Bus to Beiteddine (Part Two)

The beauty of the Beiteddine Palace was accentuated by the absence of a horde of tourists. I probably ran into four people while exploring the grounds. There was also the occasional minder making sure we did not enter blocked off areas. My friends were right -- this place is pretty.

Mosaic from the 5th-6th century in the former stable

I was ready to leave after wandering around for about two hours. With every step towards the mid-afternoon, I began the task of plotting my way out of this town. There were a few cars and minivans parked outside the Palace. I could ask for a ride, I thought.

The inner courtyard

Then again, who knew where they were going, and what sort of characters would occupy those vehicles? Let's not forget their impression of this lone traveller who refuses to speak Arabic. Could he be pretending? After all, he looks like one of us. At least that's what my tour guide had said to me a couple of days earlier. I had also been mistaken for an Israeli, although why an Israeli might be wandering around so openly in the streets of Beirut escaped me (Oh, and did I mention being stopped by the police because they wanted to see my passport?).

Outside the stable

I walked back to the same road my taxi driver had left me. There was no sign of traffic. The town itself looked like it was snoozing on a holiday. I took the road we came from and chanced upon a woman (probably in her 50s) waiting by the side of the road. So there is a bus that comes here!

'Allo. Bus, Beirut?'
Arabic.
'Bus,' hand gestures pointing in the direction of traffic, trying as best as I could to explain the roundabout I initially got off at, 'Beirut?'
More Arabic.
'Ok.' I took whatever she said as a positive sign.
'You don't speak Arabic?' she seemed to ask.
'No Arabi', I said apologetically.
'French?'
'La', this time I felt like an idiot, although on the plus side, I had remembered the Arabic word for 'no'.

We watched cars go by every other minute. Their occupants looked at us as they passed. I imagined them thinking 'what an odd pair that is'. Five minutes passed. Another ten. She says something in Arabic and I simply nod. After several checks with her watch, she tells me I'm better off walking to the spot where I got the cab. I thanked her and walked.

The fourth side of the courtyard, looking out to
the hills and valley

A few more cars whizzed by. It was past two in the afternoon and all I had eaten was a hearty breakfast. If there was anything useful the guide book said about this place, it was that you should pack your own lunch because there aren't many food options near the palace. I pulled out the bagel I picked up at a cafe near the hotel and continued on my way. There was time too for a couple of selfies (which didn't turn out as well as I'd have liked) and a video narrating what had transpired so far. Charbel later told me he laughed at the video because I had mis-pronounced Beiteddine (bayt-AH-din instead of bayt-UH-din, which means something else altogether).

Twice in Singapore I had been offered lifts (without my asking) while walking down the hill from work and on the side of an expressway near my army camp. The drivers on this stretch proved to be less friendly -- I tried hitchhiking three or four times. On the bright side, the valleys and hills -- bathed in generous sunlight -- were offering themselves for a visual treat.

On my way to the roundabout

The roundabout was a mere 20-30 minute walk from the palace. As I approached, I took hurried steps, ready to sprint, in case I spotted a bus in the distance. All I got were a few cars stopping to buy fruits or some sort of snack from a lone vendor. At this point too I entertained the thought of hitchhiking. It would make for a good story, something my friends back in Singapore would say was a brave thing to do. But fate had other plans because the bus arrived some minutes after. Out of habit, I checked with the driver if it would go to Beirut. He nodded, and I took a seat in the back.

what I think is the bus stop next to the roundabout

Before I actually got to Beiteddine, I had thought of visiting a village close to the town which is said to have classic Arab architecture (as pointed out by the guide book). I have to admit the thought of possibly missing the bus back to Beirut (they stop running by the late afternoon it seems), and my little misadventure itself, got the better of me. All I wanted, as I surrendered to sleep in the lap of the droning bus, was a nice cold shower. 

Bus to Beiteddine (Part One)

"Ya Allah!" he shouted as his eyeballs returned from the rear-view mirror to their sockets. My gut feeling was right. I may very well have missed my stop. Speaking slowly, I tried to ask the woman in front of me if the bus does indeed go to Beiteddine Palace, as I was told. "Yes," she seemed to say in Arabic. A couple more unintelligible words sprang forth from her mouth, but it was her hand gestures that spoke best. I was relieved. But beyond that, I soon got a feeling that the driver, and the woman in front of me, had already made up their minds about me: the driver through a few more glances in the rear-view mirror, and the woman in front, who was already processing the bits of information she had gleaned when she turned towards me to explain the bus route.

'Why isn't the dimwit speaking Arabic?'

More on that later. But first:

The Beiteddine Palace is a 19th century construction which sits on the edge of a hill. The outer courtyard is flanked by three walls, and the fourth side opens up to glorious views of the valleys and hills. You cross the vast courtyard to the opposite side of the main gate and find, on your left, the royal stables, now home to Byzantine mosaics from the 5th and 6th century AD. Some of them are quite remarkable, considering the effort that has been put into preserving them. The inner courtyard, with its fountain, is on the first floor and gives you access to handsomely furnished rooms previously used by the President.

