Day 58
Wednesday 24th December
Damascus, Syria
From the floor to ceiling windows of their hotel room Grandpa Pete and the Child Bride can see the low-rise cityscape of Damascus bathed in ochre sunlight. Houses stretch out before them and claw their way up the mountains opposite.
The staff in the hotel have been groomed to the nth degree and will not pass them in the corridor without enquiring about their visit to Syria and their longer journey. GP and the CB put this down to Syrian good manners until it is performed to such an identical script that they realise that it is part of posh hotel training. The concierges are off script when they peer into Gordon's cab and question GP about his second gear stick but their curiosity is warmly indulged.
A sumptuous buffet breakfast lines their stomachs before they head to the bazaar to make preparations for their Syrian Christmas day. They have watched the demise of Woolworths in extensive reporting on BBC World so are not surprised to find Woolworths wrapping paper going cheap in the bazaar. They go to the Christian quarter to find champagne, wine and beer, nuts, nougat, jellied sweets and an English newspaper from the week before. Their hopes are high for the hotel Christmas buffet to complete the day.
Damascus is obviously more affluent than Aleppo and there are plenty of high end shops selling clothes and accessories for the man about town and his children. Damascan women get to wear glittery sacks, but do seem to get out and about on the streets more than their Aleppan cousins.
French is a more common second language than English thanks to Syria's history of French dominion. The French have left behind their language and their cakes and they walk past many a tempting gateau shop. The men in the booze shop are mostly French speakers except for one who says to GP baldly, and a little too confrontationally, "I am Arabic" to which GP replies in a moment of inspiration "I am English, but we are brothers." This does the trick and the man gathers him up in a warm embrace. These Arabs are at heart great big softies.
Just off the bazaar an old tiger striped hammam has been turned into an exhibition space and is hosting a collection from the V&A in London so they pop in to admire some pottery including a nice Picasso vase.
Returning to the hotel room the CB surprises the cleaner who is mortified to be interrupted. It is apparently some hotel rule that in the case of cleaning a room with valuables in it, a cleaner must call security to monitor him. He hasn't done this, and has been dusting around the laptop, so he promises to call security. The CB tells him not to worry and thinks the best plan is to stay in the room with him so he doesn't feel uncomfortable. She then has to endure the deeply uncomfortable process of watching someone clean up after her. To a degree of professionalism that she would never perform herself, everything from towels to old receipts are preened and arranged (with a diligent, breathless commentary as he sweeps the room; "this here, and this here,"). At the height of the awkwardness, when the Chamberman is smoothing out the crumples in their ancient yellow AA plastic bag, GP arrives and saves the day. With pictures of his grandchildren he manages to restore common ground and the man relaxes to talk of his son, how he wants five more but can't afford it and doesn't really like living in Damascus.
GP is beginning to feel a little under the weather so with a clean room they retreat to the bar, lined with pictures of racehorses. Then they head back to their room with a selection of the hotel's DVDs and await Christmas Day as the green lights of mosques begin to light up the night horizon outside.
Day 59
Thursday 25th December
Damascus, Syria
Santa Claus has had mixed success. A stocking at the end of the bed confirms that he has tracked them successfully to Damascus. He has also managed to deliver the stocking without alerting Grandpa Pete who has gone from being “under the weather” to spending most of the night being sick. He has, however, erroneously (and at this point allegedly) delivered the Child Bride’s Christmas present to Mornington Crescent some months before. Disappointment is averted by a visit to Gordon to retrieve the package prepared by GP’s third born under the instruction “for Christmas or in case of emergency, whichever is the sooner”. This proves to be real, English chocolate. The CB tucks in while GP rouses himself and grabs what he can before it is finished.
They go to Christmas Day mass at St Anthony’s Catholic Church. Here the South-East Asian community of Damascus has gathered in a riot of colour and chatter. A flamboyant affair, the chatter barely stops for the service, which is accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation on a screen to deliver prompts to the service and the words to the carols. A French priest interrupts the chatter to begin and on welcoming the congregation to celebrate the birth of Christ, and after the sermon, is greeted with a huge cheer. A little disconcerted, he gestures heavenwards and says “that’s for him, not me – right?”. Communion is without wine but GP and the CB have a good sing along to the carols and go back to the hotel Merry Christmassing everyone they pass.
GP is soon back in the grips of flu and on getting back to the hotel mentions this in passing to reception before going back to the room. Minutes later a herbal tea concoction has been sent to the room “to make you feel better”. It doesn’t. They make an attempt at demolishing the champagne but GP is soon bed bound and they begin an incarceration in the hotel with BBC World’s continued coverage of the demise of Woolworths. GP rises for supper but the Christmas buffet is void of the key staples - not a roast potato in sight, the Turkey looks wan – and by now the CB is beginning to feel a little off colour. So they retreat to their air-conditioned cell and, like most of the UK, watch Only Fools and Horses.
