Qadisha Valley - weekend trip (part 1)

A couple of friends visited Beirut last week. They decided to go on a trip to the Qadisha Valley and Byblos. Since it was the weekend, I decided to tag along.

I had done no research about the trip, leaving everything to my friends (who in turn were relying on a pamphlet they picked up at the airport). My knowledge of the valley came primarily from a TV programme I saw the night before leaving for Lebanon, plus bits and pieces picked up from friends.

According to Wikipedia, 'Qadisha' means 'Holy' in Aramaic. I have also seen it called the Sacred Valley. Geographically, the valley is a deep gorge and the road traverses the mountains on either side of the valley (altitude markers I saw went from 600 to 1200m above sea level). Historically, the valley sheltered Maronite Christians fleeing persecution. It has also been a refuge for monastic groups and hermits. Many little hermitage settlements and monasteries ('deir' is Arabic for monastery) dot the valley. The valley itself is stunningly beautiful.

I was still half dozing, half awake when we reached the Qadisha Valley. By the time I came fully awake, we were in Ehden, one of the villages at the Qadisha Valley. Our driver was not familiar with the area, so he stopped to ask for directions. My travelling companions were a vegan and a vegetarian, so it was to some amusement of mine that we stopped at a butcher's with lamb carcasses hanging prominently outside.

After lots of discussion and gestulating, none of which we passengers understood, it was unclear if the driver really knew where to go. To be honest, I wasn't sure what we were looking for as I was asleep when my friend was discussing directions/location with the driver. In the end, we decided to stop at the village of Ehden itself to stroll around.

Ehden is home to St George's Church, from which grand views of the valley can be found. Unfortunately, some ugly buildings partially obstruct the view so we actually got nicer photos of the valley elsewhere (the ones you see above are from near Blawza village).Still, the church was a pretty one with a magnificent cedar tree growing in front and the view was a first taste of what was to come.

A cedar and status of local hero, Youssef Karam (opponent of Ottoman rule)

Inside the St George's Church

European-like village centre

After Ehden, we proceeded to the village of Houqa. We stopped along the way to take some photos and had a chat with a lady who lived right there. Turns out she has relatives in Australia, so she was pretty excited to hear we were from New Zealand.

See the Australian flag flying below the Lebanese one!

Photo session done, off we went again. At Houqa, we left the car and went off on what we thought would be a peaceful mountain hike, only to run straight into a party of French-speaking boy scouts. As the boys passed us, a couple shook my hand and wished me a happy "Bonjour". Thankfully, they didn't stick with us the whole way and we got to experience the peaceful, contemplative nature of the valley.

There go the scouts

The trail was a steep one heading deep into the valley. I was sure glad that I don't have bad knees. Going down was tricky enough and even at this point, I was dreading the climb back up. But the scenary was nothing short of spectacular. I'll say at this point that despite knowing a bit about teh valley's history, I had not expected it to be quite so Christian. There were so many crosses and shrines that Stations of the Cross came to mind. At other stretches of the trail, when we were walking along the valley wall rather than downwards, I felt like I was walking through history and in Biblical lands.
 

Our Lady of Houqa Church

Steep!

See how far down we've come

Sans boy scouts, I can't think of a better place for a hermit to retreat from the world

Heading to the Hermitage of Houqa

Access to the Hermitage

Inside one of the cave rooms

St Marina Sanctuary

 

St Marina Sanctuary

Inside St Marina Sanctuary

Our Lady of Qannubin Monastery - former See of the Maronite Patria

Our Lady of Qannubin Monastery

We were stranded in a cave at Qannubin Monastery for a bit because the heavens opened and rain came bucketing down. When it eased off enough that we wouldn't be completely soaked, we further into the valley looking for the resaturant promised by the pamphlet. We found it soon enough and sat down to a well-deserved meal. Just in time too cos the rain started again. 

After lunch, we hiked back up the mountain towards the village of Blauza. This was a steep switchback climb - uphill the entire war to 1200m, with no flat stretches. It took us about an hour to reach the top (would have been faster if I hadn't had to take breaks). The scenery was as spectacular as before. We got the driver to meet us at the Blauza rather than hiking back to Houqa.

