20 November 1999, Amman, Jordan

Asalaam alaikum (Hello, or more literally 'peace be with you'),

Travel in Syria was a cheap thrill ($4-$7 per night for hotel; $1-$2 per
meal for food; 20 cents per 100 kilometers for transport), but a bit more
challenging than either Lebanon or Jordan due to the language barrier.
Every school child and young adult there learned the etiquette of saying,
"Hello", "What is your name?", "From what country?", and "Welcome to
Syria!", and they all say exactly those phrases in that order. That's all
most people there seem to have learned, and although it becomes rather
redundant to hear, at least they make one feel welcome.

Many people here see it as their duty to go out of their way to assist the
foreign traveler. One young man spent 20 minutes helping me to get into the
right minivan that would take me to where I wanted to go in Damascas. After
he got me on the right track, I told him thanks and that he could go, but he
insisted, "I won't leave until I save you. It is my duty."

I used busses and trains, but sometimes the only way to get somewhere is to
share a ride with folks packed tightly into a minivan. Typically, I find
myself riding with a bunch of people dressed like Yasser Arafat. Picture --
ten Yasser Arafats crammed in a minivan with Dean. They all seem to have a
respectful sense of humor toward this mop-topped infidel from The Great
Satan (the U.S).

Syria is loaded with interesting ruins from ten millennia of history
(Summarian, Amorite, Babylonian, Hittite, Parthian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine,
Muslim, Crusader, Ottoman), but with my time constrained to a week, I had to
pick and choose the sites of greatest interest to me. I visited several
sites, including one near the Iraqi border along the Euphrates River (which
is about as close as I'll get to Babylon for now). The most impressive site
is Palmyra, a huge area of Roman ruins in the middle of the Syrian desert,
at one time an important stop on the caravan routes to Asia.

The "Church of the Girdle of Our Lady" (yes, that's what it's called) has on
display what is believed to be a holy relic, a portion of a girdle worn by
the Virgin Mary.

The travelers I met (Canadian, French, British, Australian) say that I was
the only American they met while traveling in Syria. A Syrian shop owner
asked me why he never sees Americans traveling in Syria. I could have said
something about the fact that the Syrian Government is still on the U.S.
State Department's short list for sponsoring international terrorism, but
steering clear of political discussion in Syria is the wiser approach.

Megalomaniacal President Assad has his photo plastered seemingly on all four
walls, inside and out, of every significant building throughout the country.
That in itself is terrifying.  I've been through other dictatorships
throughout the world, but this guy takes the cake!  (Ceaucescu in Romania
may have been a close competitor -- before he was beheaded).  There are
undoubtedly millions, if not tens of millions, of images of Assad imprinted
seemingly on every stone and on every crumbling wall across the country ...
probably more than one for each of Syria's 17 million people.  Giant photos,
several stories high, drape over the buildings on the main squares of every
city and on billboards every few miles across the desert.  It isn't enough
for some small businesses to have his photo on one wall ... many had several
photos on display.  One business I saw (a bus ticket office in a 10 by 10
foot room) had no fewer than eight photos of Assad on display -- five on the
walls, one on the store window and two under the glass of the saleman's
desk.

I saw large parades of people in each city (including children), with each
person carrying a poster of President Assad.  I guess it's better that than
signs saying "Death to America".  (Actually, I was warmly received as an
American throughout Syria).

It's clear that the man has a firm grip on his country (though his health is
failing).  Multiple levels of secret police assure that.  It's been quite
awhile since he's been faced with a significant rebellion.  The 1982
massacre of thousands of his people made the point effectively.

My guidebook suggested that I not reciprocate prompts to discuss President
Assad ... or at least limit comments to something like "He is a clever man",
(which is undoubtedly accurate).

I did happen upon a man who spoke of himself as a political dissidant and
who has been in contact with Amnesty International, about what he did not
specify.  He too could have been one of the secret police (They're
everywhere! They're everywhere!), but he seemed to be genuine.

Many people in Syria, I've been told by some travelers, now have the
apocalytic belief that President Assad will die within the next few months,
and that Saddam Hussein will move in to fill the power vacuum, and a major
Middle East war will begin that will involve Israel, Europe and the U.S.
It's an interesting scenario.  What would Israel do if Saddam was lapping at
its borders (remembering that Syria currently dominates Lebanon as well)?
What would the U.S. do in a situation where oil is not a major factor, and
unlike in Kuwait, we may not be welcome to assist in Syria's defense?

