We woke up late in Dohuk and hunted around for some brunch.  This proved harder than in Erbil and when we finally came across a place that was willing to do us some food, they overcharged us enormously. Our plan for the day was to visit a small village called Lalish, about 50km out of Dohuk.  We were told that local taxi drivers SHOULD know where it is, but it took us a while to get the message across.  A local guy stopped to help us and thought he had got the instructions across to the driver, only for us to end at the “Lilash supermarket”.  The guy who helped us was an english teacher who wanted to practise his conversation skills as he gets very little other opportunity.  As amusing as the mix up was, it did highlight just how careful we have to be with our directions to taxi drivers - as Mosul is only about 45 minutes away.  We eventually found a driver who was willing to take us to Lalish who charged us 25000IQD each for the return journey.

Me and Tom with our Yazidian guide

The drive through the mountains was beautiful and we only had to stop at two military checkpoints (as oppose to about 10 yesterday).  As we approached Lalish, there was another checkpoint which had been set up to protect the village.  We went through the standard “who are you and what are you doing here?” routine with the soldier who then asked where we were from.  “England” we said.  “Ah” he replied, “is that in America?”.  We nodded and smiled to avoid confusion, but both Tom and I died a little that moment.

Inside the temple

Lalish is home to the ancient temple of a 5000 year old religion.  The followers, called “Yazidians” are dotted all over the world, but there is only one temple - the one at Lalish.  As we arrived, a local man came out to the taxi to welcome us.  He spoke good English and it turned out that he was in charge of the religion’s website.  He was very keen to show us around, but also to photograph us as the two Englishmen who had arrived at his temple.  We had to take our shoes off and he sat us down in a shaded courtyard to give us an outline of the Yazidian religion.  As it outdates both Christianity and Islam, it is very unique in the Middle East.  They believe in one god, represented by the sun who made himself and made man.  They also believe in reincarnation, and that a good soul will be reincarnated as another human and a bad soul will go to hell.  They practise baptism for babies (and we were lucky enough to watch one while we were there) and have have other ‘good luck’ traditions, such as wrapping your hand in a special blanket in the temple and making a wish.  They believe that black snakes are lucky, but stepping on the stone at the threshold to any door in the temple is unlucky as that is where offerings are made.

Lalish Village, Iraq

After he had showed us around, our guide sat us down again and interviewed us while recording into a dictaphone to take quotes for the website.  The guide had been incredibly kind and urged us to come back and see the Yazidian festivals on 2nd February, 2nd August and 10th to 16th October.  He also urged me to tell my friends about the temple and to encourage them to visit one day too - he gave us all of his contact details so that anybody who was interested could arrange a tour (I will put them up later).

Dohuk Dam, Iraq

We left the temple thoroughly impressed and drove back to Dohuk, stopping on the edge of the city to see a large dam that had been constructed to provide drinking water to the town.  The dam was on the main road to Syria and Turkey and we reflected that it would be very easy to walk to either one of these countries (when we got back to our hotel we found that a Syrian plane had been shot down near the Iraqi border - there is always something going on in the region).  After looking around the dam for a bit, we headed back into town, only to be stopped by a group of local guys in a black Audi who offered us a lift.  The concept of hitchiking in Iraq hadn’t struck us before, but we decided to climb in and see what happened.  It turned out that the driver worked in oil (though we worked that out for ourselves from the car) and that his friend was a policeman.  The policeman in particular spoke good English and gave us his phone number to call in case we got into any trouble.  That night we grabbed some food from a Turkish restaurant (which we ate in the dark as power cuts are a regular occurance here) and then headed over to another shisha bar to try some of the “Obama flavour” that they were advertising.  All in all, a brilliant day.

