A dozen observations about Beirut

A Syrian girl tries to help her family in the east-side neighborhood of Mar Mikhael.

My two-week visit to this sweetly deranged city began here. Blogwise, it ends with this entry.

1. Taxi drivers will honk at you. I'm talking about when you're walking on the sidewalk. They'll toot their horns as if to say, "Only idiots walk; what do you think I'm here for?" In truth, it's hard to have fun in Beirut until you figure out the taxis. Yes, there is a system of minibuses, but the cabs are faster and almost as cheap. The first thing you do is stick your head through the window and announce your destination. If the driver holds up two fingers, it means he wants 6,000 pounds ($4). This is the price to get virtually anywhere in the city short of the airport. After awhile I started acting more Lebanese, pretending $4 was too much. "One service," I'd say, hoping for a $2 ride. Sometimes it works, other times they drive off. I will say this: I have never been ripped off by a cabbie here, or shortchanged at a cash register for that matter.

2. Lebanese hate to walk. Sensing a theme? At lunchtime, everybody in Beirut dials up a delivery service, even if their falafel guy is two blocks away. Had a beer with a guy who says his co-workers think he is insane for walking 20 minutes to work.

Storm clouds: Hard to see anything good on the horizon without more grassroots activism.

3. Fifth time in Asia! And the beer uniformly sucks. I think it's a law. Companion statute: If you're a Lebanese guy, you are required to wear jeans.

4. Everywhere you go in the world, people insist the tap water is unfit to drink. Even in my hometown you see folks paying good money at these 5-gallon water dispensers. They're crazy; we all know it. But Beirut is the only place I've ever been where not even the chamber of commerce will vouch for the city's water. Some say it's mixed with seawater dashed with a soupcon of E. coli. I've been bathing and brushing my teeth with it but drinking only bottled water out of an abundance of caution.

Job security: cafe delivery boys in a city where walking is ridiculed.

5. How many people are employed here as private security guards or parking valets? I swear if these people were thrown out of work and all the cellphone-accessory stores closed, the Lebanese economy would collapse.

6. Lebanese hipster: impossibly lustrous black beard (jealous) + over-the-shoulder railroad porter bag + man-bun. There. You're set to go out.

7. The garbage situation is what it is. The violent You Stink protests of late 2015 are over and trash is no longer piled up on Beirut's streets. Can I smell the dump in Bourj Hammoud? Nine days out of 10, no. When the wind is just right you get a French cheese odor, which isn't so bad if you think of it that way. There's also a slaughterhouse there, so you never know exactly what you're smelling. Lebanon hasn't had a president for 2 years and parliamentary elections for 7 years. So the government doesn't work. Like, literally, I don't think the elected officials go to work.

The Beirut River, really just a concrete drainage ditch. Why not restore it and put in a multi-use path?
Oh, that's right — no one's in charge. Interesting sidebar: According to Crusader lore, at the river's mouth, where
 the shipping cranes are in the background, is where St. Gregory slayed the dragon.

8. It's not a city for the jumpy. If you're not willing to walk in front of a moving vehicle, you'll never get anywhere. And it's a crowded place: Disagreements break out here and there and the fireworks are a plague. Every day that I left my apartment building I had a strong feeling that things would work out for the best. Every night when I returned, I told myself, "God, that was fun!"

9. The currency is pegged to the U.S. dollar and dollars are accepted just about everywhere. If you pay with dollars, however, you'll get Lebanese pounds (or lira) in return. Ideally, the visitor to Beirut will want a pocketful of U.S. fives and Lebanese one thousands and five thousands. Merchants are really picky about American bills. They run their hands over them like Helen Keller, and if they're a bit creased they'll ask for another one. 

10. Your bicycling prospects are good. Drivers are generally alert and undistracted. Streets are narrow, made more so by mercenary and unregulated parking. Hard-charging perpendicular traffic and dooring pose the biggest threats. Don't expect calming on Friday; it's a regular workday. The morning flow doesn't get into the full swing until around 7:30, and even then congestion is your friend. At midday I honestly think you can cross the city east to west faster on a bike than in a cab. North to south, not so much because of the hills.

Somebody's investing in the jungle. Martyrs' Square (a dirt lot) is in the foreground.

