Good morning, guys from Beirut, Lebanon.
Today is the fifth day exploring this country, and we're going to be leaving
Beirut here, but we're gonna be heading to a city called Jounieh,
probably saying that wrong. Once again, traveling with Luke Damant over here.
We're gonna be taking an Uber ride
yeah, about 30 minutes up to Jounieh
and doing a one-night exploration of this place.
We're going to be staying in a hotel tonight
so we'll see if we have power 24/7.
Oh, look at that
right there, that's the front of it.
Just absolute destruction.
So it was a quick 35-minute ride,
our guy took us through an expedited
route, which was great. About 110 Lira through Uber
so we gave him about 200,000 Lira
which is about ten USD with the current conversion rate. Which just got to our place,
which is here at the Madison Hotel, where we're going to be staying.
So we just checked in here to the Madison Hotel,
we are staying in a double room here.
Pretty nice because there is 24/7 electricity and air conditioning.
What is good with that, Luke?
Yeah, we've been waiting for this so not bad.
I mean, this is similar accommodations.
We had a two-bedroom apartment, but since we didn't have AC or we only had
AC some of the time at our last place, we literally slept in the living room
so it's almost the exact same
accommodation setup. Out here, views of the city
so you can see the water on this side.
You can see all these residential
buildings and then a massive mountain up there.
As you can see, you got some guys up there paragliding.
We were about to go this morning but, we were able to squeeze this in,
but it was way more than we were expecting, like $60.
So we're going to go ahead and check out some of the apartments here or some
of the hotel here and maybe do some Jounieh exploration.
So to show you guys a little bit
of the hotel, we stayed here where it is about $80 per person for the night.
And that comes out to about $40 per person.
You have a rooftop area with a pool,
there's like a pingpong table and just a bunch of areas overall to chill.
One thing I should mention
that in the morning they do have a continental breakfast that's included,
but yeah, you can see beautiful views from up here as well.
We're going to see if we can get something to eat, starving right now.
Get some maybe some typical Jounieh Lebanese food.
Who knows, we'll see what we get into,
maybe head towards the water now and show you Jounieh, let's go.
Figuring out where the best places to go and eat,
because we walked the other way from our hotel.
I don't know if that's that's north,
I think north and no sign of any restaurants, made it over to the coastline.
Wasn't much of a beach we could walk along
so I think if we go the opposite
direction, that might get us to the local chow.
All right,
I'm starting to think we're going in the right direction now,
it seems like we're getting more of a main street, lots of shops.
Hopefully, we're going to find some delicious food right down here.
Where can we find good Lebanese food?
So we didn't get all of this part on camera that's coming up.
But basically, we didn't know that we were
about to meet one of our best friends that we were going to spend the next six
weeks hanging out in Lebanon with. His name's Fouad,
unfortunately, you'll hear that
I didn't realize at first that he said Fouad when we first met.
So I was calling him Faoud, but it might show up like that in a couple of videos.
Don't blame me.
But basically, we walked up to the valet parking right outside here.
They didn't speak any English
and Fouad happened to be in his car
so he was really nice to tell us where we could go,
what we could do.
Over here there's Italian food, over there
there are steak.
Steak, that's not Lebanese is it?
Yeah, (Because we are away from the city.)
(I can suggest a place but I don't know if there's)
(Lebanese food over there. You walk like this straight, it's like ten minutes walk,)
(there's a place called Palms.) Palms
(Palms Beachhouse, you know like a place with cocktails and that stuff)
Oh nice (on the the beach.) I don't know if there's Lebanese stuff) Yeah
(But just try it.)We'll check it out and see. What's your name?
Fouad
Fouad, nice to meet you.
(Likewise) I'm Luke, Mac. (Take care guys.) See yah.
(You want a drive? You want me to drive you over there?)
Yeah, let's do it.
So Fouad's hooking us up with a ride to go get some Lebanese food here.
This just goes to show you how nice the people are here in Lebanon.
Just met him a second ago, and he's already giving us a ride.
Thank you so much.
(Did you taste is the tawouk?) I don't think so.
Not yet. (What?)
Probably. (Yeah, it's like chicken.)
(I don't know if your vegans or not.) No, no.
