Reminiscence from the Levant: Part Eight – An evening in Tadmor

In Palmyra, I stayed in a hotel called Ishtar… having stayed in backpackers inns for last two days, Ishtar was a welcome change- it was a two star hotel and a very comfortable one. The people in the hotel were very nice, especially a gentleman called Niam Turki… who probably owned the hotel.

The bus that brought me to Palmyra, dropped me some two kilometers from the hotel… reaching the hotel was an interesting incident… I met a gentleman who claimed that he was a relative of Niam Turki and offered me to give a lift to the hotel. He, however, took me to his house first and told his wife to prepare a tea for me… while he had to collect some wares from his house… Logically, it set an alarm ringing in my mind… anyway without any choice at hand, I played along… but as it turned out, the man was genuine… his home was en-route to the hotel… He later took me to the hotel… it was a nice experience, being in a Syrian home.

When I started my journey, I wanted to see only Petra… and Damascus… but today at the end of it all, if I am asked to recount the highlights of the journey… I would without a blink say, Palmyra and Jerusalem. Palmyra is the most beautiful oasis, I have ever seen. A morning and an evening increase the splendour of the place, manifolds. I was lucky to have arrived Palmyra by 4 in the evening. Niam told me that I must rush to see the panorama view of the entire Palmyra ruins from the Arab Castle that sits atop a hillock and overshadows the entire being-ness of the town.

However, reaching Arab Castle is not all that easy… it lies at the outskirts of the town and atop a hill… a leisurely walk may take almost an hour to reach there… whereas a taxi may take 4 dollars. I chose the former. Though after a kilometer of walk, I realized that if I keep advancing at the current pace… I may miss the most magical moment to be seen from the Arab Castle… the Palmyrian sunset… it is said that the orange-ish ruins of Palmyra look absolutely magical during the sunset.

From a distance, I saw a motorcycle man coming towards me… I took my chance and waived my thumb for hitchhiking. I was lucky… He was Kareem, who worked in a local mosque and was going towards it for his Maghrib prayers… He took a detour to drop me very near to the castle, at the base of the hill atop which the castle was located. Before he left, I gave him my pen as a memoir.

Even though the castle looks faraway and forlorn…. Atop there was a virtual stampede… to see the sunset… Palmyra is the most famous tourist stop of Syria… and in the lanes of Palmyra, you can see its touristy-ness at full display… however… walk a little bit and you are most certainly to find a place of solace, to quietly watch the sunset.

The ruins are magical… imagine an entire city that existed years ago… made up of orange stones that merger with the surrounding… this vantage speaks volume about the aesthetic sense of our forefathers… it occurred to me that whenever humans depend on local material to construct… the creation are far more grander and beautiful than a jamboree of construction material from far off land… the local construction material tends to merge with the surrounding, often creating an illusion as if mother nature had created it all. If one has to see it in action… all he has to do is to compare Tajmahal with Golden fort in Jaisalmer or the Ruins of Hampi (for some even comparing them would be blasphemous, but seeing Taj, you wonder at the human creativity and seeing Golden fort or Hampi ruins, you wonder where the mother nature ends and humans begin… and mind you there is a difference between the two thoughts)

After seeing the sunset, I walked down the hill… this time not through the road-that would have become infested with tourists, but through a dirt track on the other side of the hill… that seemed to lead me towards the funerary complex of the Palmyra ruins…

The funerary complex is an interesting place. There are tombs of commoners, one that have been dug into the earth in shape of caves and then there are tombs of nobles… upon which a brick tower has been built. Amidst them all a strange fear gripped me… I rushed away from the place… (The day next I came back to this place next day… there are a few tombs worth seeing, especially one that of three brothers- it has marvelous frescoes all around the internal chamber of the tomb). Leaving the place, I found a great spot to seat and enjoy the vantage of Palmyra ruins; it was located on a plateau overlooking the ruins directly.

Sitting over there, I was so enchanted that a tear rolled down my cheek… it was a magical experience. Human civilization has such a vast history… with periods when some cultural or ethnic group attained supreme superiority, unquestionable and unchallenged… but in the end everything ended as ruins and dust… if one sees the great monuments that Pharaohs built in the yesteryears… it would be very difficult to imagine that this civilization would have ever vanish from the face of the earth… and yet it did, after about 4000 years of unquestionable supremeness. And yet we somehow, ignore the lessons. We start thinking that we are invincible… ignoring and denying history has often been the talisman of the powerful to perpetuate his unjust way of dealing with the powerless. Who would have thought, some 100 years ago that sun would ever set on an empire that doesn’t see the sunset… and yet it did. If only we remembered history!!!!!!!!

After the sun had gone down, I retraced my steps towards the town. The town was embroiled in festivities, worthy for a touristy town… I sat down in one of the Bedouin tent and ordered a local dish called Mansaf, rice boiled in chicken stew and served with huge pieces of chicken marinated with spices. (However the portion was small, considering it was for 5 dollars, I showed my disappointment… the tent owner smiled and sent me another portion for the same cost)

It was a day well spent… having seen the ruins from far off… I was looking forward to see them tomorrow morning in its entire majestical splendour.