Summer is just around the corner. Everyone is putting in extra hours at the gym. Diet centers are thriving. Hotels are setting up rooftop pool bars. SkyBar has gotten itself a make-over. Every color I know is IN this season, regardless of its political affiliation. The only missing element now is: drum roll please… The Tourists.
Each year we hear speculations, “oh they’re not coming this year, the situation is uncertain” and then before we know it, traffic has jammed. And certainly at the height of tourist season, the ministry of labor will decide to start some construction work at the busiest intersection on the highway. The rest of us might as well just put on our running shoes and hike back home, unless you enjoy dozing off in your cars.
Now I may slightly come off as an ungrateful local, after all, tourists mean more money pumping into our super-fluctuating economy, Right? But I can’t help but whine, because the mere thought of the influx of big bad foreign four-wheel drives on our unplanned spontaneous streets freaks me out. Which leads me to this question, Why? Why does the car have to accompany some tourists on vacation? If you insist on being challenged on our exotic roads, rent a car. If your family is huge, rent a van.
Lord knows, we have more cars for rent then we do on our streets. Someone told me that it’s actually cheaper for tourists to ship their cars to Lebanon. So let me get this straight, we are charged ridiculous amount of taxes for importing food and furniture to this country, but when tourists want do some cruising in their own cars, suddenly that’s cheaper than a rental?!
Picture this, I feel like spending my vacation on the rocky shores of Greece this summer, so after booking my ticket I head straight to the shipping company and book my car VolksWagen a trip as well. Now I wouldn’t do that now would I? Namely because I would probably look like a tool driving my car around Europe, when I can easily just rent one! Can someone please enlighten me? Bisoux
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Sometimes I get these crazy ideas that the spontaneous road work that gets done in the middle of the touristic season is somehow our ministry’s way of conveying the message to foreign friendly governments that Lebanon is “in reconstruction” and therefore wouldn’t mind any donations that you (the friendly foreign government) would think might speed up the process..
Anyway thanks for the reminder of the kind of hell that is the state of the roads in Lebanon in summer, makes me feel better about not dropping by this summer. Cheers !
hahahaha Ivy u cracked me up it’s not summer yet and u could see foreigners all around and the traffic jamming slowly more and more as each day passes! God help us all from what is to come 🙁 🙂 lol xoxo
renting cars is expensive, so getting a halfway decent one would cost a ton of $$ and it’s still a bahdaleh, so why not bring your super sexy comfy car??
Also shipping the car from a close by gulf country is really cheap
Aslan you think it’s that easy to rent a car?? during peak season those car rental places are booked to the max and you will have veryy little options..
And finally you avoid getting ripped one more time on the car rental
It’s ministry of public works, not labor.
You probably mean pumping money in the pockets of the 1% of the Lebanese that own hotels, restaurants and resorts(brothels) while making EVERYTHING more expensive for the rest of us.
Luckily, that hasn’t gone by unnoticed by our astute decision-makers and if they keep up the policy of keeping our streets super jammed, our people ill-mannered, our electricity feed minimal and our prices outrageous, you wont have to complain about this 5 years from now.