Day 23: Palmyra/Qamishli - You Are Dealing With A Real Professional

Captain Libya had already been to the ruins earlier on his trip, so Nick and I headed over there first thing without him, stopping on the way for a great falafel that cost us 15 Syrian pounds. The streets of Palmyra still had that slightly eerie ghost town feel. As we walked along the ring road that leads from the town centre to the gateway to the ruins, shops began to open and we could see people going about their business. I felt less and less like Clint Eastwood was going to step out of a saloon door with a stoveplate underneath his poncho. The air was heating up. Even at ten in the morning it was oppressively hot. The sun glared off of the sand.

The road from the town curved into a gate randomly placed in the middle of a rock-strewn desert. Coming through the gate, the first impression is of a massive amount of space. The desert stretches out ahead and on both sides, broken only by hills to the right and a restaurant to the left. The columns of the ruins are lined up at odd angles, some parallel to the road, some in the far distance in a straight line, marking a long-forgotten intersection. The effect is incredible. Surrounded by the desert, you don't feel like you're at a ruin so much as in a city that has been partially swallowed by sand. In much the same way as Baalbek, the stones are left where they fell, poking out of the sand, haphazardly laying on top of one another.

One building still standing was gated off. Through the bars we could see a tree growing in the middle of the square atrium that was protected by the walls. Why that particular thing was gated was a mystery.

Nick and I picked our way through the ruins, pausing for photos and to admire the desert vistas, carefully choosing angles where the proud, defiant columns concealed the hideous antennas erected on hilltops in the background. The antennas weren't hideous of themselves, it was just that having modern technology so close to a place like this felt very intrusive. Even the arrival of a tour bus made me wince, so harshly did it interrupt the calm of the desert and the placidity of the fallen buildings. Our only companions as we wandered around were an old man on a bicycle selling water at exorbitant captive-audience prices and two camel riders trying to get us to buy rides on their camels.
"I've ridden a camel before," I said.
"Where?"
"In Morocco."
"But this is a Syrian camel," came the optimistic reply. "It's different."
"How do you know?" I asked. "Have you ridden a Moroccan camel?"
"Look at his face," the rider said. "He likes you."
The camel grunted at me. Nick and I squinted up at the two guys silhouetted against the sun. We shared a moment there, the four of us, and then they clicked their tongues and rode off, hoping for better luck with the tour group pulling in.

My suspicion that Palmyra is a uniquely touristy town was confirmed when, as we left the ruins, I stopped at a kiosk to get some water.
"How much is a large bottle of water?" I asked.
"120 Syrian pounds," the shopkeeper said.
I was so surprised by his bald-faced lies that I didn't even try to be polite.
"No it's not," I said. "The price is 25."
The shopkeeper shrugged, unashamed. "Okay," he said, getting up to open the fridge.
I gave him a hundred. He gave me back fifty. I waited for a few seconds. He had sat back down and was about to open up his paper.
"Excuse me," I said. "You still need to give me 25 more."
He gave the same 'oh, you got me' shrug and put ten Syrian pounds into the change tray. He went back to his paper. I waited another moment. Nothing.
"Excuse me," I said. "You still need to give me 15 more."
He eyed me coldly. "No I don't."
"100 minus 25 is 75," I began. "50 plus 10 is 60. You owe me another 15."
He sighed, gave me the shrug again and put 15 pounds into the change tray. I got the feeling that my adding skills wouldn't alter his business strategy in the long run. He had the look of a career short-changing over-charger.

Nick and I got back to the hotel and roused CL from his stupour. We got our gear together and headed over to the patch of dirt/convenience store/restaurant/CD stall that acts as Palmyra's bus station. The bus that CL and I needed to get to Deir es-Zur was just about to leave. Over the blare of Arabic pop from the CD stall and the consistent stream of good-natured but intrusive "Hello mister what is your name?", CL managed to get us our tickets and we were off.

