Europe is the model for every economic union in the world. The EU is the most deeply integrated region on earth, with a highly developed political, social and economic system.

The Gulf has done pretty well, bringing together the oil economies into a free trade zone known as the GCC. But the rest of the Arab World lags decades behind, despite the professed desire for unity coming from most of our leaders’ mouths since independence in the early 20th century.

Now, though, the unity train has once again left the station, fuelled this time by Turkey. Ankara has pushed for more liberalised cross-border trade and is removing visa requirements for citizens of regional countries. The knock on effect is that those regional countries are also signing bilateral agreements between each other. So what started out as a Turkey-Jordan and Turkey-Syria deal has ended up in Syria and Jordan agreeing a similar treaty.

Now that Jordanians no longer require visas to enter Syria, the number of people crossing that border has tripled, from one-third of a million in the first half of 2009, to almost one million in the same period this year.

More unity, more benefits.

Syria has stopped issuing visas to US citizens at its border crossings.

Official policy has always been easy to understand: if there is a Syrian embassy in your home country, then you can not get a visa at the border. Yet many took a risk and set out on the Beirut-Damascus journey without a visa. In most cases visas were issued at the Masna’a crossing (albeit with the occasional lengthy wait). But now Syria is enforcing the rules which have always been widely known, and some travellers are crying foul.

It has never been guaranteed, and always relied on the mood of the particular border official. It used to be easier if you had evidence of previous Syrian visas in your passport. Not any longer.

But for anyone visiting from Beirut, there is still one more loophole which is still wide open. Even though the rules state that you need to get a visa from your home country, the Syrian embassies in Beirut and Ankara are the (unofficial) exceptions – foreigners can still buy visas in Beirut. So why all the fuss?

It shouldn’t need saying but I will anyway: that loophole could close at any time. So please don’t take it for granted.

The poster claims East Jerusalem is part of Israel – something which the UN, the UK and even the US rejects. East Jerusalem is part of the occupied Palestinian West Bank.

Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority said that “The status of the occupied territory of the West Bank [is] the subject of much international dispute, and because we considered that the ad implied that the part of East Jerusalem featured in the image was part of the state of Israel, we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead.”

The Israeli tourist board was ordered not to imply that Palestinian land was in Israel again. But Israel has a track record at this type of thing. A year ago it tried to pass off the Syrian Golan Heights as part of Israel in posters on the London Underground.

This time Britain’s Daily Mail and the New Zealand Herald are the hosts. Surprisingly, the DM does the better job. I say surprisingly because it’s one of the UK’s most right-wing newspapers. But it does the job – a creative title, and an inspired (if somewhat stuck-in-the-past) piece by Petronella Wyatt. The NZ Herald, on the other hand, has entitled its article: On the Road to Damascus. Oh good god.

So let’s start with the good: Bedouins and Breakfast (brilliant! although I’m not sure how many Bedouins there are in ‘ancient Damascus’). It offers something a bit different to the usual travel trash (friendly people, good food, old streets, blah blah, snooooooze).

“The Hon Jane Digby, a Regency belle, left her husband Lord Ellenborough to marry a Bedouin sheik, becoming reputedly the first European woman to wed a Muslim. (They honeymooned at Palmyra.)”

She visits Jane Digby’s house (I didn’t know that you could). But unfortunately tends to conflate the desert with the city, reinforcing the Orientalist camel cliches (come on, it is the Daily Mail). She also utters the sentence “‘Will you kidnap me?” to a Syrian.

Unlike Wyatt, the NZ Herald’s Trevor Richards isn’t on a package tour. The independent traveller starts his piece with a trip in a Syrian taxi, but then seems to offer little more than the Lonely Planet guide book:

“Walking is easy in Damascus. You should allow at least one full day – more is much more sensible – for exploring the Old City (it is 5km in circumference). Here the pace is relaxed, people appear unhurried, and there is always much to look at.”

The New York Times puts Damascus at number 7. The paragraph sells the Syrian capital on the basis of its boutique hotels (really, is that the best you can come up with?), and was written by former Global Post Beirut correspondent Don Duncan (I’m still not sure why the NYT couldn’t bother to find someone actually living in Damascus).

The next Marrakesh? Perhaps mindful of the way that renovations of historic riads have drawn upscale travelers to Marrakesh, Damascus hoteliers are trying to mine tourism gold in the rundown buildings of the Syrian capital’s Old City. These 18th-century homes — many with inviting courtyards and rooftop terraces — are now boutique hotels, like the nine-room Old Vine (www.oldvinehotel.com) and the Hanania (www.hananiahotel.com), which doubles as a hotel and a small museum.

