I spent my last days in Lebanon enjoying life in Roumieh, talking and eating with family and hanging out a bit with some of the local couchsurfers. My birthday was on the 8th, and there was a bit of confusion around the whole thing, but it ended up being a couple great days of celebrating. Originally, I thought that we might do a dinner at Jean's place, but I later found out that Jean didn't know it was my birthday and was having poker night at his place. The girls all knew about my birthday and wanted to take me down to Beirut for Chinese food, but I had already invited a few Couchsurfers up to Roumieh, so I aked if they would join us at Jeddo Mike's restaurant. Unfortunately, a friend of the family had passed away a couple days earlier, and no one wanted to be seen at a restaurant in the village on the day of the funeral. When all was said and done, four couchsurfers came to join me for dinner, and we had a nice quiet evening.
Thursday night, I went down to Chopstix for Chinese with the girls. The restaurant had relocated and was very nice, and I enjoyed the food, but Mounira wasn't so easily pleased. I agree that the restaurant was a little chilly when we came in, but Mounira insisted that it was colder than her refridgerator inside, and that she was going to need Panadol all night long. She also didn't like the food, but that's no surprise. The last time I went to Chopstix with her, she said she hated Chinese food, Lebanese food was the best and she was never going back to that restaurant again. The story goes much the same way this time around. She said, "In 10 years, when Chris is 50, maybe I will come back." I don't know when she decided I was 40, but we had a good laugh and made bets on how many days Mounira would be saying the same things about the restaurant.
On Friday, I stayed in Roumieh all day, and then I went down to say hi to Raymond, Rita and whoever else might be around before heading to Beirut for the evening. The couchsurfers had arranged an evening out in Ashrafieh for my last day in Lebanon, and we had a great time. Several of the Lebanese CSers showed up, along with a girl from Italy, her boyfriend from Denmark and about 4 or 5 Germans. I decided that the Charlotte CS group needs to up their productivity when the Lebanese started posting for their next events while still sipping beers at the current event. It was a fantastic evening, and Mazen gave me a ride home and offered a lullaby for the price of a taxi - I forgot to pay him, so no song for me.
Louis joined Jean, the girls and me for lunch on Saturday, and then we waited along with some more cousins for my taxi to Damascus to show up. A round of goodbyes, and I was off with my driver Emile to Syria. I helped Emile with directions to the top of the mountain, and then he took over saying he knew a faster way to the border. Emile didn't speak any English, but we managed just fine in Arabic. There was a wedding in Fallugha that afternoon, and it took us a while to get through the traffic, but eventually we made it down to the valley, past Aanjar and to the border. On our way down the curvy mountain roads, however, Emile already had me filling out my exit card for Lebanon and entry card for Syria, which is probably the closest I have ever come to getting car sick. I managed though.
Crossing land borders in the Middle East is very different from what I am used to in Europe. There was a lot of traffic at the border, so Emile told me to jump out and go inside to have my passport stamped. Apparently, I'm not quite Lebanese enough to know how to get my passport to the front of the foreigners line at the border, so when he found a parking space, Emile ran in and pushed me forward until my passport was stamped. Back in the car, we had our IDs checked one last time before we officially left Lebanese territory.
In the past, I've always left Lebanon by plane, and I missed my opportunity at the airport to sit in the Cedar Lounge and reminisce about my time in the country of my ancestors. I still feel a special connection with Lebanon, and it was just as emotional leaving by the road over the anti-Lebanon mountain range as it is flying over the lights of Beirut in the early morning. The longest border crossing I have ever seen by far, they give you a good 2-3 miles to reconsider before officially entering Syria. I kept looking around, and Emile told me, "No more Lebanon," and I told him simply that I love Lebanon.
Just in case you were wondering, there is, in fact, a Dunkin Donuts between Lebanon and Syria, and they must do a decent business because every taxi that crosses the border stops there to shop at the adjacent duty free store. When Emile asked me if I wanted to stop at the Duty Free store, I said no, but he stopped anyway and left me in the car. He came back with multiple bags full of cigarettes and a smile.
Up the road at the Syrian border office, I went inside to wait in another ridiculously long and unorganized line. This time though, my Lebanese heritage stepped forward, and I squeezed past all the Kuwaitis that kept jumping pointlessly from line to line, and I forced myself up to the window where held my passport firmly in place on the counter until the border officer finished with the six other passports that had already been shoved in his face. The Syrian entry card is the length of a short story, and I had filled it out in detail. Rather than read this obnoxious piece of bureaucracy, the border guard asked me every question on the card again, double checked my Syrian visa and then sent me on my way. Emile was relieved that I had a visa because he said recently the Syrians have been holding Americans trying to get a visa at the border for 6 or more hours, and then you still only have a chance of getting through.
Across the border, Syrian flags fluttered wildly in the fresh breeze from the mountains of Lebanon. The angular faces of Assad, senior and junior, stared into the distance frequently from billboards and signposts. It was immediately obvious that the roads in Syria were better than in Lebanon, but I guess that's the benefit of not having to endure 30 years of war. I pulled up to the Four Seasons in Damascus and was almost pathetically excited. Life in the village is fantastic, but it's no Four Seasons. Emile overcharged me for the taxi ride by $40, but I pointed out the discrepancy to him, he said I was wrong, and I dropped the issue. He was a very nice guy, so I just wrote off the extra charge as three hours of conversational Arabic lessons.
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