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If Las Vegas dealt in baklavas instead of money, it would look like Jasmatiyah Street in Damascus.

Everything is big and flashy. Nut-filled pastries are stack higher than people. Rolls of pistachios in vermicelli dough thicker than a forearm beckon stares of disbelief.

In one of many shops, bakers in ethnic headdress prepare halawat with ashta cream. A giant LCD screen above him plays a making-of-sweets promotional reel.

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Across the street, another store competes with human numbers. Counters with trays filled with evert kind of dessert spill onto the sidewalk, each manned my large, bearded, jolly men. They each offer passersby a free sample. It’s all delicious.

And in the middle of it all is one shop that stands quietly with the dignity of its name. “That’s Daoud Brothers,” our host told us. “They make the best sweets in Syria.” The interior decor alone should earn it UNESCO World Heritage status.

Dieters and diabetics: you have been warned.

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The inside of Daoud Brothers sweet shop on Jasmatiyah Street.

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When we told our Couchsurfing host in Damascus that in Canada it’s customary to bring your own drink, and sometimes even food, to a party of barbecue, he looked shocked.

“What would you do in this situation,” I asked him.

After a hearty chuckle, he responded,” I would thank the invitation, but I’d stay far away from that party.”

In Syria, hospitality is a sacred thing. It’s a code of honour that runs in their blood for generations. The traditional Syrian home, from simple abodes to sprawling palaces, has a room dedicated to guests. It’s usually decorated with the best furniture in the house and its door remains unlocked.

According to tradition, anyone passing by could come in and stay for one day or one year. And, historically (but not really practiced today) the host would ask the stranger who he is and why he came after three days.

It’s hard to spend one day in Syria without being disarmed by her people. Only two hours into Damascus, our first stop, we bumped into Aesha, a girl we briefly met in a bus in Beirut. “So luck! So luck see you”, he gushed as if we were old, long-lost friends.

Mixing pantomime and English Level 1 vocabulary, we ambled in the city’s crowded streets, armed linked with Aesha as she paid for our snacks and our nuts before we had a chance to reach for our wallets. “You my visit, my guest, I pay for you, please!”

We didn’t resit too much, since it’s all very cheap. But hours later, we ate at a restaurant. Aesha didn’t eat and only helped herself to some water. But before I could swallow my last forkful she was before the cashier asking for the bill.

Roberto couldn’t let a 22-year old student pay a relatively high bill and ran after her

“No no no no no, you don’t have to pay, plese, you student, no need”, he entreated.

“Yes, yes please, please, my pleasure, please”, she responded.

Long, awkward minutes passed with slight variations in vocabulary and progressively grander gestures from both parties. Aesha finally gave up when the restaurateur advised her, with a defeated demeanor, to let it go. We picked up one Arabic word from his speech: amerki. They’re Americans, we assumed he said. They’re like that.

To be in a country where stores are decorated with fountains shaped like Arabian coffee pots, the local symbol for generosity, makes us reflect on our own attitudes back home. Where we eat alone in front of the computer, or feel slightly offended if a guest doesn’t bring a wine bottle. Where each one pays, to the nearest dollar, for what he consumed at a restaurant.

Short of cash, you say? The buying power of the average Syrian is far, far lower than our own.

Wajdi, our host in Damascus, spends many days fasting, Ramadan or not. “I don’t like to eat alone. I prefer to wait until I get home at night to eat with you.

“Food is something to be shared,” he said, night after night, in a fabulous restaurant or with a package of warm takeaway shawarma at home. And he always insisted on paying. And we, irreversibly Westernized, had a monumental difficulty in accepting.

Post Scriptum:

This post was published in an Internet café in Homs. After we sat down, without warnign or request, we were given a bottle of Syrian beer by the owner. “Welcome,” he said, a word we hear constantly, even by those who don’t speak English. As we prepared to pay for a combined total of six Internet hours, a scan and several printed pages, we were surprised again.

“How much”, we asked.

“No, free”, the owner replied..

“Free? No possible, free! 6 hours Internet, printing, scan, no free!” we protested.

“Today, first day business. Thank you, thank you very much, please welcome”,he said, handing us his business card.

Note: The south of Lebanon is the most politically unstable region in the country, and the main theatre of conflict with Israel. Tourists need a permit to enter, but no one offered or asked one from us. Maybe it’s because we could pass for Lebanese. Maybe we were just lucky. Anyone thinking of going should check with the authorities: policemen, soldiers, or tourism workers.

