The road to Baghdad (we turned off)

Not a whole lot of sightseeing planned for today was we tried to get back to Erbil.  When time is tight, it is obviously preferable to complete a loop of the country, but the fact that we flew into Erbil in the centre, and that the region is a thin strip, meant that we have had to use the capital as a bit of a base.  We therefore got a share taxi back to Dohuk (with a family of four - a tight squeeze for 7 people in a 5 seater taxi) and then on from Dohuk to Erbil.  The Amedi-Dohuk journey cost us 8000IQD while the Dohuk-Erbil taxi cost us 15000IQD.  In the latter journey we were joined by two guys, a policeman and a Syrian army deserter.  They were both friendly and eager to find out about us.  We were fascinated by the Syrian, but didn’t feel it was right to ask him too much about his experiences.  Apparently there is a refugee camp near Dohuk for Syrians fleeing the civil war - it would be interesting to know whether the Iraqi Kurds are only sheltering Syrian Kurds, or whether Syrian Arabs are welcome too.

The Rotana Hotel, Erbil

Having left Amedi at midday we arrived in Erbil at 5pm and found ourselves a hotel.  While we were reasonably happy with the Qandeel Hotel that we stayed at last time we were here, we thought we could get more for our money and with a bit of haggling stayed at the Lomana Hotel for 20USD each per night - only a couple of pounds more than the first place, but with a big jump in quality.  Feeling classy, the two of us decided to visit the nicest hotel in town for dinner at their Lebanese restaurant.  The Rotana Hotel is a true 5 star hotel, located in a guarded compound on the edge of town.  It is where diplomats and the odd head of state stay so we dressed up in shirts and tried to fit in.  By a strange coincidence, the British consulate had sent a delegation to the hotel that night to make a presentation to local businessmen about the legacy of the London Olympics and explaining why Britain was a great place to invest in.  We missed the presentation, but were allowed into the hall afterwards to look around.  We were met inside by a Scottish lady from the British consulate team and briefly by the Iraqi Olympic minister.  It was interesting to talk to them about our experiences - they were surprised that we were backpacking and said that backpackers really are few and far between.  After this pretty cool experience, we moved on to the restaurant where we had a wonderful meze dinner followed by shisha.  While it was far more expensive than the food we have been used to (we worked out that we could have had 35 kebabs from street sellers for the same price), it worked out at about the same price as a standard restaurant in the UK.  Considering the location (and the company) we figured it was more than worth it.

Amedi, Iraq

With all of Iraqi Kurdistan to explore, and not much time to do it, we moved swiftly on from Dohuk to the town of Amedi in the north.  The policeman that we had hitched a ride with yesterday had also arranged for a share taxi to our next destination, Amediyah (Amedi).  It turned out to be a private taxi and cost us 20000IQD which wasn’t TOO bad for the 50km journey that snaked up through the mountains.  Amedi is nicknamed “the town that doesn’t grow” in Iraq, as it is perched on top of a steep sided plateau.  It is a stunning location and really looks like something straight out of Lord of the Rings.  We stopped to take some photos outside the city, then got the taxi to drop us off at the bazaar.  Unfortunately, it soon became very clear that there were no hotels in the town.  The locals suggested that we tried the town of Sulav, about 5km away, so we got another taxi to take us there.  Annoyingly, there weren’t any hotels there either and the locals in Sulav suggested we tried in the valley between the two towns.  After a lot of searching we eventually came across a fairly decent motel room, that was inconveniently located between the two places that we wanted to visit.

The view over a minefield

The motel room was more like a little apartment so Tom and I went to a local shop and bought some food to cook our own lunch - it seemed easier than trying to find a place that would serve us.  After lunch I had a sleep (the 50 degree celsius heat is tiring me out) while Tom went for a little hike into the mountains to get some even better views over the city and surrounding countryside.  I would have joined him, but I hadn’t brought any suitable boots as I was under the impression that the countryside was covered in landmines, left from the Iraq-Iran war.  Tom didn’t believe me, so went on his merry way.  We later hitched a ride with a minesweeper who told us that the whole area was mined.  So Tom has now achieved the debatable honour of having successfully walked through a minefield.  The photos were worth it though.

Sunset over Amedi valley

Amedi is just about the smallest town that we have visited and has proven to be the place where Ramaddan is the most difficult to come to terms with.  At about 4 we walked into town to look around and saw most of the key sites - the mosque, bazaar etc, but the town was totally deserted.  At half 5 we realised that nothing was going to open for hours so we hitched a ride back to the hotel and sat around for a bit.  The view of the sunset from the town was set to be amazing, so we hitched back in and found a spot to watch it.  The sun had started to burn off the haze and the views down the valley at sunset were simply incredible.

