Captain Libya and Kris left first thing in the morning for Beirut. I enjoyed a wholesome shwarma breakfast and then Mohammed gave me a lift to the bus station. A minibus was headed for the border. At the border I would have to walk into Syria and then get a bus on the Syrian side to Homs, a hub city where I would find a connection to Lattakia.
The ride to the border was uneventful, other than the strange feeling of surfacing for air as we drove up and out of the Bekaa Valley, leaving behind the Shia posters, portraits of Khomeini and Hezbollah flags. I had felt no threat in Baalbek and in fact had been made very welcome by everyone. However, when we were leaving, as the propaganda fell away I just felt as if an oppressive atmosphere was dispersing. No matter how cheerful the people, when you know that their idea of a good time is a Shia state enforcing strict Sharia law where music is illegal and women have to be covered, it colours your discourse with them, even on a subconscious level.
We arrived at the Lebanese border and I got through with very little difficulty. Getting back into Syria was to prove another matter altogether. I was told when leaving Syria that I would be able to re-enter the country from Lebanon even though my visa was only a single-entry. At the border, I waited placidly amidst the chaos of men perched on stacks of building materials shouting and smoking, spilling ashes on me, leaning over me, throwing passports and visa stamps at the officers behind the glass in an attempt to get taken care of first. I got my passport to a chubby, moustachioed guy in uniform who put it to one side. I motioned solicitously to him several times but he had his own system and eventually my passport was opened forty-five minutes later.
Once opened, my passport sat limply in his hand for a further half-hour before he actually looked at it. He flipped through it once, twice, thrice, an increasingly perplexed expression on his face. My heart sank. He looked at me and said something in Arabic. I said I only spoke English. A hunched over priest wearing a beanie and holding a Swiss passport was by my side. I asked him to translate. He Swissed me. A Syrian guy on my other side took up my cause, shouted at the guard, listened, shouted again, listened again and then told me the bad news.
"You need a visa."
"But I have a visa."
The guy said something to the guard. He held out the passport. I flipped to my Syrian visa and pointed at it, saying the word visa over and over. I felt like a character from Quest for Fire or Clan of the Cave Bear. The guard looked at my Syrian visa and then spoke to my impromptu translator. My translator turned to me.
"I know this is a visa. But you still need a visa."
What?
It transpired that my Syrian visa, because it was a single-entry, would not get me back into Syria. I had to go to the bank to buy Syrian money ($52 worth), then go to the visa stamp desk to buy the visa stamps, then come back and have the stamps put into my passport and accredited. I headed for the bank.
The bank was a single room hut about fifty yards from the passport office. A man stood hunched behind filthy glass, chain-smoking. I showed him my passport, said the word visa and then the words "fifty-two dollars". He nodded and held out his hand. I gave him a 50 euro note. He typed on his keyboard, looked at the screen, opened drawers and generally gave me the impression that he was cloning a sheep in there. At the end of the process he handed me 2400 Syrian pounds.
Now, for those of you who, gee whizz, DON'T know the exchange rate, the euro/Syrian rate is 1:70. 50 euro is 3500 Syrian pounds, not 2400. I did a quick sum in my head and figured out the problem. Fuckpants McGee in there had changed my euros at the dollar rate. I waved the wad of Syrian at the glass and demanded more. He looked at me blankly. I spoke in English, he spoke in Arabic. Eventually he called off to one side and a young guy came up to me. He spoke English, albeit with a heavily limited vocabulary.
"Problem?"
I explained.
"No good. Wait."
He spoke rapidly to Fuckpants McGee. Fuckpants shouted in Arabic. I grabbed the calculator and told him to get a fifty dollar and a fifty euro note. He complied. I waved the euro bill and typed in the exchange rate on the calculator. Then I waved the dollar bill and typed in the dollar rate. Then I waved my too-small stack of Syrian money. Then I waved my hands in front of me in the universal gesture for "there you go, bitch, explain that". He clicked his tongue, lit a cigarette and had an idea. He took back the Syrian money and began typing on the keyboard again. The guy who spoke some English invited me into the anteroom to drink tea while we waited. The anteroom was a bare concrete cell with two single beds in it. These guys lived in the bank. I drank tea and waited for the next stage of the negotiations.
After about half an hour in the bank, Fuckpants succeeded in explaining to me that the first exchange was an honest mistake and that he needed to change my euros in two stages, first the exact amount for the visa which would be given to me with one receipt and then the balance, which would come with a separate receipt. This, he explained, was because the visa guy would issue my visa stamp to the amount on the receipt, not an arbitrary amount that I told him. I was gripping my tea glass as hard as I could to avoid hurling it into his benevolently explanatory face. I left, eventually, with two receipts and the right amount of money.
Visa Guy sold me my stamps without a hitch and I was back in the scrum at the passport office within seconds. I found another good-natured Syrian to shout on my behalf and, after filling in another form, waiting another half-hour, gesturing wildly to several men with guns and threatening to slap the Swiss priest in the beanie, I had a valid Syrian visa and was free to re-enter Syria. Kaloo-kallay. It had taken me about two and a half hours.
I got a minibus from the border to the Al-Kadmous bus stop in Homs, a dreadful dusty little outpost with nothing to recommend it other than a mediocre shwarma-teria and exquisite baklava dispensed by a charmingly rotund man with a world-beating combover. Within the hour I was on a bus to Lattakia.
I arrived at the Safwan Hotel in Lattakia like a prodigal son. Mohammed, his crazy uncle and the other characters all gave me hugs and asked after CL and our Lebanese exploits. I sat chatting with them and a few fellow travellers in the reception of the hotel until late. One of the topics, broached by a friend of Mohammed's, a benign but sleazy little number with slightly too-perfect hair, John Lennon glasses and a very cheerfully self-deprecating demeanour, was that of the trend of re-hymenisation in Syria and other Arab countries. Apparently, our little friend was saying, it is very common for Arab girls who want to have sex to have an operation that places a fresh membrane over the vaginal opening where the hymen once was. They have the operation before their wedding and it provides them a stress-free wedding night. Nick, one of the travellers in the reception, added that where he lives in Turkey, it is a very delicate matter because doctors who perform the operation often use their knowledge of the patient's sexual activity to blackmail the girls after they've replaced the hymen. These re-virginised girls have to look long and hard for a doctor that is both willing to perform the operation, which is illegal without parental consent, and trustworthy enough to have sensitive details about the girls without abusing them.
On that note, I decided it was time for me to retreat to my boudoir for a good night's sleep.
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