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The gentleman at the sweet shop in Tyre helped us negotiate a good price for a taxi to Bint Jbeil. This is pure Lebanon: buy some sweets, befriend the owner over tea and you have a local fixer for life.

The road was smooth, but with more military checkpoints than usual. We were told to expect soldiers to inquire as to the purpose of our visit. We were to ask them for a visit permit. We were just waved through every time.

It’s common in Lebanon to see flags and posters with political party logos on each street, marking their territory like gang tags. But the further south you go, the more martial the posters get: young men with keffiyeh around their necks and rifles in their hands. The unmistakable bearded glower of Hassan Nasrallah.

After a certain point, the red-and-white markings of the Lebanese army were nowhere to be seen. Only green and yellow. We were in Hezbollah territory.

All around us were grassy hills flecked with white rocks. Some had traditional stone houses. It all looked very biblical. Our taxi had some engine trouble and the driver got out to check under the hood. I stepped out to take some pictures and the driver discreetly told me to stop.

This was the last picture I was able to take for two hours:

Bint Jbeil

The only sign that this town was flattened by Israel in 2006 is the frantic pace of construction. The main commercial street – just a dozen shops on each side, really – has brand new arabesque arches, giving it a neo-souk look. Everywhere you see large, impressive homes going up.

Instead of statues and monuments, parks and roundabouts had decommissioned pieces of heavy artillery, like anti-aircraft guns and clusters of Katyusha rockets.

We walked past the shops and toward a stone mosque. An old Ford with two young men stopped in front of us. The driver, who spoke respectable French, asked what we were doing there.

“Just going for a walk,” I said, introducing myself. “Is that ok?”

“Do you have a permit to be here?”

“No, no one asked us and no one offered one. But we have all our documents.” I showed him my passport.

“It shouldn’t be a problem,” he answered. “But other people higher up are responsible for this. Do you have a camera?”

“Yes, but I’m not taking any pictures.”

He paused to think. “Don’t go any further,” he said. “Please turn around.”

We did as he said and stopped for a coffee on the main street. This is where interesting things happened.

“Welcome to Lebanon,” a gentleman in his fifties beamed when he saw us come in. He runs a shoe and bag shop two doors down when he is in town. The rest of the time he lives and works near Detroit, where he owns a gas station, and where his wife and three children live.

“I love American people,” he offered without any prompting. “They are so wonderful. I don’t care what anybody says.”

We sat outside the shop with him, the coffee shop owner, and his sister-in-law. Family members and friends would stop by, exchange a kind word, and leave.

“Do you like Lebanese women,” he asked me. “I love them. They are so clean. This is most important for us. First, they must be clean. Then beautiful.”

Like the gentleman in Tyre, he helped us negotiate a fair price for a taxi to Maroun el-Ras, Aytarun, and back. We agreed to 20,000 LBP, roughly $13.

Maroun el-Ras

This town that overlooks the Israeli border from a hilltop is just five km away from Bint Jbeil, but up on a steep climb. The street leading toward it is lined with Iranian flags.

A destroyed Israeli tank watched over Bint Jbeil. A tattered Hezbollah flag lazily waves from it. Not far from it a blocky stone statue has one foot over a green helmet with a star of David.

We arrive at the town’s brand new family park. The gate was decorated with Iranian symbols, and large posters of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad are clearly visible from the outside.

It looked like the entrance to a theme park: manicured shrubs lined cobblestone walkways. There were several thatched-rood shelters with picnic tables and barbecue pits. Wind turbines and solar panels were everywhere. A small mosque, finished on the outside, was still rough on the inside.

It was a chilly, windy winter day, so the park was empty save for two young Lebanese men who live and work in West Africa, there on holiday. They warmly greeted us.

“So Iran helped build this place,” I asked one.

“No,” he smiled. “Iran built all of it.”

He said that families from all over south Lebanon come here on summer weekends. The park is still wrapping up contraction on a hotel, a swimming pool, and a paintball arena.

He led us to the edge of the park, where the hill drops sharply. “There’s our neighbour,” he said and pointed to the horizon. We could clearly see the fenced border and the Israeli town of Avivim. There were a lot more trees on the other side.

“Aren’t the people here afraid of being this close to Israel,” I asked him. He smiled. “We in the south aren’t afraid of anything.”

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Aytarun and Aynata

Our taxi driver drove us around Aytarun, another border town with nothing remarkable about it. “Aytarun, nothing,” he said in his barely functional English.

