Me, Suzy, Marnie and Omar… Damascus 1966.

In the spring of 1966, I made my first trip to the Middle East.  Somewhere I had always wanted to visit, and as I was working for an airline in London, Heathrow, the world had become my oyster.  Middle East Airlines, from Beirut, had super cheap fares for us and I took them up on one.

I was also going to fly on the, to me, legendary, Comet 4.  My first jet flight.  I planned a 5-6 day trip and off we shot.  A quick stop in Geneva, so I could admire the snow-covered Alps and next moment, I was in the gathering dusk of a Beirut night.   I have no memory of how I had a hotel booked, as of course back then, we had nothing in the way of the systems available today.  I suppose I just kind of found one.

Next day was spent exploring and I took a tour down the coast to Byblos and Tyre, both just names out of the Bible for me, but well known to the Romans 2000 years before.

On the second evening, I met two American girls who were staying in the hotel.  Suzy and Marnie, were a couple of years younger than me and doing a sort of modified Grand Tour of the Middle East, as presents from parents for graduating from college.  I soon realized they were both poor little rich girls, Suzy’s father being the chief corporate lawyer for Sears Roebuck and Marnie did one better in finances and was actually a genuine orphan and sitting on a lot of family money.

We hit it off well.  I was not used to Southern Californian girls and my accent still turned heads, way back then.  They had a question for me.  They wanted to go to Damascus, the capital of Syria but were concerned that two blondes would be sitting ducks for the Arabs, so did I fancy going with them tomorrow?   Of course I did.  We interrogated the front desk and they said the easiest way was to take what was called a ‘louage’.  Basically a shared long distance taxi, many of which went daily back and forth over the mountains to Damascus.  The price was right, so next morning we showed up at the louage spot. 

It was not hard to miss.  Lines of very beaten up Peugeot 404 station wagons, with two rows of seats behind the driver.  As we constituted half of the load, it was not long before we were full and off we lurched.  The three of us filled the middle row.  We were not sure if anyone else spoke English, so we did a bit of verbal fishing and one guy behind us had good English and one guy in the front had bad, so we were able to communicate.

The mountains behind the city became very bleak and the car groaned up the incline with clouds of black smoke pouring out of the exhaust.  At the very top of the tallest hill, there was a huge sign proclaiming the glories of Walpamur Paint, which had me laughing.  What was a vast board advertising a standard British paint doing in the middle of nowhere?  Who had put it there and why?  The only plus was that EVERYONE driving this way saw it, so I suppose it worked.  It also had a lot of bullet holes.

Just as we had groaned up one side of the mountains, we shot down the other.   Somewhere there was an exit from Lebanon and welcome to Syria crossing.  Fortunately, in those days, if we were going into Syria for a couple of days, we did not need visas and soon we were coming in to Damascus.  The girls knew all about it (they had been world history majors in college) and thus were bursting with facts and figures.  It claimed to be the world’s oldest continually lived-in city, going back some 3000 years, at least.  We looked suitably impressed.   Our seatmates had already decided that we should put up at The Grand Hotel, which of course always sounds just that and most times turns out not to be.  We are dumped on to the sidewalk and we enter.  

It was my sort of place, as it reeked former glory and was now falling on hard times. The room keys were enormous and heavy and came with a red tassel. They were happy to see us and provided adjacent rooms on the 3^rd floor.  Off we went on a quick orientation walkabout and we all loved it immediately. There was sort of martial music blaring from loudspeakers everywhere and we were told it was the anniversary of the revolution.  “When was that”?   No one knew as there had been so many, they had done a mental merge. The city looked exactly like what we had thought it should.  Like something out of Hollywood, with veiled woman and donkeys and strange smells and oh my God, there is a camel.  And another one. This was all wonderful.

As it was getting dark, we retreated to the Grand and knew we were going to have a great time doing Damascus in one day, next day.  Coming in to the hotel, the front desk man, a senior who was clearly the type who had started there as an 18 years old 50 years before and had never left.  He waved us over and said that we were invited to meet an important man, who was with his entourage in the ballroom at the top of the Gloria Swanson being ready for her close up staircase.  We were immediately escorted up the threadbare red carpet, by an early Manuel, to a set of imposing double doors, which had once been pristine white and gold and now were vaguely neither.

Manuel threw the doors open with a grand gesture – tra la!  Here was an enormous room, made larger looking by the fact there was no furniture.  Just carpets on the floor and seated right on them in a semi-circle were about 20 men, in full Arab regalia.  They just looked so cool and we looked so awful.  At the center of the curve was obviously the Mr Big.  You would have picked him out in a line up anywhere. He oozed charm and was better dressed.  He had a very slim-jim mustache and could have come out of a 1950’s French film noir.  We had found an Omar Sharif before Oman Sharif had been invented.  With a very gentle waive of his hand (a complete ringer of the Queen Mother in the UK acknowledging the masses), space was made for the girls to sit either side of him and me next to Suzy. I realized fast, I was the bump on the log.  We all do a lot of smiling before he starts to speak in slow English.  He is very pleased to welcome us to his country, from the US and UK.  Obviously, we have been talked about.  Another gentle waive and the guy on the outer part of the half circle gets up and disappears behind a curtain and returns with small glasses, which are put down in front of everyone.  Here comes the tea, I thought, as in the guide book it said there will always be tea.

I was wrong.  It was not tea; it was Johnny Walker Red.  This was poured in to the top of everyone’s glasses and  Omar (I shall call him that as we never got to first name terms) raised his glass in that very Russian style of making eye contact with a lowered head and saying “Saha” and down the hatch they all went.  But not the three of us.  We did the toast, but we were not used to knocking back neat Scotch.  Sadly, there was absolutely no way of toasting and then dumping on the floor (a skill I was later to master and it saved my life many times). Omar indicated with another gentle waive of the hand that we were expected to follow suit, so gamely we did so.  Of course, next moment, the bottle is back and glasses are being refilled.

When you are sitting next to someone, it is difficult to make eye contact, but all three of us were trying to work out an escape plan.  I realized that it would have to be fast and sharp and I should take the lead.  “MY goodness is it that time already ? Thanks so much for your hospitality, but we really DO have to go…”    I nudged Suzy next to me hard as I stood up, so she did too and Marnie got the message fast.  I am being disgustingly over-effusive with thanks for this unexpected honor but really, we were now very tired and were calling it a night and kept walking for the door and within a minute, we were safely on the other side and beating it up the stairs like souls possessed.  The last sight we had was of the guys all still sitting in a semi-circle, looking quite abandoned.

Next morning, we were all awake early and as our rooms had little balconies, we were watching all the activity in the square.  Suddenly from underneath us, who appeared but Omar and his gang.  They all were packing stuff into a line of louages, exactly as decrepit as the ones that brought us from Beirut.  Some of them were still in robes and some is western dress.  And right in the middle, was Omar.  No longer looking like he about to ride off into the sunset on his snow white camel, but in scruffy jeans and a beaten up shirt.

It was just such a let-down.  The night before we had fantasized him in to a desert palace, with flowing water, fountains, fruit laden trees, singing birds, dancing girls, the LOT.   Instead, he was now just a scruffy looking local.

We all agreed that we wished we had not looked out of the window just at the wrong moment. Our fantasy had been shattered.