Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
which were exposed to traffic and pedestrians, and its elevated position over the street gave
out a hint of its former status.
The original owner of the hotel, Koko Mazloumian, had passed away a few years previ-
ously. His wife Sally (who was English by birth) and her son, Armen now ran the hotel.
We did spot Sally a few times. I wanted to speak to her, but she seemed very frail and
something seemed to have irritated her that day (or maybe earlier) and so we left her in
peace. We did, however, speak to her son. He admitted that times had been hard for tour-
ism and the economy, but in spite of all this, he was optimistic. The hotel was undergoing a
makeover and he was aiming to restore some of its faded glory or move towards modernity
as the schizophrenic division of the old and new rooms respectively displayed. I have no
idea in what state the hotel may be now as parts of Aleppo are no longer standing and it is
unlikely that the hospitality sector will have done any business for years.
Our proposed schedule was very intense. We had different priorities for day one and we
wanted to fulfill them all, and more. First, we sat down with Ahmed for a cup of coffee
and we handed over a brown envelope full of fresh US dollar notes; which was the cost of
our tour. From time to time, the mysterious and exceedingly jolly Rafa joined in over the
phone. Nothing that we proposed seemed to faze her or Ahmed. We had previously agreed
on a busy programme for day one. However, that kept expanding as we thought of more
and more things (by “we” I probably mean “I”, because I had read a lot in advance of this
visit, as I had previously planned to make the journey alone and I already had so many
ideas about all the places that I wanted to see).
