Lebanon - Ruins and the Beirut nightlife

Day 8 (Dec 28)

Woke up bright and early to visit Aanjar, Baalbeck, and Ksara. For today, we decided to go with Nakhal, the oldest and most established tour agency in Lebanon. Being oldest and most established, we should have realised that many other people would knock on their doors too. Largest tour group in the world and felt like we were sheep being herded around.

We first visited Aanjar, a small town where mostly Armenians live. In general, many sites were quite ruined, which makes it very difficult for lay-folk to imagine what took place there. I liked how the archaeologists would reconstruct enough structures/buildings that would allow us lay-folk to imagine what the entire place could have been like.

Anyway, back to Aanjar, this site hosts the only Umayyad ruins in all of Lebanon. There was some speculation that Aanjar was a commercial/trade area with lots of little shops, because of its location/proximity to Damascus. Funny though, there was a reconstruction FAIL. Archaeologists reconstructed a temple which had 2 stories, and then later learned that it was just 1 very tall floor with a high ceiling. The wrongly reconstructed version is still there. Oops.

After, we headed to Baalbeck. As we were walking towards the site, there were these touts selling all kinds of things. In particular, they were very keen on selling Hezbollah shirts. As we were wondering who would buy and wear these shirts around, we heard an American asking, "How much?" It had to be the American (not me though!!!)

Baalbeck is home to probably the most extensive and well preserved set of ruins I've seen so far. The temples were very grand, far grander than what one could find in Rome. Some speculate that it is because the Romans wanted to flex their muscles and show how great their empire was and how far it extended, but others also say that it is because they also wanted to use this as peace offerings to the locals (sorry for invading).

We saw three temples, the largest being the Temple of Bacchus, one of the most extravagant and best preserved Roman temples in the world. Even bigger than the Parthenon! There was also a cool underground museum, built in existing tunnels originally used as storerooms. However, the statues, pictures and descriptions were a lil difficult to see because of the poor lighting. Perhaps they were trying to simulate a "cave" effect. FAIL.

Oh, fun fact. There's this religion where the people are called Druze. First of all, we had the same American (not me) very confused because he kept hearing her talk about the Jews. Clearly he didn't consult his Lonely Planet before coming on this trip. Anyway, the Druze are born into this religion but can only (maybe) practice at the age of 40. At 40, it is determined (probably by the Druze religious leaders) whether one is a wise or ignorant Druze. The wise Druze get to go on practicing their religion and wear their religious outfits (white caps and long black robes for men, and white headpieces down to waist and black robes for women). The ignorant Druze are not allowed to practice from age 40 and onwards. Outta luck, buddy.

After the ruins and some nap time, we met up with Sporean friends to eat Italian at this restaurant called La Posta. Our rather insipid but cheerful front desk guy hailed us a cab. It was only when we got on that we found out he had hailed the cab to the wrong location.

A 35 to 40 minute horrible cab ride later, our frustrated cab driver gladly let us out and we only paid him half the price we originally agreed on. As an afterthought, we thought that perhaps we should have paid less. We had driven round and round downtown, seen St Vincent de Paul church and the Blue Mosque three times at least!! We were so happy to get off the cab and walk. Let me just say that pasta has not tasted this good in a while.

After La Posta, on the invitation of one of her friends, Shanaz and I went to Music Hall, a glitzy club where live music was played. There was a small orchestra accompanying opera-type singers, duos, trios, etc. The repetoire ranged from local Arabic pop songs to Spanish music and some top 40s. I must say though, that for the club being so supposedly glamorous and all, the people there were disappointingly not sharp looking. To be honest, so far, haven't been terribly impressed. Thought Lebanese would be better looking. Shrug.

And just like that, another day was over.

(Addendum: I realise that I wrote nothing about our Ksara wine tour the first time I posted. I blame this on the overly unenthusiastic tour guide, the 3-minute brisk walk of the underground cave where they store their barrels, and the lousy 4 tastings of white, red, rose and moscato. That's about it, really.)