Aleppo now seems like a distant dream. When you take too long updating your blog, reminiscing over anything seems like retelling stories from years past. However, my memory seems to serve me well and as my first proper destination, Aleppo did not disappoint me.
We arrived in Aleppo at about 8pm after a long day of bus's, borders and visa's. By this time it was already dark and we were hungry and hopeful that it wouldn't take too long to find our hostel. However, walking through the streets for 15 minutes, we managed to find our way to the Clock which sits in the main square of Aleppo. We were taken in by the spice stands and men shouting to us "welcome welcome" and soon, our packs didn't seem so heavy and I started
squealing with excitement. That first half an hour was true to the rest of our stay in Aleppo. It was intriguing, exciting and also held many many secrets. We finally managed to find our hostel, which I'd booked with my Mum via a very dodgy Skype line through a young boy who wasn't extremely clear, for all I knew we were going to be staying on a rooftop. But we were lucky and we made it to our room and dumped all of our things before going for a beer with the hostel owner and a lovely older English couple at the Baron Hotel. The Baron Hotel is the oldest hotel in Syria and has had some rather notable guests stay there in its time, including Lawrence of Arabia and Agatha Christie. Now it just looks like a rather old Hotel that hasn't been looked after for some years, but the beer was good and we managed to wind down from our long day.
Aleppo is a very loud city. Every morning that I woke up there it was to strange sounds of men shouting, roller doors opening and closing, and Phoebe even said that one morning she woke up to the sound of a man screaming like someone was pulling his teeth out. It was also bitterly cold. Being that I was in Lebanon for 6 weeks in "Winter" where the weather was an average of 18-24 degrees, it was a rude shock to get to Aleppo where the puddles on the street froze overnight from the cold. It was the kind of weather where you wear all your thermals, your jacket, scarf, beanie and anything else you have, but it's still deathly cold. That didn't stop us from getting around and exploring the city, and what a city to explore.
The Old City
If you want a recommendation of somewhere you should definitely visit, then the old city of Aleppo is most definitely one of them. I'd seen a few souq's (markets) before but nothing really compares to the Souq in the Old City. Long alleys running in every which direction covered by ancient stone archways where the men who own the stalls will try almost anything to get you to stop. In order to get the best out of any experience in a souq, you need to be up on your bargaining game and learn the 'walk away'. The 'walk away' is something Zev taught me about bargaining. Basically the idea is, that they suggest a price to you, and you can try and work them down, but if it's not working, then you say "okay, no worries, thanks very much" and turn to walk away. This is usually a part of the bargaining dance and if they are interested in your business this is the point at which they will start yelling lower and lower prices out after you. We had an interesting experience with a rather aggressive stall owner. Zev was bargaining for scarves and did the walk away and the man was coming after us yelling out prices, but all the time getting more and more frustrated until he got quite angry and we had to push our way as quickly as we could through droves of people just to get away from him. We also met a rather interesting guy at another scarf stall who had a lot of 'australianisms' to share with us, being that he had some family living there. I bought some beautiful things at the souq and could have bought much more had I had the means or the luggage space.
Originally we only intended to stay in Aleppo for 2 days. All in all, I think we ended up being there for 5 - which says something about the city and it's charms. We went to the beautiful Citadel and attempted visiting the soap factory about 7 times with no luck (Aleppo is very famous for it's Soap) but we did get to see the old Mental Asylum.
Aleppo is most definitely somewhere that I would like to visit again. One visit to that souq really isn't enough. There is another side to Aleppo, and Syria in general. For a western woman, it can be rather an exhausting experience. You are stared at absolutely everywhere you go. Men have no hesitation in making comments about your appearance or making their interest in you known, and you can't really trust anyone. Everyone is out for a dollar, and the Syrian Government has done a really good job of getting everyone under their thumb. There are lots of things that can go wrong, and money is the only way to get you out.
Speaking of being out for a dollar, here is a perfect example...
I wanted to buy an Oud, which is a Middle Eastern string instrument that is cross between a guitar and a violin. One night an older Syrian man who was a singer came down to the hotel to visit the owner, and ended up singing for us and I had a good chat with him. He seemed really genuine and when I mentioned wanting to buy an Oud he said he knew someone who made them and could take me to see a few the next day. So the hotel owner said he would take me there. We catch a cab to some really seedy part of Aleppo where I notice there's a dumpster on fire and dodgy looking people everywhere, and we wait for this guy to come. We find what we think is the Oud shop, but the guy doesn't come on time, we all get confused about where we are meeting, we spend a long time running around in circles, and eventually end up right back where we started off at the first shop. The mood was pretty sombre, and to be honest, I was so excited about buying an Oud and these people were very stern and straight down the line. They quoted me SL9,000 which went up to SL14,000 about 5 minutes later, and although I understand Arabic and it's harder for them to get things past me, I also have trouble understanding their dialect. I could feel that something dodgy was going on, and I asked my hotel owner what he thought. He discretely said to say no thanks, and I had to explain that I wanted to think about it and we would talk the next day. Turns out, the singer was trying to get a commission off me buying that Oud, and what I hadn't noticed was that they were writing prices down on a piece of paper which my friend had noticed.
In the end, I went down to a music shop right near the hotel where I met a really lovely man who had an honest face, gave me some really good advice, and even gave me a couple of free lessons and a discount. There are still good people in the world.
