VIDEO ART: Islam – Peace be Upon You
I have had the pleasure of travelling across much of the Islamic world – these images are from Iraq (1989) & Yemen (2005).
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>>> ENTER art exhibition here (or click image)
Here I am in Yemen awaiting the verdict by trial under strict Islamic Shira Law. Am facing serious charges of fornication, sodomy and using banned substances. The outcome will be either: 1) Deportation 2) Flogged a dozen times 3) Stoned to death ??? (So pick the right answer and I’ll post you an Arabic-language Koran, FREE; cos I’ve bought a stack in my rush to repent).
Fortunately, the trial of MRP is not that dramatic.
Old city of Sanaá from my guesthouse roof-top
LETTER HOME:
Hot, humid. A tropical port town with dozens of islands offshore, palm-fringed. Kinda like Nigeria meets Samoa maybe, in its appearance and ambience. Very friendly, with a million “Hello misters”. Absolutely no tourists.
Sunset from “our” beach in Sarong
Basic town stretched along coast with few ‘real’ shops buts lots of shacks kiosks, rustic housing, taxi vans and taxi motorbikes as the public transport, wild and colourful markets, tropical trees: bananas, coconut and sago palms, salaks (fruit: brown snakeskin-peel sheltering pear/apple tasting segments), papaya, pineapples, sirsak (soft green spiky skin, fruit big as a loaf of bread, tasting mushie, lemony, melting in your mouth incredible taste and texture).
First stayed some days with Erica’s sister’s family. Small shabby house of five rooms. Polished concrete floor. Jesus pics on wall. Few wooden tribal souvenirs, Chinese vases and flowers. Few things beyond beds, sofas, kitchen table, kitchenware, TV and radio. Cooking by gas or fire in the yard out the back. Washing by bucket – mandi – in a bathroom, as is the traditional Indonesian way. Hens and dogs and cats roaming. Crabs and frogs in the pond. Neighbours young children wandering in and out.
Then we stayed at the beach at Grandparents. Amazingly quiet beach and the view. Wicked sunset island sky. Horizon of palm islands – the nearest 500 metres away, which we reach by paddling to in an outrigger canoe. Basic shack right on sand. (Reminds me of Goa, India). Coconut palms and banana trees. Fishermen in canoes. Swimming warm waters but watch for deadly sea snakes. Coral reefs. Crabs that carry shells on their backs as their mobile homes and other crabs that burrow holes everywhere around the yard, with is the beach and sea.
It’s only 5 metres from our mattress to the water at high tide. Pack of family dogs yelping at nightfall. Family piglet in stilted pen, fattening up above the water, next to the outhouse mandi and toilet, washing water from nearby well. Cooking in a nearby kitchen shack of fire places and gas burner, kitchen bench and pots and utensils hanging in rack outside, beside a small fruit and vege garden.
Had a big beer sess of 52 large bottles one day, with relatives and onlookers; I paid for everything.
Been eating fruit and various BBQ fish, some exotic vege dishes, tempe – slabs of fermented soybeans fried, chilli, and rice. Coffee, fried egg and bread for breakfast. Food luxuries included processed cheese, chocolate chip cookies, beer, tinned sausages.
The beach days were stoned, restful, idyllic; paradise.
Anyway, it was a 12 hour boat trip from Sorong to Fakfak (pronounced fuck fuck!) on our way south to here in Marauke.
Travelled on a large passenger liner that carries thousands: five passenger decks – packed, all cabins booked, all economy benches crammed, and floors, corridors, stairwells – we slept on the covered wooden deck at the rear of the boat, behind the mosque, with scores of others around us.
Spent 4 days in Fakfak, awaiting another ship to Merauke, which took 4 days. Quite a journey. Every class cabin booked. Packed boat beyond belief. Thousands camped out on mats with food containers, washing hanging, babies, sleeping women, guitar playing youths, across floors and decks and corridors and on the stairs and even in the lifeboats! Like a ship of refugees.
Luckily, we found a space on the 7th deck cafe, outdoor, but roofed. Sat a table or on the bench for 48 hours, sleeping, eating, chatting, cramped, with nearly 60 others in a space the size of the lounge and your bedroom. When it rained it rained and everybody was flooded out by the rain-river sweeping along the length of the boat’s deck. Huge waterfalls and surges. Monsoonal. Luckily our luggage was on a bench at our table, otherwise my computer would be history. Families on mats on the steel deck had to evacuate their things off the floor before everything was wet, then stand for hours, or crouch, huddled with others until the deck dried off and they could get back to sleep again. Three times the nights were sodden.
Second night was amazing storm, rocked the liner – people wet, tired, and seasick (not us) – women hopelessly ill, as was her child. Floor awash with plastic papers, cig butts, rubbish, gob, baby piss and puke, to be swept away with the next storm. Sea and sky illuminated by lightning. Lightning. Rain blown into us. Distant red moving of up-and-down lights warning of land in the big black void.
