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Plague doctor get-up, Mental Asylums, the Earth from the Air, Dead shoes, Lamb's testicles and many many ruins
The next day after a leisurely breakfast nearby on the road with all the fruit juice stands by bab al-faraj we headed into Aleppo's old city. India and I, for the first time in our lives, donned the extremely attractive witches cloaks that made us look like plague doctors and headed into the Great Mosque. It is a beautiful and elegant space, a little younger than the Umayyad mosque in Damascus, but because I haven't yet been to it I cannot compare the two. I had a banana milkshake just outside the mosque and drank it slowly as we explored the famous Aleppan souq. It is all pretty much completely covered and has a much more local and intimate feel than some of Souq Hamaddiyeh, probably because the main drag of it is so much narrower than Damascus and there are fewer touristy shops, though that is far from saying there are none. After a wee wander we followed Sam to an old Mental Asylum and looked round what seemed to me to be a very peaceful place, especially in comparison to facilities available for the insane in Europe at the same time. There was a strange courtyard whose adjoining cells displayed cabinets of medical implements and equipment made all the more eerie by the fact that there was no accompanying explanation. They also had a lot of information on Arab medicine which would have been fascinating had our Arabic been good enough or the English translation they provided actually comprehensible. I think someone had a little too much fun on google translate as there was frequent mention of such delights as hobgoblins, ringing appetite and the Bretheren of Purity Tunes. The mind boggles. There was also, behind one of the doors, a rather pleasant western-style toilet, which India and I returned to later that evening when any form of hammam seemed to be in short supply.
Just opposite the asylum was a soap factory and two very obliging men who let us go in and explore. Surprisingly enough it smelled rather strongly of, er, soap.
Our next stop was the citadel. I did not realise quite how impressive this structure was until we arrived at its base. It was something out of Lord of the Rings with its Mamluk architecture and imposing walkway up. We spent quite a while up in the citadel just walking around the ramparts and imagining what it would have been like here when thousands of people lived within its walls. The 360 degree views across the city were spectacular even on the rather cloudy day we saw them and there was even a small amphitheatre where I sat for a while and where I was accosted by a Syrian family. They carried two small children and handed me the oldest of them and asked to take a picture of me holding it. Needless to say, away from it mother and into the arms of an unsuspecting and fairly odd looking tourist, the child squirmed and promptly burst into tears, but I know that somewhere there is a photograph of me looking awkward holding an equally uncomfortable child. This is my legacy to Syria.
On the way back down from the citadel my long-enduring flip flops finally copped it. I was devastated to see such faithful companions, one of them now completely unwearbable, a shadow of their former, thicker, less filthy selves and wished there was a reef shop in Aleppo. Even without reasonable footwear I made it round the exhibition "the Earth from Above" which I co-erced my fellow companions to look at without too much of a problem. It was nice to see the photos again, and it took me back to the first time I saw them with Janny in London many many years ago when we bunked off the afternoon synagogue service on Yom Kippur and found it outside the Natural History museum. I remember seeing the photo of Jordan and saying to myself that that was one place I wanted to go more than anywhere else. It is strange to think I have now been there and am looking at all the other places I want to go, daunted at their apparently infinite number.
After serendipitously bumping into Tamsin's family yet again we ate a falafel somewhere in the souq to stave off our hunger until supper time and then headed to Sam's tailor to collect his newly made trousers. Alas, they were not quite ready yet, so India and I headed off in search of new footwear for me, leaving the boys in our wake. After a disheartening search of maybe half an hour, we eventually re-discovered the shoe area we had found earlier that day. I had wrecklessly said I was glad it was not incumbent upon me to find new shoes here. I wish I had not tempted fate in such a flippant manner. With the selection I eventually made I was pleased to find that my 100SYP had purchased plastic sequined flip flops made right here in Syria. I wonder how long they will last…
India and I took this escape from the boys to explore more of the souq and made several fine purchases including a red and white bedouin scarf each, haggled down to 300 lira as opposed to 500 lira for two and some metallic and highly attractive eyeliner bought for no other reason than we thought they were cool and cost about 60p each. I almost bought some stripy leggings, but was sensibly apprehended by India. Our perpetually fruitless search for nose studs also continued to no avail, although I did get a free gift of a brassy gold completely fake and marvellous bangle from one of the more jovial souq owners. We returned to the hotel (me via the nearest baklawa shop) and then went once again to the Baron for a wee drink before supper. At the Baron however we met one of the staff of funduq al-andalus and fellow hotel guests one of whom was celebrating her birthday and they invited us out to supper with them. Supper was indeed had together, along with quite a bit of chocolate birthday cake and the sampling of lamb's testicle and then, accompanied by the sound of clinking bottles, we went back to the hotel and made a small hifla into the early hours with Nargila, wine, other guests, staff and a guitar.
The next morning the old and I am tempted to say mad older man who I think is semi in charge of reception came into our room and said that we made too much noise last night and that we had to go back to Damascus right now. He also asked, for some strange reason, how much beer we had drunk (none) and where the bottles were (see previous brackets). Bemused and not that bothered and quite proud of being chucked out of a hotel when the only person in our room who had been making any noise at all had been me when I had been singing with Sam on the guitar in a fairly melodious manner, we started packing. We had all assumed that it had been fine seeing as the staff had been merrily joining in the party along with a large proportion of the guests, but still we were all packed up and ready to go and ready to fully take all the blame so none of the staff would get into trouble before the same old man came back into the room and begged us all to stay. Thus thrown out and invited back within the space of 10 minutes we decided to head out to our next destination.
