Yes there IS more!
12 April, day 7 in Beirut (my last day - SADFACE). Jen and I are on another road trip, this time going UP the Mediterranean coast, and not on a heart-attack-speed racer minibus.
JEITA.
Our ears popped as the taxi drove up the lush green hillside north of Beirut, further and further inland, after turning off the coastal "party capital of the Middle East" town Jounieh. The taxi driver (I forgot his name :/ Let's call him Joe) even made a scenic photo stop. As we approached the entrance to our destination, the Jeita Grottos, a man ran out of his stall and handed us some figs, while my other hand was busy feeding myself with the apple given to us by Joe, which was apparently grown in his own back garden in his country house. (Side note: this is the second taxi driver we've come across that has a country house. Either taxi drivers earn a lot here, or retirees like to take up taxi-driving as a part time job.
We hopped off the taxi, and hopped onto a little red cable car that took us a little further up the hill, to the entrance of the Upper Grottos. Leaving our cameras in the lockers provided, we made our way through a long tunnel, slowly allowing our eyes to adjust to the darkness that we were about to enter into.
The Jeita Grottos are nothing like I've ever seen before. It's nothing that you could ever imagine, and no words can describe how spectacular the sight was. Yes, it was one of those tourist sites that you will find at a Lonely Planet guide's list of top places to visit, but it is very impressive, and well worth it. The elevated walkways inside were well-designed and ingeniously engineered to allow passage through the cathedral-like cavity of the grottos. It was nicely lit up, accentuating the depth and height of the interior, the most peculiar shapes of the stalactites and stalagmites, and highlighting the sparkly bits of rock that almost seemed too beautiful to be real. It was quite stuffy inside though, and we were not allowed to take photos.
Seeing the lower grottos involved a short ride on a motorised metal raft, along with a big group of Saudi tourists. We were quite lucky as the water level was just low enough to allow the raft of people to pass through a small opening to a magnificent cave. The water was very clear but smelled metallic. The air down here was better ventilated. A magical experience.
Joe, after waiting for us, took us back down to the coastal Beirut-Byblos Highway, where we paid him, got off his taxi, and successfully hailed a death-speed highway-minibus, and even more successfully got off at the right place, our next and final destination of the day -
BYBLOS.
Claiming to be the oldest city in the world, what remains of this modest seaside town's once glorious past is but a section of rubble-strewn shapes on a piece of land overgrown with shrubs, next to the port, cornered off with a ticket office plopped in front. OK maybe it wasn't that sad - not sad at all actually - it is perfectly located on a bit of land that slightly juts out into the Mediterranean Sea, and offered a magnificent view of the stunning Lebanese coastline.
We found a restaurant that seemed popular enough to warrant our custom, and sat down for fantastic falafel, superb shwarmas and tantalising things on skewers. Nothing less than a gastronomical celebration, as always (during our time in Lebanon). After stuffing ourselves silly (as always), we wandered through restored souks down to the port. We found the entrance to the archaeological site, got through with student fare (woohoo), and stepped into a history textbook.
Because I'm no history expert, I'm going to let UNESCO explain just how greatly significant Byblos is to civilisation:
Byblos is a testimony to a history of uninterrupted construction from the first settlement by a community of fishermen dating back 8000 years, through the first town buildings, the monumental temples of the Bronze Age, to the Persian fortifications, the Roman road, Byzantine churches, the Crusade citadel and the Medieval and Ottoman town. Byblos is also directly associated with the history and diffusion of the Phoenician alphabet. The origin of our contemporary alphabet was discovered in Byblos with the most ancient Phoenician inscription carved on the sarcophagus of Ahiram.
Some sources say it's even dated back to 8800 BC, and believed to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. On top of that, the name Byblos is Greek for "papyrus", which was one of the major products exported to the Aegean through Byblos. The English word "Bible"also derives its name from
byblos as "the (papyrus) book". It is also believed to be the origin of the Greek term for books,
biblia. (cheers Wikipedia).
Looking at the ruins, it was hard to imagine that people were standing on the same spot as I was, 8000 years ago, building all this. I don't think they would ever imagine this once-bustling trading port would be reduced to a fishing town, welcoming foreign guests that would come and look down at sunken structures that crumbled under the forces of war and weather.
We dragged our tired bodies and gobsmacked minds back up the souks and the slope to the highway, and waved down a medium-sized bus - at this point I wouldn't have minded an F&F (fast & furious) minibus at all, but we were too exhausted to care. Or notice. It was too late when we realised that this was a grandpa-snail-paced bus for non-adventurist. The important thing was we didn't get back too late for my final dinner at home.
Thus concludes my first (but
hopefully definitely not last) Lebanon visit.
***
Thoughts/Observations:
Lebanon was nothing like I've ever visited. (To some, I have visited a lot places, but to some and to myself my travel-resume still has a
lot of room for improvement).
The people are friendly, warm, curious, forward, relaxed and good-looking. They are chaotic drivers, considerate tour guides, sweet talkers, and pipe smokers. They are diverse with a wide range of ethnic backgrounds and looks - some have very fair skin, green eyes, light coloured hair; but some are dark-skinned, have black hair and thick eyebrows.
It is a bubbly melting cauldron of cultures, religions and races. But I don't think they've met many east Asians - to them, even a halfie like me looks Asian to them. They kept asking me if I'm Japanese or Korean.
Their history is rich, complicated, with power struggles that still exist and manifests itself in everyday life to this day. Just take a look at the requirements for the cultural/religious make-up of their government, it's crazy. The country still bears a lot of very visible scars from civil war, as well as French and Ottoman and Lebanese architecture, some with all three in one building. Yet two steps away are masses of cranes and building sites surrounding the place.
It's an exciting, nostalgic, culturally mind-boggling place. A place I would never ever forget. A place I would strive to come back for more.
