Pick'n'Mix @warrensb - Tumblr Blog

Prologue - My Saviour Arrives

Two and a half hours later, just as I am beginning to think that I might be spending the night at the border, my saviour arrives.

A battered yellow Syrian taxicab draws in, flashes its headlights and drives towards me.

Beaming, the driver rolls down the widow and asks if I am looking for a ride. Without even asking how much he wants, I grab my case, dump it into the trunk and hop into the front set before he can get away.

“I’m Warren,” I say, sticking out my hand, and pumping his with the excited relief of someone who has just been told he’s going to live. “I need to get to Beirut. Going all the way?”

As we coast towards the Lebanese border post at Masna’a, I ask the driver, whose name is Mahmoud, why he’s still making the trip. Isn’t he worried about the missile strikes?

“Of course,” he replies. “But there’s too much money to be made to worry. Anyway, our lives are in God’s hands. If it’s my time, there’s nothing I can do about it. Right now, I’m going to pick up a guy who called an hour ago. He’s promised $1500, if I’ll take him and his family from Beirut to Damascus.”

That’s quite a sum. Momentarily, I blanche. Mahmoud laughs.

“Don’t worry, khaweja. You are a bonus. I thought maybe I would not have any passengers. People aren’t really travelling to Beirut these days, so you get a good price.” It’s the second time that day I’ve heard someone refer to me using the polite term for term for ‘foreigner’. I suppose I should ask what that ‘good price’ might be but as I’m already in the car and I really don’t have any other choice, I figure it’s best to leave any potential disagreements until we arrive.

It may be old truism, but there’s definitely profit in war. Three days into this one, Mahmoud is making money hand over fist. A journey that cost $15 a head a few days ago now runs to a minimum of $100.

“Yesterday when it got bad, one Kuwaiti guy offered me $2000 to take him, his wife and daughter to Damascus. I told him he had to pay up front and then I picked up four more people on the way.” Mahmoud’s eyes crinkle. “He started to shout and threaten but when I told him I’d be happy to return his money and leave him by the road to go with someone else, he quickly stopped yelling. That was a really good trip.”

Not that the others have been bad, either. By cramming seven or eight passengers into the cab, he’s been making upwards of $1000 a run. Multiply that by the three or four runs he’s been making a day and it’s little wonder Mahmoud hasn’t had time to bathe. He’s making more in a day than he normally makes in a month, probably longer.

“That,” he says, nodding at his feet with a cheeky grin, “is the smell of money.”

On the edge of Masna’a, we pass the still smoking remains of the cars hit earlier that day, and the unshakable resolve I’ve felt since Thursday, wavers. Suddenly, I find myself to wondering why the hell I am going back to Beirut. I am a journalist, but I rarely write about politics or war. I’ve made my living from the lighter stuff; features on architecture, art, design, travel and the odd social issue from time to time. I have reported from conflict zones, southern Lebanon during the Israeli occupation, the West Bank and briefly, Iraq, but by no stretch of the imagination am I a war journalist. I’m not even sure whether I will cover this one, once I get back. Truth be told, I’m not really sure why I’m going back at all. I just know that watching the city I love being destroyed on television makes me feel like I am dying.

Mahmoud starts cracking jokes. They aren’t particularly funny but they keep me from thinking about what I’m doing. Him too, I imagine. My intestines, locked in stony constipation from the moment I’d seen those missiles slam into Beirut International on Thursday morning, begin to roil and my stomach feels like it’s trying to digest itself.

By way of distraction, I run through the route home in my head. The Beirut-Damascus highway, which cuts straight across the Beka’a Valley and up over the mountains is closed because the new bridge at Mdeirej, the highest in the Middle East, was bombed earlier in the day. That leaves the old road, which zigzags across the valley, through the vineyards of Zahle and then up and over the mountains to the Mediterranean, a narrow, twisting ribbon of poorly-lit, pot-holed tarmac best navigated by day.

The Lebanese border post is similarly deserted. I get out and walk towards Immigration. It’s so dark and so quiet that from the car park, I can hear the sound of some nearby television broadcasting details of the latest airstrikes. As if to underscore the news, the dull thud of explosions echoes across the Beka’a.

On normal days, Masna’a is a circus of honking horns and people clamouring to get in or out but once again, I’m alone. There’s no one at Immigration, so I call out for assistance. A few seconds later, a trio of rather bemused border police pop their heads around a door. Adjusting his belt and smoothing his hair back into place, as though he’s just woken from a nap, one of them ambles over and takes my passport.

“Where did you fly from today? Dubai? Journalist? Ah, yes. Bien sûr. Hamdillah as-salemeh. Welcome home.”

With a flourish, he stamps me in and hands my passport back. He doesn’t even bother asking for my residency permit.

“You know there’s a war, right? Yes? Well, OK then. Allah ma’ak.”