Shisha bars (and a mini cinema) in Sulav

Muslims are allowed to eat after the sun has gone down, but that generally means that they go and eat with their families, rather than opening up their restaurants.  This meant that we had to wait another hour after the sun had gone down until we could eat.  We walked around for a bit and spoke to a group of kids about where the nearest restaurant was, only to find that it was in Sulav.  Having been under the impression that Amedi was a bit of a tourist trap for Iraqis, it turned out that there were no hotels or restaurants.  For the second time today, we headed over to Sulav and found ourselves a restaurant doing local food which wasn’t too bad.  As has now become our routine, we found ourselves a bar for some post-dinner shisha.  After sitting for a while we were joined by some guys who we had seen driving around Amedi in a white Hummer (which as you may have guessed didn’t blend in particularly well).  One of the guys was from Leeds, though he didn’t stay for long.  One of the guys stayed and talked to us for a few hours. He told us what it was like to live in Kurdistan - hated by the Turks to the north, Arabs to the west and south and Iranians to the east, they faced total isolation.  While they appreciated the peace and freedom from oppression that the British and American invasion had brought, the Kurds were unable to travel (get out as he called it) leading to a frustration that they were alone in their little region.  We also asked him whether the rumours about the city of Mosul were true, and whether we would be in as much danger as we had been told.  He said that if we turned up, somebody would watch us and wait until we stopped in a hotel or restaurant and would then make a call to bring in somebody to shoot us there and then - further confirming that Mosul and the rest of Iraq is a no-go zone.  We stayed out until about 1am, moving around the various shisha bars in Sulav and being treated to drinks (non-alcoholic of course) and shisha by his mates.

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.

First view of Iraq

Okay, well here we are in Iraqi Kurdistan.  It has been quite a journey, but has not actually been too painful and we are already in a country that has defied all of our expectations.  We flew with Austrian Airlines from Heathrow to Erbil via Vienna, a journey that took about 7 hours including a 1 hour stop in the Austrian capital.  Erbil Airport is no different to any other airport and getting a visa was easy - no fee, valid for 15 days.  By some kind of strange fluke, the guy at border control stamped my passport with my Iraqi stamp on the same page as my Vietnamese stamp - giving me quite a 20th century conflict collectors item.  A taxi brought us from the airport to the city centre where we found a hotel quite easily - the Hotel Qandeel which charged us 20000 Iraqi Dinar (about 10GBP) per night.

The Citadel, Erbil

One of Tom’s cousins of a friend of a friend, called Sipan, had arranged to meet us in the city when we had got settled.  As it is currently Ramaddan, everybody is fasting (no food OR water) which is very impressive considering that the temperature is over 45 degrees celsius, so there weren’t many people around when we left the hotel at about 5ish.  It was still extremely hot, but we had a little walk around the city’s citadel, perched on a rock above the rest of the city.  Erbil, a city of 1.2 million, is the centre of the autonomous Kurdish government and is arguably the oldest continuously inhabited settlement on earth, at between 6500 and 8000 years old.  Only Damascus in Syria can challenge it.  The citadel is an archaeological treasure trove that has yet to be properly discovered - the government have only just cleared it of the local population in order to undertake the massive renovation and protection work that it needs.  It was deserted in the citadel and you could really feel the history in between the ancient walls.  By this stage Tom and I had been up for pushing 40 hours and we therefore retired to the hotel to get some sleep.

Fountains below Erbil citadel

We arranged to meet Sipan at 8, but left the hotel an hour or so before that to wander around by ourselves for a bit.  We sat in the city’s main square and were soon joined by a young Kurdish man who was studying at Northumbria University and had driven back (3500 miles worth) across Europe to spend the summer with his family.  His English was impeccable (albeit with a Geordie accent) and he had a great knowledge of the north of England (he even knew where my Grandma lived in Stoke).  Having assumed that Tom and I would be totally isolated out here, it was incredible to meet somebody with such a good knowledge of both Kurdistan and England.  We took his phone number down as we are going to his home town later in the trip.  Sipan met us at 8 and we had some dinner together at one of the numerous food stalls.  The city really came to life as the sun went down and people were able to break their fasts.  We walked a little way out of the centre with Sipan towards what appeared to be a fun fair.  There were lots of local families out with their children and the atmosphere was extremely relaxed.  We walked around the park and then looked in an art gallery which contained some surprisingly liberal art work.  We thought that we had finished for the night, but Sipan then took us over to the “family mall” - a massive shopping air conditioned shopping centre on the outside of the city containing all sorts of western brands - Levis, Mothercare, Carrefour to name a few.  We got a coffee at a shop that could easily have been a Starbucks, watching American music on the TV and reflecting that there might be an awful lot more to Iraq than we were expecting.

Family Mall…in Iraq