Syria 2005 - Night View of Damascus

On the evening of 29th May 2005, I was stunned at the top of Jebel Qassioun, a 1200m-high mountain towering northwest of Damascus - the capital of Syria - surrounded by exhuberant locals (and almost no tourists), in front of the spectacular night view of Damascus (above).

(If you don't think the above photo is beautiful, then it is my fault - as it was very cold at the top of the mountain, all the photos I took were blurred. Check out this photo by Abenaa instead.)

The manager of the guesthouse where I was staying told me that the night view of Damascus from the summit of Mount Qassioun was the only place he liked in Damascus.

Locals came here with their family members or friends. They brought a pot of tea with a portable stove or narghile (the Middle Eastern water pipe for smoking), spending a relaxed evening with a fantastic view. Even girls became adventurous - this was the only place I was approached by a young Syrian girl. Remember Syria is a rather conservative Islamic country. The sense of euphoria abounded.

Lonely Planet Syria & Lebanon (2nd edition, p.76) quotes a legend of the Prophet Mohammed - when he, on a journey from Mecca, looked down from the Mount Qassioun on Damascus, he refused to visit the city because he wanted to enter paradise only once.

What's different from night views of Western or East Asian cities is the myriads of green lights. Mosques in Syria are lit up with the color of green at night. And Damascus is vast without high-rise buildings. As a result, it was as if I had seen an ocean of jewellery.

When you have an opportunity to visit Damascus, never ever miss this view.

Travel Tips:
1. There is no public transport from the city centre to Mount Qassioun. Hail a taxi. As most taxi drivers in Damascus don't speak English or even read alphabets, ask a member of staff at your hotel to write down the name of Mount Qassioun in Arabic letters on a piece of paper and show it to the taxi driver.
2. It's colder at the top of the mountain. Grab a jacket or something to wear.
3. There are several retaurants with a panoramic view of Damascus. Some are incredibly tacky, though.
4. Catching a taxi on the way back is quite difficult. (It took me half an hour to catch one.) You can ask the taxi driver to wait for, say, half an hour at the top of the mountain. But I'm sure that you don't want to leave only after half an hour or so. So it's a dilemma.

Syria 2005 - Quneitra

Maybe time is right to update Syria 2005 - the travelogue of my trip to Syria a year ago.

On 1st June 2005, I visited Quneitra, the former administrative capital city of the Golan Heights. Following what's written on page 129 of Lonely Planet Syria & Lebanon (2nd ed.), I first went to the Ministry of the Interior early in the morning to obtain a permit to enter Quneitra. The Ministry building located in north-west Damascus was guarded by a man with a machine gun. After passing my passport to an official and waiting for around 15 minutes next to the machine-gun wielding man, I received the entry permit.

Then I went down to the Baramke bus garage in south Damascus. If I remember correctly, I walked down to the bus garage for an hour because Syrian taxi drivers were not reliable at all - they don't speak English at all and don't know how to get anywhere in Damascus.

At the bus garage, I just asked anybody there for which bus goes to Quneitra, by just repeating "Quneitra" as most Syrians don't understand English. Syrians always try to be helpful, if they're actually not helpful. I re-read Lonely Planet, learning that a bus from here only goes to Khan Arnabah, a town about 10km short of Quneitra. I showed people at the garage the Arabic letters written next to "Khan Arnabah" on Lonely Planet, and finally managed to take a microbus - a white van (perhaps Toyota or Nissan) used as a bus - which goes to Khan Arnabah.

After an hour or so, the bus arrived at Khan Arnabah. I don't really remember how I got to Quneitra after that, but somehow I managed to get on a final ride to Quneitra.

On the way, the car pulled up in front of a police(?) office at which I presented the entry permit. A "tour guide" appeared and he joined my journey to Quneitra.

I finally arrived at Quneitra. The guide took me around the town.


Literally flattened houses

Everything here has remained the same since Israelis withdrew from the town after the 1973 cease-fire. Syria alleges Israelis for destroying Quneitra upon their withdrawal while Israelis claim that the town was destroyed by battles between Israel and Syria during their occupation of the town (1967-73) - see an article by Alex Safian.


A former hospital with a billboard attached by Syria which reads "Golan Hospital - Destructed by Zionists and changed it to firing target!"

Inside the hospital


In any case, this ghost town vividly shows how deeply Syrians - or at least the government of Syria - distrust Israelis.

Taking picture of this town was no problem unless my camera headed for where Israeli soldiers were stationed.


By Googling "Quneitra", I found that the former pope visited Quneitra in 2001.

Back from Syria

I've been in Syria for the past 12 days, visiting a friend of mine living there. I'll start another blog called Syria 2005 to "propagandise" this amazing country as an ideal travel destination, with photographs taken there. Check it out.