Lattakia

Lattakia started out in a rather unfun way. Rain is rarely fun when you want to stay dry, but I also discovered that since leaving Istanbul my shoes had been blessed, by which I mean they were holy. Lots of holes, big ones, small ones, which to be fair did help the water drain out of my shoes, but often let in far more water than they drained. I also encountered the one and only traffic collision that I saw in Syria, it wasn't even all that serious, bumper on bumper, drivers got out yelled at each other, and I carried on. It surprised me, but what surprised me more was that it was the only collision I saw while in Syria.

I did eventually make it to my hotel, where the owner (can you guess what his name was? it started with M and is the most popular name in the world) immediatly made me sit down and brought me tea and shared a tray of veggies and olives that apparently were grown by him and his family.
It was here where I finnally me the first white people since leaving Istanbul, oddly enough the same guys that I saw at the train station in Aleppo. Turns out they had even stayed at the same hotel as me in Aleppo, in the next room, yet we never saw each other. They were Russians from Lithuania living in London who had been on the road for almost 4 months, it was nice to talk to someone almost from my type of world for at least a little. We joined up later when leaving Lattakia, but that comes later.

The owner of the hotel was friendly, almost to a fault, was as described by everyone I met who knew him(a rather well connected guy) as eccentric, and that still fails to describe him. A massive fan of Tintin, has all the books, all the movies, and had decorated the hotel with an assortment of pictures of Tintin and drawings, he was particularly proud of a larger than life Tintin mural on the exterior of the 7th story of the building that he had made. Obsessed, eccentric, friendly, interesting, all of the above.

Lattakia as a city was interesting, the rain stopped for brief moments, but not enough to risk leaving my rain gear at the hotel to explore the city. It had a few nice churches, a couple interesting Mosques, the main Syrian Port. But the most interesting part of the city was the people. Lattakia was the first time that I had seen the skin of a woman other than her face and hands, there were women wearing short dresses(just below the knee), there was a sense of style that was almost trying to emulate Istanbul and the west. And though they tried, the restrictions of the rest of Syrian society seemed to keep the city in check.

Spent most of the day exploring and reading, as I had borrowed a book from the hotel to read, as I had long ago ran out of reading material in english that wasn't telling me about all the wonderful things that Islam could do for me if I were to convert.

I also met the second(well third) white person I encountered on my journey, a pretty German girl by the name of Sabine. Living and studying Arabic in Amman Jordan on a weekend trip to Syria and Lebanon.
Along with her and the two brothers we set out the next day to check out Crac des Chevaliers, a Castle from the era of the Crusades, but that is a story for the next post.