My First Impressions has CHANGED about Lebanon S06 EP.49 | MIDDLE EAST MOTORCYCLE TOUR

My First Impressions has CHANGED about Lebanon S06 EP.49 | MIDDLE EAST MOTORCYCLE TOUR

Show Video

We can now see the tall buildings of Tripoli. What to do about this now? That's our food. We have a sauce on the right side. I don't know what's it made of. We'll know once I taste it. What kind of building is this? Here, you have the top view of the whole city. All the different types of buildings down there.

Normally mosques have minarets on one side. However, this one has a minaret right in the middle at the top of the entrance. It's anti-dandruff. Thanks I think I may actually need this. The old town looks beautiful. You be the judge and tell me if it doesn't look like Europe.

I'm getting total European vibes. Impressive Fascinating indeed! See how happy they look while taking their pictures here. They had a pretty nice sitting arrangement. I took some rest there. The prices were alright as well. I've noticed that some places are really expensive.

For instance, the coffee I had this morning was for 3 dollars. 3 dollars is not a very big price to pay for coffee though. But considering we are in Lebanon, it's quite a lot. Similarly, there was this sandwich. They charged me around 4-5 dollars for that. So, you'll get different prices at different places.

Some are mainly tourist prices. The others are local prices. There's a lot of variation in that.

Assalam Alekum and welcome back to the channel from Batroun. If you have seen my previous vlog, you would have an idea that... That we are going to Tripoli; a city in the north of Lebanon near the border with Syria. The second largest city in Lebanon. We are coming from Beirut. My last vlog was getting too long so I had to finish it there.

Today we are resuming the same vlog from Batroun. It's gonna be almost a 45 minute ride. We'll try to explore the historical old town of Tripoli. Along with the buildings from Mamluk times. So stay with me and I hope you will enjoy this vlog. We are gradually moving towards the highway through these narrow streets.

However, this smaller road that runs along the highway is very scenic. So lets stay on this one. That way, we can have a better experience of the surroundings. These are some awesome views of the sea.

Let's stop somewhere and see it. Can't fly the drone here. But I can still give you an aerial from up here. As I was saying... the more time you spend here... the more you'll fall in love with Lebanon... Quite like myself. I know I do have a point there.

It's just my 4th day here and as I'm spending time here... I'm loving this country more and more. Look there are tourists who may have rented this Vespa to ride on. I think it's gonna be fun. I really liked this spot. So I thought to take a short break here.

And show you the views down there. And also enjoy them myself. It's such an amazing beach. No one's down there. Those are just boats. There are some fishermen and locals.

Tourists are more on the other side. There is also a beach resort here. With pools and everything. Great location. This place is called Hiri. Interesting name though.

There are so many tourist resorts here. It's not a big surprise. If you have such a beautiful sea and beaches... Tourists will definitely visit. However, due to current financial situation, there aren't many foreign tourists here.

But there are plenty of local tourists. And also because of families. As they say, pick any country and you will find a Lebanese there. During their civil war, millions and millions of people left Lebanon. Today, many of those people visit their homeland on vacation. And this is a season of school holidays.

That's why you'll find a lot of tourists here. We can now see the tall buildings of Tripoli. We'll continue riding along this path till we get there. Don't really feel like leaving this beach to go somewhere else.

That's how beautiful it is. Isn't this color of water something special... Pristine clear water. O... What happened to that?

It was parked aside with only one wheel on the road. Focusing on our road to Tripoli now. We'll stick to the beach boulevard. However, the main road goes inland from here. I've marked some worth visiting places on the map.

We don't have internet so first we need to find some internet cafe. And confirm all the marked places. Afterwards, we'll continue with our trip. We have entered the city now. It's quite crowded here. At least in this area.

Don't know about the next area. I guess we'll see when we are there. For the first time, I've spotted a TVS rickshaw here. I think this is the main square of this area. The traffic is moving rather haphazardly here. That was a cafe. I spotted a falafel place there.

We can park somewhere around here. After all our searching, we have found a great place indeed. It's sort of a small cafe.

When I got in, I was told that it's not a restaurant. They told me that they bring home made food here. They have a kitchen here and their house is next to it. Let me show you the homemade food we got. That's our food. There's a sauce on the right side.

I don't know about the ingredients. I'll find out once I try it. And this thing that you can see is filled with rice. I don't know what else is in there. Similarly, this may contain rice as well.

I'll give my feedback after trying them first. I may be able to share the ingredients as well. Only if I can confirm it. The name is Batin Chan. I'm not sure if I'm taking the name correctly. Let's say the name of Allah and try our food.

Hopefully, it will taste good. Wow... Whatever you try in Lebanon is amazing. Seems like it's just rice.

There may be other items as well but for now I can just taste rice. We are now going to the old town. I've short listed some places that I will visit. We'll start by visiting the Crusaders Castle. There is a mosque from Mamluk times. All that is in the old town.

What sort of building is this..? Closed from the outside. This old town seems to be a wretched state. There are so many overhead cables here. Don't what they are for. Electricity lines don't go from one house to another.

Well, in our current scenario, it may be true. There is no electricity because of the energy crisis. So, someone who is making his own electricity may sell it. That's what I inferred from these cables. Ohh Check it out Seems like a jungle of power lines. Forget everything else for now and just take a look at the city.

The tall buildings appear as if it's a wall of concrete. One over the other. You can find similar buildings in places like Italy and Portugal. This is the old town and its old market. As soon as you enter, you realize that you are in a crowded place. The road is quite narrow.

Now add traffic to this equation. Adding all these factors, you get a place like this market. You feel like you'll get lost here. You have no idea what's going on. It's like a super charged crowded mess.

