"Let's do something this Saturday," suggested Ranwa. "I feel like going somewhere far!"
I had an idea: "Let's go to Tripoli, I'll take you to the souk!"

Tripoli is our northernmost city, and to reach it means to drive a little less than half the length of the country. This really means no more than 70 or 80 km (50 miles), but it's proportionately a long way from home. It's so far in fact that it looks and feels more like a Syrian city than anything Lebanese; especially in the part of it I like most, the souk.
The souk, or bazaar to English speakers, is the popular market place. If you have watched Disney's Aladdin, you sort of have an idea of how it looks, although as you're going to see it is still very different from the truth. As I dragged my former classmates Ranwa, Manal and Sami (a blonde, blue-eyed Jordanian) into the narrow streets, I discovered that they too, had a completely different idea of what to expect.

Folkloric yet dirty, smelly yet exciting, the souk of Tripoli is a place I tirelessly return to. There is hardly enough room for two people to walk side by side on the maze-like streets that are occupied by vendors. The crowd is dense, loud with the greetings of friends and the invitations of merchants to examine their goods. Pieces of fabric are drawn overhead, giving the entire area the feel of an inside space. The buildings are almost completely hidden, but details peeking out every once and a while reveal they are centuries old, built of stone and wood in the days of the Crusaders. This souk has been active since their construction, as is made obvious by the architecture: the ground floor is shaped like an open shop giving onto the street.
We make our way with difficulty and as fast as we could through the food section, very colourful but also rather unappetizing with its fresh meat hanging on hooks outside. We went even faster through the fish market, for reasons I probably don't need to dwell upon. Even though we were more or less lost by the time we got out of the food section (but souks are made to get lost in), that's when we started to truly enjoy the experience.
I stopped in front of mounds of bags of seeds and spices, asking their names, and while answering my questions the vendor dabbed some divinely smelling essence on my wrists.
"It's jasmine, home-made. I have all the scents you want -- oh, your friends left you."
I ran after them with jasmine trailing behind me.

The most incredible items can be found in the souk, from books to imitation shoes (Adadas, Nikke... There are stalls upon stalls of pure kitsch and others of real taste and quality. One street had a shop specialized in fundamentalist clothing, featuring a chador-like dress that I've never seen worn in the country (women that choose to wear the veil just cover their hair and otherwise dress freely. When one who's really covered up comes into sight people go "ninja!"). The next street was all about, of all things, sexy lingerie.

Suddenly we were in the Souk el Sayagheen, the gold and silver market. It was quite magical to look down this dark little street where the shops cast enough light for the jewellery hanging outside in curtains of gold and silver to glitter softly. That's when I remembered -- "Khan Essaboun! The soap market! That's what we have to find!" I had been there a couple of times and it was worth the visit all by itself. We happened to be a few feet away from the entrance, which of course, as everything else in the abundance of sight and smells, was invisible unless one was looking straight at it.

I fell in love all over again with the process of soap making and the products they turn out. Artisans Bader Hassoun and his sons make traditional Tripoli soap, and not only do they do it well, they are being creative about it. Unlike western soap, Lebanese soap is made of olive oil. Mixed with an alkaline agent, slaked lime, water and a natural perfume such as bay leaf, it produces a natural and skin-friendly soap I am crazy about. Once olive oil for the table has been pressed, the olives that are unfit for consumption are made into oil for soap. The mixture is prepared in large vats, often part of the architecture of the house, and is then carried in buckets to a large room where it is poured on the floor itself until it reaches a specific thickness. Before it dries off completely, a grid is drawn on the entire surface using an ingenious system: two men pull a dye-soaked cord across the paste and pinch it upwards then release it. The rope then snaps against the soap and leaves a straight line. Men wearing special footwear stamp every square thus obtained with the seal of the house, using little embossing hammers. It is fascinating to see and hear them work, like a well-orchestrated choreography. A device with four blades is then used to cut the cubes of soap: one man climbs on it while two others pull it. Finally the paste can be left to dry until completely hard. The cubes are then readjusted individually thanks to a little cutter machine, and stacked up in columns while awaiting shipping. The water used to wash the floor is claimed by the housewives of the neighbourhood: they use it to clean their own floors! After all, it is a pure mixture of water and soap. Even the stones in the olives are used: they are crushed to make dark green soap that is used for house chores rather than on the skin.
The Tripoli soap makers don't actually go through all these steps, as their specialty is spherical soap where many colours intertwirl. They cut their paste in a rough ball shape and use a special cylindrical blade to polish the ball until it is perfectly round and smooth. Nothing is wasted: soap chips are either re-melted or pressed into moulds to obtain stands for the balls. They make lovely bathroom ornaments and are in demand all the way to France.

Things had evolved since my last visit, though. I was excited to see all the new products they came up with. We all started drooling as our guide unwrapped a series of scented soaps that looked like rough balls of clay. They were all made of olive oil and honey, scented with musk, amber, vanilla, even ginger for erotic purposes ("People buy these as gifts for the wedding night", said he. "You're not tempted?"). They smelled good enough to eat. We went on to soaps attached to cords, for hanging in the bathroom, soaps that had slices of loofa pressed into them, black exfoliating soaps made of honey and shredded mint leaves, carved soaps, soap beads assembled into rosaries?With much enthusiasm we each bought a piece or two, and the artisans gifted each of us with an additional scented soap as we left. When I gave them my mother's regards (she had photographed and written about their work years before), they remembered her and threw in a gift assortment for me to transmit along with their warm salutations. As I write, the scent of musk is mingling to that of jasmine rising from my skin: the first thing I did when I reached home was to use my new treasures to wash off the day's dust.

During my previous visits to the souk, I had visited Tripoli's last functioning hammam (known as Turkish bath). It is nested somewhere inside the market: when you suddenly see a long one-person-wide street ending in a small door, you know you're there. We didn't find it on this trip but we ran into another one called Hammam Ezzeddine, about 800 years old and very damaged by the war (like the 15 other Tripoli hammams). Near the entrance, a coffee vendor was washing his cups. They usually walk the streets, their huge coffeepot strapped to their back, knocking two of the small cups together to announce their passage. When called they simply pull out a cup, pour, and you drink your coffee on the spot. This one was stationed outside the hammam so that he could give a guided tour to visitors. He seemed excited about his subjects and we learned much about the history of the place as well as funny little customs associated to it. For example, when a family wanted to find a bride for their son, the young man's sister, mother and grandmother would go to the hammam in search for a suitable girl. If they spotted one, the sister would casually start a friendly conversation with her to find out if she was already engaged or interested in someone, and other girl things. In the meanwhile the mother would carefully examine her appearance, eyes, hair, body, and the grandmother would take note of her personality, manners, attitude. Personally I'd feel like sending them home to their brother/son/grandson in small parcels for sticking their nose where it has no business. But with the distance, I find that cute.

Left: The entrance to Hammam Ezzedine. Above: What the lobby of a hammam looks like.

Finally we made our way out of the souk, and after a small detour to shop for Arabian sweets we returned to the bus station. We went by bus to spare gas and energy: the ride is a little above a dollar. To our surprise, the ride back was more expensive. Since the difference was only about 30 cents though, we made no fuss. We slept the whole way back except for when we couldn't resist the temptation to plunge our noses into our bags of soap, releasing scents of musk, lavender and rose...

Article and photos © Joumana Medlej