If Magaluf is booked up this year

(Written in Syria, 16 May 2007)


Ms A has abandoned me briefly so I thought I'd do my bit for the Syrian tourist board and quickly remind you that if you still haven't planned your holiday for the summer you're very welcome here. It is a pretty amazing place to visit with a load of fairly unbelievable Greek/Roman/Byzantine/Arab/Ottoman tourist stuff (if you're into that) and at least three good restaurants and lots of sun if that's more your scene… all our visitors so far claim to have enjoyed themselves, but perhaps that's just what they tell us. Just in case you had any reservations, a few old chestnuts are addressed below.

1. Nobody has to wear a hijab, niqab, abbaya, burkha or any other variation. Unless I say so. Actually women do have to dress up like an ewok to see the main mosque but that makes for some quite amusing photos.

2. It must be one of the safest cities of its size. A friend of ours did manage to get his iPod stolen and then returned twice in the same week by different workmen in his house, but that's the only crime we've heard of since we arrived and it was all pretty polite.

3. Certainly there's no Damascus branch of Wetherspoons, but booze is very much available… it ranges from high quality and really quite tasty Lebanese wine to the local beer, Barada (rather worryingly named after the city's main river, which looks a bit like your typical British canal, with black/brownish water full of bikes and shopping trolleys), which has an alcohol volume of "3.5% - 5.5%" depending on this week's batch…

4. Disappointingly for a place that calls itself the Middle-East it's not yet scorchingly hot. We still haven't turned on our A/C and you'll remember Ms A’s description of snow in March... Over the summer it will heat up quite a bit but I wouldn't expect it to be too different from southern Spain at the same time. Like the British, Syrians are capable of endless discussion of the weather and seem constantly surprised by how much / little rain / sun there is for this time of year.

5. Syrians mostly love the British. Most opening conversations run as follows: "British? Kwayyis (Great)!! Tony Blair – NO GOOD! British people – GOOD! Why you have this guy Tony Blair?" I'm not sure how these conversations will go after June 27.

6. There's no bacon, but there is a lot of meat. And lots of hummus if you're vegetarian. And lots of cakes and baklava if you're a fatty.

We'll be here until the end of September. We'll then be in Doha, which has more sun, sea, sand and 5* hotels than Damascus, but nothing older than 1970.

Mr A