TravelChick

Oh Homs

I just got back from a bit of a whirlwind trip around Syria with my Finnish friend. We took off for Krak des Chevaliers Monday morning. In order to get to Krak des Chevaliers from Damascus we took a bus to Homs, where we were promptly accosted by a taxi driver who assured us there are no buses to the castle from Homs. This is, of course, not true, and we made our way to the line for buses to Tartus, where a nice employee helped us buy tickets and then told the bus driver to drop us foreigners off at the highway intersection leading to the castle.

That’s exactly what happened. The driver stopped at the edge of the highway and we stumbled out, a bit perplexed. I had read there was a bus up the mountain to the castle but wasn’t exactly sure where this bus would be. This being Syria and us looking like foreigners, it took about a minute before someone walked up to us and asked us where we were going, then flagged down a van to take us up the mountain. For once I managed to negotiate a good deal, walking away from this first driver, who I thought was charging too much, then doing the same with a second driver. Unfortunately, the third driver, who I drove a hard bargain with, turned out to be a bit of a creep, gesturing to us to sit in the front next to him. My friend and I told him, no, thanks, we loved sitting where we were and firmly refused his offer to wait for us while we wandered around the castle.

We wandered around the castle for a while. It’s pretty, set up on a hill overlooking green farmland. It was fun to walk around the ramparts and, since the weather was temperate, it was a good day to be climbing around ruins. It was pretty interesting to see a mosque in a castle.

In order to get to Hama, our next destination, we had to go back through Homs, a city that’s the butt of Syrian jokes. We soon made our own determination of why that is. We got to the bus station and were immediately accosted by men yelling city destinations at us: ‘HALAB’ ‘HALAB’ ‘HALAB’ ‘SHAM’ ‘SHAM’ ‘SHAM’. It’s all rather irritating when you’re in the best of moods but, when you’re hungry, as we were, it was especially grating. We just wanted to get some schwarma. We plowed through the screaming men, found a schwarma place, and then, after I bought a bottle of water, a man, realizing I spoke Arabic, stuck his face out in front of my face and started blabbing away in Arabic. I don’t know what he was saying, but for some reason, his bobbing head, persistently following me as I wrenched around and tried to get away from him, was too much. ‘Enough! Go away!’ I yelled. ‘I don’t want anything!’ Sometimes the words for 'Piss off you wanker' just elude me in Arabic. I make do with what I know. My friend and I ran off to find our bus, eating our schwarma in the middle of moving buses, away from the madness of the bus terminal.

Our arrival in Hama was blissfully peaceful: with no taxi drivers chirping in our faces as soon as we got off the bus we got into a taxi with a meter, found our hotel, and collapsed on comfy beds. When we were checking in the man at reception sold us on an organized trip to Apamea and the Dead Cities, and informed us that two Americans would be going with us. I turned to my friend and said ‘I’m so sorry – you’re going to have to spend a day with three Americans!’ The receptionist offered her some painkillers as preparation. I ruefully admitted she might need them.

posted by Travel Chick @ 11:41 PM