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We wanted to watch the sunset from the Bedouin camp, but it was only 2:30. We had our fill of Roman ruins and citadels in Palmyra and a still had a taxi driver for the full day.

“So I pick you up in one hour,” he asked when we drove to a Bedouin family’s desert home. No we want to stay until sunset, we told him, for the fourth time.

The reason for his insistence became clear. The family doesn’t speak a word of English. Not the father, with his leather jacket, gold rings and red-and-white keffiyeh. Not his wife who served us tea repeatedly. Not their four boys.

Fifteen minutes of “thank you” and “beautiful” in tourist Arabic and it started getting awkward.

Their boys kept shyly looking at us. Suddenly I realized how the next two hours would be spent.

Step 1: Candy

We pulled out a bag of Vietnamese guava drops and the boys advanced like hungry cats. The littlest one had a hard time untwisting the wrapper, which was an opportunity to test his hand-eye coordination: he had to fetch the candy from my rapidly-moving hand.

We won our first giggles, and consequently, their trust.

Step 2: Soccer

Their home is a tent pitched on a cement foundation, about the size of a transport container. Inside are just cushions and an oil stove. Beside it is a cooking tent, a bath tent, and several meters away the corral for the sheep and a pigeon coop.

There’s a satellite dish for the TV and a diesel generator that powers it. All around them are acres and acres of dry, desolate desert. The nearest water pump is 100 meters away.

It was the biggest backyard I’d ever seen. You can kick a ball as hard as you can and it would still be in their property. So that’s what we did.

A little clumsy dribbling around it and some shots at an imaginary goal had them in snickers.

One hour had passed since we arrived. We didn’t exchange any mutually intelligible sentences.

Palmyra, an oasis in the Syrian desert once ruled by Romans. Click photos for a gallery.

[View with PicLens]

Step 3: Ruins

A few hundred meters from their tent are the remains of an ancient Bedouin home made of mud. The boys led us there while kicking the ball back and forth.

“Snick!” the oldest one, about 12, yelled when we walked over some burrows in the sand.

Snick?

“Ey, snick. Snick.” He clamped my arm with his fingernails. He bared his teeth. He picked up a bush twig and scratched two dots on his arm. He hissed.

Oh, snake! A snake hole. And so we spent the rest of the walk trying to scare each other with false snick alarms.

Step 4: Toys

We took lots of pictures and videos and showed them the results on the LCD screen.  They watched themselves on the tiny monitor like they it was the latest Disney movie. When we taught them how to take pictures, they couldn’t wait for their turns.

A length of rubber tubing was found and fashioned into a swing when I held it from both ends. It later became a spinning swing when I rotated in place.

A lot of talking. No one cared that nothing was understood from either side.

Step 5: Sheep

Dusk approached and it was time to round up the sheep and put the young in separate pen. If they sleep with the adults, they’ll drink all the milk, leaving nothing for the yogurt and cheese the family sells in Palmyra.

The lambs are quick, but the third-youngest boy is quicker. He lunged at a baby one and grabbed its tail, pulling it in. “Baby,” he said, and brought it within petting range. He’s dealt with enough tourists to know this is a crowd pleaser.

The taxi driver arrived and asked us, as we said goodbyes, if we had brought a gift for the children. That’s what tourists are expected to do. But all we had was the guava candy and some money for the parents.

Judging from their grins, I don’t think they minded this one omission.

Some photos of our afternoon with them:

[View with PicLens]

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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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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]

But the merchants ask to be photographed, offer delightfully fragrant blossoms, and create skillful arrangements to adorn women’s hair or as offerings to the gods. And the experience transforms little by little.

This little market in Madurai is like much of India, a pocket of beauty amid so much chaos, an ugly place that’s surprisingly photogenic. You only have to know how to look.

Here’s a selection of pictures from that day. To advance, click the arrow on the bottom right.

[View with PicLens]

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A little shop that sells pills that get you high – naturally and legally – is slowly becoming a small empire. Happy High Herbs has 23 stores in Australia, and is expanding to the U.S. and England.

We stopped by the shop in Airlie Beach, gateway to the Whitsunday Islands, to talk about herbal highs.

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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.

(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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Whatever claim you make about India the opposite will also be true.

This makes it a pretty difficult country to write about. But by my own logic, it also makes it a very easy country to write about.

And yes, there is tons to report after a mere few days in the country. The problem is that few of it would go beyond the most cliché.

To say India is land of contrasts is not only old-hat, it’s also vacuous. It offers little of value.

Anyone can see the blaring gulfs between neighbouring realities: The land of Buddha and Gandhi still has a merciless caste system. You walk past a fetid slum where children defecate on the sidewalk and step into a movie theatre with designer toilets and food served to your seat.

You see men beach-bathing in the skimpiest underwear, but who would never wear shorts on the street lest they look like riffraff. Cows and goats loiter the streets like so many stray dogs. Indian homes are spotless but public spaces filthy. Raw sewage attacks your nostrils and incense soothes them.

Wouldn’t be caught dead wearing shorts.

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But this does nothing to explain the country; it’s expository information. So many people know what is India. Few are those who can tell you why is India.

Even attempting to explain India is disingenuous, since “India” is a geopolitical entity, a huge grab-bag of ethnicities, languages, and customs. A cook in Tamil Nadu has little in common with a banker in Calcutta.

But since opposites are also true, those two will share a lot of traits.

The country is too big, the traditions too fluid, the mythologies too permanent for summarizing. Thinking otherwise is just irresponsible.

I have two months here. If by the end I’m able to understand just a fraction I’ll consider it a great feat.