Fortunately when the ship pulled into Timika, we moved to a better space on the second deck of economy benches – like a dormitory open with hundreds camped out, the most wretched toilets that failed to work, often lacking water, abrasive smell of pure ammonia that burnt your nostrils. Timika – because the boat was 6 hours late and we’d missed the tide – was never in view, as we arrived at 3 am, cruising up a river lined by thin, 10 metre trees, white bark glowing under moonlight. Maniacally driven, motorised dug-out canoes sped alongside us, and worn-out colonial riverboats and police launches all hovered around the ship, awaiting passengers down the steps to a barge-boat, others lumbering with luggage across boat decks – scene illuminated by ship floodlights – to the speedy canoes, that when full, zoomed off into the night, river churning, men with flashlights crouched at the front, acting as headlights on this dark river highway.
Meantime porters were chucking luggage and cargo from decks to boats below, others lowering stuff by rope. Then it rained again and the chaos of 25 boats and canoes amplified and passengers exposed, sought umbrellas, mats, plastic over their heads. It was like a jungle scene from a movie set on the Congo River, at night.
Now here in Marauke in southern Irian Jaya / Papua, for the past 4 days, staying with more relatives in a basic but comfortable house.
Cooler weather here, windy, often rainy. Met up again with Erica’s bro, Lukey, 27, who we’d met with in Sorong and who’d left earlier headed for Marauke (- for boats only come here every fortnight). They have met their father for the first time – he’d separated from their mother when Erica was three, 27 years ago. Their mother died 5 years ago.
Her father was an Captain in the army, Indonesian intelligence. He has an incense – wood – business he wants Erica to help him with, and also a crocodile farm – I held a baby, 24-inch croc yesterday – with skins for export. Erica wants to work here for a few months with business visits to Bali, to make cash and then go to Holland to scatter her mother’s ashes, for she is half-Dutch half-Ambonese (from the Malaku: Spice Islands). And her dad is Irian (west Papua).
Who is Erica: I call her “Jungle girl.” She’s brown, slim, shapely, sexy, crazy, fun, caring, and a mother of three – met her 11-year-old son Felix in Sorong, presently living with her sister, other two kids living with her older German, ex-husband in Bali. I met Erica in Jakarta at a club. She was a high-class pro and has recently given up her speed – amphetamine – addiction (both activities a consequence of broken marriage and hard times). She is also an asthma sufferer and has had two very close calls – to hospital; one the other day here, and the other on the ship from Jakarta.
Now, amazing big bright green frogs sit on the porch at night, under the lights, awaiting insects. The frogs are cute, wide-eyed but their poisonous spit will blind you …
And the large brown ants with green backs, they build houses for their many thousands by climbing trees and twisting and weaving with their silk, living leaves together, to make elaborate nests in the branches of a tree next to the outhouse and shower, a small enclosure open to the sky, shaded by the fingers of trees, sun warming us as we wash … in the morning.
Have been made very welcome by all – family, friends, strangers, even police …
> photos of Papua & Indonesia
travel article published 1996 & 98 / travels 1995
In a cafe in sun-burnt Eritrea, over a quiet beer, the hotel owner’s daughter Lucher, 25, told me she has killed four men.
That she carried a pistol as the radio operator in a commando unit. That she received medals and a military pension as reward for her seven-year stint with the EPLF (Eritrean People’s Liberation Front: as one third of Eritrea’s soldiers were women in their 30-year war against the Ethiopian Army). Now seven years since the war ended, Eritreans face the future with the same confidence that won them independence.
Young girl with sheep on the plateau of Matara, just north of the Ethiopian border, 1995
Eritrea is Africa’s newest nation. It comprises of nine ethnic groups, with an evenly split Muslim-Christian population of 3 million. Eritrea is roughly the size of the England but mountainous and arid, sharing land borders with Sudan, Ethiopia and Djibouti and 960km of desolate coastline opposite Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
The name Eritrea is derived from the Latin for Red Sea, for Eritrea’s origins began in 1890 as an Italian colony, and its status remained so until the British Army defeated the Italians in Abyssinia (Ethiopia) during the Second World War.
In 1952, the United Nations made Eritrea an autonomous federated state within Ethiopia – despite Eritrean calls for independence. Later Emperor Haile Selassie annexed Eritrea as Ethiopia’s 14th province, dissolving the parliament in the capital, Asmara, banning the Eritrean flag and languages. The struggle for Eritrean independence began in 1961 when poorly equipped rebels attacked an Ethiopian Police post. From that spark, this David vs Goliath struggle ignited into a long, bloody guerilla war.
