mosque, which is here in Damascus. We head over there after our leisurely noontime meal.

Paul finds the marriage of culture and religion in Islamic societies to be remarkable, but his enthusiasm for Arab culture has zero spiritual dimension. The Koran, he tells me, is a dull, repetitive book, and he’s non-plussed by mosques. "Portraying people or other living things in the artwork is forbidden in Islam," he says as we wander into the mosque. "With such limited subject matter, Islamic religious art gets boring pretty quickly."

We're dressed appropriately for a tour of the mosque, but in case we weren’t—in other words, if we had a bare ankle or forearm—there's a guy at the entrance gate dispensing brown sackcloth robes. Some French teenagers have taken the robes and fashioned them into hippie skirts over their cargo shorts. The marble courtyard of the mosque gleams in the afternoon sun. The courtyard is lined with a colonnade and families are gathered both to worship in the prayer hall, as well as to enjoy picnics in the shade of the courtyard walls. Children play.

The prayer hall of the mosque is carpeted with thousands of Oriental carpets. Shoes aren't allowed, so there are shoe-racks all over the place. One is full of combat boots, and a squad of young soldiers sits nearby. The curious pilgrim can visit the tomb of Saladin, the great Muslim military commander and bane of the Crusaders; the shrine of Hussein, the son of Ali, the founder of the Shia sect of Islam; as well as a box allegedly containing the head of John the Baptist. This box sits in a larger enclosure, illuminated by nauseous green lightbulbs. There is a grate in the front through which the visitor is encouraged to push donations, correspondence or pictures of loved ones. This is one of several boxes in the Middle East containing the head of John The Baptist. I'm wary of my message not making it to the true skull of John, so I decline to pass him a note.

Besides the pilgrims praying or reading the Koran, there are a lot of sleeping men lying around. I guess it’s a lot like an American church: kids play outside, mom chills with the ladies while preparing some food and dad snoozes in the sanctuary. Sleeping is a real problem here—the hundreds of ceiling fans create a soporific hum—so the mosque employs stern bearded guys to wander round the halll with paddles, smacking the walls to keep people awake. If that doesn’t work, they start whacking the sleepers directly. When I try to clandestinely take a picture of one guy who's really laid out—snoring, legs splayed, belly peeking out from his shirt—one of the mosque minders gives me the stink eye, and then really lays into the poor sleeping oaf. I head for the door.

Later than night, we take a cab north of the city, into the foothills of Mt. Qassioun. Near the summit, cars line the streets. There are scores of people gathered here to take in the view of the city. Teenagers run around in groups. Two little boys slide down the grassy hillside to retrieve a large Styrofoam container from the underbrush. They hold hands and walk up the dirt path that leads back up here to the street. A family sits at a card table playing a game and smoking water-pipes. One of Paul's friends points out landmarks. "The mosques have green lights on the minarets," she says. "The churches have blue lights on their steeples." A woman and her father sit down next to us and crack open a big bag of potato chips.

We like it here in Damascus, more than anywhere that we’ve been on my visit here. Paul wonders what it means that we're so comfortable in a police state, and neither of us have an answer.

--
We end up talking to more people in Damascus than anywhere else. Everywhere, as soon as we identify ourselves as Americans, people want to talk politics. The conversations —whether with taxi drivers, pizza restaurant owners, students or old men sitting in the street—follow a distinct pattern. They tentatively ask what we think of Syria, and seem a little surprised at our enthusiastic response. This is followed by a similar outpouring of enthusiasm for Americans. Once our mutual admiration is established, the question "What is up with your President Bush?" follows. This conversational sequence occurs in all the countries we visit, but in Syria, it takes on a particularly urgent character. Syrians seem concerned about imminent American aggression. One cab driver who speaks hardly any English puts it this way: "Iraq. Syria? Iran?" We reply with "no good" "no way" and "Bush is crazy."

Such exchanges reinforce the eerie feeling that we're interacting with the kind of people who would be the inevitable “collateral damage” in a U.S.-sponsored regime change. And yet we feel no hostility from them, and they get none from us. In fact, of all of the places on our itinerary, Syria is the place I'd most recommend that Americans visit. It's widely considered to be the safest country in the Arab region. A secular, Baathist dictator is nominally in charge, but at a certain day-to-day level, how much does that really matter? There are women architects on the covers of magazines, there's plenty of food in the stores and water in the faucets, and the cigarettes are subsidized by the government. Unlike Iraq, there are no car bombs in the streets or U.S. soldiers taking pictures of charred bodies to trade for Internet pornography.

