A nightclub in Beirut.
RALPH bloke Ben Mckelvey finds hotties, hash and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Sure, we love their national food – the kebab. But what’s Lebanon really like? Depends where you are. The Palestinian suburbs seem third-world, the Shi’ite areas are kind of shite, and driving between the two is military-checkpoint hell. But hang out in Christian-dominated suburbs Gemmayze or Achrafiye and you’ll party like a
rap star.
Look, don’t touch
CHECKING into a hotel in Gemmayze on a Thursday night, it seems every second building is a packed
bar. Lebanese women come in many varieties and this suburb is full of the best kind – hot, rich and wearing bugger all.
I hit a few small bars and some blokes tell me the Crystal club in Achrafiye is home to the most
beautiful babes in the Middle East. I have to keep telling myself that as I shell out the $50 cover charge.
Inside, it’s like a 50 Cent video. The women are all
boobs, legs, Armani and diamonds. One girl is dancing on the bar in 6in heels and a tiny black dress. I stand under her, not trying very hard to get the bartender’s attention. Eventually, I order a
scotch. It costs $30. In other parts of Lebanon, the $80 I’ve spent so far could have bought me a) an AK-47 b) a brick-sized block of hash, or c) a child.
Going underground
AFTER Crystal, I cab to a club called B 018. It doesn’t look like much. In fact, it doesn’t look like anything. There’s the low rumble of bass, a few short-skirted girls, a red rope and... a car park.
Then I see a stairway going down. I take it and find myself in an elaborate den. I drink a $20 tequila at a table built like a coffin. A girl tells me it’s a nod to a massacre of refugees that happened on the site in the ’70s. The only thing being massacred that night, though, is my wallet.
The place absolutely bumps. As morning breaks, there’s a hydraulic moan and the entire roof opens up. Everyone screams as the DJ plays Underworld’s “Born Slippy”. I shout “Lager, lager, lager” a lot.
Hezbollah hassle
AFTER finishing a book about Hezbollah I head north to see where the organisation started. It’s three hours from Beirut to the town of Baalbek. In that time, I pass two ski fields and see Syria twice.
A bloke who works for the UN tells me the best way to meet Hezbollah guerrillas is to take photos of the mosque just out of Baalbek, which they use as a base. After 10 minutes snapping the mosque, two burly bearded blokes turn up in a Jeep Cherokee.
They’re the most polite blokes I’ve met in Lebanon. . I tell them I’m a tourist. They say, “Please, take photo.”
Hezbollah are used to dealing with travellers here for two reasons – Baalbek has massive Roman ruins, and the nearby farms are dominated by Leb Red, the famous hash grown in the area.
The ruins are very Indiana Jones-cool, and a fitting pilgrimage for any Aussie as the huge, intact building in the middle is a temple dedicated to Bacchus, the Roman god of pissing on. After a quick prayer (my first ever), the spirit of Bacchus compels me to get to the nearest bar.
Where do the think the best place to party is? Enter your comments below.
