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Once a key stop on the Silk Road, Aleppo today retains that air of an Arabian bazaar city, with people going about business as they have done for centuries. Donkey-riding locals and couriers (below) dash through the labyrinthine souq (right) thats fragrant with olive soap, spices, coffee and grilled shwarma. At the Baron Hotel (above), the old world is still in evidence with a poster advertising express trains to Baghdad (left), while the Citadel (below right) is Aleppos most famous landmark and has long been the heart of its defences

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FEW guests at the Baron Hotel in Aleppo have ever needed a wake-up call. Just before dawn, a gust of wind through my hotel room window sends the curtains rippling, and the chandelier over my bed wobbles in the breeze. As if on cue, the call to prayer begins at a nearby mosque, and the ancient verses weave their way into the dreams of guests waking on creaking beds. Al-salatu khayru min an-nawm, recites the muezzin prayer is better than sleep.

This is Aleppo, Syria a city claimed by some to be the worlds oldest, whose mystery inspired Shakespeare in Othello and Macbeth. Just along the corridor from my hotel room is the room where Agatha Christie wrote the first part of Murder on the Orient Express and where, some say, her typewriter can be heard tapping after dark.

But the greatest tale of all belongs to my rooms previous occupant, the man who left without paying, and whose bill is framed in the lobby below awaiting his return T E Lawrence, the man who would become Lawrence of Arabia.

In a few hours time, the cool night air will give way to the scorching midday sun. Before too long, the empty market beyond the hotel will be thronging with merchants selling spices, perfumes and fabrics. It feels like the perfect time to begin a journey in Lawrences footsteps to seek out the magic he found in the Middle East.

There are few figures in history more mysterious than T E Lawrence. Archaeologist, spy, soldier, scholar, poet and adventurer; as a young man Lawrence achieved what many believed impossible, masterminding an Arab rebellion to help end over 400 years of Turkish rule in present day Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

With Britain exhausted by the bloodshed of World War I in Europe, Lawrence soon became a national hero for his daredevil campaigns against Germanys

Aleppo is all compact of colour, and sense of line. You inhale Orient in lungloads, and glut your appetite with silks and dyed fantasies of clothes Thomas Edward Lawrence, the man who would become Lawrence of Arabia, writing in a letter home, 1912

RIGHT T E Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of

Arabia, has hero status in the west but many Arab

accounts paint a less flattering picture.

FAR RIGHT Lawrences unpaid bill from the Baron

Hotel, Aleppo

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ally, Turkey, in the Middle East. His story gained international attention as he crossed vast stretches of unmapped desert to launch lightning raids on Turkish outposts, recruiting new troops and dynamiting enemy supply trains as he went. Even today, the legend of a romantic figure dressed in Arab robes, sweeping across hostile landscapes and capturing holy cities has endured, thanks to David Leans classic film, Lawrence of Arabia.

And yet in spite of all the attention, little is certain about the man himself what inspired him to make these incredible journeys and fight such audacious battles. Most say he was driven by a desire for greatness, others point to a mysterious Arab lover and many suggest he was simply following orders from London. Time has passed, but it has done little to clear the mystery that shrouds Lawrence.

Though nearly a century has passed since Lawrence first stayed at the Baron Hotel as a young archaeologist, its likely hed recognise the place today. Owned by the same family as during its heyday when world leaders and monarchy checked in on their way to the Holy Land the hotel has been in a state of graceful decay for some years. High ceilings and worn leather chairs bear witness to the glamour of a bygone age, and a fashionable set whove long since departed. An old poster advertises express trains from London to Baghdad promising rapidity and safety for every passenger.

In the lobby Lucine, who has worked at the Baron for 44 years, is greeting guests. She dives into a desk to show me ageing black and white postcards horse-drawn carriages speeding past the hotel, and guests posing on the veranda. So many

famous people, she mutters to herself Theodore Roosevelt, Charles Lindbergh, Kemal Atatrk I ask her if she ever heard any stories about Lawrence. I am not quite that old, young man, she says, laughing warmly before pirouetting to answer a call on an antique telephone system.

Deep in Aleppos vast, ancient, vaulted market, its rush hour. Traders shunt about reeking carcasses and sacks of spices in the shadows, with no time for those who get in their way. It is a world of thoroughfares and abrupt twists and turns. Heading deeper into the souq, you cross the jewellers alleyway, the ironmongers stalls, dodge carts of vegetables and side-step the cats that sit expectantly around the butchers shops. Each doorway contains its scene girls gossiping, men listening to transistor radios but one doorway is different.

Following a flight of steps down into a lavishly decorated room is Hammam Al-Nahaseen the men-only underground baths that have existed in some form for over 600 years. The bathkeeper beckons guests inside, where bathers are shunted around a rabbits warren of narrow passages from wash rooms with marble sinks to hot steam rooms before being led to a cavernous underground swimming pool. Diving into the cool water, the heat of the market could not seem further away.

After an hours sweating, swimming and scrubbing, I remerge into the bustle of souq invigorated and in awe of Aleppo. This, after all, was the region where Lawrences love affair with the Middle East began where, fresh from university, he joined a dig at nearby Carchemish, the ruined Hittite city on the banks of the river Euphrates.