With details like these in my guide book, I had decided to give Beiteddine Palace a visit. Organised tours bring tourists here, but I had decided to venture out on my own with the Lebanese transport system. My confidence was boosted by the lines I scanned in the book:

..bus to Beiteddine..
..Beirut to Beiteddine..
..Cola transport hub..

I decided it was not going to be difficult. Yet I failed to recognise the signs. Cola itself wasn't what I had imagined a transport hub to look like. It was a collection of minibuses and taxis basking in the spring sun at what would, at best, be described as a large carpark. The signs on the window were all in Arabic, so I enlisted the help of a young girl (an undergraduate studying hospitality management) who eventually hooked me up with the bus I'd need. I was reminded of a similar situation in Kiev when I visited in 2012. There too I was trying to get to a site which is a little outside of the city centre. There too a woman helped me, albeit with rudimentary English.

As we headed south of Beirut and negotiated its temperamental traffic, I was seduced into a short nap, waking up just around the time the bus started its gentle climb up Mount Lebanon. The guide book said the journey would take about two hours, and by this time we had covered 45 minutes. This is also why I sat in the back of the bus observing the towns that passed every now and then, including a little shop selling goods from the Philippines.

By the time the driver exclaimed in horror, we had crossed the 75th-80th minute. As it turned out, this was a loop service, and soon I was reintroduced to the towns we passed, and the roundabout at a three-way junction where I was supposed to have alighted. As the bus pulled away lazily towards Beirut, I stood in the mild heat, looking at the road I had to take. How far is the palace from here, I asked myself.

'Habibi!' I turned around. 'Taxi?'

Serendipity.

The broad smile on his face showed he had already identified the scent of confusion I was emitting. I would have hopped into his taxi even if he were to take me across the border to Syria (OK maybe not). He drove an older model of a Mercedes Benz, one you would rarely see now on the roads in Singapore. The road descended down the side of another hill, passing another palace along the way which offers its rooms to the well-heeled. In about ten minutes, I got out of his cab and paid the fare. It was a short walk down a smaller road to the entrance to the palace. This had better be good, I thought to myself. But as I pulled out the cost of the admission ticket, another question planted itself in my head:

how was I supposed to get out of here?

80 Rupees

This piece was first written on 25th March 2010


In a span of an hour and a half, the brown faces at the bus stand at Fatehpur Sikri were replaced with foreign ones, mostly Caucasian. One had been pacing up and down even before we got there.

The bus may have met with an accident, the guy at the nearby cafe told us. He suggested we round up eight people to share a cab which would cost under Rs 100 each (about 2-3SGD at the time). Another group of eight had disappeared under a similar arrangement.

The other option was to simply keep waiting for a bus that would cost Rs 27. But what if none arrived? How much more would it cost to take a cab on our own?

There were seven of us: my mum, an Irish woman, a trio of Koreans (2 girls and a guy), and a Caucasian man and woman. The same guy at the cafe was most eager to help us, considering the cab arrived within minutes of the end of his phone call. This sounds like a scam, I thought to myself.

The cab, as he called it, was a 6-seater -- one in front, 3 in the middle and two at the back, where a spare tyre meant you'd have to sit in a somewhat squatting position. A French couple, whom I didn't approach to be part of our road trip, were the first ones to sit themselves in the van. I couldn't find the words to tell them to get out, and no one else seemed to bother. What this meant was that the Caucasian woman who was to be part of the group had to be left behind. The Irish woman we'd approached had to squeeze with the two Korean girls (with the spare tyre). Because of this inconvenience, she was asked to pay Rs 50, as opposed to the 90 the rest of us were asked to fork out. I was not entirely pleased with what had transpired, and the other passengers made no effort to be discreet about their scathing remarks about the situation they were in. 'This is India', someone seemed to suggest.  

Fast forward to Agra's Idgah bus station: I pulled myself out of the vehicle after having my butt cheeks spread thinly between the passenger and driver's seats. The French couple were the first to pull out two fifty rupee notes and place them in the driver's palm. Thinking the rate had been brought down to 50 per person, the rest of us followed suit.

As we were leaving, the driver held us back, asking for the remaining amount. I realised then that it was indeed only 50 for the Irish woman. We called the French couple back and explained the situation. The man said they were not paying more. The rest of us, who had agreed to make up the difference, were thrown off-guard. Even the Irish woman started getting into a fit on our behalf (I don't understand why she decided it was her business to).

So what next? I was the only person the driver could speak Hindi with and he asked me to help him out. But what was I to do? The others were still standing around, but by this time the prevailing mood was not to take out more money and there was no way I would pay for everyone.

At some point my mum thought I was being harassed into making the difference and told me to leave. But what about everyone else? I started walking into the mass of people and traffic, and told the others to leave. My mum and I shuffled away and hopped into an autorickshaw to go to the railway station.

We did not look out of the three-wheeler. What happened to the others, I will never know. But sitting in the auto, I felt disgust for the French couple. More than that, my mum and I felt horrible for having cheated the driver. How much value did those 80 rupees add to our lives that evening, I asked myself later? But things had happened so fast. There was almost no time to think rationally.

Does cheating someone and then feeling bad about it make it less wrong? Your take on this is as good as mine. But how do you forget a poor man pleading with you for his rightful share, and the look on his face searching for an answer in yours?