But if you’re worried that the NYT’s discovery might cause a flood of Americans to have their own Damascene conversions (sorry, I couldn’t resist), then don’t. Last year the NYT put Beirut at number 1, and what good did that do?

(On a stylistic note – how badly edited was this list? Three destinations in a row start with “The next xxxx?”)

Tough new security measures to add to the tough new security measures imposed after 9/11. Except that these tough new security measures only apply to some individuals. People who carry passports issued in: Syria, Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen.

Every Syrian who steps off a plane in America will face extra checks, possibly hauled into a side-room like a suspect, before being allowed to enter the Land of the Free. Jordanians, on the other hand, will be allowed to pass through security as easily as a Canadian. Never mind that Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was a Jordanian. The Amman bombers were Jordanian. The London-tube bombers were British. Yes, the rules are a nonsense.

So Syria has imposed its own nonsense in retaliation. Every American arriving at a Syrian border will now face additional discriminatory security checks.

The collision happened on Saturday night on the road between Aleppo and Afrin. One of the buses was heading towards Aleppo, the other one was travelling in the opposite direction.

A police officer says the buses were speeding.

Nine people are still being treated in hospital.

Journalists and travel writers (there is a big difference) are flocking to ‘discover’ Syria. And nearly every single one of them feels the need to use tired and worn cliches referring to the ‘road to Damascus’, or mentioning some ‘conversion’ they’ve had. Oh woo hoo. I bet you thought you were being really original with that one. Yawn.

Australia’s Sean Mooney has penned a piece entitled ‘Road to Damascus’. But despite the title, it is different. Very different. Look, he starts on Jebl Qasioun, not in the Old City:

“A tyre-squealing, seat-gripping ride in the back of a crumpled Iranian taxi has brought me to the original paradise. From a rocky outcrop on the top of Jebel Qassioun – a mountain so integral to history, it appears in the Book Of Genesis – I gaze down on one of the world’s oldest settlements. On the plain below, partially obscured by a film of smog that, with the setting sun, lends it an apocalyptic hue, sprawls the ancient city of Damascus. Some believe the Syrian capital was the original Garden of Eden and Cain slew Abel on these

slopes. Moses, Lot and even Christ himself are said to have traversed Qassioun. One legend has it that when the prophet Muhammad neared this barren peak and looked upon the vast orchards of Damascus, he quickly turned back towards Mecca, not wanting to experience a utopia other than heaven.”

He continues, wrapped in metaphor, and painting pictures ignored by the Hamidiyeh-hunters (although he does eventually get to that Souq). One of the most sensory places in the city has got to be Straight Street. And Mooney does it justice:

“One evening I stroll down the famous Straight Street, where Saint Paul is believed to have rested following his conversion to Christianity on the road to Damascus. This experience left him blind until his sight returned to him on this street. It is, however, the sense of smell that’s behind my epiphany, as I pass carts piled high with thyme, sumac, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, with notes of rosewater and orange blossom.With my appetite piqued, I head east towards the Jewish and Christian quarters and settle at a roof-top restaurant where fresh saj, or flat bread, is baked in an oven. I dip warm chunks into fresh hummus. The bread is also toasted and sprinkled on a zingy fattoush: cucumber, tomato, radish, lettuce, parsley and shallots seasoned with garlic, paprika, oil and lemon juice. I order the national dish of kibbeh – falafel-like pods of minced lamb with cracked wheat and onion – and eat my tabouleh from a cup of iceberg lettuce.”

Tantalising. He’s doing something different. Writing with authority, avoiding cliche, steering-clear of the tourist traps that every other ‘journalist’ feels the need to reveal to us. I could quote from this piece all day. But I have other points to make – so savour it for yourself.

Unfortunately, Mooney’s visit is a rarity. If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know I like to pull apart travel articles.

Lara Dunston is one of the latest professional travellers to visit Damascus. As co-author of Lonely Planet Syria (and 39 other countries), you’d think she knows what she is talking about. But she makes schoolgirl errors about internet access – claiming her blog had been blocked because she mentioned a country beginning with the letter “I”. And that it was only unblocked after the Minister of Information overheard her loud protestations in the hotel lobby.

She was told by a number of Syrian bloggers that, erm, all blogspot blogs are restricted – unless you use a proxy. That should’ve been that, but she stubbornly stuck to her guns, claiming she was too busy to do the research, but insisting her “advisors” told her she was right – without producing a single quote.

And it seems she has a history of getting on her high-horse, and then deleting comments on her blog when people contradict her. Have a look at this very public row.

