Syria has been inhabited since the prehistoric era and even the Old Testament is set in the country many times. Besides in spite of the rich history, the country was not widely developed yet and there were less fewer tourists compareding to the other countries. IOn this entry, I'll introduce some historical sites where I went on the days of staying atduring my stay in Damascus and Hama.

Palmyra

When I was staying at in Damascus, I went to Palmyra by bus. It took about 3 hours from the bus terminal connected to the central area by mini bus. Palmyra has the biggest archaeological site in the central area of Syria and there are still many Roman style buildings from 3rd centuryies are remaining. A huge temple, a well preserved amphitheatre, a road with many pillars, you can enjoy various types of ruins. Besides, notwithstanding the scale of the site, there were unexpectedly not many tourists walking around and I could enjoy taking photos.

A group of local school kids tried to talk with me, gesturing as if they wanted to take photos with me. I wrote this kind of story on the entry of Luxor; it seems like Eastern Asians like me is are very rare for the local kids in this area. In return, I aimed my camera to at them and it made put them into total chaos. The teacher was just standing and smiling. It was somehow quite heart warming. Nevertheless, be careful to the kids of the local pedlars. They have only two phrases in their dictionaries, "Buy this." and "Give me." Sadly, I became able to distinguish the difference between eyes which become merchandises and those which keep their innocence. Now I'm wondering about after coming back to Japan, how will the eyes of kids there appear to me?

Private tour to the Northern Syria

In order to go to the historical sites ion the Northern area of Syria, I used the private tour organized by the Riad Hotel at Hama with Shin, Tomoko and a Japanese man staying at the hotel at the same time. The 8 hour private trip going to 3 sites cost 700SYP (15USD). I think it was quite reasonable. Actually, using local bus would cost less but with the nominal fee, we were released from worrying about the bus schedule and at ease with playing our own music in the car. If you can find some people going to the same places, a private tour should be a great value.

Apameia

The first destination was Apameia allegedly as the biggest archaeological site of Northern Syria on a par with Palmyra located at the centreal. The length of load with pillars is long 2km long. I felt very unexcited, sadly because I'd already seen the a very similar site in Palmyra. Comparing the photos from the each site, it's interesting to see the difference of the materials of pillars and vegetations. But I couldn't notice such things on the actual site. Basically, Apameia has only pillars and some extra debris which used to be "bathhouse", "library" and others. I would recommend going to Palmyra which is well preserved and has various buildings if you can go only to one place.

Masyaf Castle

The next place we went for to was the Masyaf castle. According to the receptionist of the Riad Hotel, the castle is very good condition and a kind of a good out-of-the-way place. When we reached the site, we all said "Oh, well it's a castle." We could've had very different impression if we had come here in the very first days of the whole journey but in those days we'd been developing a kind of frigidity. But a funny event happened there as we encountered the local kids from school trip again. What's more as it was a fortress, the passages were very narrow. The scene looked like a super star group tried to get out through a stage passage after their concert. Cheering and clapping the kids extended their hands to make handshake with us despite the control from the secret services, no, the teachers. It was not really annoying as they had just pure interest towards us. I could say it was a very interesting experience.

Castle in the Sky, Krak des Chevaliers

The final destination was Krak des Chevaliers which is very popular among Japanese travellers as allegedly the castle is the model of the movie "Castle in the Sky" directed by Hayao Miyazaki. From the planning stage, this castle was the main destination of this trip for us as well. The first two places were in a sense "opening sites". On the way to the castle, we lifted our sprite spirits by listening to the soundtracks of the movie from on the iPod. The western style fort on the top of a 600m height mountain used be an impregnable strategic point. The contrast between the blue sky and the ivy-covered wall certainly had the a similar atmosphere to the movie. Not only the view from the castle, but view to the castle from the other side of the mountain to which the taxi driver led us was very beautiful.

After walking on the outer wall, we enter the castle and somehow found strange people some of whom were wearing armours and being tied with ropes. I got sick at once as it looked like a very cheap tourist attraction but they were in fact the actors for the local cinemas. Using Egyptian costumes and putting many articles on the site they actually ruined the atmosphere but we were alright to see such a bizarre scene.

The thoughts after many historical sites in the Middle East

I'm bit afraid as I shared some negative images of this trip. Nevertheless, this is the style I intend to make. At short term trips, so new and exciting is the everything we see that we tend to feel going all the places on the guide book. In contrast, it's quite difficult to keep this mind state on a long term trip we become unno caring about most of the marginal places. However, because of this, the emotion towards the "real" places is just inexpressible. For instance, I won't be able to forget the feeling when I saw Petra and Karnak at for the first time. I think I'm seeking for this sensation during this trip.

Well, it was the time that I should move to the next country Turkey as I'd had enough time at in this area.

Share this article

Tweet