Aug 112014
 

Now that I’ve been to 158 countries, it’s kinda cool being about to watch CNN/BBC and see all sorts of places in the news that I’ve been. But, for some reason these last two weeks, the news from northern Iraq / Iraqi Kurdistan is really bothering me.  Reflecting on my photo album, it’s really amazing how much we managed to see despite the circumstances, and especially given where things now – I count myself very fortunately to have been there.

When I went there a few years ago, I really enjoyed it. It was my first “you’re going WHERE?!” country, and the people were fantastic and it was really an eye opening trip. So, I’m going to repost here that trip report, with a few edits/thoughts from the last few years. Enjoy!

Immigration was a breeze, and soon we were really there…we were in Iraq.  But wait…where are the taxis?  Now, I guess we hadn’t really planned this part too well, because it’s not like I should have expected for the Erbil International Airport to be really prepared with a modern tourist infrastructure.  A couple years on, I can admit what happened…and just how stupid it was.  After about 15 minutes of standing around and looking lost, we started chatting up a couple of mercenary looking types who’d arrived on our flight.  Yeah, they were “private security contractors” and their company was picking them up.  They sized us up, decided we were worth the risk, and offered to give us a lift to our hotel…no need to pay.  So, into the Humvee it was when their driver arrived, and we were off.  In retrospect, it was pretty insane….but how well it turned out said a lot.  There’s only one other time since I’ve had to rely on strangers at an airport (this past January in Gabon) and that also worked well.  Anyways, back to the story…

Soon we were at the Ankawa Palace Hotel, which we had randomly stumbled upon online, and based on the website and little information we could find about looked like a reasonable and safe place to stay.  The rooms were clean and basic, the staff spoke very basic English, so all in all I would highly recommend it as a place to stay.  Plus, a reasonable breakfast buffet and internet were included in the reasonable rate of $154 per night, and given this was December 30 and 31, it was a pretty good deal.  It was 5pm at this point and we had two things to accomplish:

One, hopefully arrange a driver to drive us into the countryside the next day, and two find some dinner.  Number one, again, we weren’t in the best position to negotiate.  Like I said earlier, there aren’t exactly many tourists here, so if you want to arrange things there aren’t many options.  The guy at the front desk made some calls over the next hour, and managed to arrange us a driver for the day.  There were two waterfalls we wanted to see on the mountain road up to Hadji Omaran at the Iranian border.

Our plan was to drive past the Gali Ali Beg waterfalls and the Bekhal waterfalls, on the way to the mountainous region by the border.  A driver was found for the full day trip, which seemed semi expensive, but how often do you get a chance to be driven around the countryside in Iraq?!  That sorted, we headed off the the Mehdi Mall to hopefully find somewhere to arrange dinner.  We didn’t manage to find anywhere to get anything to eat there, but did find a bowling alley, and lots of very unusual Christmas decorations.  Now, Erbil does have a rather sizable Christian population, but it seems they’ve managed to take the American commercialization of Christmas to a whole new level!

Looking back now, it’s sad to see what’s happening to the Christian populations in northern Iraq.  I didn’t quite understand at the time just how large this population was, just that it existed.

Want a blow-up Santa?  For just 30,000 Dinars you’re covered!

There were also several rather strange costumed animals wandering around the mall, and Matt managed to make a new friend:

I wanted to go make friends with the giant cat wandering the mall, but he seemed incredibly popular with the locals (not to mention the half dozen santa people wandering the mall), so we opted to skip him:

They did, however, have a big grocery store in the mall selling, of all things, turkey!

IMG_0273 IMG_0272

Having failed to find a reasonable looking dinner option, we headed back to the hotel and decided that despite being dark, we were going to wander the suburb of Ainkawa and try and find the “Happy Time” pizza restaurant for dinner.  It was listed on TripAdvisor, so how bad could it be…if it existed.  But first, we had a 10-15 minute walk through the dark streets of Ainkawa to find it. Eventually,  we found it, the food was adequate, and it put some of the nerves to rest having wandered around in the dark and not felt at all unsafe.  A view of the pizza from the Happy Time:

Then it was back to the Ankawa Palace and off to bed early for the big day trip adventure the next day.

Our driver met us early, and soon we were winding out of the city in yet more very heavy rain towards the Gali Ali Beg waterfall.  This is one of the most famous waterfalls in Iraq, and probably one of it’s most famous natural features.  It is even on the back of one of the dinar notes.

Unfortunately, we were pretty disappointed when we got there, because of the amount of litter and rubbish just strewn all over the place.  It was really rather sad.  The other waterfall we stopped by was the Bekhal waterfall.  Again, very similar.  They were really cool to see, but the amount of litter was just really sad.  In both places, we were the only people seeing them, but some of this probably also had to do with the rain.