11. Three languages are in play here. I hear more Levantine Arabic than anything else, but I’ve seldom felt the need to use it except to make small talk with older folks on the west side. The Armenians use it to talk to one another. You hear a lot more French on the east side, but it’s funny — it sounds like a French spoken by people who are learning to speak French. Bahn-jerr, etc. I never ventured into the vast Dahiya suburbs on the south side, but in the rest of the city, every encounter begins with bonjour, and then you figure it out from there. I must have “English speaker” tattooed on my forehead because I get “Hello dear” and “Nice weather we’re having” from complete strangers.

12. It's a charming Mediterranean port, if you squint. In an act of great humanity, Lebanon, a country of 4 million, has taken in 1 million Syrian refugees, rendering trivial the political debate in the U.S. about accepting 10,000 over the next year. This country doesn't lack generosity; it lacks concentration.

Workers building a more upscale Beirut — but for whom?

In its capital, the luxury hotel and condo inventory seems grotesquely overrepresented. Manual laborers carry shouldersful of concrete blocks from streetside vans into high-rises under construction. When the sun begins to fall they are trucked home down Armenia Street, lined with bars and restaurants they could scarcely afford to visit. Life at the bottom of the Lebanese totem pole, as everywhere, is a rough go, but the wealth gap here may be more pronounced than anywhere I've visited.

Many if not most of my neighbors, even people of very modest means, have an Ethiopian or South Asian maid. These housecleaners and child minders are easy to spot because they actually wear gray, pink or blue cotton uniforms with white collars and pocket hems. When you read in the newspapers, as you occasionally do, of a domestic helper throwing herself off her employer's balcony, only the imagination can supply the particular indignities that led to that moment.

Lebanon boasts about its vibrant civil society, and the people here have experienced stuff no one should have to go through. But at some point its residents, who have perfected the art of complaining — about traffic, food safety, environmental degradation, the mismanagement of its water and power resources — have to take control of their future. A little less carpe diem, a little more collective responsibility. One had hoped the garbage crisis could have been that catalyst, but now that the streets are relatively clean, the electorate seems to have reverted into a shared coma. Apologies for the uninformed blather. I like these people and I worry about 'em.

"Stop Soldiere." This highly visible statement against the politically connected company in charge
of redeveloping Beirut's antiseptic city center would be unthinkable in any other Arab country.

One Saturday morning around 3 a.m., somebody in the neighborhood cranked up some of the loudest music I’ve ever heard. It started with a woman’s wail, joined by drums and swirling synths. Her voice soared and trilled against this muscular Oriental percussion. Not a melody by any means, more of a sonic labyrinth — a meandering piece of glassy electronica made all the more surreal by being woken by it. It was incredibly cool and I didn’t want it to end. But when the song was over, silence returned to the neighborhood. A couple of dogs barked and everybody went back to bed.

That pretty much sums up my brief visit to Beirut. I’m not sure what I’ve just experienced but I don’t want it to end. 

The city's charms reveal themselves simply, face to face. I love how Arabic speakers greet one another. “Morning the light,” they’ll say. The response is “Morning the good.” I cannot begin to count the gifts these folks have given me — the genuine warmth and friendship they’ve shown. They seem tickled by my confusion and practically run to my assistance, as if I’m some sort of teenage backpacker. Many make a point of saying hello to me every day.

All is not good and light, of course. The scars of war are everywhere, Bad actors are probing inside Beirut and it’s a weak country in a neighborhood of bullies. But wherever you travel, from Beirut to Brussels to Bakersfield, please don’t forget that the most dangerous part of any journey is the cab ride from the airport. See you in the fall.

Fin

Food

Grilled kibbah (a bulgur croquette) stuffed with labneh. Garnished with a thyme sprig.

A real eye-opener, but it shouldn’t have been. What do you think is going to happen when Mediterranean, Arab and French cuisines collide? You eat a lot is what you do.

Labneh: versatile, addictive. There's a goat variety, too, that isn't to be missed.

I’m partial to the pocket foods, and the Lebanese are, too. Folded sandwiches called manouche (cheese or thyme — or both!) are everywhere. No, seriously, they’re being made within 100 meters of wherever you are in Beirut. They're the only thing more ubiquitous than soldiers and beat-up Mercedes-Benzes. If you've had a Turkish kusbasili (or any small thin pizza, really) you know what I'm talking about.

