Beirut Day 26 – July 19, 2009

We left AUB at 8:15 or so to go to Charles Helou to catch a bus to Trablos. We opted for a “luxury” bus company, i.e. one with air conditioning, recommended by the guide book, paying about 4000LL each. I think it only took about an hour and a half.

Our first stop was the Citadel of Raymond de Saint-Gilles (aka Raymond (IV) of Tolouse), called Qala’at Sanjil in Arabic. He build the fortress in the 12th century to command the city and he called it Mont Pelerin. It burned down in 1289 and was rebuilt on several occasions, the last two done under the auspices of the Ottomans, first by Suleyman the Magnificant and then in the 19th century by the Ottoman governor of Tripoli.

The citadel is manned by the military for some reason that we couldn’t determine and so on first approach we weren’t sure if we were allowed in since there was a soldier patrolling the wall above the stair but a passerby saw us looking confused and said that it was the citadel and we should go up (in Arabic). The entrance fees were (relative to Lebanon) a bit steep at 7500LL but well worth it. We saw exactly one other visitor for a short while and were essentially left to wander this impressively preserved castle all by ourselves. There were only a few roped off areas and occasionally the watchful eye of a soldier but we were basically on our own. It was magnificent.

After the citadel we wandered around the souqs for a bit but didn’t find that much. We did however stumble upon Khan al-Saboun. It is an effort to reestablish and preserve, at least on a small scale, Tripoli’s history of soap making, for which it has been famous for since the 15th century. It was nice and we were all also given a free package of what are essentially soap scraps of different scents (or scentses as the guy showing us around kept saying). We went there twice, once took look before lunch and then a second time after for buying. It was nice but we were definitely being hovered over by the store proprietors, which was somewhat disconcerting.

For lunch we wandered around until we found a place which was called Al-Daraj and it was basically a mix of Lebanese and American foods. Amusing everything remotely American appeared transliterated in Arabic even the words which had simple Arabic equivalents. For example the phrase “chicken submarine” was transliterated in its entirety and did not use the Arabic word for chicken for some reason.

We wandered the souqs for about another hour after departing. We went to the public gardens to sit for a minute and the bus departing points were also nearby. We got on a bus when the driver said that he went to Byblos and it was only 1500, like all the buses. What we did not realize however is that when you want to get off you have to make your way to the front of the bus and basically tell the driver you want to get off. He then pulls over to the side of the road, lets you out really quickly and then drives off.

About 5 or 10 minutes past Byblos (which we only half recognized and kept waiting for him to stop) he remembered that we wanted to get off there and let us out. Unfortunately we were on a one way highway and there was no chance of catching a bus going in the other direction without crossing the highway. I have gotten much better and less fearful of crossing roads here but none of us were willing to brave that. After checking at a hotel where a wedding was going on that the best way to get there was to walk, we started trudging. Luckily the area we walked on was separated by a railing from the highway and we eventually found stairs down from the highway to the streets leading to Byblos.

The walk wasn’t absurd but we were quite tired. We eventually got in to Byblos and went to the ruins. We climbed the crusader castle and looked around but were sadly too tired to investigate the rest of the ruins which cover an incredibly wide swath of time including the 3rd and 4th century BCE, Roman occupation, Neolithic and Cahalcolithic ruins, so we just took pictures of them from the top of the castle.

All of us having seen the historic harbor on a previous occasion, we went to the souqs. We visited the shop Memoire du temps, a shop that sells fossils excavated by the owner and his workers in a quarry that his family owns and in nearby villages. A fantastic shop and the girl who showed us around was incredibly well informed and spoke English very well. We mentioned that the shop had been prominently featured in Lonely Planet and she showed us a binder full of mentions of the store. We also had a conversation with Pierre Abi Saad who owns the shop with his brother. There were fossils priced at very reasonable ranges ($5, $10, $20, $30 and of course up) depending on quality and a really amazing private collection on display. Claire and I wandered the souq some more after that and bought some souvenirs while Rob opted to sit and peruse the guidebook’s section on Syria.

Discovering the only way back to Beirut was by minibus we went back up to the highway to wait for one to come by and found out it was going to Dowra in Beirut and would be 1500LL to be paid when getting off. The door to the minibus was kept open and people would hop on and off with rapidity, sometimes the bus barely stopping to let them off. A very interesting method. I probably would have been quite sketched out about if I had not been in a group of friends.

We got let off at Dowra and started to walk to find a taxi…which we didn’t find and ended up walking all the way through the Armenian quarter to Gemmayzeh by which time walking back to AUB had become a “thing” we were going to do. We were lucky and the sun was setting so we were able to find our way through the Armenian quarter by keeping the sun in the right spot. Old school. Although a direct line would have been about 7km from Dowra to AUB, I haven’t seen Rob be able to navigate in a straight line yet and the way we took ended up taking an hour and a half and twice we could have gone a much easier way. My teachers all told me the next day that I was absolutely mad (after checking that I hadn’t been walking by myself) since a taxi was only 2000LL. I got back to AUB, passed on getting dinner due to aching throbbing feet and a lack of hunger, and went back to my room to muddle my way through some homework before going to bed.

I didn’t really like Tripoli that much aside from the Citadel and Khan al-Saboun. Although it certainly has a lot of history it was also very very dirty. Rubbish was just swept out into the streets or into a depression of in the middle of the street. It did not seem to have much of a tourist population (certainly not its fault) and I think we only saw other tourists once on our return trip to the Khan. I’m sure there’s that side of Beirut too that I am just missing. That said I did have a good time. Byblos was nice and very touristy, fairly European (as it is a Christian town) and cleaned up. I’m told there are definitely poorer areas in Jbail. It was a good weekend and I definitely enjoyed myself.