Continue reading »

Aug 222011
 

We made it to the airport in Erbil in plenty of time, and soon were through the several layers of security and in the check-in area.  There was a vehicle-check, an x-ray in a building a couple hundred metres from the terminal, and then finally another layer before getting into the terminal.  Oh, not to mention another layer before getting into the “gate” area.

Check-in was completely uneventful, but unfortunately Austrian didn’t have any sort of lounge here for business passengers.  I’m not sure if this is the first time I’ve been on an inter-continental flight in business class without a lounge, but it was what it was.  Managed to get a couple of Diet Cokes and a can of Pringles in the small cafe in the gate area, and soon we were boarding the flight to Vienna. Continue reading »

Aug 212011
 

Immigration was a breeze, and soon we were really there…we were in Iraq.  But wait…where are the taxis?  Now, I guess we hadn’t really planned this part too well, because it’s not like the Erbil International Airport was really prepared with a modern tourist infrastructure.  After a bit of asking around, we were directed to some folks with overpriced transportation, who offered to take us to our hotel.  We really weren’t in a position to negotiate, and since they all needed special security clearances to get into the hotel, I guess it was pretty fair.

Soon we were at the Ankawa Palace Hotel, which we had randomly stumbled upon online, and based on the website and little information we could find about looked like a reasonable and safe place to stay.  The rooms were clean and basic, the staff spoke very basic English, so all in all I would highly recommend it as a place to stay.  Plus, a reasonable breakfast buffet and internet were included in the reasonable rate of $154 per night, and given this was December 30 and 31, it was a pretty good deal.  It was 5pm and we had two things to accomplish:

One, hopefully arrange a driver to drive us into the countryside the next day, and two find some dinner.  Number one, again, we weren’t in the best position to negotiate.  Like I said earlier, there aren’t exactly a lot of tourists here, so if you want to arrange things there aren’t many options.  The guy at the front desk made some calls over the next hour, and managed to arrange us a driver for the day.  There were two waterfalls we wanted to see on the mountain road up to Hadji Omaran at the Iran border.

Our plan was to drive past the Gali Ali Beg waterfalls and the Bekhal waterfalls, on the way to the mountainous region by the border.  A driver was found for the full day trip, which seemed semi expensive, but how often do you get a chance to be driven around the countryside in Iraq?!  That sorted, we headed off the the Mehdi Mall to hopefully find somewhere to arrange dinner.  We didn’t manage to find anywhere to get anything to eat there, but did find a bowling alley, and lots of very unusual Christmas decorations.  Now, Erbil does have a rather sizable Christian population, but it seems they’ve managed to take the American commercialization of Christmas to a whole new level!

Want a blow-up Santa?  For just 30,000 Dinars you’re covered!

Continue reading »

Aug 202011
 

So up at the crack of dawn to catch our hotel-arranged shuttle to Ljubljana Airport. Nothing exciting to report here. The airport was rather small, check-in was confused and slightly chaotic (as was security) but soon we were on the other side and in the promised land: the “lounge.” This might be one of the most uninspired lounges I’ve ever been in, but at this early hour it had the single most important thing in the universe to me: a coffee/espresso machine. Several shots later I was approaching human, and life was good!

Adria flight 284, LJU-VIE
Depart 7:55 Arrive 8:45, Flight time 50 minutes
CRJ-200, Registration S5-AAI, manufactured 1998, Seat 3A

Wow – this was the same aircraft (and same seat) I had been in two days prior. What are the odds! Even on this short flight, a snack was served: something you would never see in the US!

Soon, we were landing in Vienna – where we had about 90 minutes between flights. Now, one of the biggest challenges we had was finding hotel information online. We were a bit uneasy about the hotel we’d booked, so I decided to use the lounge connection to Skype another hotel in Erbil….which was happy to offer a reservation at a rate we considered very reasonable so we snatched it up! It was then off to the gate area, and OMG this was really going to happen…we were going to Iraq for tourism! Continue reading »

Aug 172011
 

I hadn’t much intention to post this, but since I posted a couple others several folks have asked about this trip. Since I’m off for a 35+ day trip in a week this will be brief, but I do want to update this trip!

I have this…thing…for going to strange places for New Years. This year, we went to Afghanistan. Last year…it was Iraq. I’m hoping in a few months to set foot in that place full of pirates without a name. You get the picture.

The post will be split into these parts:

I. IAD-LHR-BRU in United First, and time in Brussels
II. Brussels-Ljubljana, Slovenia in Adria Business and time in Ljubljana
III. Ljubljana-Vienna-Erbil, Iraq in Austrian Business
IV. Erbil, Iraq and adventures to the Iranian Border
V. Erbil-Vienna-Zagreb, Croatia, and a day in Zagreb
VI. Zagreb-London, Heathrow – or Hallucinating around Europe
VII. London to Washington in United Business

There are lots of pictures, lots of bacteria, and hopefully I can fill in a few blanks on places that we found remarkable few details on online before going there ourselves. I admit – it was a bit insane to head to Iraq with absolutely nothing booked but….I guess that’s what adventure is all about!