Chicken shwarma. These won't slow down your touristin'. Nor dent your wallet; they're $3 everywhere.

When I do go to a sit-down place, I'll order three or four mezze, or small plates of snacks. Typically a helping of potatoes with walnuts and coriander (kebbet batata), or mashed with scallions and olive oil (this version is called mahrousseh). Also in my rotation are baba ganoush, hummus, green beans in tomato sauce, cheese rolls with smoked meats inside, and some little triangular-shaped pastries I never learned the name of. I detect cinammon and allspice in them but can’t tell if they contain meat or something else. That’s how far away I am from home. Strawberries and apricots are big right now.

Lebanon has a small but acclaimed wine industry. A peppery white from the Bekaa.

The biggest revelation for me here has been the moudardara, a lentil dish with fried onions and what looks like vermicelli. I suspect the Palestinians might have brought this here. It’s the first thing I’m going to try to make when I get home.

From pain au chocolate to croissants amandes — anything you can get in Paris
you can get here. The snooty service is thrown in for free.

Every corner store has a cooler filled with labneh, a salty, creamy yogurt. I like dipping biscotti or other pain grilles in it, or frying it up with onions and eggs.

Moudardara, left, and warak enab (vine leaves stuffed with rice and tomato).

Some of the super-traditional stuff, like the raw meats and pan-fried songbirds, I never got around to. I don’t think I’ve eaten any meat in the past week — it just never crossed my mind.

Guys walk around with these samovars on their backs selling coffee on the street. It doesn’t taste like coffee to me; someone told me it’s spiced with cardamom. A shop owner gave me a “welcoming coffee” like this when I popped in for an ethernet cable.

Beirut's beloved Barbar, renowned for staying open even after being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in 1979.

Shaved mutton and two kinds of hummus at Barbar. Served on a prison-style metal tray.

Thyme (za’atar) comes with everything here, and it doesn’t resemble the meager, woody crap you get in North America. Every part of it, including the stalk, is tender and edible and explosiony in your mouth. Yes, “explosiony.” I picked up some seeds and pray I don’t get any grief about them at immigration. The packets do say “product of Syria,” and there’s nothing more capricious than a guy with a badge at the airport.

Architecture

In Rmeil, south of Charles Helou.

Visually, Beirut ranks high on the wow scale. Walking around anywhere in the city, you’ll see rich examples of midcentury, French Mandate, neo-Ottoman, Art Deco, Brutalist and Unauthorized Cinderblock architecture. I made that last one up. If the light is right, even a bit of flaking paint can look like a frothy embellishment. I can’t identify them all, but I remember exactly where I was when each of these structures caught my eye.

Fransabank in Hamra. Designed by the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto.

Sursock Musee.

Haigazian University (foreground). Hamra Street.

Building at right has sign that says "East Village." Armenia Street.

Allenby Street in Minet El Hosn.

On Armenia Street.

Hamieh Road, southern outskirts.

Gen. Foaad Chehab in Bab Idriss.

Al Amin Mosque (Sunni). Completed in 2005, inaugurated in 2008.

"The Egg" on Bechara El Khoury. Originally intended to be a cinema, it was wrecked in the civil war. Obvs.

St. Dimitri Church and graveyard, Alfred Naccash Street.

East of Adib Ishac, north of the Hotel Dieu Hospital.

Apartment building, also on Adib Ishac, south of Sassine Square.

Where Armenia Street splits into Gouraud and Pasteur in Mar Mikhael. 

Rue Gouraud.

Crap. OK, I can't remember exactly where this is. In Sanayeh,
pretty sure, along Emile Edde/Spears or one of the north-south
streets off it. Too cool to leave out!

Syrian refugee tents, the architecture of their lives having disintegrated. May they return home soon.

Ceiling, Al Amin Mosque.

National Museum

Mosaic of Bacchus, recovered from the ancient city of Byblos (called Jbeil by the bus drivers). Circa 300 A.D.

Can easily be seen in an hour or two, no-flash photography is welcomed, admission is practically free, and it's just an excellent showcase of the nation's antiquities.

Located directly along the Green Line separating east and west Beirut, the museum was hammered during the war. Some of its artifacts were removed for safekeeping; ones that were too big to remove were sealed in thick concrete shells; others got shot up.

