Leaving Damascus - First Impressions of SYRIA

This looks like it used to be a really big tourist attraction, but now it's a ghost town. The whole way in, buildings were destroyed, there's bullet holes everywhere, but we're here. Syria, a country torn apart by war over the last decade. Right now governments around the world advise against all travel and recommend to get out of the country as soon as you can, but I have the chance to go in and show another side to this country, a side that you might not expect. Good morning and welcome back to Syria. I'm on the border of Jordan right now, way in the south, about two hours outside Damascus in a town called, I think it's Dammar. We're actually, this is the last day here in Syria and we're on the way to an ancient Roman, it's so loud here by the way, I don't know if you can hear, this is the first time I've got a chance to get out of our bus and film, but it's so loud. We're on the way to an ancient Roman Colosseum called Bosra. We just started to go there and got turned around at a military checkpoint, we need to ask permission to go there. So right now we're waiting to get permission and then hopefully we're going to move on to there. How's it going? Hi, it's me. Hello. Good? Yeah. Making some friends here. Hey guys. Hi. Hi. They um, well we don't speak the same language because I don't speak Arabic, but uh, they just came over to say hi. Yeah. Everyone here has been really welcoming everywhere. It's not like, I mean people are just interested. Loads of people come up and ask where you're from, welcome to Syria and um, yeah that's been nice the last few days. There you are, it's a video. Yo. So um, I'm YouTube. YouTube. How are you? It's a video. You want a photo as well? So these guys are just getting some photos and stuff. Got another football fan here. Yeah, nice one. Yeah, we're just waiting around right now. I think we're going to try and get on to Bosra soon, but I think, I think our guide's having tea with the mayor to ask permission. I think that's what we were told, but I don't know, it's interesting anyway. It's just cool to be out in a local town in Syria, like outside the Damascus, outside of like, I don't know, words are failing me, but um, it's just interesting to see a local part of Syria. So after we got permission, we were able to make it to Bosra after going through a few military checkpoints, and if you look around, look behind me, this looks like it used to be a really big tourist attraction, but now it's a ghost town. The whole way in, buildings were destroyed, there's bullet holes everywhere, but we're here. I'm gonna go look around this Bosra. It's crazy. So a small theater. Well this is crazy impressive. It's the best preserved Roman amphitheater in the world. It's absolutely huge. Wow, before the war they used to use this for shows still as well, and um, yeah, I mean it's very very impressive. Look at the size of it. This is all originally Roman from, I think he said 20 AD, so this is 2,000 years old, and it still looks like this. I mean look at this. It's just another example of one of the incredible historic things that they have here that no one really knows about, and because the whole story for the last 10 years has been about the war, about the suffering here, there's a lot more to Syria than that, and this shows a little piece of the history they had here as well. Like this is 2,000 years old, best preserved in the world, and yeah, I've never heard of it, and the whole city around it and all the roads on the way are just completely destroyed by war. Even inside here, over there, that's, there's all bullet holes down the side. Yeah, look at this. All of this here is bullet holes. Up here, that's bullet holes. They're all kind of concentrated around this area. I don't really know what to say about it, but I really hope that this is the beginning of change, the fact that we're allowed to be here, and that more people will be able to come in the future, and more Syrians will be able to have the lives back on track in the future as well. So maybe in the future, maybe soon, who knows, you'll be able to visit this place normally. I think it's going to be a while still before that. And throw just 10 Syrian pounds on the floor from the middle. Everybody mostly can hear it. You see? This is a very accurate way of doing it. I'm in the middle of the amphitheater now, and even though it's built 2,000 years ago, it's still designed perfectly to pick up the sound from wherever. So if you stood here and just talking normally, anyone here would be able to hear you. You can just say, hello! There's a bit of an echo. Hello, and welcome to Syria. Yeah, very cool. My name is Maximus Decimus Aurelius, commander of the armies of the north, husband to a murdered wife, father to a murdered son, and I will have my vengeance in this life or the next. Yeah, this is the outside. This was obviously a shop or ticket office, maybe. They had a whole garden, and this whole area was set up for tourism, and was probably very nice, but now it's like it is a ghost town. Now it's just, I mean, we're the only ones here besides a couple of Syrian sellers that are