Highway to Homs

BEIRUT, Lebanon — "You are not American. You do not speak," Mahmoud warns me as we walk toward the souqs and hail a taxi. Bilal climbs into the front seat and directs the driver to Bab al-Sebaa, a district in the south of Homs, Syria, and the three of us drive off.

Minutes later, Mahmoud points out the window at a building raked with bullet holes. "Shiftu?" Did you see it? He asks.

We pull up to Bab al-Sebaa St., the district's main thoroughfare, and get out. Wide enough to have a median and long enough to have a protest, the street is deserted except for a gaggle of men straggling up the sidewalk at the far end of the road and a white van parked ahead on the right. On the left is a mosque, its green mosaic dome the only splash of color on this block of low gray concrete buildings. Behind me, at the top of the street just 40 meters away, rises a green hill with three olive tanks ranged in front, their cannons dead-level with the street. A half-dozen soldiers mill about, machine guns at the ready, their uniforms camouflaging them against tanks and hill. One soldier has taken off his bullet-proof vest, his T-shirt bright white in the morning sun.

Mahmoud quickly links his arm in mine, steering me around so that I have my back to the soldiers. "Khateer," dangerous, he whispers. The three of us start walking down the street, slowly.

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It all began on a pleasant motorcycle trip I took last month from Beirut, Lebanon, to Tartous, Syria, that ended up becoming a semi-surreptitious probe of Hama and Homs, the twin flashpoints of the Syrian uprising. As an English professor at the American University of Beirut, armed only with a rare visa obtained over the summer at the Syrian Consulate in Houston, Texas, and a modicum of Arabic, I managed to pass muster at a series of military checkpoints and gain entry into these two besieged cities.

Once inside, I was able to meet and talk with protesters and see first-hand evidence of President Bashar al-Assad's violent crackdown on the demonstrations that have been rocking the country since March. More than 3,000 people are believed to have been killed over the last seven months, most of them peaceful protesters, according to international rights groups and Syrian activists.

This is the story of what I saw.

Friday, Oct. 7. I head north from Beirut at dawn, riding the Suzuki Volty motorcycle that has taken me to Syria several times before. Escaping much of the traffic along the coastal highway and making a brief stop in Tripoli for breakfast, I arrive at the Areeda border crossing around 9 a.m. Exiting Lebanon is quick and easy this time because the checkpoint office is deserted inside, except for a lone officer sitting behind the counter.

Outside, a Lebanese border guard sitting on the low part of the wall dividing the through-lane asks me where I'm going.

"Tartous, maybe Latakia," I say, mentioning the two largest port cities along the Syrian coast.

"My advice: You go to Tartous, you eat fish, you go to hotel, you fuck for 24 hours. My advice. You go to Latakia tomorrow."

"Why not go to Latakia today?"

"It's Friday. Salaat, prayers. Maybe after prayers there is something." Protests have continued in Latakia even after the government led a military assault on the city in mid-August with gunboats and troops, leaving dozens dead and causing thousands to flee.

I thank him for his advice and coast on to the Syrian checkpoint just up the road. I hand over my passport to the border agents as they ask me where I'm going. I tell them Tartous. Why am I going? Tourism. How many days? Two. What hotel am I staying at? "I don't know; I'll have to see when I get there; someplace by the sea; someplace not expensive..."

"Funduq Shaheen," one of the agents says. One of his colleagues chimes in with his agreement.

I thank them for their hotel recommendation, and after a fair amount of paperwork take off for Tartous, arriving half an hour later.

Tartous is Assad country. A regime stronghold, it boasts billboards and posters and stenciled wall portraits of Bashar, his father Hafez, and his "martyred" brother Bassel (who died in 1994 in a car accident) beaming down from all directions, not to mention seaside waiters who are politely surly this season toward American tourists. One van parked on the street even had its windows papered over with pictures of the sainted trio, making driving difficult. A vitrine in a wall at a T-junction displays an icon of Bashar in place of the Virgin.

Saturday, October 8. Dawn finds me riding the highway 10 kilometers southeast to Qalaat Yahmur, a 12th-century Crusader castle in a town little larger or better kempt than the citadel itself. Lost, I stop to ask for directions from a man sitting to mate with his wife at a small table outside his home. He sends his wife for the keys, invites me to partake of his herbal drink, then hops on his motorbike with a motion to follow him. He leads me all the way to the site, which consists of a stubby square tower surrounded by a well-preserved outer wall, as well as an aged keeper who shelters in what remains of the barracks.

Twenty kilometers later, I arrive in the town of Safita to visit its pale, windowless stone keep -- all that remains today of the White Castle of the Templars. I then continue east, past hills covered with olive trees and flowers, to Hosn Suleiman, a ruined temple situated within a wild mountain ravine. A heavy rain catches me stomping around the cella, and I clamber over the blocks of stone as quickly as their wet surfaces and sharp edges will allow, taking shelter in the lee of a colossal Ionic capital tilted tent-like against the rubble.

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