The Syrian bus system is a strange animal. On the one hand, the "system" is chaotic, departure times highly negotiable, journey time and pleasance varying according to how close to death the driver is willing to bring himself and his cargo. On the other hand, every bus I took in Syria offered free water, free candies and biscuits and at least one in-drive DVD, usually a mix of music videos from television. The guy who comes around with the candies and water is always very nice and lingers by foreigners to ask questions and proudly demonstrate his English. On this occasion, the movie on offer was an incredibly lame stalker/horror movie called either P2 or P3 starring Wes Bentley as a deranged parking lot security guard who kidnaps and tortures a woman on Christmas Eve. The irony of watching a violent American Christmas movie on an afternoon bus filled with families in a country purported to be fundamentalist and anti-Western was not lost on me. One wide-eyed youngster only ever dragged his eyes off the screen for long enough to stare at me and stick an exploratory finger into his nose or mouth for a few seconds every half hour or so.

The film finished sucking by ending, roughly around the time we pulled into Deir es-Zur bus station. Beaten into intellectual torpor by substandard American schlock, CL and I staggered off the bus, liberated our luggage from the hold and blinked in the sunlight. We asked around for the bus company going to Qamishli. We were directed to one of the offices that fronted onto the bus station forecourt. Inside, a sleepy-eyed man looked blankly at us from behind a glass window. To his right, a fat man was slowly counting money and picking his nose. Behind them, the wall bore a large photograph of an optimistically clean bus marked with their decal. The caption said "You Are Dealing With A Real Professional". I suppressed a snigger and reached for my camera. CL asked about tickets to Qamishli. We were told that the next bus left at 17:00. It was 16:45. We produced money and passports. Fat Man stopped picking his nose for long enough to take our passports and go to the police hut nearby where a signature was required to obtain our tickets. No explanation was ever given for this and not every bus journey required a signature. We came to the conclusion that the police wanted to practice their English and were curious about our passports. The office was shockingly stuffy. CL and I slowly dehydrated. The sleepy-eyed man served other customers with sleepy eyes. I went to the toilet, a dilapidated hut on the other side of the forecourt that had the most flies in one place I had ever seen.

When I got back, Fat Man was still at large with our passports. It was now 16:55. The bus was due to leave at 17:00. I went to look for Fat Man. He was on his way to us. We were ready to go, subject to the laboriously slow writing of the tickets by the sleepy-eyed man. After all, we were dealing with professionals. I went to get us some food from the falafel stand.

The falafel stand was abandoned unless you count flies. I asked in the shop next door. They said to wait ten minutes. It was 16:57. We didn't have ten minutes. I was hungry and exasperated.
"I'll make it," I said. The men sitting in the shop stared with saucer-eyes.
I walked behind the counter and surveyed the goods on offer. We would be able to enjoy two of Syria's finest warm salad and cold chip rolls. I lined up the two circles of pitta and began filling them. CL arrived at the scene and started laughing. The men from the store were also laughing. The bus honked.
"We have to go," CL shouted.
"Just a minute," I said, frantically trying to fold over the two monsters that I had created. In a very short space of time, I learned that the deft, minimal movements with which falafel stand guys roll their rolls are not as easy as they look. I felt like I ad ten thumbs. CL was yelling at the bus driver to wait and then motioning at me while laughing. The falafel guy arrived with a confused look on his face. He stepped into the breach and finished the sandwiches for us. I dropped 10 Syrian on the counter and CL and I bolted for the bus. As I ran, the bulging, warped concrete surface of the road rose up against me and I twisted my ankle. Swearing, limping and clutching an overstuffed, soggy roll, I got onto the bus.