Passport in hand, I get back into the cab. Mahmoud slaps the steering wheel.

“Ready?” he says, starting the engine.

I’m not, really. I peer out the window and up at the night sky. It’s cloudless, a carpet of gently twinkling lights. I check to see if any of them are moving. Or flashing. The way I imagine fighter planes would probably look from the ground at night. Thankfully, the heavens appear to be stationary. My head, however, feels like it is spinning. So, no bombers. Well, none I can see, anyway.

We roll slowly towards the exit. Mahmoud turns off the headlights “so the planes won’t see us”. For a minute, I’m really impressed. Then I remember that modern missiles are heat-seeking. Even with the lights off, the car’s engine will probably be hot enough to home in on, especially if, as now seems likely, there is no other traffic on the road.

I squeeze my eyes shut and hope the Israeli air force won’t notice us. Or that if they do, they’ll leave us alone. Or that if they don’t, at least we don’t see the missiles coming.

I think of Joseph, a sweet, generous and kind-hearted man, my Lebanese brother, who is waiting anxiously (and angrily) for me in Beirut. He has packed his family off to his brother-in-law’s house in the mountains in the north of Lebanon and was preparing to leave himself, when I called him that morning to say I was on my way back.

“What? Why in God’s name would you do that? ” Joseph had shouted after a moment of stunned silence, his voice rising by several decibels in the process. “Anyway, you can’t. There’s no airport. It’s blown up. How are you going to get in?”

I told him that I was about to get on a plane to Damascus, take a taxi across the Beka’a and that I’d be home by the evening. Even before I finished explaining, he’d begun swearing.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! The Israelis are bombing everywhere. The Beka’a too. Do you want to die? Stay there. You don’t need to come back. I can’t believe it! Stay in stupid Dubai. It’s safe there. Do you hear me? Do not come back to Beirut! Ya Allah, is this boy stupid, or just crazy?”

We get cut off. I try to redial but I can’t get through. The lines are busy. Or down. Or blown-up. I wish I could have told Joseph that I am coming back because Beirut is my home, that it is the place where some of the people that matter the most to me live, that it is part of my heart and that I can’t bear to be away while the place and the people I care about are in danger, but his anger, born of concern, makes such rationalisation seem flimsy. Why was I going back to a country that hundreds of thousands of people were busy trying to flee? What the hell was I doing? Maybe I was mad.

The car stops. I must look a bit green because Mahmoud reaches over and taps me on the chest.

“Don’t worry, English. No planes,” he says, looking up and out of the window and then tapping himself on the chest. “Heart of iron, my friend, heart of iron.”

As the gate opens, I flash my passport at the guard. He couldn’t possibly be less interested. Abdicating any and all responsibility, he waves us through wearily. Mahmoud guns the engine. And then, at 160 kilometres an hour, we shoot across the border into darkness, straight into a war.

#2006 War #Taxi #Hiking

Prologue - What Am I Doing Here?

July 15, 2006.

Mahmoud’s feet smell.

A stale, sweaty fug fills the cab. It’s a sticky Saturday night in mid-July, so the windows are rolled up and the air-conditioning is blasting. It’s keeping us cool but only serves to circulate the smell. I tell him I’d rather have some fresh air and roll down the window.

“It’s okay,” he says, turning off the A/C. “I stink, don’t I?”

He sounds embarrassed but also unapologetic, which suggests that while he does care, there’s also nothing he can do about it right now. Briefly, I feel chastened.

“Sorry about that,” he continues, “but it’s been so busy that I haven’t had time to shower since Wednesday.”

He hasn’t had time to sleep much, either. Ever since the war between Israel and Hezbollah broke out on Thursday morning - claiming Lebanon’s only international airport as its first victim - life has been frenetic for the taxi drivers plying the Beirut-Damascus route. Mahmoud’s been shuttling back and forth in his big yellow cab four, maybe five times a day.

“Thursday and Friday were crazy. I had Saudi tourists fighting to get a seat. They were offering me anything to get out. Some trips, I had 8 or 9 passengers at a time, sitting on top of each another. I haven’t even had time even to change my clothes.”

I tell him not to worry. I don’t really care and besides, I have much larger concerns. Like whether we will get to Beirut in one piece, what with the Israeli air force patrolling the skies, blowing up roads and bridges all over the country. Besides, without Mahmoud and his fragrant feet, I’d still be standing outside the Syrian border post at Jdeidet Yabous.

Like the rest of the world, the July 2006 War caught me off-guard. When I’d left Beirut 10 days earlier on assignment to write a guidebook on Dubai for Wallpaper Magazine, the city had been in full summer season swing, chock full of Gulf tourists who come to summer in the cooler climes of Lebanon’s mountains.

Small at the best of times, Beirut had been bursting at the seams. Bumper-to-bumper traffic and restaurants so crowded that even places that never asked for reservations had waiting lists. It was the city’s busiest tourist season since 1974, the year before Lebanon plunged into the decade and a half of civil and not-so-civil wars that turned it into a household word for urban hell.