In the 1970s the Ethiopian Communist regime, having deposed of Haile Selassie, conducted mass executions and torture which stiffened Eritrean resistance. In the 80s political intransigence by Ethiopia’s military leadership, combined with drought conditions, brought severe famine to the northern provinces – including Eritrea (hence Live Aid).
Yet despite the odds, Eritrean guerilla armies inflicted crushing defeats against the Ethiopian Army – one of Africa’s biggest, supplied and supported by the Soviet Union. In May 1991, 30 years since the start of conflict, victorious Eritrean forces entered Asmara.
Asmara, home to 400,000 people, is a pleasant highland city of Italian and Islamic influence, where grand cathedrals and art-deco architecture mix with mosques and markets. Asmara’s mainstreet – renamed Liberation Avenue – is lined with palm trees, expresso bars, mod-con stores and boutiques. Asmara’s streets are safe, clean and uncrowded; the taxis are old yellow Fiats and the traffic flows are quiet and orderly. Unlike most developing world cities, there’s no overwhelming pollution, no visible poverty, and no one hassles you for anything. Asmara is one of Africa’s gems.
Asmara was spared the ravages of war but down on the desolate Arabian coast, the 16th – 19th century Ottoman-Turk seaport of Massawa, once known as the Pearl of the Red Sea, was a major battlefield in 1990. Today many of the gracious old coral buildings are bullet-pocked; others are holed or completely destroyed. But along the mainstreet there remains the run-down, two-storey, Sicilian-style villas, with whitewashed walls and long street-front verandas, arched Islamic windows hidden by shutters.
Beneath the shriek of seagulls, in the stifling humidity, passing donkey and cart, there I am, trying to find a hotel in war-worn Massawa, walking a dirt lane of high walls and darkened doorways, when I hear “Hello friend!” I turn, see no one, and continue. Again someone calls. I turn to see a young woman waving, a smiling face in an alley of tattered, burnt-out buildings. I am invited inside, to drink coffee.
She has rich-brown skin, black eyes, long-braided hair and her name is Suzanne. Her home is a dark concrete space without windows or electricity. The interior is lit by the glare from the open door. Behind a spring bed with slumped mattress, hangs a tatty curtain dividing the room in two. On the cracked cement floor is a kerosene burner, pots and pans, mats and boxes and, on another bed, there stares a beautiful young woman. She looks African yet Arabian with alluring, mysterious black eyes. Her breasts are barely concealed as she plaits the hair of another woman, who could be – but isn’t – her mother.
Only Suzanne speaks English and as she roasts coffee beans and boils water, she tells me she spent the war in a refugee camp, in the Sudan. Now, she hopes to get the electricity reconnected to her home. Faded magazine pictures stuck to the bare-concrete walls remind Suzannne of her dream: That distant glamour of The West. She asks if I’ll come back later, tonight? It’s obvious how these women make ends meet.
One week later out west, towards the deserts of Sudan, near the town of Keren, I visit the Mariam Darit: a 108-year-old chapel built into the hollow of a massive baobab tree.
Inside the shrine there stands a statue of the Virgin Mary. The elderly caretaker tells me the statute had originally come from an older church destroyed last century by ethnic conflict; but then, for many years the statue disappeared, lost until it resurfaced in the river near this huge hollow-trunked tree.
And so this shrine was built. Strangely, however, when the Virgin was rediscovered in the river, it changed from original white marble, to fresh shining ebony. In this barren but beautiful land, the leafy, shady grounds surrounding the shrine of the Virgin Mary remain a favourite spot for families to picnic.
Across Eritrea the future shines bright.
> photos of Eritrea
Travel article published 1996 & 98 / travels 1994
The Yumbu Lakang monastery is straight from a fairytale – there, clinging to a rocky crag and surrounded by barren ridges, this ancient castle overlooks an oasis amid a mountainous, high-altitude desert. At 4000 metres above sea level this is the Yarlong Valley, the cradle of Tibetan civilisation.
Overlooking the Yarlong Valley from the monastery.
In the valley below, a gravel road runs between grids of freshly-ploughed fields, where clumped-trees stretch to clusters of flat-roofed, white-washed, stone-block villages; there prayer flags flutter slightly in the late-summer breeze. The sun is intense, blinding bright, yet, it’s cold in the shade.
Occasionally, farmers yelling at yoked yaks – break the silence; shouting across the valley and up to the desolate surrounding slopes – brown and without snow; peaks barren and rocky and reaching to the calm, ocean sky.
For hours I enjoy this vista there, there, yeah, the tranquillity until, several army jeeps wind their way up to deliver 20 Chinese soldiers, who proceed to stomp and shout their way up the monastery’s galleries to reach the roof, where I sit. And to the handful that catch my eye I say hello, in Chinese. But soon I’ve become an exhibit, and so head down to the seclusion of the central shrine.
