A Day You Only Hear About in Stories

It began innocently this morning when we began our 2-hour minibus trek this morning to Dura Europos, an ancient Roman city on the Euphrates. It ended with Beddor and myself less than a mile from the Iraq border with aspirations to cross into the last country I expected to see on this trip. Let me preface this entire post with the fact that we knew what were doing, the political situation, the legality of the situation, and never exercised poor judgment or impetuousness.

But hold on. Let me back up and take you through our day. It began to go south when the bus driver told us to get out at what seemed to be the absolute middle of nowhere, and we were greeted with a vast barren desert on all sides, subsequently followed by a chorus "Good god's".



The fun continued when we began our 2 km trek towards Dura Europos and found this.



Probably an AK-47 shell, the weapon of choice in the Middle East outside Israel. Not a good sign so close to the border, but we dismissed it as target practice or something of the like. Approaching the ruins, which were completely bereft of visitors, we were disappointed by the lack of remaining ruins, and bolted straight for the mighty Euphrates. It's a strange sensation when you come across the body of water around which civilization formed itself over 5000 years ago, and find that the legendary mighty river is no more than a placid stream that flows through the country.

We worked our way down the cliffs onto the river and saw some children and teenagers on the edge of the river. When we turned the corner, we saw some men sitting around a fire they had built. One had his gun resting beside him (don't worry, this is very normal), and got up and yelled at what seemed to be us, but turned out to be at his kid. We spent twenty minutes on the river with the kids, trying to communicate, and ultimately failing, while being subject to their general sneers and jokes before we left back for the road.

Down the road about 30 km is another site of ruins, these Mesopotamian dating from 5000 years ago, and 10 km further is the city of Abu Kamal, the last town before the Syria-Iraq border. And the powerful and primitive force of curiosity began to unrest our spirit. We asked the ticketers outside the site if there were any towns where we could eat, but a military policeman told us that the food was bad and that we should go in the other direction. Thinking that we've eaten more than our fair share of bad food on this trip, we decided to go anyway. After a short hitchike, we found ourselves hitchhiking towards Mari with a Saudi Arabian businessman in his incredibly nice car (Saudi Arabia is bathed in oil). Our intentions were to hitch to the next town to grab a bite to eat and some water and make our assessment after talking to some of the locals. Our intentions were then complicated by a stationed car of the same Syrian military police that we spoke with earlier that called the Saudi Arabian's car over after he slowed down to pick us up. We don't know what words were exchanged, but we do know that the police began tailing us.

We asked the Saudi businessman to drop us off to eat at the next town, but he assured us that there was no food and said he would take us to Abu Kamal. As we approached the city he spoke more and more of how close Iraq was, which we realized later was to elicit some sort of response to obtain information of our destination. The police continued to tail us, and most likely became more suspicious when we passed Mari, our supposed destination. Knowing though that we had done nothing wrong, and were only being tailed on suspicions, we continued. When we were dropped off at a restaurant, the police immediately pulled the Saudi over, presumably for questioning as to our destination.

We ate lunch cautiously and decided that if we walked out of the restaurant, and the police were not there, I was going to walk to the border with Chris and cross by myself (because we only have dual entry visas, and Beddor wants to go to Lebanon), get my stamp, maybe take a picture, and go right back into Syria. We of course were going to ask at the border if this were possible/safe, but we knew that the Syrian side of the border is safe and that the border itself would be secured by military personnel. However, when we walked out of the restaurant, the police were still there waiting for us. At that point, we decided that it was too much hassle to go to the border (I say hassle, because even if the police did detain us, they had nothing more to stand on then suspicions, and it's perfectly legal for an American to enter Iraq), so we began walking in the other direction towards Mari. The police continued to follow us at a decent distance, but obviously with no care as to our noticing them. We spoke with some children along the way, and afterwards the police immediately called them over to the car to ask what we talked about. At that point, we realized that one policeman had gone into the restaurant to question them, which means it was very good that when the patron asked us if we were going to Iraq, we gave a vehement no.

Finally, the police ended their absurd obsession from a distance with us, and called us to the car. They were actually extremely friendly and welcoming. They asked where we were going, and when we said Mari, they gave us no more trouble. They then became our greatest allies, because when we told them we were going to hitchhike to Mari, they flagged down some car and asked him if he could take us to Mari. When he said no, they forced him to take us to Mari. The man was obviously unhappy, but complied and brought us to Mari. The police continued their pursuit of us. When we entered Mari, the police came with us. But Mari was actually expensive, so we decided not go, and when the policeman asked why we were leaving (obviously because of his continued suspicions of our possible intentions to cross the border), we said that it was too expensive. So he forced the guy to lower his price from 75 pounds to 10! So we were able to explore the remains of this Mesopotamian civilization on a mere 20 US cents. In fact, I took a pottery shard with me, because they didn't maintain the site at all, and I figured that I would take better care of it. Plus it's 5000 years old!

When we left, the police came with us. We tried to get a ride back to Deir Ezzor, but because of the holidays, there were no cars. So the police came to our aid again and flagged down a car, but apparently the military command a lot of respect and the subsequent 4 cars behind it pulled over as well. Then he forced the less begrudging Mohammed to give us a ride back to Abu Kamal so we could take a bus back to Deir Ezzor. The police of course came with us and helped us get onto a bus back to Deir Ezzor, and finally left us after I'm sure telling the driver to not let us out before Deir Ezzor. They ended up tailing us for four hours!

So we returned a few hours ago to Deir Ezzor without a scratch, and have found that Iraq is really not that far away, that the people on the border (who are most likely largely Iraqi) are extremely friendly and welcoming, and that despite that the police may be extremely suspicious of American they will go far out of their way to help you out, even if it is to assure that your story is true.

Again, again, again, I'm sure you all will freak out over this post, but know that we are aware of the situation and our surroundings, especially Beddor who has his degree in Middle Eastern politics. I'm sure I'll get in plenty of trouble for this, but just remember that we're here, and no matter how many news reports you read, we experienced it, and found that it was nowhere near the portrait journalists portray. So with that, here are some other pictures! (Apparently, I'm having trouble posting the pictures, so I'll try to do so in another post)

P.S. Be sure to check out my forthcoming post after this one, because yesterday was nearly as exciting as today, although today was certainly the highlight.