This reputation was something Beirut still struggled to escape, even though by the time I first turned up in 1998, eight years after the fighting ended, it was already out of date. By 2006, the city had recovered most of its pre-war swing and if it was not entirely at peace with itself, it was only in the breathless opening paragraphs of nostalgic war correspondents who last visited in the 80’s (and their younger wannabe protégées), that it was still a dangerous place to be.

Which is not to say that sometimes, bad old Beirut didn’t resurface. The previous 18 months had been extremely rough, even by Lebanese standards. On Valentine’s Day the year before, the former Prime Minister Rafic al-Hariri and 33 others had been murdered in a massive car-bomb attack on Beirut’s seafront. That act was so callous, it brought over a million Lebanese - a quarter of the population - out onto the streets, demanding justice and that the Syrian Army, which had been occupying the country for almost 30 years, go home. After months of protests, as well as counter protests by factions that profited from the status quo, the withdrawal had finally happened, much to everyone’s disbelief.

A string of car-bombings followed. As these were exclusively targeted at cultural and political figures known for their opposition to Syrian control of Lebanon, it was often assumed that these were Damascus’ parting gifts to the Lebanese.

Despite this, in late June 2006, as I began to plan my trip to Dubai, the country seemed so buoyant that for the first time in eight years, I hadn’t felt the need to keep an eye on the news while I was away.

On Thursday the 13th, the day before I was due to fly home, the friend I was staying with in Dubai mentioned something about a ‘flare-up’ along Lebanon’s southern border. There wasn’t much online, so I switched on the TV and tuned into a Lebanese satellite channel just in time to see Israeli fighter jets blow craters into both runways at Beirut International.

For the next few hours, no one was sure whether this first round would escalate or if Israel, having instantly severed Lebanon’s only air bridge to the outside world, felt it had delivered its latest ‘message’.

Almost immediately, repair crews were out trying to fill in the holes so that planes could resume landing. Just as they finished, Israeli jets returned and made even bigger holes. Tel Aviv obviously intended for Lebanon’s only international airport to stay shut. Then, they began bombing the rest of the country.

I spent most of the day on the phone, calling friends to make sure they were safe and trying to reach Lebanon’s national carrier, Middle East Airways, to find out how I was going to get home. By the evening, I still didn’t know. The following day, the start of the weekend in Dubai, the MEA offices were closed and the helpline at the airport in Beirut went straight to answer phone. I called the MEA office in Beirut only to get a pre-recorded message explaining that they were working on finding alternate ways of getting passengers home and that I should call again later.

The only real possibility was for MEA to re-route to Damascus but as I discovered when I finally got someone on the phone the following morning, for reasons best known to themselves and which possibly involved pique over having been forced out the previous year, the Syrians weren’t allowing this to happen. I was told apologetically that all MEA could do under the circumstance was to fly me to Cyprus or Jordan.

As the ferry services to Cyprus had not run since the 1980’s and landing in Amman would mean going overland through Syria anyway, the quickest way back into Lebanon was to fly directly to Damascus.

If Syria decided to close the border at Jdeidet Yabous, which it might do if the Israelis followed up the airstrikes with an invasion, I would be cut off. If Israel extended its airstrikes to Syria, as it had threatened to do in the past in the event of renewed conflict with Lebanon, there would be no way back. I had no intention of sitting the conflict out in Dubai. I couldn’t afford to wait. I ditched the MEA ticket, booked a one-way flight with Emirates and a few hours later, was on my way.

The plane was practically empty, just three Syrian businessmen, a couple of ashen-faced Lebanese, a Kuwaiti on his way to find his brother, who had been summering in Lebanon but wasn’t answering his phone and a Saudi on his way to his villa in the mountains to rescue his terrified wife and children. Like me, they spent most of the time in the departure lounge making calls.

I still faced the issue of how I was going to get into Syria. Journalists are required to obtain special visas, regardless of their reason for visiting. Most came through in a couple of days but mine always seemed to take a bit longer.

As I couldn’t afford a delay, I took a gamble. Rather than follow procedure, I decided my best bet was to force the issue by presenting my arrival as a fait accompli. Calling the Syrian Ministry of Information just as I boarded, I told them that I was enroute to Damascus, that I wanted to back into Lebanon and would they please issue me permission to travel from the airport to the border?

“I arrive in four hours,” I told the poor, befuddled assistant. “I’ll need a transit visa on arrival.”

Before she could protest, I hung up. My heart was pounding. There was no guarantee this would work. The Syrians were under no obligation to let me in to their country and legally, had the right to deport me but I was banking on the exceptional circumstances warranting an equally exceptional response.