Inside it’s dimly-lit: rows of flaming brass bowls burning yak’s butter, casting shadowy, slightly-spooky vibes. Hanging from the high pillars and down walls are the thangkas – banners of crazed, cartoonish murals with blue, multi-headed demons ringed by skulls and fire. The shrine is a mass of glistening metal, small flames and shadows, dominated by large Buddha statues of serene, golden-faced gods, robed in brocade gowns. Amid this the Dalai Lama’s portrait, engulfed by pilgrims’ offerings – Chinese currency.
To Tibetans the Dalai Lama represents the Bodhisattva of compassion – the focus of Tibetan Buddhism is compassion; he is their god-king. (Dalai means ocean, ocean of wisdom; lama meaning monk. Each Dalai Lama is believed the reincarnation of his predecessor.) And the founding in the 14th century of the Gelugpa, the Virtuous Ones or the Yellow Hat Sect, established the rule of the Dalai Lamas.
It was the Great Fifth Dalai Lama who unified Tibet and built the Potala, the massive fortress-palace that overlooks Lhasa. However across the following centuries a succession of Dalai Lamas ruled Tibet yet it suffered foreign invasions and remained largely under Chinese influence until 1912.
Tibet’s independence was brief … In 1950 came Chinese communist occupation and since 1959 Tibet has been without it’s spiritual leader after the Chinese Army crushed a rebellion, forcing the Dalai Lama and 80,000 Tibetans to flee to India (where they reside today). When the Cultural Revolution of 1966 – 76 swept across China – it also battered Tibet. During this period some 2000 Tibetan monasteries were damaged or destroyed.
AROUND 2000 years ago the First Tibetan King built the Yumbu Lakang but with the end of the monarchy in the 9th century it was converted into a Buddhist monastery (but after demolition by Red Guards the Yumbu Lakang was later rebuilt in the 1980s). Now the temple’s interior lacks that ancient, musty smell, typical of the older, surviving monasteries.
I watch the elderly monk polishing a small brass bowl, then replacing it amid the row of bowls running the length of the shrine. As he starts on another bowl, he sees me and I grin, then, putting my fingers in my ears I point to the noise upstairs. He beams a smile, then repeats my charade. But as he does this, saying something in Tibetan, a group of screeching Chinese soldiers enter. The monk goes silent. I break the situation by hissing – “Ssssh!”, finger to my lips. “You guys are too noisy. This is a holy place, not a circus!” They behave. The elderly Tibetan seems pleased at my action. But minutes later another lot arrives, and while some are quiet, respectful, most are loud and laughing – as if at an amusement park. One lad acts a sleeping charade on the monk’s couch. After 20 minutes the soldiers leave, and calm returns to the monastery.
It’s late in the afternoon when I begin the 12 km walk back to the town of Zetang. It’s cold where the tall poplar trees shade the deserted gravel road.
In the surrounding fields farmers urge yaks and plough across dry, dredged dirt. One group sits on sacks on the soil, eating, and they wave me over to join them and so I do.
Immediate smiles from two middle-aged women in faded black robes – sleeveless, pink shirts protruding, twists of pink and blue cloth in their black, plaited hair. A third woman wears her dark traditional garments with a Mao cap. Of the two men present, the younger is dressed in Chinese peasant wear while the elderly guy wears tribal tunic and trousers. He is the headman and offers me an empty sack on which to sit. His short black hair is clean-shaven round the ears; his brown-red face etched, lines reaching from eyes to ears when he grins, more rippling round the bulge of his cheeks as he urges me to eat.
From one thermos he pours yak’s butter tea – unsweetened, oily, buttery-tasting. Another thermos contains chang – a sour, flat, barley beer. To eat there is small flat bread and tsampa (a coarse flour made from parched barley, it’s textile like dough) and boiled potatoes, which we peel then dip in a bowl of watery, tasty chilli. I offer my biscuits and sweets for dessert with yak’s butter tea. Afterwards the old man offers cigarettes. Very few words are spoken but for 20 minutes we communicate via charades and smiles.
Upon leaving I thank them, in Tibetan. As I shake the old guy’s hand, he raises it up, placing it against his forehead, then utters … something.
Back on the lonely dusty road, passing trails of tatty, five-colour prayer flags, the breeze sweeping their mantras heavenwards, I think what his words could have meant: maybe a sense of hope and thanks, maybe a prayer for Tibet – maybe that, yes, here where still the spirit survives.
Beggar & baby in Lhasa
He’d just locked the keys inside his truck. What a plonker! And what a hopeless position: parked as it was in front of the gate – which the guard had just unlocked and now the truck totally blocked the access point between Iran and Pakistan … cornered near Afghanistan. A high fence defined the frontier, mesh and barbed-wire running out and into the barren hills and cramped against the wire were Afghani refugees living in a dusty, iron-sheet, canvas and timber squalor.