And Damascans know all about what is going on in Iraq, because the city is a destination for those Iraqis with the wherewithal to flee their homeland. There are plenty of first-hand accounts here of the chaos and violence that has plagued the country since the U.S. invasion and subsequent occupation. If the people here were curious about American-backed democracy initiatives before, they're much warier now.

--
Before heading north from Damascus to meet Blake in Aleppo we decide to take a day trip to visit Quinetra, a bombed-out ghost town at the Syrian border with Israel that’s just a stone's throw from the world-famous Golan Heights, a series of strategically important hills that overlook the Israeli settlements to the south. Visiting Quintera requires same-day government permission, so we rise early and take a cab to the offices of the Ministry of the Interior.

Once somebody has your passport, they basically have your balls. Paul doesn't mind this so much, but every time I hand over my passport I imagine the dude looking it over, checking a computer and apologizing as he tell me that they'll just have to hold onto this for the time being—at which point I will be stranded in a foreign nation with only my Los Angeles Public Library card in terms of official identification. At the Syrian Interior Ministry offices we turn our passports over to AK-47 sporting youths in T-shirts and jeans. They disappear behind wrought-iron gates, through a door beneath a portrait of Bashir. One dude comes back out with a bucket and a rag and, ignoring us, starts to wipe down the new Mercedes parked out front. Paul and I start to get nervous. Paul is a budding young Arabist scholar over here on U.S. State Department money. If one of us is of interest to the Syrian government, it's him. Maybe they’re going to need to question him more. Maybe he’ll have to pat dry the Mercedes. It’s hard to say. We run different scenarios, until, eventually, we’re approved and our passports are returned.

We head immediately to Baramke, a transportation hub near the center of Damascus, to catch a microbus to Quinetra. We have to fill out a lot of information into the driver's log book; Paul thinks this is because the government is keeping tabs on people, trying to catch would-be draft dodgers. We are the mircobus’s only passengers.

The drive to Quinetra takes us past the cinder-block housing developments that are ubiquitous in each of the countries we've visited so far: the Levittowns of the Near and Middle East. We ride past tree farms, olive orchards and fields of wheat tended by farmers in red keffiyeh headscarves, driving ancient tractors spewing clouds of black exhaust. Goats try to cross the road on their own.

At a farmer's market in one of the town, I see my first Syrian record store. It has a huge Nirvana poster in the front window.

This is the same road that Israeli tanks took after smashing the Syrian forces in the 1967 war, a drive that put them within shelling distance of the capital. There hasn't been any shooting here since the Syrians launched a surprise attack against the Israelis, setting off the 1973 war, but there are a lot of UN soldiers around anyway. Though the Syrians somehow count the '73 war as a victory, their army and air force were humiliated by the Israeli forces and their US-supplied arms, and Syrians make no secret of their desire to eventually retake the Golan Heights. They've taken no direct action in over 30 years, but they're still technically at war with Israel, and the government provides haven to several militant Palestinian groups and supports the activities of Hezbollah in Lebanon.

At the outskirts of Quinetra we stop at a final checkpoint. Our driver delivers us into the hands of a middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair, a deep tan and dressed completely in black. He asks for our passports and we oblige. He looks them over and puts them into his pocket. This is our guide—most likely a military intelligence officer, according to Paul's friends in Damascus. Paul introduces himself in Arabic. The man in black raises his eyebrows and nods, smiles and pulls a cigarette out of his pocket.

Quinetra was a Syrian city of considerable size that was lost to the Israelis during the 1967 war. They occupied the city until it was ceded back to the Syrians as part of a cease-fire agreement following the 1973 war. The Israelis had used Quinetra as a military command post in the interim period, and they demolished what remained upon their withdrawal. Syria has not made repairs to the ghost town, instead maintaining it as a sort of propaganda theme park and monument to the suffering of Syrians at the hands of Israelis. Our guide leads us in a circuitous route through its ruins. We stop in front of a rubble-filled church and our helpful minder sets the tone of his minimalist commentary, saying to Paul, in Arabic, "This is a church." There are several checkpoint-type buildings that I am not allowed to photograph, presumably so as not to give away the positions of Syria's teenage soldiers who all seem busy making tea and listening to pop music on portable radios.