Without us asking, he drove to nearby Aynata, where a memorial to fallen Hezbollah fighters stands:

Inside were several stones with Arabic engraving and the Hezbollah logo. Several of them had wreaths, photos of the soldiers, and leather-bound copies of the Koran. I ran outside to take a wide-angle shot of the monument and was intercepted by a Ford SUV driven by a beefy man with a leather jacket, sunglasses, and a Bluetooth earpiece. “Salaam aleykum,” he said flatly.

“Aleykum salaam,” I responded. “Ana min Brazil. Turisti. Afwan, ma behki arabi.” I’m from Brazil. A tourist. Sorry, I don’t speak Arabic.

He grinned. “Do you know what this is,” he asked in serviceable English. “It’s a monument for our martyrs.” He stepped out of the car, even though it was stopped in the middle of the street. “Come, I show you.” His passenger, a well-dressed woman with a hijab, followed him smiling politely. He led us back inside.

“These are for populi,” he said, pointing to the stones on the left side. “Mothers, bothers, and wives.” I assumed he meant civilians. “And these for the martyrs. Every stone is for 14 men.” Fifteen fighters from this town died is 2006, he told us.

“You are welcome here,” he said. “You can take photos here. But outside, no photos.” I nodded.

The graveyard

The taxi driver made one last stop before taking us back to Bint Jbeil. It was a graveyard. It was clear from the flags and photos it was made for Hezbollah fighters. He led us now a row of tombstones with little glass-enclosed shrines. He stopped at the second-to-last stone and pointed to a large photograph of a mature man clutching an AK-47. “My father,” he said.

The cost of visiting the Lebanese south as a day trip from Beirut:
(for two people. $1 = 1,500 Lebanese pounds)

Shared taxi from Beirut to Tyre: 15,000 LBP
Taxi from Tyre to Bint Jbeil: 12,000 LBP
Taxi to Maroun el Ras, Aytarun, and back : 20,000 LBP
Taxi from Bint Jbeil to Tyre: 25,000 LBP
Microbus from Tyre to Beirut: 10,000 LBP

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Every year, they come, mostly young Western women, to medicate, practice yoga, and follow an acetic lifestyle. I spent 12 days at the Yoga Vacation of the ashram Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Dhanwantari, whose founder, Swami Vishnudevananda, had the mission of popularize the practice in the West.

Listen to the report.

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It felt like the “work chic” and “party dress” pages of a BCBG catalog had sprung to life with thousands of women around me.

Not that their styles are particularly trendy. But what they lack in daring they compensate with good taste and elegance. What I saw was an excess of fine fabrics, tailored pants, uber-feminine dresses and hardly any jeans. The accessories were always smart and exact.

It’s also no handicap that the women had, in great numbers, slim bodies on which anything looks good. The financial district, in the heart of the city, is where men and women triumph in the looks department.

It was fun doing a street fashion shoot. Many women, by modesty of shyness, didn’t want to be photographed. But I like to think that with or without their participation, I gave a nice ego boost to women who are probably seldom recognized or complimented, inside or outside their borders.

[View with PicLens]

Is this in Chennai or Madras? Whichever one you prefer, I say.

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When I landed in Chennai, I realized I was also in the city of Madras. But when I wanted to explore the state of Madras, I learned I would be hopping around Tamil Nadu.

I haven’t been on this planet long enough to know a lot, but I never heard of a country that loves to change the names of its places as much as India.

As Istambul was Constantinople, Mumbai was Bombay, Kolkata was Calcutta, Bengaluru was Bangalore, Haora was Howrah.

And those are just the major ones.

This all started happening the the nineties, nearly fifty years after independence, when a new breed of politicians sought to assert their Indianness and do away with all vestiges of colonization.

Many of the changes were justified. The British gave some Indian cities ghastly spellings to suit their tongues: They called Kanpur “Cawnpore” and Pune was reduced to “Poona”.

Those were mercifully reversed. But as Shashi Tharoor opined in his excellent book of essays on India, The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone, some of it went too far at the expense of “tradition, historical accuracy and linguistic common sense.”

Bombay, Tharoor noted, came from the Portuguese Bom Bahia: good bay. But the city itself never existed before the colonial period; it was a confluence of fishing villages, one of which may have been called Mumbai.

Madras, a name that evoked so many images of tradition, flavours, and exoticism – and that christened so many recognizable items like jackets, kerchiefs, and curry sauces – was euthanized.

At least officially. When in Chennai, I heard the old name used interchangeably and with the same frequency as the new. Then I learned that Madras, contrary to a local politician’s protests, might have come from a Tamil word after all.

These name changes had less to do with restoring identity and were more of an F-you to the British. It was a way of scoring political points by making the colonizers (most of them dead by then) warp their tongues with an uncomfortable pronunciation.

