Last year, The New York Times listed 40 places to visit in 2009. First on the list: Beirut, Lebanon.
Funny, that. Just two months before I’d spent a week in Beirut, a city not quite as sexy and exhilarating as the one-time “Paris of the Middle East” was trumpeted to be by the Times, which always seems to recommend the chi-chiest, Western-tailored places to stay, shop and party.
The Time’s travel section must be tailored to the coddled upper-middle-class seeking as little local authenticity as possible, without having to interact with swindlers, regular folks, grubby happy children, funny cabbies driving beaten Corollas from 1976 or the occasional food-borne poopies.
It’s the Four Seasons/Hilton crowd, lodging that shields flinchy, ick-averse travelers from the boggling dilapidation and ruin and crushed spirits of a war-torn city.
For younger comers, Beirut’s sold as a destination to get your party on in douchey DJ clubs, where the cover charge is $55 (often literally) and the hair gel and cologne on each predatory male would arrive at the same sum.
The newspaper of record came back May 2 this year with one of those pretty cool “36 Hours in …” pieces: “36 Hours in Beirut” . It was passable.
Yes, Beirut’s seaside promenade, the Corniche, is pleasant, where folks can spend a wad on patio view eateries and drinkeries, puff on hookas, known in these parts as narghile pipes.
View off the Corniche
But I’m a Lonely Planet/Rough Guide/Let’s Go kind of trotter. More like the Times’ Frugal Traveler, who susses out paths untrod, bargains and local color, the hues of which can blind.
My trip was homemade, hand-sketched, sometimes random, always independent, and once blatantly terrifying. Listen to everyone and anyone who tells you “No photo” when you decide to tromp about in Hezbollah-controlled South Beirut.
I was heedless. And I was detained by hollering, hectoring goons for 40 minutes after I took a harmless picture. Shit-pants-time. Ultimately, they were just humans, even sympathetic and soothing. I was an interloper, doing a dumb thing. I left relieved, if tear-stained, and sort of liking them. Probably because they didn’t kill me.
This photo got me busted. Click on it.
The Times is correct: Nightlife in Beirut’s red-hot Christian district of Gemmayzeh is off the hook. Bars, clubs, glamour, drinks, style, very late-night action.
I stumbled upon the loo-sized Torino Express, cramped, packed with the casual crowd, with a terrific DJ who owns the place and spins classic ’70s and ’80s rock. I write in my journals at night, and one time, the good-natured bartender barked at me, “Stop writing!” As in: loosen up, drink, join the party. It was great. I put away many Almaza pilsners (“since 1933”).
Torino Express
I met wonderful, chatty locals there, including the terrific Lina, who taught me some basic Arabic, which she scribbled in my journal (“hello” = marhaba; “thank you” = shukran). Later in the week — her birthday week — she drove us north to beautiful Byblos on the water. We ate fish, rode in a speed boat.
On most nights, en route to Gemmayzeh, I ate at a spacious, airy restaurant packed with students and families eating, smoking narghiles and playing backgammon, called Al Falamanki on Damascus Road in the Achrafieh district. Best hummus I’ve had.
Dinner.
My hotel, in the coveted Hamra area, was the classic, historic, musty Mayflower Hotel, the antithesis of the Four Seasons, etc. A wee rundown, it felt like the real deal and my worn room was huge.
Anti-semitism is poorly concealed. At a juice bar, a drink called the “Hitler” was served. In the dusty old bookstore across from my hotel, where I picked up the daily English Lebanese paper every morning, copies of “Mein Kampf” and Nietzsche tomes were proudly displayed in the window.
Meanwhile, riding in dilapidated taxis driven by mostly older men with iffy English (“Hezbollah no good! Boom-boom!”), white United Nations SUVs would pass by. Up high, military helicopters swoofed over head.
Now that’s a vacation.
Bullet-riddled ruins.
Man of prayer.
