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Read my Travel Diary and other articles from a six week trip to Syria, Jordan & Egypt during October and November 1998

The Middle East

Si_lad
2004-03-26 20:27:02

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was very friendly and he took us to a small café to drink tea and chat. It was a superb little place full of men of all ages, drinking hot sweet shay (tea) out of glasses, small cups of strong Arabic coffee, smoking the Nargileh (water pipe) and playing Backgammon. We soon made many friends and our afternoon walking tour went on hold for a couple of hours. We sampled the Nargileh ourselves for the first time and found it very pleasant. The Tobacco is mixed with apple and is very sweet and fruity. We tried different kinds of tea and chatted with a few of the patrons. One man was asking me why English football fans like to throw chairs around! Only our friend we met on the street and another man called Abraham spoke English so they did the translation work. It was a good way to soak in the way of life in Damascus.

We eventually took up our friends offer to look around the Christian quarter of the old city. He was crippled – maybe suffering from Polio, but walked at a keen pace. We were taken to some really interesting places such as Bab Kusan (St Paul’s chapel) where St Paul was reputably lowered from a basket to escape the Jews, and the old underground Chapel of Ananais. We stopped en-route at his house for some more tea and he showed us some of the quieter and very narrow streets. We got back to the café (for more tea, Nargileh, etc) late in the afternoon and we were quite surprised that our friend didn’t ask for baksheesh or anything for his troubles. What a nice bloke. We did give him a tip for his kindness, which he reluctantly accepted, and after a bit more tea we were on our way.

After a quick phone call home we went to the "Damascus Workers Club" to eat, as recommended by someone in the hotel. It was a large garden setting, with a fountain and soft music – very pleasant. There was no menu, just a choice of chicken or lamb, and more importantly they served beer. We had a couple of bottles of Baroda beer (weak but ...