Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Day Three: Friday 8
th
July 2005
Apamea Hama, Homs and Palmyra
“A sleeping driver and the false guide.”
(Hotel Zenobia Palmyra)
Plan for Day 3:
•
Aleppo
•
Apamea
•
Hama
•
Palmyra
Next morning, I awoke early. Much as I loved the idea of the Baron Hotel and all that it
represented, I decided to forego its less-than-inspiring breakfast and the sad surroundings of
the once grand dining room. I did the same in Tripoli, in Libya a few years later and on both
occasions came up trumps. I wandered off round the block. It was just after 6 a.m. and the
streets were getting busy. The cafes were full, my Arabic was bad, but a mix of French and
English worked. The waiters were dressed in the French café style with waistcoats, short ap-
rons and neat bow ties. My diary scribbles were also hard to make out, but the closest I can
get to deciphering the name of the food that I tasted is “memunia”, a kind of sweet couscous
and jebleh a kind of cottage cheese made from sheep's milk. This seemed to be what every-
one else was eating and it went down very well. I returned to the hotel, very pleased with
my successful adventure.
We checked out from the hotel, and unlike T.E. Lawrence, we paid our bills in full. The pre-
vious night, Raffa had informed us that Ahmed was not able to accompany us for the rest of
the tour and that we would have a new guide, Abdulla. Based on my request to have a guide
with a sense of humour, Abdulla cracked a joke when we met him, but it was all downhill
thereafter. True, Ahmed was a hard act to follow, but Abdulla had none of the intellect, pas-
sion, customer skills, interest, empathy or charm of Ahmed and it became clear very quickly
how inept he was at his work.
Our driver, Mohammed, who spoke very little English would have done a better job than the
false guide, Abdulla. Indeed, on the first part of our tour, Mohammed took us to his family
farm, where much to Peter's delight, there were lots of horses and wild young riders.