By the time I landed, my visa was waiting. Coasting through Immigrations, I jumped into a cab and was at Jdeidet Yabous barely forty minutes later. I needn’t have hurried. It didn’t look like there was anyone here but us.

I’d sensed on the drive out that the cabbie, who’d boldly informed me at the airport that he’d take me all the way to Tel Aviv if I wanted, was having second thoughts. When he asked for half the fare upfront as we pulled up at passport control, I had a feeling he might not be there when I came out.

For the second time that day, Syrian officialdom was efficient and gracious. After a few questions, asked with a touching concern that nevertheless made it clear I must be entirely mad to voluntarily drive into a war, the border police stamped my passport and sent me on my way with an Allah ma’ak.

God be with you.

If ever there were a time to be a believer, it was now.

Leaving the building, my suspicion was confirmed. The taxi had vanished. Thankfully, my bag hadn’t and was sat on the pavement. Waiting next to it was a rather embarrassed stranger. He apologised as I walked over and told me the driver had asked him to tell me that ‘something had come up’, so he’d had to rush back to Damascus.

We both knew that was a big fat lie but honestly, who could blame the guy? Who in their right mind would drive into a war voluntarily, anyway? I briefly wondered if I’d finally lost mine. But there was no time for that now. I was already checked out of Syria.

Wishing me luck, the stranger ambled off in the direction of a nearby café. It looked like it was closed.

“Hey,” I yelled after him, “don’t suppose you’ve got a car and fancy a drive to Beirut, do you?”

He turned and gave me a goofy smile and a kind of Charlie Chaplin shrug, which made us both laugh.

“God be with you, khaweja,” he said, using an old word variously used as an honorific or as a polite term for a foreigner. “See you some day in Beirut, maybe.”

Maybe. But the border post at Masna’a was eight kilometres away and there wasn’t exactly a steady stream of traffic heading in that direction. Probably because one of the air strikes that morning had targeted a small convoy of cars at the Lebanese border post. They’d been incinerated.

It was almost sunset. Briefly, I considered walking to Masna’a, but with night on its way, the idea of getting caught in the dark wandering around in the middle of a war in the strip of no-man’s land between the Lebanon and Syria, didn’t seem very clever.

A warm wind blew up the road from Lebanon. But the air was the only thing that was moving. The highway was so deserted and dusty that if tumbleweeds had rolled by, I wouldn’t have blinked. I dug a warm bottle of water out of my backpack and sat on my case. There was no choice. I needed transportation of some kind, so I settled in and prepared to wait.

#2006 War #Lebanon Israel War #Hiking #Mountains

Too Shy, Shy. I really wanted to take a photo but it felt rude to even ask. I mean, here he was, minding his own business and here I come along, asking some stranger if he’ll pose for a shot. In the end, I bit back my misgivings and asked. Without missing a beat, Mohammad al-Jawz, told me that I was welcome. Turning to face me, he stood with the snows of Jabal al-Sheikh in the background. His guard dog and the goats watched from the hill behind. He was a bedouin, he told me, and he’d grown up between Lebanon and Syria. His family moved with the seasons in search of farm work, though since the war in Syria, they had mostly stayed in Lebanon. He told me that it was his great-great grandfather who had first found a job in Majdel Balhis and that his family had been coming back each year ever since. He liked being with the animals more than working in the orchards, he left that to his sisters. But if needed, he’d do that too. He’d even work in the fields. He was happy as long as he was outdoors, especially after a long winter in the tent. Spring was his favourite time of year, and there was nothing more satisfying than watching the world slowly come back to life. He was, he thought, about thirty-seven. Despite his piercing eyes and glowing complexion, I thought he looked much older but of course, I kept that to myself. Thanking him, I turned to leave. “Tell me, why did you want to take my photo?” He almost looked shy. “Honestly? Because I think you look striking standing here, especially in that red keffiyah.” He smiled. Then Mohammad al-Jawz turned back to his flock and instantly, I was forgotten. (at Majdal Balhis, Béqaa, Lebanon)

Through Hell and High Mountains. Denniyeh was a revelation. I’m no slouch when it comes to poking around Lebanon’s off off-the-beaten-track nooks and crannies. I’d even made it up to the villages around Sir el-Denniyeh and Bqarsouna years ago during my stint as a journalist in pursuit of the takfirist story with which the region has unfortunately been saddled. But nowhere I’ve been in the last 18 years prepared me for Denniyeh’s uplands. For some reason, I laboured under the misconception that not far beyond Al Arz, Mount Lebanon collapsed into low, rolling hills. Nothing could be further from the truth. While Qornet el-Sawda is the country’s (and indeed, the region’s) highest point, once beyond Ehden, Mount Lebanon becomes truly wild. The graceful, rolling height we associate with so much of its length is abruptly riven by narrow, plunging river valleys and the peaks become serrated. As the forests thicken, the vertical difference between the valley floor and the pinnacles above increases, so that in places you find yourself craning your neck to take in sheer rises of a thousand metres and more. Compared to the rest of Lebanon, this part of the country looks like it has only just been made. Wind and water haven’t had time to smooth its rugged edges. No surprise then, that it is home to Lebanon’s remotest village, Qemmamine, which was only linked to the outside world by a paved road in the ‘90’s. It’s also home to an edible leaf that grows here and nowhere else. Surrounded by paradise, Qemmamine lies at the entrance to the Valley of Hell, Wadi Jahannam. I couldn’t understand why somewhere so lovely had such an unfortunate name. Well, not until we began to walk up it, anyway. Strenuous doesn’t quite do it justice but thankfully, we found places like this old shepherd’s hut, to stop, catch our breath and be humbled by the beauty that surrounded us. (at El Qemmâmîne, Liban-Nord, Lebanon)

