Damascus

The capital of Syria and, as Harry puts it repeatedly, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. He arrives overland from Beirut on a shared taxi, walks straight out of the border into the middle of it with no data and no idea where his hotel is, and spends half an hour lost in the souk — which he says is exactly how you should arrive somewhere.

The square he comes out at has an empty plinth. The statue has been taken down.

Arriving

• The land border is the trick. British citizens need a visa to fly in; overland from Lebanon you’re stamped in free. About half an hour at the border, where the questions were about his other stamps rather than his visa.
• A shared taxi from Beirut is roughly four hours, once it fills. Harry paid for the empty seats rather than wait, and swapped cars partway.
• A taxi in the city, $10, payable in dollars.
• No mobile data at all. Sanctions mean no eSIM works and a foreigner can’t buy a local SIM. Everything here was navigated without one.

Money

• Dollars work directly in a lot of places.
• Change money on the street, in the square where everyone does it. The bank rate is poor; the street rate is what Syrians use — 10,800 to the dollar when Harry changed, against 11,000 quoted online, and far better than his hotel’s.
• $100 makes you a millionaire, in a stack of notes too big for a pocket. Harry didn’t count it, on the grounds that this is the Middle East and he’ll trust the man.

Where to stay

Harry’s is a 500-year-old boutique hotel in the old city — older than the United States, as he points out — built around a courtyard with trees and a fountain, which he says is the thing that makes these places: complete quiet in the middle of a Middle Eastern city. Renovated inside, modern shower, good wi-fi, and full of character rather than chain polish.

$130 a night, which he calls expensive for Syria and attributes to sanctions.

Safety

Harry’s own assessment of Damascus: heavily controlled and very safe. Security personnel are everywhere, some uniformed and some not; he compares the feeling to Afghanistan and says you get used to it, and he deliberately doesn’t film them.

He then asks a 21-year-old policeman whether it’s safe, and is told plainly: no — not Damascus, not anywhere in the country. Harry records the answer, calls it not especially reassuring, and notes you get different answers from different people. Both readings are on this page because both are in the video.

The old city

• The souk is a maze and he gets lost in it repeatedly and cheerfully. Sweets, spices, jewellery, and one of the most traditional tea shops he’s seen.
• Roman ruins sit in the middle of the market, unfenced and unmarketed. Harry’s read: there is so much history here that nobody has bothered to make a tourist site of it.
• A mosque, a church and a row of small bars within sight of each other, which he offers as Damascus in a nutshell.
• There is a nightlife scene — bars, nightclubs, tattoo shops — which he flags as not what people expect from the Middle East.
• Faces vary enormously: people who read as Iraqi, Arab, and some he says look English.
• A seller who declines to be filmed does it so politely that Harry calls it the most respectful refusal he has ever had.

Food

Syria’s sweets are the thing, and Harry’s Lebanese friend concedes they beat Lebanon’s.

• Knafeh — soft cheese and bread with a crisp top and syrup, hot, which he describes as sweet and savoury at once and had been missing badly.
• A candy-floss-like sweet, pulled into fine strands, which he says has the texture of candy floss without the sickliness.
• Shawarma, on very crusty toasted bread.
• He tried to buy for the locals who joined him and they paid instead — which he flags as a recurring outcome for him.

People

• A shoe cleaner who has done the job 35 years, is 44, and speaks English, Turkish and Arabic. He named a price in Syrian pounds and Harry, unable to follow the number, offered his own — about $1 — and then gave him $100. Asked whether life is better before or after Assad, his answer is after.
• A young policeman Harry buys a shawarma for, who tries to give him something back.

Jobar

A district on the edge of the city where 300,000 people used to live and which is now a ghost town. It was the front line of the war against the Assad government — tunnels were dug beneath it and attacks launched from it — and the response destroyed the area completely. Nobody who fled received help; they went to other countries or other parts of Damascus.

Harry starts his hitchhike north from here deliberately.

Harry’s tips

• Come overland from Lebanon and skip the visa.
• Bring cash dollars, change them on the street, and expect to carry a brick of notes.
• Expect no phone data at all. Plan accordingly; this is the one country where his usual eSIM advice doesn’t apply.
• Don’t film the security.
• Walk the city the moment you arrive. His standing rule, and he does it for half an hour before checking in.
• Eat only Middle Eastern food here. His own rule for the region, and he calls eating Western food in the Middle East a sin.

Source

• Solo Entering the New Syria (After the Dictator Fell) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhEjNmUEjfo
• Hitchhiking with Rebels through the New Syria — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF17Hx5ul7o (Jobar, and the road north)