Holidays in Hell: In Which Our Intrepid Reporter Travels to the World's Worst Places and Asks, "What's Funny About This" by P. J. O’Rourke

of
emperors, catastrophes and dimensions.
    The Lebanese are chock-full of knowledge about their past.
Those who do learn history apparently get to repeat it of their own
free will. The whole business filled me with inchoate emotions and
a desire for lunch.
    The Byblos Fishing Club at the base of the Crusader seawall
has wonderful food and no other customers. They don't speak
English anymore so I went back to the kitchen and picked out what
I wanted. Seafood got with dynamite fishing is very tender, it
seems. On the wall of the Fishing Club are dusty photos of better
days-Ray Milland, Ann-Margret, David Niven, Jean-Paul Belmondo. "Now this," said George, "is archaeology."
    There's a very good hotel in Byblos, the Byblos-Sur-Mer,
whose owner hadn't seen anyone in so long he bought us drinks
when we stopped to use the pay phone.
    You can proceed to Tripoli on the coast road, but shouldn't.
The Arab Democratic Party, which supports Islamic unification, is
having a big fight there with the Islamic Unification Party, which is
in favor of Arab democracy. And the Syrians are shooting at both of
them.
    We turned east toward the mountains at the Syrian lines near
Batrun. There's a medieval Arab castle here that's worth seeing. It
sits in the middle of a cement plant.

    Once into Syrian-controlled territory the checkpoint scrutiny
becomes severe. Ahmed, our driver, began making long explanations to the glowering soldiers. He wouldn't quite confess what he
was saying, but I have an idea it went something like: "I have the
brother of an important American strongman here and the president of England's cousin. They are traveling in secret as journalists
so they may see the justice and resolve of the great Syrian army in
its struggle against Zionist oppressors everywhere. Soon they will
return to their homeland and tell rich men there to drop a bomb on
Tel Aviv."
    The Syrian army has dozens of silly hats, mostly berets in
yellow, orange and shocking pink, but also tiny pillbox chapeaux,
peaked officer's caps with half a foot of gold braid up the front and
lumpy Russian helmets three sizes too large. The paratroopers
wear shiny gold jumpsuits, and crack commando units have skintight fatigues in a camouflage pattern of violet, peach, flesh tone
and vermilion on a background of vivid purple. This must give
excellent protective coloration in, say, a room full of Palm Beach
divorcees in Lily Pulitzer dresses.
    The rest of the scenery is also spectacular-Californian, but
as though the Sierras had been moved down to Santa Barbara. The
mountains of Lebanon rise ten thousand feet only twenty miles from
the sea. You can ski in the morning and swim in the afternoon.
Actually, of course, it's raining on the beach that time of year, and
the skiing is mediocre at best. But it's the kind of thing that made
for great Lebanese travel-brochure writing in the old days.
    We drove to Bsherri on the lip of the dramatic Qadisha Valley,
650 feet deep and only a half-mile wide. This is the heartland of
the Maronites, seventh century A. n. Christian schismatics who
sought refuge among these dangerous hairpin turns lacking guard
rails and speed limits.
    Bsherri was the home of Kahlil Gibran and also where Danny
Thomass family comes from. Thus, the two great cultural figures of
modern Lebanon, though in many ways opposites (Danny Thomas
does not write poetry. Kahlil Gibran never did "spit-takes."), are
linked. Or so I was told. I wouldn't spoil that piece of information
with research.
    We visited Gibran's house above the town. It's probably the
world's only example of the California bungalow style carved out of living rock. Interesting but damp. The place is decorated with a
hundred or so of Gibran's artworks. He was a dreadful painterthe gentle insouciance of Rodin and the technical abilities of
Blake, all done in muddy earth tones. Gibran's coffin is bricked
into the wall of his bedroom if that says anything about the