Qal'at Saman is a peaceful and beautiful place. When we eventually got there, via a service driver who blatantly tried to rip us off (we are ever thankful to the ticket man who actually agreed that we had paid a fair price to get here when the driver came in and tried to complain) it was like wandering about a ruin in Greece or even Turkey. It is so easy to forget that you are in ancient Byzantium so all the pre-Islamic architecture is similar throughout the eastern Mediterranean. The only difference to this idyllic setting was the lack of tourists. We enjoyed the tranquil atmosphere there for several hours as we picked our way around the ruins of the old basilica and the pine trees. Just as we exited from the site and wondering how on earth we were going to get back to the nearest little village from whence we could get a service back to Aleppo, a man appeared and unlocked a landrover, and as three german tourists got in, he offered us a lift too. This arrangement was a lot cheaper than any other we could come up with and it made us most happy, especially seeing as we had seen the Germans a couple of days ago at Deir az-Zur railway station and so we bonded on this briefly and basked in the sunshine on the way back to Aleppo.
Alas poor Quintin for he was ill and India and Everitte were sleepy and I was left to my own devices for a few hours, which basically meant I hung around the hall and chatted to Rani and watched a really overly dramatic Turkish drama that was dubbed over in Arabic which confused me greatly. It was left on a cliffhanger though and Rani thought it amusing to watch my consternation at knowing that I would never find out whether the refugees in the lorry would get out alive and whether the guys outside the lorry would kill the ones hiding inside the lorry first or vice versa. I also chatted to him about going to Kurdistan and he generously offered to get us visas in Aleppo because he has a friend in the embassy (he is half Iraqi himself). I was then summoned to the office of the guy who runs an underwear and sport clothes shop from the hotel and uses a couple of the rooms for storage - strange? Indeed. He invited me to go out with him and explore Aleppo. I felt bad leaving India and Everitte, so asked if they could come too and sure enough 15 minutes later we were off!
Aleppo is big - I think bigger than Damascus. It also had a vibrancy about it I hadn't seen anywhere else in Syria. The new town was modern and full of life with lots of people walking about and sitting in cafes which lined every street. We went to the best fast food I have ever tasted. Everything that Maccy D's or KFC or Pizza hut has but completely freshly cooked and genuinely tasty. We drove around more and then were dropped off in Al-Jedeida - an old district that is just as good, if not better than Damascus's old town. We walked round an old square that we could have stumbled upon in Prague and around gloomy and atmospheric passageways. We then went into this antique shop that had, amongst other things, some old Jewish relics, a huge black velvet embroidered coat I wished I had the money to buy, and a terrifying tapestry of our good friend Gamal abdal Nasser. Priceless stuff, or so he would have us believe.
We then met some more of Rani's friends and had a tasty hot chocolate in one of their cafés in the new town. It was funny being once again the only girls around, all the others apparently 'at a meeting' but here the setting was stranger because it was modern and there was still an absence of women. Still twas great fun and one of Rani's friends whose family essentially seems to own half of the Aleppo souq took a liking to India's fake silver jewellery and my leather bag and took photos of them, apparently for research. He seemed nice, mainly because he spoke no English so there was none of that smooth talking Syrian salesman about him even though that was his job. It's amazing what a language barrier can do. He also said he had seen us in the souq the day before but we had gone past very quickly. He was probably right.
After a couple of hours there chatting and doing nothing much we headed back to the hotel to the classic soundtrack of Britney spears and the Backstreet boys. Never have I been so happy to hear that music blaring out of the radio - it seemed fitting somehow.
Quintin seemed recovered enough the next day for it to be safe enough to attempt our final foray into the unknown. Rani said we'd be disappointed by them, but nonetheless we headed out to find the dead cities - the name sounded too good to miss.
What followed was a rather stressful and problematic outward journey which wasn't really helped by the lack of food. When we eventually found the right service (they were all sprawled out in different areas over what felt like a good mile square) we found the price to be about quadruple what the lonely planet said. I am never trusting that thing ever again. Then when we got to the correct village we struggled to find decent food. When we did we set about trying to work out the best way of getting out to the villages, our options being to hire a taxi or find a service to take us a little further and go from there. This is what we eventually decided to do and we arrived at Serjilla full of expectation.
Now, I am not going to say that the journey wasn't worth it, because the place was quite cool in the way so many of the buildings were still quite complete, but for the effort it took to get there I wasn't convinced that it lived up to expectations. I think if I had the money I would have hired a taxi for the day and done several of the cities or perhaps combined a couple of them with something else. It was good, but not that good and I certainly preferred Qala'at Saman the day before.
After a couple of hours, which was a long time considering the size of the site, we thought we should set about finding our way back. As we approached the group of men who were obviously a combination of café owners and taxi drivers, I heard one of them pointing us out to the other and saying that we were the foreigners from the Andalus hotel. This was quite unnerving, but when I talked to him he offered us a lift back in his minibus as he was already taking back three Turks. 100 each. We jumped in enthusiastically, amazed at our good fortune and the simplicity of being dropped off directly at the hotel where we had left our stuff after checking out that morning.
Of course, when we arrived back at the hostel, it transpired that Rani had found out that the driver had been going to Serjilla and asked him to keep an eye out for us and give us a lift back if he did indeed bump into us. What a dude! What he had also told him was to give us a lift back for free. Funnily enough the driver wasn't answering his phone when Rani found out from us that we had paid, still we were happy enough paying that, as we had paid more to get out in the first place. After that, everitte and I went to get baklawa to keep us sweet on the return journey and we headed to the bus station and boarded the next bus for Damascus, via Hama where we dropped off Quintin. We agreed to meet Rani in a couple of days as he was also heading to Damascus, and with that, and my blood sugar level worryingly high, I slept most of the way back home. I want to go back to Aleppo.
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