Razor ridges on the road from the Iranian border into Baluchistan
The German had offered me a lift. But now, with his truck stuck, I was sure I would be catching the train to Quetta. (The capital of Baluchistan: the vast desert region of western Pakistan. Baluchistan is a rugged, arid land bordered by Iran in the west, Afghanistan to the north, the Arabian Sea in the south and the greener Sind province of Pakistan in the east.) I’d rushed to make the once-a-week train; I didn’t fancy waiting for the next departure. Or one of the old, agonising and infrequent buses which left the border.
I strolled through the gate and into Pakistan – the truck still blocking it. Other vehicles couldn’t pass. Fortunately, there were none waiting this early in the morning. I greeted the Pakistani police. They were friendly, smiling, asking questions as they shaded on the veranda of the customs hut.
Surrounded by dark-skinned police, in black uniforms and black berets (with red insigna), I felt elated to have reached the Subcontinent. Historically, I’d now entered India. But politically Hindustan, or land of the Hindus, was still 1500 km east. For the last two days dark-skinned people had been prevalent in Iran as I’d neared Pakistan. In Kerman, I’d given a woman – begging with her child – 1000 rials. However, this brought another woman with child, screeching and shrieking at my feet. These women made me wonder about the immense poverty I would encounter in India: What would I do when everyone wanted money?
Now, stamped into Pakistan, I wandered back into the glaring sunlight. And no sooner had I, when the money changers rushed me–shouting and arguing for my attention.
“Change! Change!” “Dollar. You ‘ave dollar?” “Iran rial, I change.” “Good rate, I give best.” “No mista, do not listen to this man – “ ” – How much, you say?” “I give more!”
I changed the last of my rials for Pakistani rupees. Meanwhile the truck remained stuck in Iran, inches from Pakistan. Still the German cursed. Confused Iranian guards ran round with wire and other objects that might open the door. The German pulled at the rubber lining the window. I offered my Swiss army knife. And suggested: Smash the window with a rock. But he wouldn’t hear of it. Eventually he stripped the rubber, opened the small triangular window, then pushed his arm through and unlocked the door. The borderguards were impressed – and I suspect, a little relieved to have the gate clear as other vehicles had arrived.
Dry flood plains of Baluchistan
I had a lift, again. We drove past the immigration shack to the custom’s building round the corner and stopped. Inside, they inspected my pack briefly. Then with our passports checked and stamped again, the official followed us back the to truck.
During the next hour customs checked the truck’s contents with the descriptions on the carnet, while scores of dust-coated cars (Ex-Kuwait like I’d seen at the Turkish/ Iranian border) arrived. A Mercedes 180 came strapped onto the roof of an old bus!
Returning guest-workers and their families waited for clearance. Customs took awhile. Killing time, doing essentials, young adults and children gathered with jerry cans and plastic bottles on the soaked soil round the water pump. One guy washed dust and grime from his arms, face and feet. Another scrubbed his sandals; others cleaned windscreens, checked tyres, ate and relaxed before the drive across the desert. A happy vibe bounced around the vehicle park. It said: We’re relieved to have nearly reached home.
I watched the activity while the customs man inspected the truck. First, everything inside the rear living-unit. One stove. Two fridges. Three spare wheels. A second engine, tool box … And then inside the cab.
The flat-nosed Mercedes freight truck had a green cab and the rear was dark-blue, with a flower painted and circling a lone plastic porthole. A black panther – like those kitsch 70s bedroom posters, sparkling eyes, mouth open and stalking – gazed from above the cab’s roof.
The driver, Kris, said he’d painted both pictures. He was a solid guy who tended to waddle, rather than walk; being top-heavy, like a body builder who’d neglected his lower half; his muscles were obvious in his faded black singlet. He looked like someone I’d met before: shaggy brown hair touching the his lower neck, blue eyes, sharp nose, whiskery face and moustache.
Kris said the first 160 km of road was a trail of tyre-grooved dust. Old tracks, piled stones and the skeletons of buses kept us on route. Otherwise, it was the perfect place to get lost. Imagine a flat and empty landscape halved into two colours: dust-grey sand and stones – like rough sandpaper and pale-blue sky.
Driving this desolate stretch heading east, we crossed paths with six Baluchi’s going north. One man rode, while the others led laden camels–sacks and blankets. We stopped. They stopped. We smiled, shook hands and exchanged greetings. “Salaam akeikum” – ‘Peace be upon you.’ “Wa aleikum asalaam”, they replied. ‘And peace be upon
you.’ Beaming in the eyes of both parties: the surpise of having encountered each another. Here two worlds collided. Them with Allah’s time-tested transport and us, with our recent man-made machine.
