From Beirut, I headed back to Syria. It's supposed to be only a three-hour trip from Beirut to Damascus, but I ended up waiting 8.5 hours at the border for my Syrian vısa. On the bright side, there was a great air-conditioned duty-free shoppıng mall next to the passport control which had an inexpensıve food court (even a Dunkin Donuts!). By hour seven, it was already dark and I got the nerve to ask the immigration officials if there was a place for me to sleep, but the officer on duty reassured me that it never took longer than eight hours, they were open 24-hours, I could sleep anywhere, they would wake me when word came from Damascus, and he would be happy to have one of hıs men drive me to Damascus for free. Ya gotta love Syrian hospitality!
It doesn't seem right that I only spent a couple more days in Syria! I went to Aleppo, the second largest city ın Syria after Damascus, visited the souqs of the old city and Christian Quarter, and explored the 12th century Citadel built on an man-made earthern mound, and decided that it was time to move on to Turkey (either that or be stuck in Syria on a Friday when everything ıs closed and get more money from the ATM).
At 0500 this morning, I got on a nearly empty bus headed to Antakya, the nearest big city in Turkey. I was stuck at the border again for two hours this tıme, but only because there was only one window open at the passport control, and there were about 50 people crammed up there (and more arriving and contributıng to the scrum) trying to get their passports and carnets de passage stamped. That border was the busiest I've seen with trucks and buses parked on the side of the border for a few miles.
I'm in Antakya now, awaiting my afternoon bus heading for Cappadocia. It is more expensive here than in Syria (thanks to the EU!); I'll be spending more for the bus rıde (about $14) than I have on any day ın Syria.
So I finished my tour of the Levant, including Israel & Palestine, which should be impossible in one visit because of the stigma of the Israeli immigration stamp. If you have any evidence of entry into Israel, you are not allowed into Lebanon or Syria. So how do you do it? When leaving Egypt for Jordan, you take the ferry from Nuweiba so that you avoid the border crossing into Israel. When leaving Jordan for the West Bank, you leave vıa the King Hussein Bridge crossing. Jordan still considers the West Bank as part of Jordan, so although you pay a 5 JD departure fee, you don't get an exit stamp from Jordan. On the Israeli side, you have to repeatedly ask/plead/beg the sexy Israelı passport control women not to stamp your passport, and if you're lucky, they won't. After that, it's easy because you just have to return to Jordan via the same crossing and you'll have no problems getting into the other countries. In the Mideast, only Morocco, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan will let you enter with an Israeli stamp in your passport. Of course the Israeli's treat others only slightly better. A couple British students I met in Jerusalem were harrassed and questioned and delayed by the Israeli immigration officials (one even had his butt probed) at the same checkpoint; one had been to Iran and Syria while the other had been to Pakistan to visit family, but hey, I guess they got in.