We walk past the local UN compound to a destroyed hospital. A sign out front reads in English, Farsi and Arabic, "Golan Hospital: Destructed by Zionists and changed it to firing target!" Every surface inside is chipped and pocked with war damage. The walls are full of thousands of indentations from bullets, the floor is strewn with glass and broken concrete. There is obscene graffiti on the walls of several of the hospital's rooms, the most interesting being a crude rendering of a nude woman's torso, seemingly drawn by a man who has not seen naked breasts since the day he was weaned.

We wander through more bullet-marked buildings. Some are half-collapsed, others completely bulldozed. Quinetra's main street leads to a strange café that faces the Golan Heights to the south. Our silent guide indicates that we'll be stopping here for something to drink. When the Israelis occupy land, they cultivate orchards (or take over the orchards of the former owners) and set up military surveillance stations. When the Syrians and Lebanese occupy land, they build cafes for their citizens to sit and watch the Israelis. It’s a sort of tourist surveillance station. We drink coffee and the guide offers us his strong Syrian cigarettes. He orders us a pair of field glasses and we take turns studying the Israeli positions on the Golan Heights and the UN trucks that drive back and forth in the mined no-man's-land on the other side of the barbed wire. A trip to the bathroom leads through a huge banquet hall with leather-bound chairs and guns and animal hides displayed on the walls.

After a while, we continue our tour. The guide hasn't done much "guiding" so far, more just silently leading us down the road and shaking his head every time I point my camera at Syrian military personnel. Now we follow him away from Quinetra's main street. We walk for a good half mile through a monotonous landscape of completely demolished and bulldozed concrete buildings. It's a beautiful day with big white clouds scattered over the dry prairie. It's not clear where we're headed and our guide is still holding our passports. He's silent and still smoking. I know we're fine, but I keep thinking about how this must be what it feels like just before getting disappeared. The long walk to nowhere with the dispassionate executioner.

We approach a small white building and a gate lowered across the road. In the distance I can make out a fortified blue and white building and a massive yellow gate. "Welcome to Israel" is painted on the wall of the building. There's another UN base in between the two border control checkpoints. More teenage Syrian soldiers, spindly and acne-ridden, smile at us. Their lieutenant, a slick guy in his 20s, emerges from the checkpoint and the guide presents us to him for consideration. He speaks perfect English and asks us strange questions. How would we feel about Syria re-taking the Golan Heights? Aren't they beautiful, these hills? He's excited that Paul speaks Arabic and asks him convoluted questions about whether or not he's visited a certain river. "It's very beautiful there," says the Lieutenant. "You're sure you've never been?"

He asks me about my job as a high school teacher. I count for him in Arabic, and feel like a dog doing a trick. I'm happy when the conversation wanes and we stand silently looking across the "DANGER! MINES!" signs toward the Israelis. Awkward small talk picks up again. Are we married? No. Girlfriends? No. According to official policy, there are no homosexuals in Syria. My long hair suggests that perhaps we're illegally sexually oriented. It's unclear whether we're free to leave or not, so Paul and I exchange glances and force handshakes out of our hosts.

"The lieutenant was asking me if I'd ever been to Israel," Paul tells me as our guide leads us away. "He was trying to get me to admit to visiting the Tiberius River, which is just over the border." Had Paul answered in the affirmative, it's not clear what would've happened. Just as with Lebanon, it's Syrian policy to deny entry to foreigners with Israeli stamps on their passports, or any other sign of having visited Israel. Syrian citizens who clandestinely visit Israel are subject to imprisonment and worse.

The guide takes us back to the main road out of Quinetra, hands us back our passports and hails a passing microbus for us. We thank him and he does what he always does: nods and drags on his cigarette.