These men wore traditional garments – of a style perhaps unchanged since man’s creation? The bearded chief resembled a biblical prophet. He dressed in clean white robes and in turban with flowing tail. He held a sturdy wooden staff. The rest wore knee-length mostly grey–shirts and baggy trousers, with round-flat caps or loose turbans. Only Allah knows where their leader led them, so much space, so much sky.
Men of the desert
Speeding across the blank expanse our truck sent dust whirling. But the trail wasn’t good, and more often the pace was slow. Many ruts and holes. Kris had driven this route before and this was now his fourth time. And his last. He said, “I’m sick of it. Too much hassle and it is too lonely. When I saw you, I was very glad to see another foreigner–zat is why I ask if you want the ride.”
I asked Kris about the hassles involved with driving from Germany to Nepal. And he replied, “The police always stop me in Iran. Zey see a European truck and zey search for a long time and are always wanting things. I am sick of zis…”
In Germany Kris (a mechanic) and friends brought old trucks, loading them with second hand appliances and setting them up as campers – to avoid custom’s restrictions. Later they sold the lot in Kathmandu. But it had been Kris who’d done all the travelling.
“Once,” he said, “a friend took the truck across Turkey but when he reached the Iran border, zey turn him back. So I had to fly from Germany to drive the truck for him.” “Did he have a visa?” “Yes. He had a visa from the embassy in Germany.” “Why was he turned back then?” “Zey gave no reason. But there was a diplomatic problem at the time between Germany and Iran, maybe zis was the reason. It did not matter anyhow, zey let me in. But I think it was because I had been to Iran before…”
Parking off the road for the night, we later slept. By mid-morning we’d reached the asphalt. It was pocked with holes. The slow and bumpy road stretched before us, weaving as the landscape became rugged.
It was weird, startling, even spooky. A rock-strewn plain patched by scrub and yellowish weeds. And breaking this mustard-and-grey carpet were mountains; rocky, razored and near-vertical from their base, forming in a series of serrated ridges, curling the land like dragons. The road passed between two spikes and beyond the nearest ridges, the distant peaks were misted in a blue-grey haze.
Later, in a panorama of gravel and barren sand-swamped hills, we stopped alongside two camels chomping on green thorny bush. Watching over them were two boys. One about ten and the other in his early-teens, both dressed in dejembas (knee-length shirt; with loose trousers). Kris gave them some stickers, demonstrating what they were by peeling one and fastening it to the windscreen. They invited us for chai, pointing to a mud-and-stone flat-roofed house nestled beside a hill. Kris declined.
The boys who liked their stickers
The landscape was silence and the road empty. But we did encounter the odd Kuwaiti car or Pakistani truck. The trucks were gypsy caravans on modern chassises. Some had cabins built of wood with ornate panels and tassles around the windscreen and doors. Heavily-decorated and brightly-painted Allah praises, murals and motifs ran around the high wagon-like cargo bins. Fairy lights, metallic stickers and chains clung from bumpers and tailboards. Signs were painted on the back of each truck: “Please use horn”. And like some warning, they thundered past us – we never overtook them. Their drivers drove fast and crazy. After several battles, it was always us who pulled over to let them pass. We stopped either for trucks or to stretch, or to refill our waterbottles from the rear tank.
Driving into Dalbandin around dusk, we halted for chai. At the tea stall we met a teacher. He showed us to a basic restaurant. They served mutton curry with rice – or the reality, sticky bits with spicey soup and bones. Anyway, it seemed like a meal after two days of biscuits. Before leaving I visited the outhouse, where I flicked a lighter to see where I was stepping. Of course, the long-drop reeked something horrible but at least turds didn’t cover the dirt. Around the pit, hundreds of cockroaches – 2 inches long – scuttled for cover as I squatted.
Before we departed Dalbandin the teacher reappeared with a lump of charas (hash). After two hours we turned off the road, careful not to park where the sand was too soft. Then without papers, Kris carefully loosened and emptied a cigarette, mixing tobacco with pinches of charas before repacking the cylinder.
Now lying in our sleeping bags on the truck’s roof – excessible by a skylight – we smoked, gazing at the stars.
Silence, except my walkman playing softly … But alarmingly half-way through the first smoke we thought we heard someone shouting. Looking down, we saw an armed soldier walking around the truck. He asked what we were doing? We told him: Just parked for the night. He said okay, and bid us good night.
And not until the morning did we realize in this total emptiness that there was a police post just across the road! It had been invisible last night.
Kris had checked the ground but still we managed to get stuck in the sand as we left that next morning. The rear wheels spun and dug in. He revved-hard and we wound deeper. After scooping sand from the tyres and placing some wood beneath the rubber, we tried again. We jolted forward. The small plank snapped. Sand sunk around the axel. Kris told me he’d nearly lost a truck in the sand before – it seemed we were to repeat the lesson.