Little Thorin. I simultaneously love and hate this photo. Hate, because it makes me look even podgier than usual (in my mind, I’m elven but in reality, I’m more dwarven) and love, because it captures the endless delight and wonder I feel when walking in Lebanon’s mountains. This shot was taken by @ghouyoum up in Baskinta back in the summer when it was still possible to wear shorts - there’s snow not far from there now - and the jet of water that has captured my attention is collecting in a frigid pool ten metres below. A few minutes later, we’d be swimming in that pool, the cold burning through our skins to (briefly) chill our bones, take away our breath and set our hearts racing before peripheral vasoconstriction could kick in and create the illusion of warmth. I’ve always loved to travel (because it gives me new things to think about) and to walk (because it gives me the time to think about those new things) but the whole ‘nature boy’ thing that has been developing over the last decade or so, is brand new. I’m an urbanite at heart and frankly, the bigger the city, the better. Which does make my enduring fascination for Beirut somewhat difficult to explain. In my defence, I’d say that it might only be a city of 1.5 million, but it feels like a city of 10 million, mostly because the Lebanese are always coming and going, and so conversations are full of reference to what is going on elsewhere. But as I hurtle towards a half-century (OK, I still have 18 months to go on that one), I find that increasingly, I am drawn to emptiness, to places where people are not perhaps because there, it is easier to dream. So Mr. Musk, if you are reading, I’d just like to let you know that I more than happy to accompany you on that journey to Mars. (at Baskinta, Lebanon)

Look On My Works, ye Mighty, and Despair! Or laugh. That’s what we did, when we came across this unfinished colossus on the slopes above Hasroun. An incongruous sight at anytime, but especially after a day of glorious walking from the Cedar forest above Tannourine, up and around the mountains to the slopes above the Qadisha Valley, the snow-streaked Col des Cedres on the horizon, this discreet structure was our third impression of Hasroun. Luckily, our first ones - wild tulips and the scent of apple blossom in the orchards on the slopes above the village - were more winning. Designed to resemble a Roman temple, this unfinished monument to overweening self-regard is apparently destined to become a home. So wildly out of proportion with its surroundings that it’s probably visible from low earth orbit, my own impression was that we had stumbled not on some cosy familial retreat but rather on the empty shell of a Las Vegas casino or Bugis Street brothel, Pablo Escobar’s Lebanese hideaway or Hef’s second Playboy Mansion. Every bit as inconspicuous as it was understated – one can only imagine what the two massive 10-metre niches on either side of the driveway up will eventually hold - we joked that the owners would probably need to need to cover the walls with every hamsa in Lebanon to keep the evil eye at bay. As we did, as if on cue, a car drove by and both the driver and his passenger spat out of the window as they passed beneath it. But perhaps the house is not so much unfinished as unfinishable, the owners having blown their last pennies on putting up Corinthian columns and an unwieldy pediment that seems certain to topple over in the next high winds. If so, perhaps some future traveller will come across its remains and stop to wonder, like Horace Smith’s hunter, what powerful but unrecorded race once dwelt in that annihilated place. (at Hasroun)

Mother's Ruin. Juniper berries are what give gin its distinctive taste. I don't know if the hoary old specimens that inhabit the higher reaches of northern Lebanon are of the same variety used to produce the spirit that was once consumed in such quantities that it was a leading cause of premature death amongst the poor in London. The heroin of its day, gin was the subject of numerous moral crusades, much like absinthe a few centuries later. Hogarth, the famous British social satirist and cartoonist even dedicated a print to the subject, a Boschian vision of Hell in central London, entitled Gin Lane. Ironic really, given the drink's origin as a medicinal tonic used to treat gout and gallstones. Here, though, the juniper berry is used for a very different purpose, burned on barbecues to scent meat, rather than infused to inflame the senses. The wood is prized for its perfume and hardness and was used in the past for roof beams, as well as temple doors, notably those of Solomon in Jerusalem. Slow-growing and dependent on certain species of bird to spread their seeds, which need to be predigested to grow, once a juniper is gone – whether it is cut down illegally for charcoal or lost to the parasites that are currently wreaking havoc on Lebanon’s juniper forests, because the winters in recent years haven’t been sufficiently severe to kill them off – it is likely gone forever. Lebanon is still home to 14 of the 60 varieties of juniper known to exist, including the shrub-like Phoenician Juniper, which grows everywhere from the Atlas to Taif. Unlike the cedar, which has trouble growing above 2000 metres, junipers can still be found as high as 2400 metres and may once have grown as high as 2,600, which means that in Antiquity, it was only the very tallest of Lebanon’s peaks that would have been bare, one reason it was once known as the Garden of God. (at Bchennâta, Liban-Nord, Lebanon)

