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" TRIPOLI/JOUNIEH/BEIRUT, Lebanon -- At dawn, sporadic gunfire still ricocheted around Beirut. But it was the sound of the city celebrating. After a three-month surge, the Lebanese Army has just declared victory over the Al Qaeda Fatah Al Islam terrorists in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared outside Tripoli.  A crowd of jubilant Lebanese wave flags and chant slogans after the Lebanese army took over the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp on September 3, 2007. Photo by Eyup Coskun/AA/AcabaPress.com. As I headed up the coastal highway to Tripoli, a very conservative Muslim town in northern Lebanon, people along the route hung out of terraces and windows cheering as the Lebanese army rode by. A motorcyclist in the center lane was wrapped in the Lebanese flag, popping wheelies on his Harley-Davidson at 70 miles an hour. Crowds on an overpass next to a &amp;quot;Go Topless This Summer&amp;quot; ad waved their own handwritten sign: &amp;quot;Lebanon Forever!&amp;quot;  A little after noon, black smoke appeared on the horizon, filled with helicopters flying low through the haze. The smell of burnt gunpowder hung in the air, and the military was everywhere. Despite its destruction, Nahr al-Bared was reigniting. Saudi Al Qaeda militants had hijacked a taxi on this same stretch of road hours earlier, killing passengers inside. Some of them were still at large.  No wonder it was so tough to find a cab. To make things harder, I had worn an Iraqi abaya, a batwing-shaped jalabiya made of very slick, windbreaker material. It was wet with sweat, and super-slippery. I&amp;#039;d had a few falls already, especially trying to stand up from a seated position or getting out of a car. Wearing it in 110-degree heat? Like living on a water slide or being a prisoner in your own banana peel. Chronic Ouch!  It also marked me as a foreigner. The style was distinctly Shia, and Tripoli is a vehemently Sunni town. When I stopped to buy water, one very hostile shopkeeper eyed me angrily. He slapped my change on the countertop with one hand, holding a pistol in the other. For once, I wasn&amp;#039;t grilled about what country I was from. Maybe he thinks I&amp;#039;m a wife of Al Qaeda, I worry. (Better to be thought Russian or even a Shatanea.)  I remove the abaya and head back to civilization -- to an area known in Roman times as the Valley of Thieves, bisected by the River of Death. Now it is predominantly Christian and peppered by hotspots like The Flamingo, the California Super Show, and Playboy Bunny Amusements. The most interesting one has a Roman flair -- the Caligula Club.  The sign of the Casino du Liban, nestled on a hill on the tip of the Bay of Jounieh, in the Christian section north of Beirut. Photo by Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty Images. I&amp;#039;m meeting some Lebanese for drinks and gambling in the Casino du Liban. &amp;quot;You must see it,&amp;quot; they urge. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a landmark.&amp;quot; Built in 1959, Casino du Liban was the first casino in an Arab country, and it competed with Monte Carlo. Frank Sinatra hung out here with the Rat Pack, and the likes of Brigitte Bardot and Sophia Loren. Politicos too, like Lyndon Johnson, the Shah of Iran, and, later, Prince Albert of Monaco, showed up.  Dancers swung from the chandeliers, prostitution was legal, and naked women swam in a tank with dolphins. These were the Glory Days before the civil war when Beirut was nicknamed the &amp;quot;Paris of the Middle East.&amp;quot;  Through the worst of the fighting, the gambling and parties rolled on.  Unfortunately, what the war couldn&amp;#039;t extinguish, the renovators did. The interior has since been face-lifted into a generic, antiseptic franchise style. But the view over Jounieh Bay at sunset is spectacular, and the bar makes the meanest martinis on the Mediterranean (especially compared to the Monte Carlo Casino, where our martinis came in a wineglass). Four bucks and change gets you top-shelf cocktails with Lebanese mezzes on the side.  &amp;quot;Really big money comes here now,&amp;quot; a waiter told me. &amp;quot;Betting millions... kings and emirs from the Gulf come for Ramadan to gamble -- and drink. But I&amp;#039;m not saying anything,&amp;quot; he winks.  Tourism has definitely evolved since Roman times, when a traveler was shackled on arrival to insure he paid his bill before leaving. A more modern tourism scuffle ensued when Hezbollah tried to exploit land near the airport as a graveyard &amp;quot;Shrine of the Martyrs&amp;quot; for disembarking sightseers.  Lebanese revelers dance on B018&amp;#039;s bar, celebrating on January 1, 2007, as a couple nearby rings in the new year with a kiss. Photo by Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty Images. But the younger party surge frequents its own fashionable version of retro-macabre. At BO18, named after a bunker where the club&amp;#039;s owner holed up during the civil war, the look is chic-stark. The chairs fold like coffins, and dead musicians&amp;#039; faces adorn tabletops like a grim, ill-fated Hollywood walk of fame.  And at the end of the day, I&amp;#039;m back again with the Palestinians: BO18 sits atop the ruins of the notorious Qarantina refugee camp massacre. One Lebanese partier, Saiid, plans his own ode to the martyrs. He wants to publish comic books that deal with &amp;quot;the horror of what went on, with a dash of black comedy.&amp;quot;  I guess that&amp;#039;s therapeutic, I tell him. He says, &amp;quot;I wouldn&amp;#039;t know. A Spanish writer&amp;#039;s going to do it for really cheap, and I outsourced the illustrations to a Brazilian.&amp;quot;  Before sunrise, somebody in the crowd yells out, &amp;quot;Go topless!&amp;quot; and BO18&amp;#039;s retractable rooftop pulls back on the night&amp;#039;s last fading stars. Read the &amp;quot;Live from the Middle East&amp;quot; blog: Part I: The Beirut of the ProblemEsquire&amp;#039;s embedded Middle Eastern reporter, Trish Schuh, kicks off her exclusive blog with a report from the streets of Lebanon. Part II: I Spy an AmericanParanoia runs rampant in the Middle East, but no one is more distrusted than the honest, truth-seeking American journalist. Part III: Damascus Demimonde Welcome to the Arab world, where the Arab women are veiled, the hookers are Russian, and Western women are fair game for handsy locals. Part IV: The War for WaterOn the border of the Golan Heights, Israeli troops are on their highest alert since the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Part V: Empires Lost Thousands of years ago, Palmyra was an important cog in the Roman machine, that is, until an overly ambitious ruler fought an unnecessary war. Sound familiar? The Lebanese Army triumphs over terrorism with a decisive victory, while the Arab Riviera continues to party like there&amp;#039;s no tomorrow. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a3353/mideastblog090607/>