--
The ride back to Damascus is strange and goofy. Paul gets to ride up front with the driver. He is a rude and very funny Syrian man with a buzz cut and a big moustache. He is absolutely delighted at Paul's halting command of Arabic and takes advantage of this by instructing Paul in the pronunciation of handy words like "penis" and "vagina." I ride in the back making casual conversation with a Syrian law student. The rest of the van is full of a couple Syrians and a handful of other travelers on their way back from Quinetra. He's from Quinetra, and asks us what we thought of it. I say it's a sad place, that it reminds me of the ghost towns I've visited in the American Southwest. He asks what I think of Syria. I run through the stock response of enthusiasm. His responds by loudly announcing "I hate Syria. Just look at these people," he gestures to the other Syrians in the vehicle. A young woman in a light blue head scarf. A dapper old man in slacks, a dress shirt and a keffiyeh. I tell him they seem nice enough to me. This is the first time any Syrian we've spoken to has disparaged the country. "I'm getting out of this country as soon as I can. Even if it has to be done illegally!" My new law student friend's lack of discretion is making me nervous. He keeps looking to me for reaction. "It's good to move around sometimes," I say. "Damascus is so dirty," he says. "The Syrian people are selfish and deceptive."

After we return to the city, the law student offers to walk Paul and I back to our hotel. Along the way he talks more trash and says he wants to move to the Gulf States where he can make more money. Paul offers him a cigarette and he declines, one of the first people I've met who doesn't smoke. We part ways outside the hotel. He gives me his mobile number. "Maybe we can share a hubble-bubble later on," he says, using the cheesy British term for the water-pipe.

We order some flatbread pizza-like things from a bustling storefront across from the hotel and head inside. We both wonder if our law student pal was some kind of intelligence agent, or a provocateur. That's the fun thing about vacationing in a police state: You just never know. [Addendum from Chamberlin, 7/14/2006: I had the good fortune of chatting about Syrian travel with Mark Gergis of Sublime Frequencies at ArthurBall in February of 2006. I mentioned this particular incident and Gergis’s eyes bugged out: He had the same experience on a microbus bound from Quinetra to Damascus. Like, same script and everything. So yes, dude was a spy. If you’re digging this story, you’ll definitely flip over his collage of Syrian audio, I Remember Syria.]
--

We take a bus north to Aleppo in the morning. It's a long ride and there's a TV on the bus playing a low-budget Syrian sketch comedy. Aleppo is Syria's second largest city. Its souk is supposed to be the least touristy in the region. According to some assessments, Aleppo is a depot for young Saudis and Egyptians who want to fight in Iraq. There are several famous radical mosques in the city, and the highway is a straight shot to the volatile Iraqi border.

The cab drivers that wait for us at the Aleppo bus station snatch our bags and run off to their cabs. A small argument ensues while Paul attempts to wrestle his suitcase out of a cab in which we do not wish to ride. There's more honking here than any other place. The streets are choked with cars and they all honk together, all the time. We drop our bags at our hotel and take a walk through a large public park just a few blocks away. It is cut down the middle by a black river that stinks of sewage. It's mostly men in the park. Paul and I are both tired and Aleppo feels mean. "I'm ready to go home," says Paul.

He's tired of getting stared at all the time, as am I. I'm also tired of the all-guys-all-the-time atmosphere of so many public places. With the exception of Lebanon we've not interacted with any non-Western women. No waitresses in the restaurants, few female cashiers in the stores. We sit on a decrepit bench and watch lottery ticket vendors walk from bench to bench. A booth in the middle of the park rents water pipes and blasts tinny, droning Arabic music. Soldiers spread out on the grass exhaling clouds of perfumed smoke.

The travel is starting to wear both of us down. The pollution, anger and desperation of the Arab world seems more evident here, albeit in subtle ways rather than outright violence. There is much to be celebrated here, of course, but I'm sick of sheisty cab drivers and having the same conversations with everyone we talk to. Yes, we like Syria. We're glad you like Americans. We hate Bush too. I'm annoyed at the European tourists here—the only Americans we meet in Syria are students that Paul already knows—with their ugly shorts and short-sleeved shirts. But I'm also annoyed that conservative Muslims here are so deeply offended by something as benign as an ugly pair of shins. And I’m depressed again at the repressive tactics the Syrian government uses to keep those easily offended religious radicals under control. Why are humans so endlessly horrible about everything? And why won’t anyone wear a seat belt?

We meet Blake that afternoon at the hotel bar for a much needed drink. The Baron is the nicest place we've stayed so far. It was built in 1911; T.E. Lawrence's bar bill is under glass in a wall display, and they say Agatha Christie wrote part of Murder on the Orient Express in one of the antique-filled rooms. Syria is the only country on our itinerary that doesn't import American-brand-name products like Coke or Fritos. Same goes for the Scotch, so I order the first off-brand scotch since my college days. We find Blake in a stuffed chair drinking Arak, the Syrian variant of the aniseed-derived Ouzo. I order another scotch. The soundtrack here, and everywhere we go in Aleppo, is heavy on soft rock hits from Bryan Adams and Whitney Houston.