If These Walls Could Talk. You’d think, for a castle that has been in almost continuous use since it was built back in 1103 on the orders of a Frankish lord, Raymond de Saint-Gilles, Comte de Toulouse, that everything that could be known about Tripoli’s citadel is already known. You’d be wrong, of course. While it has been used by everyone since the Crusaders, save for a brief period immediately after the capture of Tripoli by the Mamlukes when it was so badly damaged that it lay empty for 18 years before being rebuilt, surprises are still being found. The latest, or the latest to have caught my attention at least, was the discovery of a knight’s graveyard at the upper end of the citadel. So far, about a dozen have been located (though not fully excavated) and it’s thought that the graveyard continues beneath a raised courtyard added by the Mamlukes. This makes further excavation tricky, at least until the proper funding can be secured and in Lebanon, unfortunately, archaeology is never a priority, so we may be waiting quite a while to find out what those graves contain. Hopes are high, as they seem to have been forgotten in the aftermath of the Tripoli’s reconquest, so it may be that they have never been looted. Treasure? Perhaps. Religious artefacts? Probably. The citadel lay at the heart of what the Crusaders called Mons Peregrinus (Pilgrim’s Mount), a settlement that included a number of long-lost churches and was once a stop on the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. At the very least, we can probably expect to find some nice sets of armour but given that the citadel was still in Crusader hands when Jerusalem fell to Salahadin and was one of the places to which Frankish forces retreated, you never know what might eventually be unearthed... (at Citadel of Raymond de Saint-Gilles)

Detectorist. When I was a boy, I wanted to be either an archaeologist or an astronaut. Then I discovered Star Trek and realised that one day, if I lived long enough or those in power stopped spending money on stupid things and concentrated on making us an interplanetary species instead, I might have a chance to be both. That childhood promise has yet to materialise. Thanks to the Internet, I know that I’m not the only one left wondering where my jetpack (and my daily commute to the Moon) went but if I am yet to realise my dreams of being a starchaeologist, I still indulge my appetite for all things ancient. That’s why living in Lebanon, for all its disadvantages, has been a dream. With at least 6,000 years of history to choose from, the country is littered with ruins and remains. Sadly, it has never been properly surveyed (even the best known sites have not been fully excavated), so there is much still to be discovered. This is, after all, the country the Romans referred to as the ‘land of 2,000 temples’. In that kind of historical context, the ruin pictured here is practically modern; the remains of a 5th Century church to martyr saints Sarkis and Bakhos that was probably abandoned about 3-400 years ago when its congregation moved to a better location lower down the Helsbane Valley. Every October, this lovely ruin, with its Byzantine-era tombs and faintly visible frescoes, flickers back to life for a day, as hikers from the local Maronite church come up here to celebrate the saints’ feast day. Once they leave, silence returns to the valley. The church and other nearby ruins, old shepherd huts and pre-Roman oil presses quietly sink back into the undergrowth and obscurity until another feast day, or perhaps the occasional passing rambler, rouses them momentarily from their slumber of centuries. (at `Akkar, Liban-Nord, Lebanon)

That Was Then. Late April, to be precise. The scene up there is much more chilly, these days. It was late afternoon and we’d descended to Majdel from the heights above the valley to spend the night at Guita’s famous guesthouse. Though we hadn’t travelled far, at least as the crow flies, it had been a long and (very) tiring day’s walk, with a significant gain in altitude at the start of the day and an equally significant descent at the end. The views, though, had been magnificent. Stumbling towards the guesthouse, dusty and dishevelled, we could have been forgiven that magnificence was over for the day. We couldn’t have been more wrong. Guita’s lovely garden, which looks out towards the village of Akoura and the mountains beyond (our goal the following day), was not only shin-deep in thick, luscious grasses, daisies and spring flowers, it was also strewn with cushions and straw mats, invitations to lie down and sprawl out as the setting sun polarised the colours and coated our surroundings in treacle. For a long time, we were unable to talk, content to lie there in silence, as fat bees buzzed lazily through the honeyed air and settled on the flowers and a soft wind set the leaves of the nearby trees in motion. A moment of perfection, of seeing the world, if not in a grain of sand, then at least in the springy blades of grass on which we lay. Soon, this moment would end. The air would chill, drinks would be served and the bustle of dinner begin and judging by the aromas wafting from the kitchen, a feast awaited. But that would be later. For now, in those last moments of the dying day, we were eternal, life was endless and for a moment, Infinity opened before us. (at Majdel el-Aqoura)

