Category Archives: Travel

A New Old Damascus

Anthropology/Sociology, Books You Should Read, Syria, Travel

by Christa Salamandra
Lehman College, CUNY

If you enter the Old City of Damascus at Bab Sharqi (the Eastern Gate), walk a few yards along a Street Called Straight, and turn down the first narrow alley on your right, you will find, jutting out from among the inward-looking Arab-style houses of this quiet residential quarter, a sign advertising “Le Piano Bar.” Enter through the carved wooden door, walk along the tile-covered foyer, under the songbird’s cage, past a display case strung with chunky silver necklaces, and step up a stone platform to the raised dining room. Here well-heeled Syrians sit at closely spaced tables, drinking arak and Black Label whiskey, and eating grilled chicken or spaghetti. The walls around are decorated, each in a different style. One features a collection of Dutch porcelain plates set into plaster. In another, strips of colored marble hold a series of mosaic-lined, glass-covered displays of wind instruments. A third wall features two floral wrought-iron gated windows draped in a locally produced striped fabric. Wrought-iron musical notes dance on the last. At the from of the long, arch-divided room is a huge mother-of-pearl-framed mirror. Set into the top of the mirror is a digital billboard across which Le Piano Bar’s menu and opening hours float repeatedly. Patrons listen politely as the proprieter sings “My Way” and other Frank Sinatra favorites to a karaoke backing tape. When he finishes, video screens tucked into corners feature Elton John song sing-alongs. Some nights a pianist and clarinetist play Russian songs as patrons clack wooden catanets. Continue reading A New Old Damascus →

An Unbelievable White Man

Bible and Holy Land, Gender and Sexuality, Orientalism, Travel


Syrian Bedouin girl at the 1893 Columbian Exposition

In his picturesque memoir of life in late 19th century Palestine, Philip J. Baldensperger recounts a number of adventures he had as a young man visiting his parent’s land with a Bedouin group. One of the foods loved by the Bedouin was the fruit of the doum palm. One day a group of Bedouin girls were surprised to see Philip’s white skin, something of a novelty at the time in rural Palestine. Here is his account:

“Being the only European, it was thought, in those days (1874), to be safer for me to wear Bedawi-clothing: a long shirt with broad, pointed sleeves hanging to the ground, a Sayé, and, on my head, a silken Kafiyé. With the exception of the girdle, which held the skirt and the Sayé together, the ‘Akal, or head-cird, wound around the Kafiyé, and a fringe of hair hanging over my forehead, in accordance with the fashion among Bedawîn youngsters, I was a figure in spotless white. In order to be able to walk more easily whilst on the march, I used to gather up the long folds of my dress and stick them in my girdle, leaving my legs bare. No wonder that one day four Bedawiyat, gathering Dôm-apples in the forest, fled with loud screams at my approach. Continue reading An Unbelievable White Man →

Fascination in Fez

Morocco, Travel


[Interior of the Ryad Mabrouka, a restored guesthouse in Fez medina.]

A trivia question: what may have been the largest city in the known world in 1180 CE? Would you believe Fez (also spelled Fes) in modern day Morocco? Less famous today than Casablanca (thanks to Humphrey Bogart) or Marrakesh, Fes is fascinating for its long history and extraordinary architecture. The Qaraouiyine Mosque, built in 859, boasts the oldest university in the world. The mosque/university library held an estimated 320,000 volumes by 1613 CE. Then there are the palaces of various sultans, the schools, the market and craft buildings, most enclosed within a medina of narrow allies that no cars can penetrate. Here was the a refuge for the 12th century scholar Maimonides, who lived in Fez with his family for five years after being forced to leave Cordoba in Andalusia. Not surprisingly the heritage of Fez makes it a protected World Heritage city of UNESCO. Exactly a week ago, I was visiting Fez as a tourist, an outsider entering a world dedicated to the inside. Continue reading Fascination in Fez →

The Land and the Book #2: Smoke on the Water

Lebanon, Orientalism, Travel


Water Pipes, left; coffee set, right; from Thomson’s “The Land and the Book”

The rustic American style pilgrim’s progress of Rev. William M. Thomson in the 1830s through the 1850s in Palestine was not just about places where the locals swore that Abraham bought a cave or Jesus preached. There were real people along the way and Thomson takes the reader inside a diwan from time to time. In one of his accounts he would be in good company with legislators who ban smoking in public places. Although cigarettes were just taking off in popularity, the traditional approach to tobacco in Syria and Palestine was smoke on the water to be followed by Turkish coffee. Let’s return a century and a half to this precursor of the modern sheesha bar. Continue reading The Land and the Book #2: Smoke on the Water →

The Land and the Book #1: Looking for an Omnibus?