Further along, the covered markets give way to open sky, and the looming citadel of

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Wadi Rum, a series of valleys, among which is a desert landscape of sand and rocks, has been made famous by the exploits of Lawrence, who urged Arab leaders to wage their war in the desert rather than cities. Some scenes of the film Lawrence of Arabia were shot here the father of Bedouin guide Eid (left) supervised the army of extras. A visit to Wadi Rum will reveal the same 1,000-year-old carvings in canyons that Lawrence would have seen (right) and offers the chance to meet the hospitable local Bedouin, such as Abdullah (above), whos making coffee

visitors at the park entrance. Its also a stretch of desert synonymous with Lawrence, who used it as a base for his attacks against the Turks.

Nearly 50 years ago, Lawrence of Arabia was filmed here, and Eids father supervised an army of Bedouin extras. Described by Steven Spielberg as a miracle of a film, it has since been acknowledged as one of the greatest examples of British cinema, winning seven Oscars including Best Picture. It catapulted the previously unknown Peter OToole to superstardom, despite criticism that he was nearly nine inches taller than the real Lawrence.

Walking in Wadi Rum can be a gruelling business watching one footstep after another sink into the hot sand isnt made any easier by the sight of Eid up ahead, dressed in a billowing black robe that gives the impression that he is gliding effortlessly over the dunes. Mastering the desert is, it seems, a state of mind. Lawrence, too, was a man at one with its emptiness he wrote of the closeness men could feel to God alone in this wilderness, but understood that he could also use the deserts hostility to his advantage.

When Britain declared war on Turkey, Lieutenant Lawrence was sent south to the Hejaz to help Arab armies rebelling against Turkish occupation. After years spent with his head buried in history books, studying ruins and Crusader castles, Lawrences time to prove himself had come the great

EID Ateeg is a man of few words. The desert is a place where you have to make a friend of silence, so perhaps its not surprising that, having spent his whole life in this empty landscape my Bedouin guide is used to the odd lull in conversation.

We are in the Wadi Rum, southern Jordan. This region is mentioned in the Quran for its beauty, and its hidden springs have made it a stop-off route for travellers for thousands of years. Today, the mountains have become a haven for trekkers and rock climbers who brave its gorges and scale steep cliff faces, with dozens of guides jostling for the custom of

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their whereabouts known to no-one but themselves. By the end of the war this phantom army had swelled in numbers and had swept up through the Arabian peninsular. They camped in Rum before heading north into Syria, capturing the holy city of Damascus in 1918.

Perched halfway up a mountain, we can see a jeep approaching from across the desert. Initially, it looks nothing more than a shiny speck, dwarfed by the trail of dust kicked up behind it. Soon, an Arabic pop song can be heard blaring out of the car stereo, and the silence of the desert is shattered as the jeep comes closer.

As it passes by and speeds off into the distance, a new sound emerges. It appears as though there are hundreds of car stereos hidden up the crags, each blaring out the same Arabic pop song. These echoes reach a crescendo, beating out strange rhythms over the valley floor until it seems as if the mountains themselves are speaking to us. The jeep is out of sight, and the echoes begin to die down. Soon the sacred silence of the desert returns. Dusk sets in and it is time to begin the scramble down to the valley floor.

Night has fallen, and were camped under a cliff wall after a days hiking. Not a word is spoken as we sit on coarse rugs, feasting greedily on a chicken stew

prepared by Eids wife in the village a few miles away. After weve finished, Eid gathers the bones. This is for the wolves, so they wont be hungry and eat us.

We settle down to sleep under a sky lined with thousands of stars. Soon the moon comes out, and the silhouettes of the precipices bear down on our little camp. The orbs pale blue light floods the valley floor, and the wind sends clouds of dust spiralling into the air. Lawrence compared this landscape to the places of his childhood dreams. He wrote of how he often closed his eyes, imagining himself riding through Wadi Rum at night and into the dawn at the valleys end.

After a long, deep sleep, morning comes, and the first rays of sunlight clear the cliff tops overhead. It is time to abandon camp and head north. Leaving Wadi Rum, we pass Lawrences Spring little more than a trickle of water at the top of a narrow valley lined with trees and plants. Praised as a paradise just five feet square in Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence vividly described great jets of water shooting from the cliff face with mysterious symbols carved into the surrounding rocks. The spring has carried his name ever since.

A days drive to the north is Jordans Eastern Desert. It is a world of long, lonely highways, dotted with ruined palaces and

Bedouin guides such as Mohamed (right) make a trip to Wadi Rum all the more rewarding, while an overnight stay in a Bedouin camp (opposite) will allow you to slow down to the timeless rhythm of desert life, enjoying the galaxy of stars overhead

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I recall the scenes Lawrence described in Seven Pillars of Wisdom coffee and storytelling after dark, and the ghosts of dogs outside the castle walls wailing for their dead masters who built the fort.

I leave Azraq by the great basalt door that makes the whole castle shudder when it is shut. It weighs three tonnes, and takes nearly a minute of strenuous effort to push open. If you like, you can take it home with you as a souvenir, laughs Nader, before returning to his seat in the gatehouse.

Outside, night is closing in, and the outline of the moon rises over the castle tower. Nearly 100 years ago, Lawrence would have been in his room, his face lit by the flickering flames of an open fire. He must have thought of the civilisations that had stood the test of the desert and those who lived at Azraq before him Romans, Byzantines, warriors from the days of the Crusaders.

Somewhere in the distance, the muezzins call sounds, and the air is once more electric with prayer hypnotic music from days when mighty empires rose and fell, and prophets roamed these lands. The last notes die down, and the only sound remaining is the rush of the desert wind.

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