My Favourite Mountain, Redux. Beirut is not necessarily a pretty city, at least not any more. But it is blessed with a magnificent setting. Wedged between the mountains and the sea, it is set on a triangular peninsula that tapers to a point a little further up the road from where I took this shot, the city’s surroundings forgive it its many (recent) architectural errors. None more so than the glorious slab of limestone, Sannine, which you see above in the background, hovering whitely over the city. It’s closer than it looks in this shot (I use a 35mm lens) and from where I live, just on the other side of town, it dominates the skyline. When it isn’t cloudy or smoggy, anyway. The closest ski resorts to the city are up that way about a 40-minute drive out of town but that’s not why I love it so much. Ours is an ‘at first sight’ affair. I think originally, our love developed because of Sannine’s sheer glamour; snow so close to the Mediterranean. Later, I grew to appreciate it for the delicate counterpoint it provides to city life, the way it seems to float blissfully above the madness and chaos of Beirut. I’ve trekked around its base and been up to its top and as much as I love seeing it from the city, my favourite view of Sannine is from just above Baskinta, where it appears as a massive, bowl-shaped wall of stone, its snowline a siren’s call, tempting one to wander up its slopes. Although that ‘wandering’ would be more of a climb, given that it tops out at just over the 2,600-metre mark. It’s not a dramatic peak. It has none of the jagged splendour of the Karakorum, a region that is also dear to my heart (and the reason I’m even considering a mildly irreponsible trip up into the Hindu Kush later this year) but such is the power it exerts over me that I am tempted to believe that I must have loved Sannine in previous lives. Perhaps I looked up at it longingly in the days when the forests washed almost up to its peak and its limestone heights were said to be home to the gods, San and Nine, after which it is still named. (at Ain El Mreisseh)

Fly by Dubai. Over the years, the UAE and I have enjoyed a strained relationship. As much as I respect it, especially Dubai, for creating so much out of so very little (and in the process, lighting a fire under the backsides of the Gulf’s drowsing monarchies) and much as I appreciate the importance in this tumultuous region of a refuge and launch pad for those whose countries are unstable or not open to possibility, I can’t say I like it. Perhaps it's the hubris. Perhaps it's the heavy-handed marketing. Perhaps it’s the braying expats and icy Emiratis. Or perhaps I am a snob who mistakenly believes that Dubai ought to conform to a personal image of what a world hub should live like. Fault is never a one-way street. I have tried, in my professional capacity, to never be too unkind. For all the spiky things I have said about it in private, I did not join the chorus of one-time cheerleaders who abruptly turned on Dubai when its bubble burst a few years ago and it became obvious that if the emperor wasn’t entirely naked, he wasn’t wearing much. With a few notable exceptions (fascists, clickbait, Ipswich, Margaret Thatcher) I’m not a believer in kicking anything when it is down. Since those days of doom, I’ve been back a couple of times and each time Dubai seems more recovered. Hubris has returned, towers are rising, money is again the favourite dinner topic. It’s almost as though 2008-12 never happened. In that, Dubai is far from alone. After a brief round of self-flagellation, Occupy and hairshirt never-againism, the world seems to have forgotten that it almost collapsed a couple of years ago. Me? I’ve never forgotten what a retired Wall Street trader (who made out like a bandit because he foresaw the Crash), told me in 2010. “If you think 2008 was bad, just wait ten years. We haven’t learned a thing.” (at Sheikh Zayed Rd.)

I See You. Many may not. But I do. Because without you, offices and homes are not kept clean. Without you, hospitals, schools and malls do not get built. Roads do not get tarmacked. Land is not reclaimed. Towers do not rise. Airports do not expand. Without you, there is no Dubai. No Abu Dhabi. No Riyadh, Doha, Bahrain or Kuwait. Without you who are willing to leave all you know behind, your family in Peshawar, your farm in Uttarakhand, your village in Cebu, your dignity in Patan, without your willingness to seek a better life tomorrow by sacrificing your life today, none of this is possible. And we forget this as we dine at Ossiano, take in the view At the Top and have knots and aches kneaded into submission in Amara. We forget this as we drive past the partitioned rooms you call home, spaces you share with so many others, that sometimes you sleep in shifts. We forget this when we do not intervene as someone raises their voice, because you aren’t doing whatever you are supposed to be doing fast enough for their liking. We forget this as we are whisked through immigration, while you stand in long lines, waiting to be processed, clutching the passport you hold for the first time, knowing that soon, it will be locked away by those that have purchased your services. We forget this because too often, we only see your uniform and because it is not one that commands respect, we forget that you have dreams, aspirations and that whether you are pushing a broom or a button, you are doing your best to make your life better. And so, inadvertent figure by the golden staircase you clean but might never climb, permit me to dedicate this image to you. (at Etihad Museum)

