Visiting Lebanon 1970

Another flashback to past travels. 

During the summer of 1970, I joined vast hordes of American young people in traveling about Europe on our own, with no (or only the sketchiest) pre-planned itinerary, with no advance reservations, and certainly with no iPhone contact with the folks at home. We traveled each day as the spirit moved us, as our curiosity led us, as rumors from other travelers inspired us. We carried our luggage on our backs, and our savings in the form of travelers checks.

Back in April 2014, I reprinted in this blog an article written for my home town newspaper (click to see article) describing a day's adventure visiting Damascus from Beirut.  I had arrived in Beirut near the tail end of my six weeks overseas. I had spent those weeks traveling by train and boat, staying in youth hostels and in dirt cheap hotels in Paris, Italy, and Greece.  

I had sailed by ferry from the Greek island of Rhodes to Cyprus, hoping to hop another ship from Cyprus to Beirut.  The following excerpt from my diary -- my last entry for reasons I can't recall -- takes off from that point.  Keep in mind that this was my first experience with life outside America and Europe.

-----------------------------

Thursday -- 13 August [1970]

Events happened quickly.  Arriving in Limassol involved an enormous amount of hassle at immigration -- the formalities taking place before we were allowed to disembark.  Everyone complained, even usually unflappable British.  You're aware that Cyprus isn't really prepared for mass tourism in any way similar to Greece.  Almost everyone on the ship was either Greek or Cypriot, or a Britisher on vacation or visiting friends -- and the British were a very small minority. 

Found a travel agent -- Scottish girl, 6 years in Cyprus -- and discovered that there would be no ship to Beirut for six days.  So on the spur of the moment, decided on a flight.  She got me my reservation -- cost about 9½ L [pounds sterling] -- and put me in a shared taxi to Nicosia, after buying me a Coke.

Interesting ride -- very hot, even the wind.  Same Mediterranean type surroundings, but a bit lusher near the coast.  Amazed at how many road signs were in English -- especially the "dining and dancing" variety.  Could see that British had been entertaining themselves on Cyprus for a long time.  Passed several armed U.N. checkpoints, but no one seemed  to pay them any heed.

 Arrived at Nicosia Airport with about a half-hour to spare -- actually though we left late -- and went quickly through customs again and filled out a couple of postcards -- I needed some proof I'd actually been there.  Then before I knew, we were off -- sat next to a Jordanian teenager on a M.E.A. flight -- many English.  Just had time to eat some very sugary -- but surprisingly good -- candies and drink a glass of orange juice -- i.e., 35 minutes -- and we were landing in Beirut.

Met a couple of girls at the airport -- Americans -- whose fathers worked at the American University.  (Gave me quite a start by talking about how they had just come back from visiting Europe!)  They filled me in, as we waited in lines, on various tips for survival in Lebanon.  Took a cab directly to the YMCA -- LL.7 -- and here I am.

Well -- it's something else, all right.  I'm not sure yet quite what generalization I could make.  In many ways, it's the most Americanized place I've been, not excluding Amsterdam  --especially here in the university district.  Bookstores carrying many of the same texts as at home, hamburger stands with milk shakes, banana splits, pizza -- the whole all-American bit.  Uncle Sam's Restaurant is practically an inexpensive Denny's.  Had fried eggs this morning, believe it or not.  Why live European when I'm no longer in Europe? 

On the other hand, the Eastern influence is very marked.  Downtown you run into men in fezes, in Arab head-dresses, in whole Arab gowns, in Turkish type clothes, stocking caps.  Women often in mid-calf peasant dresses with shawls over their heads.  One woman I've seen in complete veil -- couldn't even see her eyes.  Most, of course, are in western dress -- very like Italy and Greece.  But in the downtown market area this majority becomes rather slim, if it exists.

Just about every sign that you'd be interested in is in Arabic and English, or sometimes French.  Even license plates are bi-literal.

The markets are fantastic.  Everything imaginable for sale.  Meat carcasses hanging like skeletons, partially de-fleshed.  Fruit juice stands, packed with all kinds of fruits, and especially carrots.  Beirut must be the home of the Waring blender.  Passed one café and found it filled with grizzled old men smoking their water pipes -- tobacco, I trust.

One of the guys in the dorm room is French, but speaks good English.  He motored all over the Middle East, including Iran and Iraq.  He is very down on Beirut -- thinks it is completely uninteresting.  Also doesn't care for the allegedly money-hungry attitude of the natives.  I mentioned, "There seem to be a lot of TV antennae around here."  "Yeah, but it's not like in Europe or America.  The Lebanese would rather sip coffee and talk."  "Well, that's good."  "Yes, that's good -- but what do they talk about?  I don't know any Arabic, but when I listen to the conversations, all I hear is "Lire, lire, lire'!"

--------------------------------

It's maddening now that I didn't continue keeping my journal to the end of the trip.  Of course, I did document my day trip the following day to Damascus, by means of my newspaper article.  But I have only my undocumented memories, a half century later, of my travel by bus from Beirut, through Syria, to Turkey and Istanbul.  The bus was filled with Lebanese on their way to vacations on the Bulgarian coast.  The one exception was one American woman and her two young children.  Her husband worked for Aramco in Tehran, but she and the kids were traveling on their own.

Syria apparently didn't like being merely a conduit to Turkey, and so they required the bus to stay overnight in the coastal city of Latakia, where I shared meals with my American compatriots.  Then we had to wait for a couple of more hours at the Turkish border -- beautiful mountainous scenery, as I recall -- to meet the requirement that we and our bus had spent a full 24 hours in transit through Syria before entering Turkey.

I stayed at a youth hostel near the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.  A city that I loved at first sight, and still love.   I loved it even though I became deathly ill from food poisoning -- from what I decided was a contaminated ice cream cone I had bought from a sidewalk vendor -- and vomited repeatedly over a day's time into the hostel's filthy toilets, a condition aggravated by water shortages that allowed toilets to be flushed only during limited hours each day.  

I stayed several days in Istanbul -- most of them in good health -- and flew to Rome, catching a train from Rome to Amsterdam where my chartered plane (by REI) awaited me for the flight back to Seattle.

Best six weeks of travel ever!

----------------

Photo -- stock photo of pre-war Beirut