The local economy is somewhat depressed apparently. Aleppo reminds me of other second cities—Lyon in France, Manchester in Britain, Chicago in the United States. We walk around in the souk. I buy a tablecloth. The Aleppo souk is rumored to have the most flagrant of Syria's clandestine gay scenes, and our travel guide says not to be surprised should we get cruised while we're here. There are some creative shopkeepers—one sidles up to me with the common, but very funny come-on of "Your English is excellent!" And it's still Paul and Blake's theory that my long hair definitely implies that I'm homosexual. "It's probably kind of confusing with the beard though," Paul says. "Like that cab driver back in Cairo was saying: You've got long hair which women don't even flaunt like you do. But you've also got a big beard. I think you're confusing, sexually, for a lot of people."

After walking through an under-construction mosque at the edge of the souk, we're invited by a teenage guy to join him for tea at his store around the corner. He's friendly enough and we're tired of walking in the heat, so we agree. His store is air-conditioned and comfortable and his younger brother goes out of his way to act like a wisecracking queen. He's dressed in a pink Polo shirt. When we're asked to guess his age—he's 17, I guess 20—he rolls his eyes, raises one hand to his face and sighs, "I guess I forgot to apply my foundation this morning." They ask our ages. I'm 30, I say. "I would've guessed at least 40, but that's just me," he snaps. There's a giant Oscar Wilde poster on the wall in the back of the store. After declining to buy hand-made silver jewelry or $3,000 carpets, we make our exit.

We head across the street to visit Aleppo's citadel, a huge Muslim castle in the center of the town. It's an interesting in the way that all well-preserved castles can be with fortified walls, towering keeps and dank underground passageways. "I think you have to be kind of sadistic to be into Medieval Studies," says Blake. "Those guys are always describing castle walls in relation to the manner in which hot oil was poured off of them." We make our way from the amphitheater on top of the structure down to the dungeon. It's dark down here, and there's a musty stench. There's a short line to view the cistern, an even darker pit. A guard stands in front of the stairway that leads down even further under the Citadel. We take our turn gazing down into the darkness. The guard cracks a weird smile. "Abu Ghraib!" he hisses, and takes a step back, bugging his eyes out. We decide to skip the rest of the dungeon tour and head back up the stairs and across the street to a café for cheese pies and chocolate milkshakes.

--
From Aleppo we head south to Hama, Syria's fourth largest city and a place that will be all over the news if the U.S. ever attempts to rationalize military action against the Asad regime. Hama is a conservative town and has long been a source of resistance to the ruling powers. The French had plenty of problems here while most of Syria was under their control, and little changed during the coups and counter-coups that eventually put Hafez Asad in power in 1970. During the early '80s, the Muslim Brotherhood was gaining considerable ground in the city, and their resistance culminated in February of 1982 when rooftop snipers attacked Syrian soldiers patrolling the city. This was followed by a full-scale uprising during which the governor was besieged in his residence and scores of Baath party officials were killed. Asad responded by sending his brother Rifat to subdue the rebellion with his tank divisions. The bombardment of Hama continued for weeks, and though there was no official accounting of the dead, various estimates put civilian casualties in the range of several thousand to tens of thousands. Bodies and buildings alike were bulldozed over and a new city center was constructed shortly afterward. On the way into town Paul had a conversation with a first year medical student on the bus. The student asked Paul what he knew about Hama. Paul said he knew "about what happened in 1982."

"That's the problem," said the student. "But nobody wants to talk about it." Then he said goodbye and got off the bus.

Hama is also famous for its nourias, water wheels in the Orontes River that have helped irrigate the surrounding farms since 500 AD. It's also an inexpensive base camp for exploring the ruins that are hidden throughout the mountains to the east. It's a good place to unwind, a slow-moving refuge that Paul and I have both been ready for for a few days now. Its friendly streets and family values make me think about American truck commercials. Kids climb on the nourias and jump off into the water. Parks line the river and families relaxing in the grass stare at my sexy transvestite Jesus hairdo a lot. Crying children stop and gaze in wonder. I rarely make it more than a half hour before tying it up in to a tight bun.

