Lebanon as it is
General impressions: the country is interesting primarily for people interested in history, it is not intended for a comfortable beach holiday.
Entry. Passport control
Entry problems in most cases can occur in girls under the age of 30 traveling unaccompanied by a male family member. The presence of an “embassy visa” also does not guarantee 100% entry in this case. As it turned out, this problem can be easily solved for 50-100 USD, provided for "participation" and "assistance" to a representative of the migration services. And, interestingly, receiving money in the presence of colleagues does not bother the "officials" at all.
In my case, with a visa obtained at the embassy, a "passport officer" who did not speak English sent me to buy a visa at the airport. In an urgent attempt to explain that I do not have such a need, since I had already received a visa at the embassy, an entry stamp was placed on the already canceled TURKISH visa. At the next attempt to explain that he was wrong, my passport was taken away in an unknown direction for 20 minutes and returned with a mark of the Lebanese migration services on the TURKISH visa "entry denied". After a half-hour explanation with my friend's migration service, I was finally stamped with an arrival stamp and - lo and behold - still on a Lebanese visa issued by the embassy. Of course, this fact overshadowed the first day of stay in this country.
The first thing that catches your eye is the presence of roadblocks at every kilometer of the road to the "apartments". Still, people in bulletproof vests with weapons in their hands on tanks are an unusual “exotic” for our eyes, even from a security standpoint after a long war, the bombing of the country by the Israelis three years ago and periodic terrorist attacks (for example, in May, terrorists seized the airport, and a couple of years ago, the prime minister and members of the government were killed), of course, a plus.
The long war, the conflict with the Israelis, of course, left their mark on the appearance of the city: most of the houses have a dilapidated appearance, only the embankment and the center are filled with modern buildings, moreover, bordering on real "slums": dilapidated buildings (in some, by the way, people still live people), in some places buildings with traces of bombardments.
The entrance to the mosques, in contrast to the same Turkey, is "ordered" for tourists.
In the "down town" there are quite a lot of expensive high-quality restaurants and shops of world brands. There are quite a lot of dancers and representatives of the most ancient profession from Ukraine and Russia in nightclubs, which, of course, somewhat damages the reputation of our countries.
The city has a lot of both expensive cars and dilapidated 40-50-year-old cars. Public transport - in the style of "a la 50s": I have never used it - it's just scary to even enter a collapsing old bus.
Of the local attractions, I especially remember the "mausoleum" of the murdered prime minister (by the way, he was one of the richest people on the planet, whose baton after his death was "picked up" by his 19-year-old daughter) - at the moment it is a kind of "museum" for tourists and a place " pilgrimage" of local residents.
What is striking in the first place is that Christianity and Islam peacefully coexist in an Arab country: there are only 10% more Muslims. Still, this is an indicator that such different religions can coexist peacefully. It is very rare to meet women in an abaya in the central part of the country, more often they can be found in a nominal hijab and at the same time clothes that are quite defiant for an Arab country. In the south - the majority of orthodox Muslims with all the ensuing consequences.
Byblos, Baalbek, Said,...
All world-famous places with a rich cultural heritage can be reached in no more than 2 hours from the center of Beirut, so this country attracts more and more lovers of world history. Tourists from the former Soviet Union are very rare, most of them are from Western Europe.
The most famous modern resort town is Byblos, which is only a 40-minute drive from the country's capital, Beirut. Personally, I was struck by the city primarily with historical monuments, although it is believed that before the war it was one of the most expensive resorts in the East. The infrastructure is poorly developed, the hotels are dilapidated, and the "on-enclusive" habitual for our tourists is absent.
Prices. Purchases
Prices for food, travel, entertainment are almost the same as in Kiev. Moreover, the salaries of residents are higher: the average salary for a teacher is $900, for a middle manager - from $3.000. At the same time, real estate prices in, for example, in the resort Byblos, which is considered “expensive”, are impressively low compared to Ukrainian ones: a standard 1 + 2 is in the region of 60-65 thousand dollars. Almost everywhere - from shops, markets to museums, dollars are freely used, although the euro is rarely accepted by anyone, except for currency exchange offices. The dollar exchange rate has been fixed for quite a long time. Quite often, the menu in restaurants is presented only in Arabic and French, rarely in English.
Famous shopping places for locals are Hamra Street and the Burj Hamud area.
Most of the good quality clothes are made in Turkey and correspond to Kiev prices. You can buy gold items quite cheaply (from 19 dollars per gram of 14 carat gold, from 25 to 21 carats), although the design of the models is inferior to the Turkish one.
