Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
I noticed a woman furiously writing postcards at the next table. I made some comment
about postcards to see whether she would respond; and she did. She was English, living in
Bangkok, writing to her friends in New York with the simple message
“Don't be afraid, come to Syria and see the magnificence of it all”.
She said that many of her US friends were concerned about coming to places such as Syria,
as they felt they would be targeted by angry people. I could appreciate their concerns given
the way the US President, George W Bush, and his cohorts had ridden roughshod over the
Middle East on behalf of the financial backers of their regime.
I meandered back to the hotel and prepared for another dinner, this time on the recommend-
ation of Mohammed.
(I kept saying to myself that to avoid confusion I should, as part of this narrative, add the
suffix “our guide” given that he had the same name as their prophet.)
Finding the restaurant on the second night was a little more difficult, but it all worked out
in the end. There were three sets of instructions on how to get there. We were in the general
area and I asked a local. He pointed and indicated it was just around the corner. We went
in that direction but found nothing. We then came back and tried another side street that
began to look promising. A couple of guys said they knew where it was and escorted us to
a small hotel, which had the name we were looking for.
But it turned out that this was also not the right place, but the guy at the hotel did know and
he took us through a couple of narrow alleys and lo behold there it was.
To add to the confusion it was part of a hotel that showed a different name over the door.
It was a pretty good meal. The décor was traditional and it had a nice atmosphere. It seems
that both the restaurant and the small hotel were previously a fine private dwelling.
On the way back, some of the women in the group were keen to look at a shop of silk
scarves. The rest of us stood around outside while the transactions dragged on. But I was
interested in the proprietor's name on the front of the shop - Dimitri Jabour. I asked about
its origins - given that this area was largely Christian of one form or another. He spoke
good English and said that Dimitri was short for Demetrious - a common name in Greece,
Bulgaria and even Russia. His surname was a Syrian derivative of his family's name. He
also volunteered the advice that they were all Orthodox in this locality.