Abracadabra. Whatever else I might think about Dubai, I have to hand it to them, when it comes to construction, they don’t dillydally. In Beirut, a city I love without reason, we’re still waiting for the main square in the city centre to be started, ten years after it was supposed to be finished. And don’t even get me started on the number of times due dates for other project upgrades of, oh, relative importance (water, electricity, Internet) have been revised in the wrong direction. Indeed, in the time it took Solidere to finish the Beirut souks, half of Dubai went up. While we may not (yet) be doing quite as badly as either Athens or Calcutta (where underground systems ran decades behind schedule), the glacial progress of Beirut’s urban projects often contrasts starkly with the impetuous way in which they are drawn up. And there, Beirut and Dubai have something in common. One problem with Dubai’s Let There Be City approach to growth is that the rapid nature of construction creates a sense of fragmentation that is further exacerbated by the inability of road networks to keep up. I remember a five-month period in Jumeirah Lakes Towers years back when the closest supermarket to me physically lay 600 metres away across a multilane highway. But with no underpass or pedestrian bridge to cross it, I had to call a cab and travel a total of 17 kilometres, just to get there. While that particular issue has now been resolved (JLT, how you HAVE changed), I did notice that travelling short distances still seems to require a great deal of driving, thanks to issues of access and traffic direction. Lit in an ever-changing spectrum of neon colours, at night Dubai’s overpasses, underpasses and superhighways do at least look pretty, which is pretty useful, given the amount of time you’ll be spending on them. (at Business Bay Dubai)

In the Beginning was the Word. The other day, my partner and I were talking about my Arabic abilities. Now, I can get by and I understand enough that I can get the gist of most conversations, but when it comes to speaking, my abilities are limited. My Japanese and Portuguese are both better than my Arabic. “You speak more than most foreigners,” he said, trying to reassure me, “and it’s one of the most difficult languages in the world.” But is it? Doesn’t everyone think their language is? I’ve heard as much from the Chinese, the Japanese and the Indians. The English boast about the complexity of their language. The French claim theirs is the language of culture and so, bien sûr, it’s très difficile. I’ve never believed in this argument. Language is a universal human trait, so how difficult can any one be if millions of people speak it every day? No, my Arabic woes have been two-fold. Firstly, in Lebanon, I can get by speaking French. Secondly, my introduction to Arabic was off-putting. What I wanted to learn was how to buy a loaf of bread and ask directions to the cinema. What I got were stories about the cleverness of the Prophet and passages about the Islamic conquest. And this was at Berlitz. When I changed schools, my first class began with the Shahada. When I mentioned that I wanted to be able to speak to my neighbours, not convert, the teacher got sniffy. “Arabic is the language of Islam,” I was informed. “The two are inseparable.” And so ended my official efforts. I learned by listening and so now, I speak street Arabic. I can find the cinema. I can buy bread. I can even read, haltingly. But sadly, I fear that the intricacies, the beauty of this great, historic language will never be mine because for me, that blurring of Communication with Faith left an unease I have not yet been able to overcome. (at Etihad Museum)

See, Castle. I’ve probably been to Sidon’s Sea Castle a dozen times, over the years. It’s an enjoyable stop even if a rather ugly port now hems in the picturesque ruin. Best visited at high tide, when the sea conceals most of the rubbish (sigh), at low tide, it’s easier to make out the archaeological remains that litter the seabed. Some of these bits and pieces were part of the castle, which has been destroyed several times since it was built by the Crusaders in 1228 as part of their last-ditch attempts to hold on to the Lordship of Sidon. The Mamluks first levelled it in 1290 and it lay in ruins until the 17th Century, when the Emir Fakhreddin had it restored. It remained in military use until 1840, when it was shelled by the British and the Austrians. Some of the remains are far older. It’s thought that much of the Phoenician city is submerged and may extend for several kilometres offshore. Certainly, the island on which the castle sits was originally the site of a temple to Melqart, patron god of Tyre. The Greeks equated Melqart with Heracles, their greatest hero. A paragon of masculinity, courage and strength, Heracles was known as the protector of humanity and famed for his sexual prowess with women and men. So when Alexander, whose name ironically means ‘defender of the people’ and who was also known for his sexual prowess with men and ummm, women…took Sidon in 332AD, he attempted to offer tribute to Melqart/Heracles. But entry to the temple was forbidden to pigs, women and foreigners (I’m not making that up). Definitely not a local, the man who would eventually conquer most of the (then) known world, rudely discovered that one might capture a city, a country, even a continent but there were some doors one could never open. (at Sidon Sea Castle)

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