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 242011
 

Woke up in the morning, and was honestly feeling quite a bit better.  The hallucinations were gone, the shivers and fever had mostly passed, and it was just residual stomach sketchiness.  A bit off coffee and immodium and I was pretty sure I could make it back home.  Pretty clear this was either food poisoning or some short-lived virus, so I was pretty fortunate.  The tube ride to Heathrow (at just under 90 minutes) was barely tolerable, but no major drama, and was soon ensconced in the Star Alliance lounge and sipping water before boarding the flight back to DC.

United Flight 925
London, Heathrow to Washington, Dulles
Boeing 777, Registration N778UA, Manufactured 1996
Depart 16:20 Arrive 19:45
Seat 11B

So departure came and went, and was very uneventful. Normally, I look forward to the business class meal as a way to pass a bit of time, but…this time…no WAY. Every time the crew passed through, I was either in the lav or asking for a ginger ale. But, at least I felt a thousand times better than the day prior, so that was a huge accomplishment. I considered asking for parts of the meal a couple times, but quickly realised just how bad of an idea that would be!

However, after the meal service, there was a bit of drama. The pilot came by, and asked if he could speak with me for a moment. Seems my behaviour was “suspicious” (refusing meals, etc) and they were concerned about the amount of time I was spending in the lav – I wasn’t doing anything wrong in there, was I? So, I had to explain to the guy the details (yeah, I left out the Iraq part) and he was pretty satisfied – I think. At least he didn’t bother me again, so I can only assume everything was fine!

Arrival was on time, immigration was easy, and soon I was home and relaxing. In the end, just having the extra space in business made this flight worth it. When you never know when you’re going to have to give up, just having that extra space to not have to excuse yourself past several people makes all the difference in the world!

Aug 232011
 

Before I get started on this, I have to be up-front.  This post might be a bit graphic in nature, and contains absolutely no pictures for reasons which will very very quickly become obvious!

We were safely ensconced in the Croatia Airlines lounge, where I believe I immediately collapsed on one of the couches…and go figure, just when I needed it most, this was one of those evil lounges that made you leave the lounge and go into the common areas of the airport to find facilities.  However, they had apple juice.  Ice cold apple juice.  The one thing that made me feel even remotely-human.  I spent most of the next hour as a shivering mess on the couch, to the point I vaguely remember Matt telling me to try and pull it together long enough that they didn’t pull us from the flight, lol.

Down to the gate, bus to the plane, and I managed to hold it together long enough to get on, board, take off, and get in the air!  Fortunately, there were only 3 people in all of business class, so I didn’t cause myself TOO much embarrassment!

Croatia Airlines Flight 492
Zagreb, Croatia to London, Heathrow
Depart 14:40, Arrive 16:05, 2 hours, 25 minutes
Airbus A319, Registration 9A-CTL, Manufactured 2000
Seat 2A

Now, as I am typing this I just realised this: no matter how badly I felt, one of two things was at work. Either I’m an über travel geek, or I wasn’t quite as bad as I thought, because I was still with it enough to manage to get the registration number of the plane. I’m going with the geek part, because I seriously was quite a mess. To the point when offered food I gave the flight attendant the look of death and asked for a ginger ale, and proceeded to try and sleep flat on the row of three seats in between bouts of shivering uncontrollably.

There’s not much to say about this flight. I managed to survive the two hours, land at Heathrow, AND make it all the way to immigration…and through immigration, without causing an international incident.  From what I remember, economy was packed, business was empty, and the crew was as nice and accommodating as could be expected.  But then again, I probably wasn’t the best judge!  Then…it was the tube. I don’t remember lots of the tube ride home, but suffice to say you regret living in Canary Wharf when it takes 90 minutes to get there and you’re barely feeling alive. I remember the following pattern: shiver, fall asleep, kick random guy across the aisle, wake up, apologize, repeat. Somehow, again, I made it, without causing serious drama.

The next 12 hours or so was a continuation of the pattern, but at least it was in bed! By morning, enough had passed that I was ready to consider the trek back to DC. I had considered just staying in London the next couple days, but the thought of going immediately with a confirmed upgrade to business far outweighed any potential recovery and going two days later in a middle seat in economy. NO THANKS!

