Iraqi Kurdistan continued

Tuesday 28th September

A guy working in the hotel reception, who lived in Wolverhampton for 5 years, got us into a taxi to the garage. There, we were joined by two married sisters and off we went to Koya on our way to Sulaymaniyah (Slemani). One reason to go via Koya, is so that the driver doesn't go via dangerous Kirkuk. Anyway, we easily caught another shared taxi in Koya, with a local guy who spoke near perfect English with a BBC newsbroadcaster accent. Has a good chat with him about politics, religion and not touching a girl until you are married; he is engaged. He was good company and when we got to Slemani garage he told the next taxi where to take us. We ended up in a different hotel from planned but its nice and has a proper loo, as opposed to squat loos we have had for the last week.

Went for a walk, and quickly got picked up by a local guy who now lives in Darlington. He took us for a tasty burger, tea at his best friend's tea stall and for a game of pool. At the back of the pool hall were big framed posters of scantily-clad western women, taken straight from FHM and Loaded. An eye-opener. Anyway, i went in-off on the black and lost. Bu he had played dirty and called himself Ronnie O'Sullivan, so i wasn't bitter. At all.


Andrew and I walked to the Slemani museum where they had lots of old pottery and artifacts from as far back as 15000BC. Just a quick look around. Then we went to Amna Suraka (Red Security). This is a complex where Saddam's regime imprisoned and tortured Kurds in the late 80's and early 90's until 1991 when the Kurdish Peshmerga attacked and freed the inmates, in a gun battle; you can still see the bullet marks in the walls, and there are tanks in the yard. We went into one building, and along the dark corridor, know as the Hall of Mirrors, there are 182,000 shards of mirrored glass on the wall, one for every each of Chemical Ali's victims. And it was quite spooky walking in the dark with the occasional flicker of light from the mirrors, it was difficult to see uphead.

There was a film crew in the complex and one of the guys showed us the prison and torture rooms. They had a few dummies to show how the inmates were treated and it wasnt very pleasant. And he showed us some enlarged photos of child victims of Chemical Ali.

We went and sat in the park for a while then came back into town and wandered around the streets and the bazaar. There were loads of people in the early evening, buying groceries and eating kebabs and sitting talking to friends. We had kebab for dinner, the kebabs are better here, mince meat and thinner bread.

Wednesday 29th September

A bit of a sleep in, then taxi to garage, then to Koya. At Koya shared taxi with two Iranian guys. Guy next to me talking Farsi  (Iranian) even though we didnt understand each other. We got stopped again today at an army checkpoint. They looked at our passports and did a cursory check of our bags. No worries. Local taxi back into Erbil (Hawler). Cool to be back somewhere familiar after so many new places every day. Another kebab for lunch and around the bazaar. Bought some super-super glue and fixed up my beloved sandals. Watched Starsky and Hutch in our room then out to Ainkawa in a taxi for pizza; anything but kebab, which is the only food you can get in the city centre.

Kawon, the English-speaking guy in the hotel, has organised a day out for us tomorrow.


Thursday 30th September

So Andrew and I left in the organised taxi at 8am, destination being Haji Omaran along the Hamilton Road as far as the Iranian border, a 7 hour round-trip with great scenery and waterfalls along the way, very highly rated by the LP. On the edge of town We passed the lovely Jalil Khayat Mosque, which is like the Blue Mosque in Istanbul.

There were quite a few army checkpoints but they checked our passports and waved us through. We stopped a few times to look at Ali Gali Beg canyon below, it got better as went. But when we were about 50kms from Haji Omaran, the army checkpoint stopped us and made us get out of the taxi. They were really friendly and polite but said that we could not go any further, 'its dangerous for you'. They also asked us a few times if we were journalists. And also, the Americans who were hiking and ended up in prison in Iran recently had started out from just south of here. The guy kept looking into our eyes and checking to see if we kept eye-contact, to see if we were being honest. Anyway, he gave me a friendly slap on the arm and said 'sorry', and we turned around. Pretty disappointed since we have missed out on a special place i think. We came back to Bekhal Waterfall where we climbed up the steps alongside the water, with loads of other people. Chat with locals about football and England.

Moved on to Gali Ali Beg waterfall which is Iraq's most famous waterfall, very popular with tourists and featured on the 5000 dinar banknote. In the natural pool under the waterfall, people were going round in full size dinghies. Slightly bizarre, but they were having fun. We came back through a small few towns and stopped for over-priced Kebab. So we were quite disappointed that we didn't make it to the end of the Hamilton Road, it would have been the icing on the cake for our Kurdistan trip. Oh well.