Truck stuck ! (Kris on far-right)
It was looking ugly … Fortunately, a man from the station offered help. Within minutes we had seven men armed with a spade and two lengths of wood. They dug us out. Free; we thanked them. Kris gave out Western cigarettes and matches (which he carried to give as gifts).
For hours the road coiled across rugged hills as we began climbing towards Quetta. Mountains of rock devoid of trees. As we twisted towards the top of another range of boulders, tussock grass amid reefs of jagged rock – the corner ahead came into view. A crashed bus. It lay on its side on the slope, having punched through the stone wall flanking the road. Surprisingly it had stuck – not tumbled into the gorge.
The road wound hills and later followed a river, through steep cliffs of layered wave-thrashed rock. Pebbles and reeds lined the river. But further, the water dried-up as we drove alongside a wide floodplain dotted by shrubs; red-brown and green blotches reaching to rounded, gentle hills a mile off. T
Throughout the journey the scenery was desolate and barren. Stunning landscapes. But nature aside, the only sights were rail bridges and tracks occasionally following the road. At times the line burrowed into cliffs, travelling through tunnels built by the British early this century, and bove the entrances small stone forts (with crenellated walls and turrets like a Medieval castle). A hint of the troubled times had by the Brits in this wild corner of Empire.
Trucks rumbling beyond an old British railway fort
In Nushki (I think it was this place as it is only one of three towns on route to Quetta) we saw green trees and lush vegetation amid rundown brick and shanty buildings. Shoe-box-sized stalls and sack-and-timber shelters were crammed infront of old brick houses – looking half-finished or falling apart with paint fading and fragile timber lean-tos and awnings tacked on; rugs and clothes hanging from roofs and wires. Nuskhi was drying out. I think we’d missed a downpour. The roadside was muddy and swamped by large puddles, forming temporary lakes around houses, shops and cigarette stalls, causing donkeys and carts to circle round.
And when we stopped at a stall a crowd of 40-50 gathered. Males of all ages came to watch the foreigners and admire the truck. Men and boys. Some wore turbans. But most had round-flat caps with a wedge cut in the front, embroidered with motifs, flowers and studded with tiny mirrors.
The crowd …
After travelling 620 km – three days – across Baluchistan we entered Quetta that afternoon … The main street was thick with cars, trucks, packed buses, swerving bicycles, diesel-coughing rickshaws. The hustle and bustle like a photo I’d already pictured, like a scene I’d already visualised, and now finally India seemed within my reach …
Travel article 1997 / travels 1989
An elderly Arab calls out as I wander past a cafe, where men smoke sheshas as others sip shay -tea. I don’t know this man, nor he me, but all the same I’m invited to join his street-front table, to drink tea.
His hospitality is typical of my time in Syria.
Forget the television news: the negative represents only 10% of the reality. For sure, the Syrian Government has sponsored terrorism and waged war against Israel, but things are changing and as a tourist you have nothing to fear. And while the Syrian military have dominated government since independence from the French in 1946, the current President, Hafez al-Assad, who seized control in 1970, has in recent years brought stability to this country of 17 million. Syria’s population is 86% Muslim, with a literacy rate around 70%.
Syria is a small country about half the size of New Zealand, bordered by Turkey in the north, Jordan and Iraq in the south and east, with Israel and Lebanon on the south and west. Within Syria lie four geographical regions: a narrow Mediterranean coast, mountains and farmland in the west, but most of the country is flat, stony desert. Forming part of Arabia’s fertile crescent, Syria across the centuries has seen the invading presence of many great civilisations.
Sunset over the desert ruins of Palmyra
The main reason for a visit to Syria is it’s wealth of historical sites. You can spend weeks seeking Hittite sites or Crusader castles along the coast, or exploring the ruins of Mesopotamian, Byzantine or Roman towns in the desert; discover the Ottoman and Arab Muslim heritage amid the mosaic of history in Damascus, whether it be one of the gems of Islamic architecture, the 8th century Omayyad Mosque, or the Mausoleum of Saladin, the Muslim conquer who defeated the Crusaders and retook Jerusalem. In the fertile Orontes Valley you find the giant, medieval waterwheels of Hama and in Syria’s second city, Allepo, you wander back in time amid one of the great markets of the Middle East.
There is so much to see and experience in Syria; it is said there are 20,000 archaeological sites in the country.
Syria’s main attraction – and one of the world’s greatest historic sights – is Palmyra: once an important city on the old Silk Road between China and the West. The ruins of Palmyra are 1800-years-old, and cover some 50 hectares: a great colonnade forms the main artery of the city, passing thru ornate monumental arches, an amphitheatre and small temples to the massive Temple of Bel.