Day 60
Friday 26th December
Damascus, Syria
Ertha Kitt is dead, Grandpa Pete is still ill and the Child Bride is now following in his footsteps with the introductory vomiting phase of the bug. So continues their Damascene Hell. Four star luxury is now a prison to them. They watch Del and Rodney fail to emigrate to Australia for the second time in a repeat of last night’s episode of Only Fools and Horses. They dread the insistent knocks of the Chambermaids desperate to arrange an appointment to clean their room. The room rate adds to their fevered hell as this luxury stay was only supposed to be for two nights but they are too sick to move. The beige walls close in.
Day 61
Saturday 27th December
Damascus, Syria
The Child Bride celebrates Grandpa Pete’s birthday with a high fever. The Four Seasons Damascus is a little more gracious and sends up a birthday cake. The CB is able to take a small bite before throwing herself back wholeheartedly into anguished fevered moaning. GP has turned the corner and can brave a light supper. One driver is on the other side, so their exit is cleared. Lebanon had been on the plan – skiing for Christmas – but snow reports bode ill, Gordon is not allowed into Lebanon on account of his diesel engine and GP is loathe to leave him in a border car park. The Israeli’s consolidate this decision by launching attacks on the Gaza strip. The next day they will head back to central Syria.
Day 61
Sunday 28th December
Damascus – Homs
Grandpa Pete and the Child Bride wake to one helluva hotel bill. While there was no charge for the birthday cake, hidden extras include a daily rate for Gordon’s space next to the Corniche. The concierges gather to give him a send off and scrabble around to find some bottled water to give his drivers.
Ecstatic to be back out in the world and to taste fresh air again they speed North, greeting drivers coming in the opposite direction in their lane on the motorway as good sport.
Homs is at the crossroads of the major roads in the centre of Syria and a stopping off point to break the journey to Palmyra. In hotel terms they have moved from the sublime to the ridiculous. But after the sterility of the Four Seasons in Damascus the dusty kitsch of the Lord Suites Hotel is a welcome change. Their suite is vast, the sanitary seal on the toilet is labelled “specially purged for you” and the menu declares that the restaurant “caters for amateurs”. With this in mind they take to the streets darkened by a power cut and find a dour restaurant that caters for professional eaters.
Day 62
Monday 29th December
Homs, Syria – Palmyra, Syria
Grandpa Pete and the Child Bride wake to a typical Syrian breakfast – the chewy tasteless flat bread that appears at every meal, served in a plastic bag. This morning they are lucky and get an egg too.
They strike East and into the desert, a vast horizon broken by the thin streak of grey tarmac, clusters of nomads and donkey pumps working away at the oil beneath. The research station dedicated to countering desertification does not seem to be having much success. Eventually the road sweeps round a hill, perched on top is Qalat ibn Maan a 17thC castle that overlooks the ruins of Palmyra. They snake through the town and reach the Cham Palace Zenobia Hotel. Here they take a drink on the terrace, directly overlooking 50 hectares of ruined civilisation that dates from 2ndC.
Palmyra developed as a key staging point on the old Silk Road, as part of Alexander the Great’s Seleucid Empire. Eventually it became part of the Roman Empire, whose leaders took a dim view when the local ruler was assassinated in suspicious circumstances and his wife Zenobia took control as Regent. They were right to be wary, as Zenobia went ahead and declared independence from Rome, defeating Roman troops to take Syria, Palestine and then Egypt. Finally in 271 the Romans rounded on her, and despite escape on a camel she was captured at the Euphrates. This wasn’t the end of Zenobia, who was famed for her beauty. She was later freed and bagged a Roman senator as husband; Palmyra however had seen the end of its heyday. Further uprisings saw the city torched by the Romans in 273 after which it served as a military base, the golden days of trade over. Thanks to its remote desert location it didn’t receive attention again until British merchants rediscovered the ruins in 1678.
GP and the CB wander through the ruins and look over the neighbouring oasis. It is rife with touts and wearily they give in and buy the requisite red and white check Arab head cloth, a kufeyya. GP gamely poses for pictures as Grandpa Pete of Arabia with a North London Zenobia.
As a cloudy dusk falls they can sit on the hotel terrace with sundowners, the ruins and the desert directly before them, desert cats at their feet.
Day 64
Tuesday 30th December
Palmyra, Syria – Tartus, Syria
This morning they visit the best preserved structure of the Palmyra settlement, the Temple of Bel. A large walled courtyard protects the inner temple, surrounded by colonnades, at each end carved stone niches decorated with divinities and the signs of the zodiac.
Back outside they walk between the ruined pillars of a lengthy colonnade, running alongside the baths, the senate house, the theatre. Turning back towards the hotel they peer into a tiny church, with a huge olive tree growing inside bursting out through its cracks.
Palmyra is having a communications problem; the ATMs are down, so are the credit card machines. With hard cash in short supply GP and the CB have to move on and head straight West, past Homs again and onto the Northern Syrian coast.
It is a rainy Tartus that they pull into in the dark. Worldwide it seems that seaside resorts are the same. A wide promenade is fronted by tall hotels competing for sea views, a flat town behind them peddling the cheery tat of holidaymakers and the sea held back by a thin metal balustrade. The front is lit by lights and to add to the incongruous familiarity a lonesome, slim Santa Claus wanders the front selling flashing plastic lights and fluffy toys.