Holidays in Hell: In Which Our Intrepid Reporter Travels to the World's Worst Places and Asks, "What's Funny About This" Read Online Free PDF

Marlboros stacked in the window. Anyway, the East-side Christians
are too smug, too pseudo-French and haven't been shelled enough
to turn them into party reptiles.

    To travel to the rest of Lebanon you just hail a taxi. The
country is only one hundred and twenty miles long and forty miles
wide, and no Lebanese cab driver has to call home to ask his wife if
he can take off for a couple days. Settle the price first. This won't
be easy. It's not the way of the Levant to come to the point. I asked
Akbar, one of the Commodore's taximen, how much he'd charge to
take me through the Israeli lines and into South Lebanon.
    "I have been in this business twenty-seven years," he said.
    "Yes," I said, "but how much is it going to cost me?"
    "I will tell you later."
    "Give me a rough idea."
    "Would you like a coffee?"
    "What's your hourly rate?"
    "Across the street-fine rugs at the best price. I will get you a discount."
    "What do you charge by the mile?"
    "I have a cousin in Detroit."
    "Akbar," I shouted, "what's it going to cost?!"
    "If you do not like my price, I tell you what," Akbar gestured grandly,
"you do not hire me anymore again."
    Make sure your driver knows English well enough to translate.
Lebanese English is often a triumph of memorization over understanding. "I come from the village of Baabdat," the driver will say
in quite an acceptable accent, "it is very beautiful there in the
mountains."
    "Right," you'll say, "but you'd better pull over, that guy
behind the sandbags is leveling an anti-tank gun at us."
    "You do?" the driver will say, "Is that in Texas? I have a
nephew in Houston."
    Wherever you go, it's important to leave early in the morning.
Those who think the war is dangerous have not seen the traffic in Beirut. It's a city of a million people with three stoplights and these
aren't working. There are some traffic cops, but they are on no
account to be minded as they tend to wave you into the path of
dump trucks going sixty miles an hour. All driving is at top speed,
much of it on the sidewalks since most parking is done in the
middle of the streets. The only firm rule is: Armored personnel
carriers have the right of way.

    Once outside Beirut there are, of course, other difficulties.
The only land route into the Israeli-occupied South goes through
the Chouf mountains to a crossing point in the town of Bater, which
is separated from Beirut by forty miles of armed Druse. You can
also take a boat to Sidon from the Phalange-controlled docks in
East Beirut if you're a Christian. I am, but there seemed to be some
difficulty anyway. First they said they would have to ask Israeli
permission because I was a journalist. Next they told me they
didn't speak English. Then they quit speaking French.
    On the way to Bater my driver took me past "Green Beach,"
the former U.S. Marine emplacement and very interesting to students of military history. It's as defensible a position as the bottom
of the air shaft in the Plaza Hotel. There's hardly a spot in Lebanon
from which you can't fire a gun and hit it. Don't get out of the car.
The beach is now an Amal military base under heavy guard
because it's next to the orthodox Shiite women's bathing area. They
wear ankle-length chadors in the water, which may explain the lack
of a world-class Shiite women's swim team.
    In the Chouf mountains, the land is green and exquisite, cut
through with precipitous gorges. Even the steepest slopes have
been terraced and planted with fruit trees, vineyards, olive groves
and gun emplacements. The road is narrow with no railings or
shoulders, and traffic is slow because the Druse are usually moving
artillery around preparing to blast the Phalangists on the coast. Be
sure to keep a mental note of such things. It's considered good
manners to convey information about military movements to the
next faction down the road. This takes the place of celebrity gossip
in Lebanese small talk.
    The Druse militiamen were