Some of the highlights:

Above, Greek combatants on a 3rd-century sarcophagus from Tyre (south Lebanon, near the Israeli border).

Limestone "Colossus," dramatically unearthed in Byblos, just north of here, in 1926.

These bulls topped a column in 5th-century B.C. Sidon (midway between Beirut and Tyre).

Model of a theater from Baalbek's Roman period. About the diameter of a bicycle tire.

They say the face is the first thing to go. Don't I know it.

Fourth-century mosaic depicting the birth of Alexander the Great. From Baalbek.

Mosaic of the Good Shepherd's animal pals. The bottom left corner was damaged by sniper fire.

Fifth-century B.C. statuettes of babies from the Sanctuary of Eshmun at Bustan esh Sheikh (near Sidon). They were offered up by parents to the Phoenician god Eshmun in thanks for the healing of their children. They look really Greek-influenced, but Alexander wouldn't be on the scene for another hundred years, so there's a bit of intrigue for you.

Bronze Age figurines.

Reopened to the public just 17 years ago, this is one of the best small museums I've visited and would like to think it is a symbol of what Beirut's regeneration can look like. The curation, presentation and lighting is superb, and everything is labeled in French and English.

Beirut National Museum
Damascus Road, near the Hippodrome
Tuesday-Sunday 9-5
www.beirutnationalmuseum.com
5000 LBP ($3). It's apparently the
only place in Beirut that doesn't accept
U.S. dollars.

Snapshot of an uneasy city

Photograph of the Grand Serail, one of hundreds on Google Images. But by all means, pick on me.

I was detained by the police for about 45 minutes Friday for taking pictures near the Parliament building. They politely went through my bag, camera and phone contacts. The reason it took so long is because I wasn’t carrying any ID — I hate the idea of toting my passport around in case I lose it or it gets snatched. Better to spend some time practicing my French with the gendarmes than spending god knows how long getting a replacement at the embassy outside town. Anyway, that was my thinking; it hasn’t changed.

"We are sorry," said one officer, handing me back my stuff. No harm, gents! Walking toward Hamra, I checked out my camera. About 8 photos had been deleted, mostly of the Achrafieh skyline about 2 miles away.

The Holiday Inn

If a city is trying to shake off its image as a place of unending war, hostage taking and suicide bombings, the first thing it does is to remove, or at least rehabilitate, the reminders of its brutal past.

You’d think. The old Holiday Inn, Beirut’s most in-your-face expression of the 15-year war, still stands like a mute sentinel one block south of St. George Bay. The conflict was something of a high-rise war, with factions exchanging sniper and artillery fire from the city’s rooftops and balconies. Beirutis are still debating what to do with the pockmarked tower, with some suggesting it be turned into a museum of memory and reconciliation.

The hotel was a stronghold of the Phalangist militia. Shown today, left, and in the bad old days.

My take, and it’s the cynical one of an outsider with little understanding of Lebanon, is that the Holiday Inn still stands because the nation’s politicians and their business allies have not figured out how to make a buck out of it. Yes, I'm that guy.

Sometimes it sounds like the war is still going on. Don't let 'em see you flinch.

The Corniche

It's hard to imagine anything more dear to the hearts of Beirutis than this seaside promenade, where residents go to exercise, socialize, check out who's wearing what, who's gained a little weight, etc. It's got that feel.

Lots of little kids, wide-eyed with joy, unsteadily maneuver their rented bikes and trikes — and it's clear many of their parents are just getting the hang of cycling, too. God bless our souls.

The Corniche stretches (east to west) about 2 miles, from Rue Monet el-Hosn near the McDonald's, ending at a military-only beach near the lighthouse. Past that there is only a narrow sidewalk adjoining an old-school amusement park. A few steps further gives way to a vista overlooking Beirut's best-known natural feature, the Pigeon Rocks. Further still is the city's only public sand beach, but I didn't make it that far.

I've never seen a fisherman catch anything from the railing, but they don't give up. Daredevil kids dive 30 feet into the water, careful to avoid the massive boulders beneath the water's surface. A series of banners honoring luminaries of the American University of Beirut, including Malcolm Kerr (Steve's dad), line the entire route.

Go see. Be seen. Pretty sure that's the idea.

 
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