Anyway, if you listen to Dunston, you’ll be dining in the Four Seasons Hotel, instead of the many fantastic restaurants dotted across the city. Venture out of your Abu Rumaneh hotel lobby – that’s my advice!

But her credibility is highly questionable. Would you take the advice of a writer who thinks it’s acceptable to receive discounts or freebies in return for potentially positive reviews? I wonder what she got from the Four Seasons!

Dunston’s cliche-littered writing, sprinkled with a heavy dose of clumsy mistakes and “stay in your hotel” advice is not unique.

The Times dedicated four articles to Syria over the course of one weekend this spring. But they claimed to have got some legendary Syrian ice cream from the Barada (you mean Bekdash?? – Barada is the river). In one of the other articles, its name changes again, this time to Bedach. Along with claiming Syrians didn’t know where England was, and all the woman are covered up in burkas, The Times makes a thorough hash of their visit.

Then there was this astonishing poorly researched rant by Rasha Elass. I critiqued it for Frontline, here.

You know what I’ve learned. The best travel articles aren’t written by people who fly into Damascus for 48 hours, and stay in the Four Seasons on their expense accounts. They never will be.

If you want to understand the real Damascus, turn to people who know the city intimately well. The writers who have a passion for this place. People like Qunfuz, who wrote what is still one of my favourite odes to Damascus: Cultural Capital. Orientalista, The Blog and the Shower, Ali Khan and Jillian C York may not be Syrian, but they made a habit of writing colourfully about Damascus. And just last week Batoul penned these poetic five paragraphs.

Dump the expert travellers, turn to the expert Damascenes.

There has been a fifty per cent rise in package holidays from Europe over the past few years. The total number (which includes Arab tourists) was 1 million in 2001, with an aim of 8 million by next year. That would be an incredible 800% rise.

And as much as the country’s economy needs this massive boost, there are fears that the influx is changing the nature of Damascus forever.

8 million in one year is equivalent to one-third of Syria’s population. Even Egypt’s tourist-resident ratio is lower (tourists equal one-sixth of Egypt’s population).

There is already debate about the number of houses in the Old City being converted into hotels and restaurants. From no hotels and three restaurants in 2002, dozens have appeared. Building work always seems to be going on in one part of the city or another. And there is concern that not all of it is being done appropriately. While some have been restored authentically, others seem to look like a train-crash of Oriental stereotypes. Have a look at the Moroccan red of the Talisman Hotel, which is dotted with Indian artifacts.

Other places, like May Marmabachi’s Beit Mamluka took years of delicate restoration.

Maktab Anbar co-ordinates and monitors all building applications, and with EU support, they have the difficult job of balancing the need for renewal with protection of the oldest continuously inhabited city on Earth.

It may be the oldest, but Damascus is a living city, and unless it can be reborn it will die. People were moving out of their crumbling Old City houses in droves a few years ago. Walk around at night at the place was a ghost town.

But this new tourist ‘population’ is rubbing up against the old Syrian population in uncomfortable ways.

Anas reports that some unscrupulous visitors are taking photos of handmade products in the markets so that Chinese manufacturers can copy them and destroy ancient Syrian trades. It’s causing quite a stir, with some Damascene traders getting angry with foreign photographers.

So maybe it’s time to turn the cameras on the tourists. John Wreford caught this bunch looking suspicious in Palmyra.

I wonder if they have any blueprints for nargileh pipes or darbekke drums in their backpacks.

They seem to be turning up in the most unusual places – residential parts of Malki in the new city in Damascus, and the train station in Aleppo (photo: John Wreford) sharing a carriage with a bunch of Syrian flag-waving football fans.

In the past, foreigners came into Damascus with swords, with guns, with bomber planes. This bunch comes with a smile and a wallet full of dollars. Damascus has survived before, it will survive and prosper this time.

In part 2 of the tourist takeover: living in Damascus.

Speeding is one of the biggest causes of crashes, so speed cameras have been installed on highways in Aleppo and now Damascus too.

It follows the enforcement of the seatbelt laws – drivers and passengers routinely wear them now, fearful of the 2000L fine (although some have come up with inventive ways of getting round the law!).

New green Chinese buses have appeared on the roads in the past couple of years, with (relatively) modern safety features – and they are less environmentally harmful than the white Russian beasts they are replacing.

And what about this. Seleucid has taken this picture of road spikes in Aleppo. They puncture the tyres of any car driving the wrong way down a one-way road.

One major problem remains, though. Drink-driving. It is all too common for a group of friends to go out, get drunk, and get straight back into the car. It has taken decades to make this disgusting habit taboo in the West – it will probably take just as long in Syria.