Venus & Ulysses 2004

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Home » Archives » May 2004 » Having a Great Time! Wish You Were Here!

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05/24/2004: "Having a Great Time! Wish You Were Here!"


It's been a long day. We got up at 6, had an amazingly quick trip from Damascus to Amman in a "service taxi", which is some Chevy boat that the driver charges for each space; the guy in the front seat bought the two "spaces" up there, and the two of us bought the three in the back. Amman posed a few difficulties, but we finally got out of there, and took the back road to Petra, where we are now. Unfortunately, we didn't get here until after dark, but more on Jordan later.

I thought I'd review my impressions of Syria, especially since some of the recent posts might have seemed too negative. It's a great place! You should go!

Everyone is REALLY nice. Maybe there's a little tourist indoctrination "You ask them where they're from, and then you say 'you're welcome!' ", and most people we met were trying to sell something, but there were some that weren't and they were really nice too.

In addition to "tomato tourism", perhaps there should be "FSOJ tourism". I was really impressed twenty years ago in a bar in Palo Alto which made screwdrivers with fresh-squeezed orange juice. Try finding a bar in California (or for that matter a breakfast place) now that uses something other than Minute Maid (maybe there are some, I don't go out much...). It seems to me that the food distribution system in the US discourages things like fresh tomatoes and FSOJ, and that's really too bad. In Damascus, there are MANY places on the street you can get fresh-squeezed juice from 6am to midnight.

Syria is really inexpensive for a second-world country. This is even more obvious now that we're in Jordan. The FSOJ was $1 a glass -- the glasses at some places were probably 24 oz. We found very nice places to stay for between $30 and $50 a night. Great dinners were less than $15 for the two of us. Taxi rides around Aleppo or Damascus were generally under a dollar. It cost $3 to get into most museums and ruins.

At no time did I feel unsafe in Syria (though a few times I felt taken advantage of, such as the taxi from the airport upon arrival). Walking around downtown Damascus at midnight was probably safer than midday.

Syria is definitely part of The Cradle of Civilization. It has LOTS of really old stuff, like the first and second millenia BC. Much of it is very well preserved, or restored, and viewable in its original locations and in the National Museum in Damascus (or in some cases, the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul...) It's pretty fascinating how well people were already making pottery and tools in the Bronze Age.

Driving in Syria is really fun. Traffic enforcement isn't a big priority (except in Damascus). It's like Boston, only better. It's like India, but without elephants and rickshaws -- it's all very cooperative and free-flowing. Driving in America is fascist by comparison (though not as fascist as Australia).

Like Ray mentioned, it's a little difficult getting around in Syria without knowing Arabic, but it's not really that hard (except if you're trying to find an obscure hotel in Damascus -- stick to big ones).

The parts of Syria we saw weren't that geographically interesting -- it was mostly desert or cement city or farmland. There wasn't anything dramatic like redwoods or carved canyons or anything. But the food and antiquities more than made up for it.

The food is really good. I didn't find a wide variety of main dishes, but there are billions of different appetizers. We never really had anything bad anywhere in Syria (until tonight in Jordan, which made us notice how good Syria had been) except one old guy who cheated with FSOJ and squeezed half an orange into some Tang.

And right now it's really not crowded at all -- all the space normally taken up by American tourists is available! Book now!