Bible and Holy Land, Islam and Christianity, Lebanon, Travel


Jaffa from Thomson’s “The Land and the Book”

Almost 150 years ago one of the most popular travel accounts of the Holy Land was penned by an American missionary named William M. Thomson. Born in Ohio, my own home state, the 28-year old Thomson and his young bride arrived in Lebanon in 1834 as Protestant missionaries. This was a mere 15 or so years after the first American missionaries had made the Holy Land a mission field. At once an entertaining travel account and Sunday School commentary on the places and people of the Bible, this may have been one the most widely read books ever written by a Protestant missionary.

Reading Thomson is like reading one of the early English novels. The language is less familiar, although still thoroughly Yankee and the devotional tone has long since disappeared for a readership buying out The Da Vinci Code as soon as it hit the bookstores. The biblical exegesis, literalist yet frankly pragmatic at times, is intertwined with astute and at times humorous accounts of the people Thomson met along the way. But the style is not at all dry or discouragingly didactic. From the start Thomson engages in a dialogue with the reader, making the text (which stretches over 700 pages in the 1901 version) a rhetorical trip in itself.

Here is one of the forgotten books of a couple generations back. Easily dismissed as an Orientalist book, in the sense propounded and confounded by Edward Said, it is nevertheless a very good read. With this post I begin a series to sample the anecdotes and local color presented by Rev. Thomson. The times have indeed changed, but such textual forays into the night reading of a previous generation of Americans are well worth the effort. Let’s begin with the author’s own invitation. Continue reading The Land and the Book #1: Looking for an Omnibus? →

When in Paris, Don’t Drink the Wine

Islam and Christianity, Islam in Europe, Travel

There are numerous travel accounts by European and American writers who spent time in the Middle East. Many of them comment on Islam, whether as missionaries condemning a rival religion or admirers of what they often saw as a vibrant faith in the everyday life of people. But few people are aware of the writings by Muslim visitors to Europe. I am talking about real individuals, not the fictional characters like those in Montesquieu’s The Persian Letters. One of these travelers was the Moroccan Ahmad ibn Qasim al-Hajari, a translator for the sultan, who visited Paris in 1612. As translated by Nabil Matar, Ahmad provides a lively account of what he saw and the debates engaged in.

One of these revolved around the issue of drinking wine, a Christian custom that his French guests thought a kind of sacred duty. The visiting Moroccan set out to disabuse them of such a notion:

“One day before sunset, I walked to the judge’s house to attend to some formalities. The judge said, ‘Would you like to have dinner with us?’

‘I am not permitted to eat some of your foods,’ I replied. Continue reading When in Paris, Don’t Drink the Wine →

Traveling Light in Arabia

Animals, camels, Travel, Yemen

[Note: the following list of items for light camping in Arabia is provided by G. Wyman Bury for the early part of the 20th century.]

CAMP EQUIPMENT
Try to do without a tent. Arabs hate pitching tents after a long day’s march, and seldom pitch them well. They draw fire and afford no protection, while preventing your own observation; they also betray the site of your camp to bad characters and casual callers on the look out for supper.

BEDDING
Avoid Wolseley valises or anything with pleats and folds, which become the permanent abiding places of parasitic insects.
‘Blankets.’ One each for the men. A few extra for convalescents or invalided men. Two for yourself.
‘Pillows.’ Carry your spare clothes in a green canvas sack. Continue reading Traveling Light in Arabia →

Wavell in Yemen: “Of Fire and Sword”

Travel, Yemen


Market in Lahj, southern Yemen

[Note: Arthur John Byng Wavell (1882-1916) was a British soldier and adventurer who traveled in disguise to Mecca in 1908 and went on to Yemen in 1911 to witness fighting between the Zaydi imam’s troops and the Ottoman Turks. This account was originally published in 1912.]

The events in that country [Yemen] are worthy of a chapter in the history of these prosaic days. The counter-currents of human interest and activity that run up and down the Red Sea, linking the civilizations of the East and West, leave undisturbed this backwater. Western Europe knows little and cares less about what goes on there. Continue reading Wavell in Yemen: “Of Fire and Sword” →