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KURDISTAN, taxis, osama bin laden and cultural centres
Right, this here is a quick helping hand to anyone who wishes to visit kurdistan...an of course anyone who is interested.
India, Sam, Tamsin, Everitte, Emlyn and I decided to spend our holiday travelling instead of doing the essay we were supposed to write. I do not regret this decision. We travelled on the cheap, comfortable overnight train from Damascus to Qamishle for a measly 510 SYP which got us in at about 8.30am, having left at 6.15pm the night before. we had the pleasure of meeting Halim, our friend who works in the cantine at damascus university there, as he was visiting family for the holiday. We dined at an interesting little place called the Miami restaurant which served plentiful food to slake our hunger, as, being fools, we had not taken any on the train...as a bonus we were then given tasty little shots of what I think was alcohol. It tasted like boiled sweets and were perhaps a little too luminous in colour for comfort, but still we shot them back and headed to the border.
Qamishle border is no more than about 5 minutes out of town, so don't let those taxi drivers rip you off now. The border itself proved a little lengthy, mainly I think because it turned out that India and I should have extended our Syrian visas, as we had outstayed them by three days. I cannot believe already a month had passed since we had last done it, but time flies and all that. After we argued, only slightly mendaciously that it had been the Eid and so we couldn't have extended them, they let us through to the Turkish side. Exciting stuff. Sam and i, loaded with instruments were asked to play, but we were slightly worried about time, as we had spent longer here than intended and had been told that the iraqi border closed quite early.
A rather bizarre set of incidents led us to a ticket booth to obtain our Turkish 15euro visas. The man looked completely confused at our appearance and our visa requests. Another man nearby, sensing our bewilderment gestured to the man in the booth and said, "don't ask him, he is no relation to anything" and pointed us to the other side of the fence. We went round and looked into the window on the other side of aforementioned booth, only to find the same man who had been thrown initially at our appearance. He took one look at us, took our passports and gave us our visas. I did a double take, but yes indeed, twas the same chap. Evidently he could only use one side of his mind at a time...
Once through into Turkey we were helped by a perfectly pleasant chap to find a taxi from Nusaybar (the border town we had just crossed into from Qamishle) to the Iraqi border. We were told there were also buses to another town whence we could then get a taxi and save expense, but we decided it was't worth it. So it was that 6 or us squeezed into a taxi with all our bags and travelle across a tiny bt of Turkey (about 3hours) for 140 dollars. Twas steep, but there really isn't a vast amount of choice. We paid in dollars which no one seemed to mind, which saved on exchanging money at borders which is always costly. Plus we had a rather jovial driver who got us tea as he asked his friend to help him with the paperwork that was required to take us across the border in Iraq to near Zakko. He also enjoyed, at every checkpoint, opening the door of the taxi boot, much to the amusement of the other taxi drivers to reveal your truly sitting cross legged in the back leaning against the rest of the luggage, and exclaim, "Look! Osama Bin Laden!"
We crossed just as the light was beginning to fade into Iraq. All we were told was not to go to Mosul or Kirkuk which was fine seeing as we had been planning to give those a wide berth anyway. Alas, once in Iraq we had to be left to the mercies of the rather mercenary taxi drivers who refused to let us squash in one taxi and charged us $50 in total to take us to Dohuk. Alas, in those situations there really is very little choice, and this taxi mafia would come back to haunt us several times.
The only information we had on Dohuk was about 3 sentences from a very old lonely planet that harked back to the time just after the invasion when there was no chance of getting even vaguely close to iraq and the name of a hotel some friends of ours had stayed at which they had said was all right. so it was we ended up at the hotel parleman, run by an Egyptian who is in Kurdistan "for business" whatever that may be. He gave us three rooms at a reasonable rate - about $10 each for the first night - though we thought that it was pretty expensive. As it turned out later, nothing is that cheap in Kurdistan, and for what we were getting it wasn't bad at all. Once settled in, we asked for a cheap place to eat, whereupon he pointed us across the road to a likely looking joint. There we went.
Now, here is a little hint: should you want to eat well in Kurdistan, well, don't go. And ALWAYS bargain with the intial price. For example, in this place, before we'd even had a chance to change our minds and run for the hills, they started to bring out various dishes of not very appetising looking food. When we asked the price he quoted something ridiculous which, upon looking at our expressions, he instantly halved. Eventually, taking a little more off the price again and with plates coming thick and fast (menus are noon existant) we settled down to our meal which seemed to consist of roast chicken, rice, and any derivative by-products that could be created from animal carcass. The best was a bright green gel like substance that resembled toothpaste, but apparently tasted like vimto. I did not have the courage to sample it, though India took an unusual liking to it. Mind you, colour doesn't really matter when you are eating in a black out, as we were for the last part of our meal.
Having returned from our meal sort of happy, we tackled the issue of what exactly we should do in an oil boom town in northern iraq for evening entertainment. Alcohol was jokingly mentioned, but we thought it would not be appropriate to ask about this straight out. So, we asked our hotel owner whether there was anything cultural to do in Dohuk of an eve. He saw straight through us and said, "so you want alcohol do you?" He gave us directions and off we popped into the chilly night. Eventually we stumbled upon a street of alchohol shops, only after passing (and I do not jest) Dohuk Cultural Centre.
That night we drank BJ whisky out of plastic bottles cut in half and talked of such delights as polygamy before turning in for the night. Perhaps we should visit the real cultural centre tomorrow, whatever it may be...
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