As the bus crossed the Syrian border, a looming McDonald’s billboard greeted me. Ah, Lebanon. Gateway to the West.

Lebanon was not in my original plan. I didn’t think I had time, and was not swayed by the nightlife. But I did want to try the food.

My happiness varied daily based on my treatment by the locals. My overall impression: bad. Very bad. Would I return? Hell no. But there were good moments:

Jeita Grotto
This cave system is one of the most amazing things I’d ever seen, although I am very inexperienced with caves. Pricey at 18,150LL, and the first part is silly…rather than walking to the upper grotto, you take a 500m cable car ride. The view isn’t even good. But walking through the beautifully-lit cave is magical, as is the slow boat ride through the lower grotto’s gorgeous green lake. Jeita’s bizarre drippy salt formations are beautiful and eerie. I explored it with a sweet middle-aged couple from Bahrain, who enjoyed Lebanon but raved about Syria—no surprise.

Cameras are not allowed, so view photos at the official website.

Baalbek
After cramming many ancient sites into a short period of time, Baalbek still impressed me. The complex Roman and Phoenician ruins provides an excellent skeleton for imagining the site in its heyday. The carvings are exquisite, and the setting peaceful.

Tony Baddour
Another Hospitality club find! He was the kindest man I met in a sojourn filled with bad men. Generous to a fault, he did everything he could to show me the good side of his country.

The food
A pleasant break from Middle Eastern food, I could eat delicious crepes every day if I so chose. Chicken shwarmas were super-moist and heavily studded with garlic. Pastries, stickily sweet. And that ice cream! A gooey cross between Syrian and Turkish versions, generally sold by "how many flavors do you want to cram into that cup?"

I did enjoy people-watching in Beirut. The clothing in particular is trashily fascinating. The Lebanese women who believe they're hot stuff go for mesh or fishnet over exposed midriffs, white capris, platform shoes, and dark exposed roots. Lebanon’s guidebook cliché is that it’s "legendary for the beauty of its women." This beauty is severely diminished by the lack of style and class presented. And speaking of beauty, which countries are legendary for the beauty of the men?
${QuickSuggestions} If you plan to visit both Lebanon and Syria, fly into Lebanon. You do not need to get a Syrian visa beforehand to cross this border, and it only costs $16.

Coming from Syria, the visa options at the border are a free 48-hour transit visa and $17 tourist visa. Evidently, precise wording matters. If you ask for the "free 1-month tourist visa," that’s what you get. If you hem and haw and say you’re not sure how many days you want to stay, you will be charged for the $17 tourist visa. You cannot opt for the 48-hour visa and exchange it in Beirut as I foolishly hoped... I was charged the full $17 when leaving the country.

Lebanon is much more expensive than the surrounding countries. Expect to spend around $30/day even on a budget.

Lebanese lira are WORTHLESS. Try to get as much changed out as possible before leaving the country.

A student ID is also essentially worthless, supposedly. Lebanese sites and museums do not provide student discounts… but I got discounts by simply asking for them.

Visa information may no longer be valid after 2005.
${BestWay} There is no "best way," there are only "ways." Traffic is painfully slow and the options are confusing.

Beirut has a spiderwebby nightmare of a minibus system, and if you only have a few days, you will not learn the routes. The only method I grasped was constantly asking about my final destination. The bus drivers and other passengers generally knew where I should transfer.

Some minibuses have set prices of 500LL (approximately 30 cents) to drive to a bigger intersection. Buses I took from this intersection often involved bargaining. I didn’t really understand the rules.

Taxis are worse. There are service taxis (for groups going along a set route) and regular taxis, and sometimes it’s hard to tell which one you’ve chosen. The drivers are definitely making the rules up as they go along, and there’s no good way to stop them. There’s a tendency to suddenly forget how to speak English once you are in the taxi, or possibly they were pretending to know English before… whatever the driver's ploy, you lose money or lose your way. HobWahid covers this best in his Taxicab Confessions entry.

Still, the city is not particularly pleasant for walking so one of these methods must be used…

From journal Where's the Lebanese Delight?