(Okay.)
(The Lebanese cuisine really has some type of food that respect the vegans.)
(You know there's Jaddarah)
Yeah. (I don't know)
(what are the ingredients in English,)
(but it's really good, there's inbeh)
(and there's so many stuff.)
(And there's the Lebanese breakfast)
(it's called Manousha, you know this?)
Manousha, oh yeah that's really good.
(There's thyme, there's cheese,)
(there's a breast, hashish in it)
(it's really good.)
(Well, if you want to taste some good tawouk)
(over here, there's Malakh Tawouk at the end of the street also.)
The Tawouk is the name of the restaurant and also the name of the food?
(No, it's called Malakh Tawouk. Malakh Tawouk means the King of Tawouk. Malakh is king.) Ah, Malakh Tawouk.
Thank you so much,
really appreciate it. Nice to meet you.
(Hit me up when you're free.) Yeah, cool.
Yeah, you're the man. Cheers.
Thanks so much. (Just watch out when you open the door, yeah)
Oh yeah, good point. Thank you.
(Take care, guys.) You too, man.
Thank you so much. See you.
That right there
just goes to show you how great Lebanese people are.
We just stumbled upon him walking down the street looking for recommendations,
and he gave us a solid 20-minute tour around this side, and we learned so many
things, got some great recommendations, some local recommendations,
and now it's time to get some grub.
So we decided to stop at this place,
looks like I've got some traditional Lebanese food, nice little outdoor seating
here right now too, some nice sofas, AC inside, but we want a little fresh air.
We just spent the last few hours in the AC, so it's time to get some grub
before we head up. We'll see what we're going to get
hopefully something filling and delicious. All right.
So I've had a few minutes to take a look at this menu. Unfortunately
our server doesn't speak English,
so we couldn't get his direct Lebanese recommendation.
But the good news is when we were in the car with Fouad, he recommended Tawouk,
which I'll read you exactly what it is because I forgot what it includes.
Marinated chicken, grilled to perfection
and paired with fries, lettuce and garlic Mayo sauce.
I'm sold because when I had the Barbar
sandwich the other day, that garlic sauce just was an absolute game changer.
And pretty much any time that I've had Middle Eastern food and I've tossed that,
like, garlic aioli or anything, it's just guaranteed delicious, delicious food
so I'm excited to share with you how good it actually is.
(Tawouk sandwich or leblanc?)
Sandwich (sandwich?)
Here it is, the Tawouk that Fouad recommended for us. It's loaded up with a type of chicken
I definitely don't think we've tasted yet
and you can see that aoili or garlic sauce,
whatever it is right at the bottom with little pickles, too
so let's give it a nice little bite here.
That is very good.
Yeah so I can't really taste the garlic
aoili as much as I thought I could, but it's still delicious.
It just got that nice and filling feel to it.
So that is a fantastic meal.
We'll show you guys what we're going to get into next,
because we're not entirely certain if the cable cars up are open today.
Google is saying that they are closed down
for today, probably for maintenance every Monday, but we can see the cars running as
you guys saw earlier, so hopefully we can get on.
If not, we'll be showing you them tomorrow.
All right an update,
it is open.
Luke just gave us the updates that Fouad our man..
(He said it's open. He gave me a call. So I trust the local over Google maps to be honest.)
Yeah, exactly.
Today it's really clear, this afternoon earlier today
it wasn't. I mean, it's a little hazy still up there,
but you can see even from here, which is probably like ten K's away,
you can see still the Lady of Lebanon
so I'm excited to go up there.
We're gonna head over after we pay and we'll see you on the way.
We decided to skip the taxis,
skip the Uber and do a quick 2.2 K walk
so nice to burn off that sandwich here
and we're almost to the base of where we take cars up there.
So the nice part is it's only a couple of minutes walk away from our hotel
we're back in that same area, which will be easy once we get back.
And then we'll hopefully find some ice cream later that I was recommended
by a Lebanese girl who said she doesn't like ice cream but the ice cream
there is so good that it makes her like ice cream
so it's making me want to try it later today.
We have made it to Teleferique which is the name of the cable cars that go up.
Yeah look at these.
