Back from Beirut, a city that is definitely on a war footing. There was more tension in the air than even in Yemen, my updated blog's
here. if you'd like to read all the story. I saw an episode of World Bellydance Championship at the airport on the way out - completely unspeakable, one of the contestants appeared to be wearing a fruit salad instead of a costume, very Carmen Miranda in an extremely untidy way.
The women of Beirut are "dressed up to the nines" in this year's Beirut winter uniform of skin tight jeans and knee length boots. In Beirut I was surprised to hear mostly French spoken, not Arabic. Out in the countryside everyone speaks Arabic, consistently English is viewed as the third language.
Over the four days we went up the coast to Byblos, inland to the astounding Jeita Grotto cave system, out into the Hezbollah heartland of the Bekaa Valley to see the incredible Roman ruins at Baalbeck and down to Saida (the biblical Sidon) to see the crusader castle and sample
sanioura which is a speciality of Saida. It's a sweet biscuit which I can only describe as a shortbread/pavlova cross coated with icing sugar and its yummo!
Lebanon is beautiful but the wanton destruction of the country by various other "interested parties" is horrendous.
Arrived back in Dubai this morning at 5:35am to find total traffic chaos caused by road closures due to the visit of the US president. I attempted to get to work but after it took me 40minutes to get out of my driveway and 300 metres along the road I called it quits and went back home. At that point a friend rang who had been stuck in traffic for an hour without moving. Tomorrow the entire centre of Dubai is locked down from 6am to 5pm. As a result nobody can get to work and the government has just declared (at 4:45pm) tomorrow a public holiday.
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