Finding St. George in Syria

It was to be our first trip out of Damascus, Syria and it was bereft with difficulties! We had taken a taxi out to the main bus station for routes to the North of the country. From there we had to find the right bus – this proved difficult due to our deficient Arabic!! Eventually we were on a 10am departure which left on time, moved about 10 yards, then spent 20 minutes crawling along to the police check area at the exit. Finally we were on our way through the hot sandy scenery for a couple of hours. That took us to Homs, 160 km away from Damascus.

The bus station at Homs was a little chaotic as we tried to find a minibus to “Krak des Chevaliers” which is located 65 km west of the city of Homs, close to the border of Lebanon. Someone offered us seats for 50p (about what we were expecting to pay) but it turned out to be a ruse to get us to a tour office where they wanted £50 for us to go on a tour with them, and it didn’t leave for another 6 hours! (so do watch out for this!) Next we tried to negotiate a taxi to take us the 50km to the castle at Krak. The taxi drivers insisted it was well over 100km and wanted anything from £10 to £20. No sale!!!

After a heated discussion in broken English we stormed off and someone told us to go the small terminal just up the road where the minibuses left from. If only we had known that in the first place. A very helpful young man who spoke reasonable English made sure we got onto a minibus to take us to a village close to our destination and the cost was 50p each.

The minibus was absolutely full. Anyone who’s been to Turkey will know about the Dolmus services which cram as many people in as possible. This wasn’t quite that bad but an hour later we were pleased to get out! We then had another argument with a taxi driver. He shouted a price at us once we got in then sped away before we could accept or decline his offer. Before we knew it we were weaving our way up the sinuous road to the castle and beyond, to a hotel we hadn’t asked to go to. Still, it looked nice so we decided to go for it anyway. We tried to pay what I thought would be the right price and our argument continued in the hotel foyer. The hotel staff was on our side but eventually Russ threw the driver some more money and told him to “go away”!! We’ve definitely had our fair share of nightmarish drivers during the trip!

The Beibars Hotel proved to be a wonderful place. The view from our balcony was amazing: we were looking straight at the castle and the valley below. After the altercation in the foyer the hotel manager lavished us with freshly brewed tea and some chilled water. They know how to keep us happy!! We sat on our balcony and rested before going out to visit the castle.

The castle at Krak (Al-Husn to use the Arabic name) is the best preserved Crusader Castle in the world. It’s hard to dispute this. It is quite a breathtaking sight from the outside, and inside it takes a good two hours to explore all of the corridors and rooms. Some of them are very dark so a torch is essential! Luckily we had ours with us so we were able to poke around in murky nooks and crannies! We were pleased that there were not too many tourists around as it was feeling crowded up on the high lookouts from the towers as it was. The views were well worth the climb up those steep spiral staircases though.

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