being quite pushy for us to buy a postcard, because how often do they even see people here? But yeah, we are the only ones here, and it is a bit of a ghost town. Damascus International Airport, and about to fly out. We were originally meant to be going back over land through Lebanon, but because of the protests, we can't, and we had to fly out last minute. But I'm going to film all of this and tell you that in the next video, so check back for that, because we're flying on private Syrian airways, and I'm going to make a whole video about that. But for now, I just want to give you a few impressions and what I've found of this week in Syria. Okay, so first impressions of Syria. I will say that before I went there, I tried to keep an open mind, and I didn't really know what to expect, because it's a country I've only really seen one thing about, which I mentioned in the videos is the civil war and the crisis over the last 10 years, and I didn't know the other side of it that I got to see, but that was the main reason I went there, and I'm so glad I got to show that. One of the main things that struck me was the hospitality of people there, and it's kind of like, it is cliche, it is a travel cliche to say, oh my god, the people were so friendly, the locals were so kind, or whatever. But actually, in Syria, it was genuinely the case where people, I mean, everyone I interacted with was so friendly and so welcoming to tourists being there. I think that's partly because it's a sign of things changing, and the people are starting to return, only very limited, I don't think there's many tourists that are going there yet, because it's still quite difficult to go there, and I've seen some questions about it, so if you are interested in the visa situation, then please look it up yourself, because it's changing all the time. I went through a tour group, and that was how I did it, but I would just recommend looking it up and finding out how it works for your country that you're from. But yeah, anyway, people were genuinely so friendly, and everyone was saying welcome to Syria, and if you're on the street, even in the market, people didn't necessarily just want to sell to you, like is the case in a lot of markets, it was more just like they wanted to have a chat, which was very cool. I think, or I hope, in the future that Syria will have tourism again, because places like Crater Chevaliers and Bosra in this video were kind of mind-blowing, and I'm not a, I've said that word a lot I think in this series, but I'm not a big history buff, and still they blew me away because of the scale and how preserved they are, even after the wars, it's kind of amazing they've stayed like that, and if you do get a chance to go and see them, then I would definitely recommend that. I'm not sure about right now, as I say, judge for yourself, but at some point I would recommend Syria as a country to travel around if you can, and if you're comfortable going there as well. If you do decide to go, especially if you decide to go in the near future, I would really recommend knowing the history and their recent history beforehand. Learn about the Syrian civil war, learn about the rebels and the pro-Assad and ISIS, and the various battles that went on around, because you might not get access to all that information once you're inside the country, so I really recommend people before they go there to know about that side of it, and I'm sure some of you will have followed it in the news over the last 10 years anyway, but just like do your own research and know that part of it before you go there, and when you are there, people prefer you to refer to it as the crisis or a situation, rather than the civil war, because it's still quite a sensitive subject. And following on from that, I would say that by going there, you're not supporting the Assad regime, and you're not supporting the government. The small amount of what you spend that goes to the government is the visa fee. Besides that, what you're spending is going back to the local people that need it after going through so much. They do now need an income because they're trying to rebuild, so if you're going there and spending your money on the local markets, on the food, on the restaurants, then you are actually helping the people there recover from a disastrous war. So although I did receive some sort of critical feedback saying how can you go there promoting Assad, I'm not a tool. I went there to show what it's like first and foremost, but also by going there as a tourist, you're putting money back into the economy. And that's about it really. What is going on? Something outside my hotel room. That's about it anyway. I hope rather than me just rambling at the camera, you got to make up your own first impressions from what I've managed to show in this series, and you can decide for yourself, or at least have a different opinion of Syria than what's been shown for the last 10 years. I hope you enjoyed this. There's still one more video coming next, which is me flying out of the country on a Syrian airline, so check back for that. But for now, thank you for watching, and I'll see you in that video.