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 192011
 

After a few hours of wandering around Brussels, and a quick hop back to the airport, it was time to board our flight to Ljubljana on Adria Airways.  A few things I need to admit:  part of the reason I booked this route was my plan to (eventually) fly on every Star Alliance airline.  What better time to fly on Adria than when going via their home airport of Ljubljana?  Although the main reason for this trip was to get to Iraq, the chance to go via Slovenia in one direction and Croatia in the other was irresistible to me!

The biggest downside of this flight – which I may or may not have been entirely honest with Matt about in advance – was the plane.  It was the one plane I categorically refuse to fly under normal circumstances, because I find it to be the most miserable piece of aluminum in the air:  The Canadair CRJ-200.  Miserably cramped, windows that even a little person can’t see out….basically…I can’t stand them.  That said, they promised “business class” which means they left the seat next to you open…so how bad could it be…right?

Adria 395, Brussels (BRU) to Ljubljana, Slovenia (LJU)
Depart: 20:55 Arrive: 22:35, Flight time of 1:40
CRJ-200, Registration S5-AAI, Manufactured 1998, Seat 3A

Once on-board, it was pretty uneventful. Easily the most comfortable CRJ-200 flight I’d ever taken – but hard for it not to be. There were three rows of “business” and with nobody next to me, it really wasn’t bad at all. We even got a small “snack” which I was pretty unimpressed by…but hey, compared to what you’d get in the US at this hour…not complaining to at least have the option!

I nibbled on the protein a little bit, all the while trying to avoid snickering at the wet nap, which I found absolutely hysterical for some reason.  I mean, come on, could they make the picture just a little more comical if they tried, lol! Continue reading »

Aug 182011
 

Shortly before we booked this trip, United had started the London-Brussels flight as a way of holding onto their Heathrow slots for the off-season.  I didn’t expect it to fit so perfectly into our needs, but there you have it.  This year was exceptionally difficult (I found) to get award space over the holidays, so this extra option really helped out.  After Christmas with family, it was time to head off on the adventure!

United 922, Washington, Dulles to London, Heathrow
Boeing 767-300, Registration N646UA, Manufactured 1992
Depart 9:46 Arrive 22:00
Seat: 6H

Honestly, not a whole lot to say about this flight. It was quite uneventful, and after the drama the year before on the same date (22 hr delay after boarding, etc) we were just glad it was uneventful. The food was pretty standard: full hot breakfast shortly after departure, and full hot dinner shortly before arrival. All in all an uneventful flight, and after several dozen trips between IAD an LHR the past few years that’s how I like them. Landed on-time around 10pm, and we were home in the flat around midnight and off for a short night’s slept before grabbing some coffee and catching the DLR/tube back to Heathrow.

United 935, London, Heathrow to Brussels, Belgium
Boeing 777-200, Registration N784UA, Manufactured 1997
Depart 13:20 Arrive 15:35
Seat: 2J

When we got to the gate for the flight, it was clear there were maybe 50-60 people on the entire 777. I’d heard rumors of rampant op-ups on this flight, but didn’t want to get our hopes up. Then, one of the agents I knew from many previous trips came over, started chatting us up, and came back with two new boarding passes…1J and 2J….yes, it’s only an hour tops to Brussels, but the op-up is certainly appreciated. That said, we weren’t the only ones. I think business was booked to 1 or 2 people, and ended up with 10-15 people in it. I suspect all elite Milage Plus members were upgraded one class.

We did our best on the short flight to do serious damage to the champagne stocks (and I do believe we managed an entire bottle) before landing in Brussels on-time and ready for a short bit of exploring before catching our 20:55 flight to Ljubljana. With 5 full hours in Brussels I knew we had time to train into the city, walk around and grab a short dinner, before heading back to the airport for the flight to Slovenia.

Walked around the city a bit, and soon, as the sun was setting, it was time to head back to the train to the airport.

Got to the airport, quick check-in, and we were in the lounge well in advance of our Adria flight. I still think the lounges in Brussels are majorly sub-par, but you can’t really complain too much – they’re comfortable enough with internet (albeit very very slow) and no shows, but it beats the alternative!

…oh and being Belgium, it wouldn’t be a pre-flight lounge snack without a tasty beer. Soon, it was time to board, and off to another new country: Slovenia!

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!