Beside the walls of Bel I watch the sunset on distant desert ridges, last rays showering an orange glint across the avenue of carved stone columns – Roman pillars stretching forever, so it seems; on the other side of the ruins stands a sprawling oasis of date palms, hence the Roman name: City of Palms. The ruins are now deserted, except for an extended Arab family, scarfed wives trailing their husbands and kids, a vendor attempting to sell them a branch of fresh dates.
Ampitheatre of Palmyra, looking to the columns of the main avenue
Palmyra is mentioned in tablets as far back as the 19th century BC, but the ruins originate from the 2nd century AD,when Palmyra’s importance grew as a buffer state between the Roman and Persian empires. From the status as a Roman colony Palmyra gradually evolved into a kingdom, when the ruler, Odenathus, a brilliant military commander, earned the respect and trust of Rome. Palmyra prospered, until Odenathus was assassinated in 267 AD. His second wife, Zenobia, claimed the throne. This action offended Rome (who thought Zenobia was involved in her husband’s death).
Claiming to be descended from Cleopatra, Zenobia was a woman of great beauty, ability and ambition, and it was she who declared Palmyra an independent empire, her army seizing Egypt from Rome’s control. But the desert warrior queen was stopped by the mighty Roman Empire, the city besieged and Zenobia taken alive. Two versions exist of her end: one, that she lived her final days in villa in Rome; another that she fast to death rather than remain captive. Today at Palmyra illegal dealers peddle ancient coins embossed with the face of Zenobia. The legendary Zenobia remains a folk hero.
Preceding her fall, Zenobia founded the town of Halabiyyeh, north of Palmyra and alongside the Euphrates River. The long stone walls that remain today were fortifications constructed by the Roman Emperor Justinian; the Persians later seized the garrison town in 610 A.D.
Intent on visiting these ruins, I set out from the desert city of Deir-ez-Zur in a local bus, to later be dropped off in the middle of nowhere: at a lonely side road winding towards some distant ridges, in an expanse of flat gravel and sand.
After an hour of desert heat and stark silence comes the chug and rattle of a farm tractor and trailer. The driver stops, and offers me a lift. The mighty Euphrates River soon appears: swift, wide blue snaking between barren, honey-coloured ridges, the nearby banks bordered by green fields and the odd mud-brick house.
Locals encountered on the Euphrates riverbank, on route to the ruins of Halabiyyeh
Stopped at his home, Ahmed invites me to drink tea. From two flat-roofed adobe houses – plastered-mud walls the colour of the surrounding desert, cracks and gaps exposing stacked stone, out run kids shouting, excited to see Dad and this stranger.
An elderly man greets me “Ahlan / Welcome”, as he unrolls carpets across the hard-earthen floor. Apart from patterned carpets and cushions, the room is bare, just white-washed walls and two glassless windows beneath a rafter ceiling. The old man keeps smiling; the children talking excitedly – until Dad tells them to sit and hush.
There are two boys and two young girls, the latter wearing tatty floral dresses, their hair brown and tangled (They are too young for chador: black cloth and veils worn when a female reaches puberty). Ahmed’s wife and eldest daughter both wear chador – without veils – when they enter the room, one carrying a tray of thumb-sized glasses, the other a teapot. We sip sugary black tea. The kids giggle, whispering to one another. Ahmed says, “They not seen foreigner before.” (He speaks a mix of basic English and French; many locals speak French: a legacy of the French Mandate over Syria, following the dismantling of the Ottoman Turk Empire after the First World War).
This Bedouin family finds my appearance and clothing strange; boots, Ahmed says, are only for the military. And earrings, well, only women wear these in Syria. But what throws them most is the realisation that it takes at least a day-and-night by Jumbo jet to reach Syria. My hand-drawn map of the world is poor, however they are aware of Australia, and so I settle on being an Aussie. The kids, when Ahmed has explained to them, begin chanting: “Australyee! Australyee!”
Ahmed’s wife and daughter reappear with laden trays, and everyone washes their hands in a bowl of warm water. We then tuck into a communal meal with our right hands (for Muslim custom dictates that the left hand is for the toilet).
Young and old, male and female, Muslim and Christian, together we eat meat stew and leaven-bread. I share my bag of boiled sweets, which are happily munched by all. Following dinner and sweets and more cups of tea, Ahmed asks me to stay the night. This offer is a blessing, because it’s getting late and I’ve still not reached the ruins and am without sleeping bag and warm clothes, intending this only as a day-trip. They provide me a mattress and blankets.
And in the morning a meal of scrambled egg, goat’s cheese and flat bread with sweet tea. I get to the ruins by mid-morning and explore the empty, walled city and climb the crumbling citadel for a great view of desert and deep-blue river.
Walls of Halabiyehh ruins
Leaving Halabiyyeh I get lucky, and hitch a ride back to the desert highway where I wave down a bus but its crammed; a seated man insists I take his seat. Yet again, kindness shown to the stranger, such was my experience of Syria.