How else to explain the change in name of Bombay’s main train station, Victoria Terminus – which went by the neutral and efficient “VT” – to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus?

Yes, it’s debatably silly to do away with the brand recognition and the rich history some place names carry. “We are what we are,” Tharoor writes, “the product of a history we cannot deny, and the names of our towns and cities will reflect the centuries of influence from various quarters that have gone into making the India of today.”

But sillier still is to pressure speakers of other languages to abide by the new names. Cross-border naming conventions have always been arbitrary. A defender of cultural sensibilities might correct me if I refer to Bombay, but she wouldn’t blink an eye if I say Naples and not Napoli, or if I talk about Germany and not Deutschland.

English speakers aren’t pressed to call Athens Athina, Damascus Dimashq, or Japan Nippon.

Côte d’Ivoire is translated as Ivory Coast, but Rio de Janeiro isn’t River of January, nor was Buenos Aires made into Pleasant Winds.

The French, in their endearing rejection of all things English, call the American states Californie and Floride, despite the names coming from Spanish. But New York is left alone.

And hardly any language, barring English and Hungarian, calls London London.

Tharoor compared this renaming mania to the quaint and insensitive Indian tradition of giving a woman new names – both a surname and a first name – when she marries. It’s a signal that her old life is over and her identity is entirely determined by her new family.

I like Bombay. I like the way it sounds. I’m going to keep her maiden name intact.

When we travel, we discover that the way we do things isn’t always the correct one. That our culture is only one among so many. And that human beings, fundamentally, have the same needs no matter their differences.

All this is very lovely. But when I hear an Indian burping loudly on the table beside me, it makes me, like my mother, want to scold him and follow up with a lesson on good manners.

When I see a man collecting audible phlegm in his throat before firing it with gusto on the sidewalk, I’m urged to start a little chat on the basics of hygiene.

When I feel a woman madly shoving me to steal my place in line, my instinct is to yell, “Hey sister, can’t you see I was here first?”

And when I’m surrounded by stares when I walk on the street or sit in a restaurant? Inside I scream: “Did you lose something on me?”

Cast your mind on Archana, a graceful Indian dancer who, during a study stint in France, was horrified when a classmate blew his nose in class. The Russian man, in turn, found the comely Archana revolting when she issued a sonorous post-meal belch.

It’s so hard to accept our cultural differences. It takes work to see strange habits with anthropological eyes. In my case, anything involving bodily sounds and fluids hits hard. And I spent my days judging, condemning, and criticizing each of these gestures.

And that is exhausting.

Here’s the rub: the strange one around here is me. I’m the uninvited guest who is in no position to criticize the habits and the culture of one billion hosts.

Especially considering that I too, by ignorance or neglect, did things that are here considered rude. Yet I never got a moral lesson from an Indian when, for example, I eat with my left hand – which is reserved for hygienic tasks, never to carry food to the mouth.

No, I got no sermon and no disproving glances. Indians are far too polite to do that.

I now recall, with some amusement, the time I went on an exchange to the U.S. as a 15-year old. I was warned in a printed pamphlet that the habits, nutrition, and climate of a new country can cause a raft of symptoms, like lethargy, irritability, drowsiness, and others. This condition was called “culture shock.”

Uh-huh. The country of Nike, McDonalds, Kleenex, and Madonna. Those savages.

Not one among the dozens of beach-facing restaurants in Varkala have beer and cocktails in their menus.

But ask a waiter for alcohol and he’ll produce a tattered home-printed sheet from his pocket listing Tom Collins, mojitos, Cosmopolitans, all the classic mixes. Order a beer and an ice-cold Kingfisher bottle will appear in seconds.

The restaurants aren’t allowed to sell alcohol. But like anywhere else, in Varkala, the rules are negotiable if the price is right.

According to multiple sources in the local hospitality industry, restaurants pay the police to leave them alone. This is quite standard and should surprise no one familiar with the ways of the third world.

But it gets interesting when this is used for revenge politics among establishments.

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The strip of cliff-top restaurants and shops in Varkala.

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Varkala, in the southwestern state of Kerala, is a beach resort town relatively new on the tourist map. A simpler, cheaper alternative to overdeveloped Kovalam, it lures hippie types who sport dreadlocks and wear Indian clothes by choice, not just out of respect.

The beach is actually just a small patch of sand, smaller than a soccer field, tucked between two red rocky cliffs. Most of the life is at the top of those cliffs. Five years ago there were barely five hotels; today you can choose from an unbroken necklace of cheap guesthouses, posh bungalows, cafes and restaurants, all offering Ayurvedic therapies.