Our first destination is Muysaf, a stone fortress that is said to have been an outpost of Hassan i Sabbah’s notorious Ismaili mystery cult in the middle 1100s. According to legend, Sabbah was the original “old man of the mountain,” a kind of Medieval Osama Bin Laden who directed a far-reaching network of intensely loyal assassins—dubbed hashisheen—who would die at his command, assured as they were of reaching in death the Islamic paradise that they had already tasted briefly in a drugged state during orgiastic rituals at Sabbah’s castle gardens in what is now northern Iran. Most of the facts of this legend—first told in the West by Marco Polo—are impossible to verify, but Sabbah has been a beloved and inspirational figure to many Western radical liberationists in the last two hundred years, among them Aleister Crowley, William S. Burroughs, Robert Anton Wilson, Hakim Bey, Patti Smith and Bill Laswell, especially for the “Nothing is true—everything is permitted” epigram that is often attributed to him. We spend the morning exploring the castle, which is a powerful sight to behold, rising high over a tiny mountainside hamlet. There's not much to it inside though: several crumbly hallways and the obligatory expansive views from its ramparts. No ancient hookahs are to be found, though this does not stop Paul and Blake from channeling their extensive knowledge of Arab history into stoner-friendly humor: Paul and Blake Go to Ismaili Castle.

The most spectacular of the ruins in this area of Syria is undoubtedly Krak de Chevaliers, a 12th-century fortress that lived up to every expectation that I have ever had for a castle. The feeling of returning to some vestige of European culture was a surprise, and an unexpected relief. It sits on the edge of a range of mountains with lovely contoured terrace-style farms. Though the houses are still all made of cinder blocks, things look decidedly "country" here.

The castle feels like Lord of the Rings and the Crusades and the old Lego castle building sets all at once. We follow along with the guidebook at first, but soon cast it aside. There is enough space here to really get lost. More than once we wander off down dark passageways where it feels like nobody has set foot since the days of Saladin. The views from its ramparts give me the undeniable feeling of ownership of the land. We comb over all of its hallways, chambers and staircases and I hanker for a sword to brandish. Later, we walk around its exterior searching for a supposed secret entrance. Paul and Blake discuss battle strategies like a pair of Medieval John Maddens. We are three little boys here.


--
The Dead Cities are the last stop in Syria. They're also the first place we've been so far that has me wishing I could just wander off with my backpack for a few days. Living in California in such close proximity to profound natural beauty has spoiled me for much of the rest of the world. Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline has got nothing on the sequoia-studded cliffs of Big Sur. The treeless, overdeveloped peaks of Lebanon's Chouf Range pale in comparison to the Sierras. I wish we'd made it deeper into the Egyptian desert, but the brown skies and blowing garbage in the dunes near Giza leave me cold after spending time camping in the Mojave National Preserve. But the Dead Cities are different.

The Dead Cities are Byzantine ghost towns. Limestone houses, taverns, temples and tombs that were built in the fifth and sixth centuries and then abandoned when trade routes shifted. They're unmarked and only half-explored. The first one we visit—Al-Bara —is just outside of a dusty little nowhere town. This is the first place, tellingly, where we have trouble finding bottled water in any of the stores. The huge gray buildings rise out of miles of olive orchards and fig trees. Their architecture is unlike anything I've ever seen, but again, I’m reminded of the abandoned mining settlements and cowboy ruins of the American West. The rest of the tourists don’t find these buildings as compelling as I do, and the driver is in a hurry. But I want to wander over the hillsides by myself. I walk a ways off into the olive tree orchards. The dirt is red. The call to prayer from the town echoes over the hills, followed by a passionately delivered sermon.

The next Dead City is Serjilla. It's the largest and most well-known, and there's even somebody here to collect a nominal entrance fee. It's the same style of buildings as Al-Bara, but it's spread out over a blasted heath. Serjilla immediately brings to mind the treeless rock-strewn Eiran Isles off the coast of Western Ireland. There's a family squatting in one of the ancient buildings. They ask us if we want to see their sheep.