Many roads are one-way roads but you never get to know that. Navigation shows that path as a legit path. We are, sort of, in the right area now. I can now see the castle in front of us. So, we need to cross the river once again to get to the other side.

The entrance is from this side. However, this side of the road offers a great view of the city. You can see how congested this city is. Buildings are closely stacked together.

One often wonders how can someone who lives here, breathe. The entrance must be somewhere here. I can see military personnel as well. I hope they have not closed it.

You never know... This Crusader Castle dates back to the 12th century. Spanned over an area of ​​28 thousand square meters, it is the largest castle in Lebanon. It was renovated in the 16th century during the Ottoman times. It bears a lot of historical resemblance. Resemblance to how black and white marble is used in Mamluk constructions.

Tripoli is the second biggest city after Cairo, under Mamluk rule. Most of the historical buildings here date back to the Mamluk period. We are standing outside the castle. There's a ditch around the castle that would be filled with oil and set on fire for defense. The opening in the wall at the top was used to pour down oil.

Another interesting thing is .... The gate of the castle is built on one of its sides, rather than the front. It was done in order to make it difficult to break it from the front. To break it, the invaders have to turn to a side. And there's not enough space to build momentum or use a log to break the gate. Lets get in and see it from inside.

We are standing at the highest point of the city. It is in fact the top of the castle. As you know that the castles are built at a higher ground to keep things in control.

Since this city was along the route to Jerusalem, the Crusaders wanted to do their best for its protection. That's why this castle was built. You can get a view of the whole city from here. Down there, the Mamluk buildings include the mosque.

Besides, the caravan Saraye in the old town. We have just visited a part of this castle till now. While other parts of the castle are being used by the Lebanese army as their barracks.

That's why we can't visit that part. However, I tried my best to show you as much as I can. This is an original cannon installed at the top of the castle. We can get quite a detailed view of the city from here. The river that you can see down there is called Abu Ali river. It originates from Kadish valley after flowing through its mountains.

Such a great view this is. We've reached this spot while we were crawling through the old souq. This is a very historical mosque known by the name of Burtasi Mosque. Its front door has the prominent black and white colors.

This represents that this mosque was constructed in the Mamluk period. An interesting thing about the mosque is its minaret. Normally the minaret of any mosque is built at its sides. However, the minaret here is built in the center, right at the top of the entrance.

As I said... Right at the top of the entrance. Mamluks were really genius. You can see their genius in their unique architecture. Minarets are normally built separately. But they have built it over the entrance. When you are inside the mosque, you see that it is a small but really beautiful mosque.

There's a fountain inside as well but it's closed these days. I'm told that people would do the ablutions inside the mosque. But now they have built a separate place for this purpose, outside. Besides, the windows in the dome are quite colorful. I'm not sure if it was renovated afterwards. It's condition suggests that it's either very well maintained.

Or it was renovated at a later stage. Anyways, the mosque is beautiful without a doubt. We are visiting a traditional soap factory here. Before that let me tell you that soap was invented in this part of the world.

Especially Nablus in Palestine. Aleppo in Syria... And Tripoli in Lebanon. The origin of soap is related to these 3 cities. Some factories here are still making organic soap, the way they've been doing for centuries.

This factory mainly makes organic soap from olive oil. The pictures on the wall show many ambassadors and important personalities. During their visits, they would visit this factory and also buy their soap. This is in fact a small soap on the first floor in the souq.

I'm also gonna buy soap from here. As a souvenir of my visit to this place. We are buying this soap but there is something more that I want to tell you. The word 'soap' is an Arabic word. Also the word 'soap' that we use in our country.

This one is made from cloves. And this other one is Jasmine. I actually did some research on it as well. We are buying these two... but we can get something else as well...

Let me check what this is. Lavender I had to pay almost 60 cents for a piece, if I convert it in dollars. So you can see that it cost me almost Rs 150/- Not expensive at all.

It's anti-dandruff. OK. Thank you. I think I'm gonna need it. Of all the historical buildings in the old town of Tripoli...

One of the earliest is the Al-Mansuri Mosque. You can see behind me. When Mamluks came here and kicked the Crusaders out, this was the first building that was constructed here. It used to be a church. The mosque was built over the ruins of that church.

The style of construction of the gate is not usual for mosques. This church was made the center of the city. Everything that was later constructed was done around this mosque. You'll find a number of Quran schools around this mosque. Similarly, the old souq, the gold souq, caravan saraye and other buildings were built around it. So this has been the city center since the times of Mamluks.

The streets here are so narrow that... you may get lost in them without a guide. I'm saying this from first hand experience. But I'm not alone here. I've Maryam, my guide, with me. Meet Maryam. She's from Tripoli. She's my tour guide here.

All the information that I shared, I got it from her. Thank you so much for your help. Welcome. Where are you going next? To the motorcycle? Yes.

That means the end of our old city tour. Thank you. I really loved Tripoli. I highly recommend it to all those who are coming to Lebanon. Do visit Tripoli. Because Beirut doesn't have many historical buildings.

There isn't much history there. But Tripoli is quite historical. The two cities; Baalbek and Tripoli These two are the must visit cities. You can also visit any other city if you like. Personally I didn't expect much from this city.

I thought that Beirut might be the best place to visit here. It's quite possible that I won't have come here, had I not talked to a tour guide. But right now, I'm taking back positive reviews of this city with me. We are very close to the beach now.

Back to the place where we stopped earlier today; Byblos that is. I've a feeling that sunset would be much more beautiful there. It's quite beautiful here as well.

But that place had a slightly higher altitude. That view from the top was exceptional. And the good thing is that we have to move in that direction anyway. So, let's keep going. There are just too many tourists in this area.

2022-10-10 09:27

Show Video

Other news