The town seems to have been built and run by Nepalese and Kashmiris, who, to my surprise, excel in the tourism business. They work as managers, waiters, and souvenir sellers, closing shop and going home for the desolate monsoon season in June.

Local Indians do mostly menial tasks like repairing roofs and patching sidewalks.

I have been spending my evenings at a restaurant called Hill Top Indian Spice, the only place that openly advertises Indian food (the rest cater to homesick Germans and Britons with “continental” menus).

It’s delicious. The chef, a Nepalese man in his fifties, has been cooking at resort towns for 22 years all over India. The red curry sauce he makes on a stuffed tomato dish is so exquisite I demanded cooking lessons.

The restaurant opened in August of this year and was an instant success, the owner tells me. To the surprise of many, people who come to India want to eat Indian food.

For a month, Hill Top was packed while its continental neighbours struggled to fill a few tables. It’s clear Varkala grew faster than demand. There’s an overcapacity of eateries and lodging. So the politics began.

Hill Top hadn’t paid off the cops. Their neighbours tattled. And the restaurant was shut down for two months.

It’s back in business, and slowly filling up again. This time, with their baksheesh installments in good standing.

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Faithful perform ancestor worship at Varkala’s beach. The town is a place of Hindu pilgrimage, thanks to a millennial temple.

(see comments for details)

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1. A motorcycle can easily carry a family of five.

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2. The role of police is not to protect citizens, but the highest bidders.

why? Bribery has long been a part of Cambodian society. The police and the military have been known to kidnap and threaten citizens for cash.

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3. The sompeah – the act of putting your palms together – is the most dignified way to greet someone.

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4. Talking slower will not make someone learn to read a map.

why? There is no free and compulsory education in Cambodia. Parents must pay for school. Most Cambodians are poor and therefore have little formal education. It seems strange at first that the average Cambodian can’t read a map, but few have been trained in that kind of abstract thinking.

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5. If you walk off the path and hear a click, don’t move. Call for help. You might get lucky and simply lose a foot.

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6. Smile during any disagreement, not matter how acrimonious.

why? It’s part of Southeast Asian culture to hide your emotions under a mask of calm. In Cambodia, this is taken to the absolute maximum. No one dares lose their cool, lest they “lose face.”

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7. Revenge is best served after several years of simmering spite.

why? An excerpt from Survival in the Killing Fields, the chilling memoir by Haing Ngor:

“Kum is a Cambodian word for a particularly Cambodian mentality of revenge – to be precise, a long-standing grudge leading to revenge much more damaging than the original injury. If I hit you with my fist and you wait five years then shoot me in the back one dark night, that is kum… It is the infection that grows on our national soul.”

It is thought that the Khmer Rouge turned simple peasants into thoughtless killers by stoking their kum against the city-dwelling elite, who were “corrupted” by the imperialist West. Survivors of the genocide called these brutal Communists kum-monuss: revenge people.
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8. If you want to beat someone up, you must insult him publicly first. Otherwise, you’re just a goon.

why? Ngor was arrested and tortured three times because one of his former colleagues told Khmer Rouge cadre Ngor was a doctor – and anyone with an education was targeted for execution.

Before taking his revenge on the mole, Ngor had to declare war on him before a public. That is the Cambodian way.

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9. Being invaded by several countries over many centuries results in one kick-ass cuisine.

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10. “No” only means “no” if said in Khmer.

why? Cambodian street sellers are a persistent lot. You can say “no” five times and they will still try to sell you bracelets, books, souvenirs, or massage. But say “aw te, aw kun” or simply “te!” and they will back off. Maybe it reminds them of a scolding by stern parents?

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Why settle for three square meals a day when you can have five or six?

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Only tourists should be allowed to lose their money pointlessly in a casino.

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Durian is revolting until you spend money on a good one. Then it’s divine.

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A jingle by an a cappella trio announcing the next train goes from charming to irritating after exactly six jingles.

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The Dim Sum Dollies, the stars of a campaign by Singapore’s rail authority to promote courtesy through repetitive a cappella jingles.

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Extreme cleanliness is good for business, apparently.

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There are people willing to spend $20,000 on a piece of ginseng root.

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With just the right amount of housing quotas, free speech suppression, religious bans, and severe penalties for defying them, you can foster racial harmony.

There’s nothing wrong with drinking a $200 wine with a $4 plate of Hainanese chicken rice.

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Buddha’s tooth is under constant video surveillance.

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Can! Can, can, can!

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