We've been eating the same food since the beginning of this trip. Every meal but breakfast is mezze: hummos, baba ghanoujh, shanklich, fattouch salad and sometimes this spicy mashed up pepper stuff. Since my brother's vegetarian and our meals are communal, I only occasionally indulge in a chunk of chicken or sheep. For our last night in Syria we eat at a riverfront restaurant that we choose somewhat randomly. Tired of pureed and smashed vegetables and legumes, I go out on a limb and order the house special. It sounds good, like some sort of meat pie. But it was more like meat pudding, a mixture of lamb and rice and some sort of creamy greasy stuff all on a bed of some Frito-like chips. I have the distinct impression that the concoction had already been digested, perhaps by a cow. I ended up horning in on Paul's hummus which is, as usual, quite delicious.


Epilogue: Egypt again.

During our overnight stay in Beirut on the way back to Cairo from Syria, I tune the TV to Melody Arabia again. A video from Los Angeles rapper The Game comes on. The shots of the Los Angeles skyline make me homesick and apprehensive about going back. The helicopters flying over the sun-baked sprawl of segregated housing, the wide-open freeways with their orderly procession of vehicles, the home town pride of West Coast hip-hop: they're all things I love about Los Angeles but also things that make me wonder why more people aren't terrified of Americans.

We have two days and one night to pass in Cairo before Paul and I both return home -- him to Ohio State University in Columbus, me to Los Angeles. We stay in a great old residential hotel in the Garden City district. The only other resident is a batty old ex-pat, a woman dressed in flowing robes with a scarf tied around her head. She smokes a lot, and we make small talk about a soccer match on TV.

Paul and I sit on the balcony of the hotel drinking cans of watery Egyptian beer, keeping an eye on a small garden and the nearby freeway on-ramp. As with any open patch of vegetation in the city, the grass at the center of the traffic on-ramp has a few people sleeping on it. A few other people are there, enjoying an 11 p.m. picnic. Cars drive by honking in tandem, usually the sign of a wedding party. A horse-drawn carriage blasting Egyptian pop tunes heads under an overpass and up toward the freeway. The people inside are throwing firecrackers at passing cars and everyone is laughing. "I feel like I'm home," says Paul.

The next morning we take a cab from Cairo to the south end of the Egyptian pyramid field. The pyramids start at Giza and extend 40 miles south. The southernmost pyramid complex is at Dahshur. Supposedly it's usually quiet there, even though its pyramids are older and as well preserved as those at Giza. Our cab driver—a guy in his mid-20s named Osama —has never been there, and is as excited as we are to make the drive.

Dahshur is indeed empty of tourists, as expected. Just blowing sand, the locked gates of a nearby military base and a squad of five tourist police. Their commander approaches us, his arm raised in greeting. "Greetings Dr. Moustache!" he hollers at me.

Mohammed the tourist policeman is as gregarious as anyone we've yet encountered here. He slings his AK over his shoulder and tours us around the temple complex on the side of the Red Pyramid, the main attraction at Dahshur. "This is original," he points to a piece of rock wall. "Very old."

"This is not original," he points to a restoration built with mud and straw. "Not so old."

After the tour we walk back to the camp—a tiny gas stove surrounded by two camels and four more guards—and our guide asks me, "Dr. Moustache, do you have any sugar for Mohammed?" He's after the customary baksheesh tip for showing us around, letting us illegally climb the side of the pyramid and for taking our pictures. I give him the remaining small bills I have in my wallet—the Egyptian government can't afford to mint very many coins, and small bills get passed around a lot. They're usually warm, damp and falling apart, so not something I'll be bringing home as a souvenir. He spies a few American dollars. "How about some American souvenirs, too?" he asks. I pass some bills to him, and to his camel-riding companion. Now he’s worried that I might feel taken advantage of. "You're okay now, Dr. Moustache?" he asks. "Perhaps you like whisky in your tea?"

I decide to try a joke, and in the low, gravely voice Paul uses when impersonating Egyptian cab drivers I say "Haram!" Forbidden! Mohammed laughs andwe pass around a glass jar full of sugary tea.

Osama, Paul and I decide to climb the staircase that leads to the pyramid. A guy sits at the top, making sure everyone who goes in comes back out. We duck down low and descend along a sloping ramp that leads to the burial room antechamber. Inside there's graffiti torch-burnt onto a wall from the 1800s. The burial chamber is up a short staircase. Paul and I stand there feeling the weight of the building all around us. The absolute silence makes for a very intense Indiana Jones moment. Egypt is fucking old, dude.