We decided we'd had enough so instead of going towards Becharre, we decided to head back. We took a slight detour to visit Mar Antonios of Qozhaya Monastery - the largest in the valley.

Mar Antonios of Qozhaya Monastery

Cave chapel.
Somehow this reminded me of the Buddhist cave temples in Ipoh.

There were services going on at both Qannubin and Mar Antonios Monasteries when we were there. While it meant that we didn't have the oppostunity to look inside, I found that the sounds of the lithurgy and hymns added another dimension to the experience. Also interesting to me - even though I couldn't understand the language, I would be willing to be that at one point I was listening to the Apostles' Creed being said. There was something about the rhythm/form of the recitation that was basically identical to how I've always heard it in English.

I feel incredibly privileged to have had the opportunity to visit this beautiful and religiously/culturally rich valley. So far, it's been the highlight of my experiences in Lebanon and I'll gladly return if I can.

Flying into Beirut

It’s been exactly 2 weeks and 4 days since I landed in Beirut. It is also my first weekend out of the hotel (I moved into a little studio and will stay here for 3 weeks until my apartment is ready). I thought it would be nice to mark this little milestone with a quick post about my arrival here.

The flight from Auckland to Dubai was pretty standard. It was only shortly before I boarded my plane to Beirut that it hit me – “I really am going to Lebanon”. I slept through a large part of the Dubai-Beirut leg, but I was awake enough to eat breakfast, look out the window, and study the airshow for our route. 

Dubai from air

Desert sands - somewhere over Saudi Arabia

I have to confess being a bit apprehensive about the idea of flying so far after the recent air disasters. Looking at the map prior to departure did not fill me with confidence as the most direct route from Dubai to Beirut meant flying over Syria. After the MH70 Ukraine incident, flying over a warzone was certainly not appealing.

I needn’t have worried. The airshow showed that we were flying along a corridor across Saudi Arabia, staying well clear of the Iraqi border. At a point where I expected the plane to turn north-west to cut across Jordan and Syria, we continued flying due west into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Somewhere around Cairo, we finally turned north, flying towards and over the Mediterranean, until we turned east towards Beirut. Later at the hotel, a quick Google search shows that Emirates stopped flying over Syria earlier this year and that this detour adds 45 mins to 1 hour’s flying time. Royal Jordanian has followed suit, but Middle Eastern Airlines (the cheapest) continues to fly over Syria.

Little sliver of the Red Sea. Not very red at all.

Sinai Peninsula, Egypt

It was on the approach to Beirut that I was glad I had the foresight to arrange for a window seat. I was on the port (left) side of the plane and had a view of the mountains of Lebanon looming out the clouds mysteriously as we approached land.

First glimpse of Lebanon

Beirut airport is at the southern end of the city, so a north-south landing meant I got to see lots as we approached the runway. Beirut is quite hilly and the Mount Lebanon range looms up large in the city’s north. The city itself appeared quite built up and densely constructed from air. Buildings are built almost right to the edge of the runway – it almost felt like the plane was skimming some rooftops as we rapidly descended. I would later discover that my office is right under the landing path of approaching planes. There have been times where a low flying aircraft directly overhead has drowned out office conversation. 

The Beirut southern suburbs (no pictures) near the airport are considered to be rather rough, unsafe places especially for the clueless foreigner and house some Palestinian refugee camps. The main airport road bypasses the southern suburbs so I only got a brief glimpse of them as my taxi took me to my hotel.

Anyway, so we landed and as I set there waiting to leave the aircraft, it all felt rather surreal. I looked out the window, staring at the buildings at the end of the runway trying to comprehend the fact that I was REALLY in Beirut. Soon enough it was time to leave the plane and get on with the business clearing immigration, collecting bags etc. Then it was out of the airport and off to start my new life in Beirut - for the next few months at least.