These things are like an old-school looking car.
Super cool. So arriving to the station,
it doesn't seem like there's much of a line right now, so probably not
too many people are taking it up at this
hour since it closes at, I believe, 7:00 p.m.
Two tickets please
(Two tickets, 15,000) 15,000, sweet.
Thank you. (Welcome)
(Here's the tickets) All right,
there they are, so 25,000 each
so that's about, with today's exchange rate
about buck 50 USD in order to take the car all the way up to the top.
So the nice part is when you get
to the bottom, if you're sweating like us, there's a shop here you can get waters
or you can even, apparently it looks like you can get beers there
so if you want to be on your way up that's an option for you.
There we go.
Much needed right now after a little 2.2K walk to get there.
But I'm excited, these are going to be some amazing views on the web.
This is like everyone that I've told that I'm going to Jounieh has recommended.
The cable car is like the number one thing
to do in order to see all of the city with amazing views.
And we're going to do it right at sunset, which is the best time to do it.
So let's head on over.
And now we're taking the stairs up to our entrance point to hop on.
I don't know if you heard it, but it takes about ten minutes to go up
so actually much quicker than I thought
because it's quite a bit of a distance to get up.
I mean, it's a pretty steep mountain, so they must move pretty quick.
All right, so we made it on the cable car
and the views are already looking beautiful here, we can see the whole city
skyline, so as you can see, we're getting close to it.
And then all of a sudden just, is almost
like a 90-degree straight angle up, nice and vertical in just a moment here.
As you can see, it's a beautiful part of the country over here.
Now we're really starting to get up there.
As you can see, this is the vertical part,
and it is a much larger drop to get to the ground now.
You can see beautiful views, really long coastline.
Alright, let's see how quickly they get us out of here.
That ride was nice.
Marhaba
And we have made it.
Land ahoy, land ahoy.
Oh my gosh just look at this.
Probably the GoPro is not doing any justice, but it is a beautiful, beautiful scenery.
It seems like when you get up here,
the walking path up to Our Lady of Lebanon, Harissa
I heard Harissa, that Harissa is the spot where, people that message me,
they said Harissa is the best sunset spot
so let's go ahead and see what we can see here.
I'm feeling the walk up here already.
We're getting up here.
Oh, all right. We're almost up.
What a workout to get up here.
Wow. Worth it.
Absolutely worth it.
Oh, there's the prize at the top.
Lady of Lebanon.
All right there we go.
Yeah, we could have taken that up, but we got some exercise, you know.
Now, I don't feel bad about eating all
those fries like I did before, but that's a hack for you.
When you get to the top of the first cable car,
there's a smaller one, free functioning car to get you up here.
Let's go in and check this place out.
All right looks like we're coming up to the entrance here.
Not sure if there's tickets we need to buy.
Are there? Oh, we got a little mist here,
we're going through a little mist here bro.
Oh, oh, oh, yeah, I got it right here.
Well, we're in here.
You got to be quiet in here, though.
Very cool place here.
As you can see we got a candle area over here.
It's really peaceful, serene. Nice architecture,
nice layout here. And here we go.
This is gonna be the viewpoint we've been waiting for.
This is like a viewpoint from heaven.
Absolutely magical.
Unfortunately, the GoPro will never be
able to pick it up exactly how it is, but just imagine it up here.
You could turn this way
and look right up here.
It's so beautiful.
I can't do too much vlogging up here.
Hopefully you could hear it earlier.
It's just a peaceful area up here
so I want to come up here,
relax.
It's amazing to see so many people out here, too.
Because there hasn't been too many places where we saw a lot,
a lot of people in locations, obviously
why we have the mask, but I have mine off, for anyone that's going to say anything
I'm already vaccinated
so it's just more of a courtesy thing here.
Hopefully we'll make it down for sunset.
There is a sunset spot up here, the one that I mentioned just a little bit ago.
But the problem is since there's the cloud
covering up here, you can't actually see the sunset
so you got to go down to see it.
And then I bet it's going to be a stunning sunset, especially on the ride down.
Oh this one's a little more spacious than the other one.
This is a solid size.
You could fit maybe 10-12 people here.