The Hamilton Road, Northern Iraq

As we would be flying home from Erbil, we knew that it made sense to get out an explore the rest of the country in the knowledge we would end up back in the capital eventually.  After an exhausting day of travelling yesterday we allowed ourselves a bit of a lie-in before having breakfast and meeting Sipan.  As it is Rammadan, food is not as readily available as it would otherwise be.  Luckily, some Muslims are less devout than others here and some restaurants remain open - though they put up white sheets over their windows as a mark of respect to those who are fasting.  After breakfast we got a taxi with Sipan to the share taxi stop for Rawanduz, a small town in the north.  The ‘garage’ as the share taxi stops are called, is also the place where taxis to Mosul leave from - so we had to make it very clear where we wanted to end up.  The share taxi from Erbil to Rawanduz cost us 10000 IQD each and took about 2 and a half hours.

The Rawanduz Gorge, Iraq

The journey itself was very impressive as we snaked along the Hamilton Road - named after the Civil Engineer from New Zealand who built it in the 1920s.  We had hoped to find some hotels in Rawanduz, but all we found was an odd holiday camp that was half built.  The share taxi driver dropped off the people that we had shared the taxi with and then we convinced the driver to drive us around to the various sites in the area - he charged us 50000 IQD each, which was a bit steep.  The main sites in the area are three waterfalls - the 'magic’ waterfall, the Bekhal waterfall and the Gali Ali Beg waterfall.  This was the order in which we visited them.  The magic waterfall is so called because the water only appears at certain times of the year - and, as this is the driest part of the year, there was nothing to see at all - just a smelly muddy pool.  Moving swiftly on (and hoping things would get better) we headed for Bekhal waterfall.  To reach this, we had to travel along the Rawanduz Gorge, perhaps one of the most spectacular gorges in all of Asia.  We were still on the Hamilton Road and you had to marvel at what an impressive feat it was, as well as just how stunning the landscape is.

Me and Tom at the Bekhal waterfall

Thankfully, Bekhal waterfall had a little bit more to it, with a bazaar and food stalls (not to mention some actual water).  We climbed up the fairly precarious and slippery steps to the top of the waterfall to make the most of the nice view over the little settlement that had risen up around one of few bona fide tourist spots in the country.  Gali Ali Beg was further down the valley (back towards Erbil) and was also impressive - a different kind of waterfall to Bekhal, with a large plunge pool and a collection of small boats available to hire.  Our taxi driver was in a bit of a rush unfortunately as we still had a lot of travelling to do.  We were dropped off in the town of Diana where we caught another taxi to the city of Dohuk, costing 20000 IQD.  This meant another 2 hours or so of driving and also meant that we had to commit the potential no-no of leaving Kurdish administered territory.  We travelled to Dohuk via Acre, a city that is ethnically Kurdish but technically (from what we gather) Arabic.  We felt safe doing this because the Kurds are almost as unwilling to go to the Arabic parts of the country as we are, and our driver lived in Dohuk and knew the area well.

Gali Ali Beg Waterfall, Iraq

Arriving in Dohuk at around 5pm we settled in at our new hotel and then walked to the town’s luxury hotel for the rare privileged of a cold beer by the hotel’s pool - a 5 star hotel in Kurdistan is very unlikely to turn away two guys from Britain, even if they are scruffy and only want a beer.  We sat by the pool until the sun went down and then got some dinner on the way back into the city centre.  By now, as in Erbil, the sun had gone down and the people were out and about, so we made the most of it and ducked into a Shisha Bar where they were showing Olympic coverage.  The people were very friendly and welcoming, despite the fact it was obviously a place for locals (I dread to think how my village pub would react if two Kurds turned up in traditional dress).  After an hour or so of Shisha we retired to our hotel to watch the Olympic closing ceremony - the kindness and hospitality of the Kurd’s thus far in trip, made John Lennon’s “Imagine” seem particularly apt.  Who would have thought that two Brits could sit and smoke Shisha at 11pm on an Iraqi street in the middle of Rammadan, feeling totally at home?  The surprises just keep coming.