--
On the ride back to Cairo Osama tunes the radio to the local rock station. "Love Me Two Times" by the Doors comes over the speakers. It's the first American rock music I've heard in three weeks and it's awesome to hear as we fly by irrigation canals leading from the Nile to cornfields and forests of date palms. Children see us in the car and wave. Chickens play in the side streets. Caravans of camels hauling palm fronds share the road with tractors and other cars.

We spend the afternoon in Cairo wandering around an eight-story mall packed with wealthy shoppers. Paul considers buying some clothes, but instead we check out Private Alex, the first attempt by Egypt's huge film industry to branch out from slapstick comedy into the "thriller" genre. Predictably, it’s as boring as most Hollywood big-budget thrillers. The mall is full of wealthy Arabs; we're still covered in the dust of 4,000-year-old? pyramids. I feel weird and I look it too: when I check myself in the mirror in the men's room, I see a frazzled traveler. I'd never think of going shopping looking this raggedy back home.

That evening, as Paul and I watch the sun set over the Nile, a young, preppy-looking guy and his girlfriend approach us and want to know where we're from. We stand and talk and the guy tells us some racist jokes about Jews and Japanese. He tells us about how his wife doesn't like his new girlfriend, but she'll have to deal with it because soon this new girlfriend will be his second wife. I try and talk to the woman standing beside him, but she doesn't speak English and he won't translate. He wants to know if I believe in God. I would hate talking to this asshole in California, so why am I humoring him now? Just because he's Egyptian? I want to go home.

The guy asks me and Paul to join him for dinner on a felucca. We decline and head to the Mohandiseen neighborhood, where we have some world-beating fuul at Paul's favorite restaurant.

There's a store selling textiles and perfume next to the hotel where we had stashed our luggage for the day. The proprietor, a nattily attired man in his 50s, is sitting out front with several other men. We stop to check out some of his wares—we've still got time to kill before our flights home—and in keeping with the hospitality we've been shown throughout the Arab world he offers us some tea. This man is a descendent of Egyptian Bedouins and, in addition to his retail business, he's made money capturing rare snakes for Israeli herpetologists and leading handicapped-accessible tours to remote desert oases. He laughs at Paul when he tells him his major: History. "Your country is so young! You Americans don't even have history yet. Your history is nothing more than a yesterday." Paul clarifies that he studies the history of US-Arab diplomacy, so he's here studying Egyptian history as well.

"It's important that you understand that we Arabs don't hate you Americans," he says. "We don't hate the Israelis either—I have Israeli business partners and Jewish friends. It's the things your governments do that we object to." We nod in agreement and fumble with the hot glasses full of boiling water and tea leaves. I say something about the disjunction between the people who live in a country and those who lead it, and he nods. "This gap between government and their people, this is something we understand quite well here." He gives me his card and suggests we get together the next time I’m in Egypt. He has a very strange novel that he's written about "people of all nationalities transported at once to a remote location in the middle of the Egyptian desert." It's unlike any book ever written, he says, and he'd like some help translating it into English.

"You are welcome in Egypt," our host says, and we make our goodbyes.

On the ride to the airport we pass over a bridge that's under construction. In another country, there might be three guys with jackhammers doing the work. In Cairo, it’s 30 guys with ball-peen hammers. "That's what I love about Egypt," says Paul. "It might take a while to get it done, but they're working on it. Don't worry. They're working on it."

--
Paul and I are both worried about crossing back through US Customs with the small cache of Hezbollah swag we picked up in South Lebanon. We're not aware of doing anything illegal, but so many key chains adorned with turbans, beards and AK-47s might take a little explaining.

Once I'm on the ground at LAX, it doesn't look like anybody at US Customs is going to search my luggage. The official at the "nothing to declare" line looks at my passport and his eyes go wide. "Egypt, Syria and Lebanon," he says,. "These are certainly some interesting choices of places to visit," he says.

"Yes they are," I say.

He holds on to my passport and gives me a very serious look: "Why did you go there?"
I smile back. "My brother was spending the summer in Cairo, and he invited me to come visit him."

"All right then," he says. He hands me back my passport and I walk out of the airport and into the sunshine and smog of Los Angeles.


##



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This article -- complete with B&W and full-color photographs -- can be also found in the Dec/Jan 2006 issue of Arthur, available at Arthurmag.com.

© 2010 Daniel Chamberlin