Before I left Lebanon, I spent some time in the Bekaa Valley, the region
notorious for Hezbollah and hostage taking.  It's a peaceful and seemingly
safe place for tourism now, but there the dominant image one sees on display
is that of the Ayatolah Kohmeini (though he ruled 1500 miles away in Iran
and has been dead for some years now).  Even the hospital there is named
Ayatolah Kohmeini.  I'm glad I didn't have to use it.

Here in Jordan, one sees photos of the new king and his father, but their
display seems much more subdued; and the affection for this country's rulers
seems more genuine.

No matter how much I travel, I still find myself frequently saying, "Wow!
I've never seen anything quite like that before!"  In the souks of the
Middle East (a seemingly endless maze of narrow paths forming one large
exotic marketplace), I find myself saying it more than usual.  There must be
1000 spices, grains and plants for sale that I cannot recognize or name.

Sometimes, the unexpected can take the form of a slight deviation from the
familiar.  For example, a wedding procession is of course commonly seen in
the West; but how about a wedding procession of three dozen honking yellow
taxis?  Or how about a funeral procession of a couple dozen minivans only,
with the casket on top of the first.

Sometimes the variation on a theme can be rather sublime.  How about
olive-flavored beer?  Rather pleasantly tasty actually.

At other times, the unexpected can take the form of the comical -- ie.
having to crawl out of one's hotel window when the door fails to unlock from
the inside; or unwitingly flooding a hotel's hallway while using a shower
with a clogged shower drain.  Or how about a taxi driver you hire to take you
across an international border, but who stops first to pick up several crates
of green beans (or so they seem to be) to transport with you?

Sometimes, at tourist attractions such as the Citadel (a crusader ruins in
Allepo, Syria) and again at Bosra (the site of a well-preserved Roman
theater), I found myself being the object of greater curiosity by Syrian
tourists than what they had ostensively come to see.  Often, I find myself
surrounded by people as if I am some kind of rock star, particularly after
they find out I am from America.  They prompt me with 100 questions, usually
non-political. "What have you seen in Syria?"  "What do you think about
Syria?" And then there's the inevitable, "Why aren't you married?"  That's
usually question number 3 or 4, after "What is your name?" and "From what
country do you come?"

More than once I was confronted by a bunch of giggly schoolgirls asking me
to take them to America. One kept asking me to dance with her on the steep
steps of the Roman theater, in her words "like Leonardo de Caprio and Kate
Winslet in Titanic."  "Wait a second," I said. "He died in that movie."

The travelers one meets in this part of the world tend to be a bit more
seasoned than those one meets in Europe.  Lots of people traveling here are
on the six month to one year plan and have two or more continents on their
agenda.

One couple I met from Germany has bicycled their way from Germany to Jordan
and plan to continue bicycling, after catching a boat to Kenya, the rest of the way
to South Africa.  They are each carrying 100 pounds of additional weight on their
bikes.  I thought 25 pounds was a lot when I biked through Western Europe.
Another couple staying at my hotel, who've bicycled (for the most part) from
Holland, plan to end their trip shortly in Cairo.
 
 

Spread out over a series of hills, Amman, Jordan is not the easiest city in
which to orientate oneself.  PJ O'Rourke (Give War a Chance, 1992) observes:
"Amman's street layout was designed using the splatter technique popular
with action painters of the post-abstract school ... There are no major
intersections in Amman.  Instead there are roundabouts, from which radiate
four, six, eight, twelve or thirty avenues.  There's really no telling
because, although it's possible to enter a roundabout from virtually any
street in the city, it's not possible ever to exit again ... The idea of
numbering buildings and naming streets has been taken up, but in a grudging,
desultory manner, the way baby boomers practice dental flossing"!

Be that as it may, Amman seems to be a leap into the 1990s from the 1960s
state of life in Syria.  Television is again in color, and there must be 60
internet cafes around central Amman.

Email time is about up. If you respond with email, please remember to send
it to dean_oman@hotmail.com. I won't be able to pick up email at my normal
address doman@tidalwave.net until I return to Washington, DC in two weeks.

Happy Thanksgiving (to those in the U.S.),

Best wishes!
Ma'a salaama (goodbye),

Deano

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