Direct access out the window so as you can
see, it's just a short little ride down. There is a restaurant
it looks like you can stop at and eat right here with some amazing, amazing views
of this place, especially if you get a clear day.
If the cloud coverage was a little less than it is right now, it would be perfect.
Still beautiful nonetheless.
We have made it in, shukran.
Hey, hey, hey You're the man. (Are we going?) (Bye-bye)
Three, two, one.
Oh, Jeez.
Imagine living right there. You see that place?
Beautiful house there.
You can see they got a nice patio
furniture looking out, views of the sunset every night like that.
Imagine having a glass of wine there every day.
That is the spot.
All right, we have touched down and we are back.
Pretty much the last thing that I really want to do
today would be get ice cream from the shop that I've been recommended by a Lebanese
girl that she's said the best ice cream is here.
So I got to look it up, see how far it is, and then head over that way.
All right
looks like the name of the place is called Limo's Ice Cream by Mansour.
And it was the one we walked across, walked right past a little earlier today.
And that's what reminded me
Luke was like, oh, there's the ice cream shop, and I
oh, yeah
there's a place that I want to visit later to happen to be that one
so finish off the day with a little ice cream is not gonna be bad
so I will see you once we get over there. It's about, like I said,
25-minute walk or 7-minute drive, but I prefer walking
so see you there.
Okay so I'm walking up on what's said to be the best ice cream
in Lebanon, which is Limo's.
It was recommended by a Lebanese girl earlier today, but it's crazy here.
There is so much ice cream consumed here.
That's an ice cream shop.
There are so many here.
It's quite fascinating to see that.
But I'm super excited to try this because I think it's very, very delicious
from what I hear. Let's head on over here and see what we get.
It looks like it's been around since 1925.
That is always a good sign.
If the ice cream's been around that long,
that definitely means it is going to be some good stuff.
So it's called Limo's here, and it's Lebanese authentic ice cream.
Oh look at these options.
They have sweet rolls up here, cones, dishes,
quite a few different options here from a few different sizes there.
I'm wondering, I want to get, like, a box of ice cream?
Yeah so like a.. (There's many choices, small cup, big cup, or half kilo or 1 kilogram)
Let me do.
(Just for one?)
Yeah, just one for me. (You can have the smallest one or the big one)
It's possible to get a cone with five different flavors?
(Yes of course) Oh, perfect, yeah.
That'd be great. So this is what I love about Lebanon.
You can get six or seven different flavors.
All are gonna be on one of these cones, so it's gonna be so, so delicious.
So see, they're preparing it here.
It looks like they got quite a few different flavors in there.
It's probably like a strawberry in there. Oh, yum.
That is fantastic. Oh, look at that.
Getting it all nice and loaded up.
So I love it because it's so colorful.
So you can, you know exactly when you're getting to the next flavor.
A little dip on the side of there, too.
Oh, sweet. Shukran. Thank you so much.
Appreciate it. Here's what we got here.
I'm gonna try and guess the flavors, cause I actually have no idea which flavors.
I just said choose your seven favorite, and I will try them.
This is like some sort of very sweet berry.
I like it, though. It's a nice starter out here.
I like this one a lot with a nuts on it too, with the candies.
The nice part is depending on where you lick you're getting like an infusion
of multiple different flavors at once, which adds such a nice taste to it.
This is exactly what I needed
after spending all day in the hot sun, something to cool me off,
give the feet a rest because I put on probably another 20 kilometers today.
So nice.
As I was leaving, she came and gave me a wet wipe
to clean all the ice cream that I had all over off me.
And then she got me a cup of coffee to go.
How sweet is that?
Seriously, I feel so welcome in this place.
It's amazing.
Honestly, so many more tourists need to come and visit here.
I'm serious, like, one year you can help
pump some money back into the really nice people here's pockets.
Plus, you can have an amazing experience. I'm loving it so far.
And so, guys, that's where I'm going to go ahead and end today's
video exploring some of Jounieh. Make sure you hit that subscribe button so you don't
miss out on the next video where we're going to be doing some paragliding here.
I am super super excited for it.
So we'll see you guys in the next video,
as always, if you can smash that like button helps so much
and I'll see you guys in the next video.