A few minutes after we pulled away, as CL and I sat there enjoying our tasty sandwiches, the water guy came around. We asked about the onboard entertainment. It was going to be a Jean Claude Van Damme prison drama in Russian. As we raced through the desert towards the Syrian border, drooling warm chunks of tomato and cold stiff chips, surrounded by families and curious children with huge eyes, Arabic pop blaring over the speaker system over the muted sounds of the television, Jean Claude Van Damme's wife was brutally assaulted and murdered. The scene was lurid, the sex graphic and, as some critics would call it, uncompromising. A bus load of women in chadhors watched with their husbands and children as her skirt was lifted, her underwear torn away, her body revealed. The men leaned forward in their seats, necks craned. Their wives watched them watching the screen impassively from behind black veils, wrapped in ankle length black duffle coats in the 30 degree heat. The children stared at us and sucked their fingertips. CL and I speculated briefly on what Jean Claude's fate would be in prison after he avenged his wife's murder and then I fell asleep.

We arrived in Qamishli a few hours later. CL woke me up and informed me that I had correctly predicted the ending of the film. I was not surprised. Say what you want about Jean Claude, but at least he offers consistency.


At Qamishli bus station, a horde of taxi drivers descended on us. We got to a cafe, dumped our bags and held an open bidding. Everyone wanted far too much to take us to a cheap hotel so we walked out of the station and down the road. Within a few dozen metres we were again surrounded by drivers. Five of them gathered around us.
"Okay," I said. "We're going to the centre to find a hotel. How much?"
"Fifty," they all said in unison.
CL and I haggled briefly and then decided to continue on our way. Another dozen or so metres down the road, one of the drivers caught up to us.
"Thirty," he said.
Deal.

We were dropped in the centre of Qamishli, a fairly typical and heaving border town. The cheap hotel we had asked for was above an abandoned shopping arcade. We struggled to the top of the stairs and asked how much the beds were.
"250 each," we were told.
CL had been told the beds were 100 each. We argued but to no avail. On either side of the reception desk, wide hallways led to rows of rooms. In folding chairs spaced along the walls, single men sat talking and smoking, occasionally looking at the television blaring in the corner. Either because of inferior speaker quality or a distaste for volume reduction, everything blares in Syria, whether it is radio, television, muezzin, car horns. They all produce a startlingly similar cacophonous blare.
CL had failed to get a lower price out of the dour clerk at the reception desk and so had I.
"What about the roof?" CL asked in a moment of brilliance. In Syria, it is common for hotels to let travellers sleep on the roof for a fraction of the room price.
"We don't have a roof," the dour clerk replied without missing a beat. We were doomed to pay the rack rate. We agreed to pay the asking price. While I waited for the clerk to finish with our passports and the mandatory secret police questionnaire, CL employed a unique money-saving tactic and went to sleep to avoid the need to buy food for dinner. The clerk looked at me over his glasses.
"Father's name?"
I told him.
"Mother's name?""
I told him.
"Occupation?"
I paused. I had a rare opportunity.
"Genius," I said.
The clerk looked at me over his glasses. "What is this job?" he asked.
I repeated myself, altering the pronunciation to suit the Syrian tongue, putting a little more firmness into my voice. "Jen-yoos," I said.
The clerk shrugged and wrote it into the book. I went out for a walk.

Qamishli is the type of town that looks dirty and unremarkable in daylight but, under the artificially lit glow of night, takes on a sleazy border town charm. I walked through the dark back streets, found the main drag and walked up and down it a couple of times, soaking up the ambience. Baklava shops, mobile phone stores and lingerie stalls were all doing a roaring trade at ten in the evening. The weight of the day sat on me suddenly and I went back to the hotel and crawled into bed. The linen was a paper thin sheet and a scratchy wool blanket. The sheet was too thin to sleep under on its own and the wool scratched even through the sheet. The room was also very stuffy. The ceiling fan stirred the warm air around and also wobbled dangerously in its casing, giving me the feeling that it might come loose in our sleep and slice our heads off. I struggled to find a configuration of blanket and sheet that wasn't appallingly uncomfortable. The riddle about the boatman with the goat, the wolf and the cabbage came to mind.

In the hallway, men shouted at each other in Arabic and practiced for the underappreciated Olympic event of door-slamming. Somehow, skin itching, back sweating, head pounding, eyes swollen, ears cringing at the shouting and slamming, I fell asleep.