Armenian dinner in Mar Mikhael

I had dinner with some friends/colleagues on Sunday night. We went to a Armenian restaurant called Seza in the Mar Mikhael neighbourhood of Beirut. Mar Mikhael, in eastern Beirut, is one of the city's party zones. It is a relatively new party spot, an outgrowth of the more established Gemmayze. I read an article on the Daily Star, a local English language newspaper, that the locals aren't entirely happy about the party scene moving into the once quiet neighbourhood.

From the Daily Star:

"BEIRUT: Residents of the Mar Mikhael neighborhood in Beirut didn’t realize how much sleep they’d be losing once the bar scene moved to their quarter. Thumping music and drunken rants are now as common as the evening breeze drifting in through their windows; and weekends have become a nightmare, some residents said. Bar owners say they are trying to minimize the discontent, but the ever-expanding party scene begs the question: Will this be another Gemmayzeh fiasco?

In 2008, Beirut’s erratic party scene had taken over Gemmayzeh – a neighborhood down the street from Mar Mikhael. Noise, traffic and general debauchery outraged long-term residents, who held town meetings, lashed out at the Tourism Ministry, demanded curfews and put up public signs reminding revelers that it was a residential area. The nomadic nature of Beirut’s nightlife has since relieved residents of their unwelcome merrymakers to some degree, by handing over the problem to Gemmayzeh’s eastern neighbors in Mar Mikhael.

Many pubs and bars said they had been trying to keep the music volume to a minimum, but it’s not as easy to control the clients who now spend most of the night drinking right outside of the bar and on the street as a result of the smoking law and because of the small size of the bars.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Culture/Lifestyle/2013/Aug-27/228763-mar-mikhael-residents-wary-of-growing-party-scene.ashx#ixzz3CXewIeZc"

Anyway, the restaurant was at a quieter end of Mar Mikhael. Armenian food is similar to Turkish, which makes my Turkish friend very happy (that's why she chose the restaurant). Now my familiarity with food from this region begins and ends with the cheap kebabs you get around Auckland's city centre (the poor imitations my uni residential college tried to produce doesn't count). So, the food scene here is a learning experience. I'm enjoying trying out new things and the taste of food is good, albeit unfamiliar to my Asian tastebuds. I suppose it's not all that different from Mediterenean cuisine - I reckon if you're a fan of Greek-style food, it won't be too foreign to you.

Love the decor of the place

Wouldn't mind having a kitchen that looks like that.

What we did was to order a selection of small dishes/appetisers to share. These would be mezze to the Lebanese, but I don't know what the Armenians would call them. I left the ordering to my better informed friends and so have no idea what these dishes are called. A flatbread accompanies everything.

These came before we ordered anything, just like how peanuts are often served as a snack in Chinese restaurants. Clockwise from top left - peanuts (they tasted a bit like the nuts that go with nasi lemak), sunflower seeds (nothing unusual here, my friend expressed surprise that I knew what to do with these as she's had to teach other international staff how to eat them), olives and a kind of pickled vegetable (looks like cucumber, but it's not). The cucumber-like pickle is quite nice, but after a few bites it gets salty. 

I think this was couscous. Cooked with a tomato-like flavour. Served cold. 

Lentil dumplings and an eggplant dip/sauce/thing. Also served cold.  I have never been a big fan of lentils and eggplant, so can't comment much. They basically tasted like how I'd expect lentils and eggplant to taste.

Lebanese saussages. I loved the way these were spiced and flavoured. 

 Pastry filled with cheese. The pastry is the light, flaky sort - like Filo pastry.

Spicy fried potatoes. This was the second time I've had these. I was quite pleased when they arrived as I was starving and they did a nice job of filling me up. 

Cherry kebabs. Basically little meatballs (beef?) in a wild cherry sauce. Very nice - the sweetness of the cherries goes well with the meat.

Dessert. The pastry fingers were filled with crushed walnuts. I don't really know what the cup things were. I had one of the white ones - it was rice in some sort of sauce I couldn't place. Flavour was delicate, neither too rich nor too sweet.

We may have had another dish or two, but as I don't have any photos, I can only conclude that my memory is playing tricks with me.