Kurdistan: Day 17, Dohuk to Silopi

My final day in Iraq and my final day in Kurdistan, at least on this trip. I'm leaving behind Dohuk which is a nice city, with a few nice modern residential areas and new parks. Unfortunately Dohuk says goodbye in a funny way - with lots of rain. At a fork in the road, take the road to the right. The trucks go left. Both roads go to Zahok, and the border.

As I enter Zahok, the views are fantastic. Quite a bizarre feeling looking at the flat plain surrounded by green mountains, linking Iraq, Turkey and Syria! Again, very nice to whiz by hundreds of cars and trucks waiting on the border as I take the express lane out of Iraq. Before I leave though, I get my first delicious Turkish meal which is more in tune with my tastes.

The border guards in Iraq and Turkey are curious and friendly, and the Turkish customs don't spend more than 7 seconds questioning me on my luggage. What I assumed was the Turkish passport control turns out to be a toll gate, and my invitation inside is just for some free coffee and a friendly chat. I even had a chance to collect the tolls from the truck drivers! It was nice to see a gorgeous Turkish woman working in passport control, with no headscarf!

Some of the kids just outside Turkish passport control weren't particularly friendly, trying to pull me off my bike when I wouldn't give them money! Another boy a few km's down the road attempted to throw a rock. Was this still Kurdistan? It was like another world in terms of friendliness.

Later that day, it was nice to meet a friendly Iraqi Kurd refugee in Silopi who had me over for dinner. A final gesture of hospitality from the middle east before I took my bus for Istanbul, and Europe, the next day. Another world altogether.

Kurdistan: Day 16, Dohuk

A lazy day in Dohuk reading a captivating book on middle eastern history by Robert Fisk. Highly recommended!

Kurdistan: Day 15, Akre to Dohuk

The rolling green hills have opened up to a flat plain and some very nice tailwind. However, it's definitely been one of my most uncomfortable days in terms of the standard of driving. I wish I had a mirror today on these narrow roads.

Rather interesting to come within 30km of Mosul, one of the most dangerous cities in the world, especially after hearing about multiple bombings there that day. No matter, it doesn't seem like much trouble from Arab Iraq will be getting through the multiple checkpoints into Kurdish Iraq.

Halfway through the day, the road splits. One for Dohuk, and the other is a more direct road to Zahok which the trucks all use, and is flatter. Take the road for Dohuk, no matter what. It's much wider, much safer, a much better surface, much more scenic, and a little more difficult over the hills.

It was nice to meet some travellers at the hotel that night, a couple of German guys who had come specifically to Iraq and were trekking around a little bit. They shared very funny story that night of a bus ride that took them out of the massive US army Kurdistan checkpoint and a little too close for comfort to the disputed city of Kirkuk. It seems that neither Kurdish soldiers nor American soldiers will prevent you from entering Arab Iraq, even accidentally!

Kurdistan: Day 14, Akre

"Back in 1991, during the Kurdish revolution, over 100 helicopters from Israel came and took away about 2000 Jews from this town." Nawzar continued. "Some of the Jews thought they were being taken to Europe, and some of them weren't happy when they found themselves in Israel." It was quite an amazing story. As the story goes, back in 1975 Nawzar's parents had fled to Iran after his father had participated in a failed Kurdish uprising the year before. The Kurds continued to be persecuted, and contributed to Arab Iraq's defeat in the late 80's in a long war against Iran. Following the US attack on Arab Iraq in 1991, the Peshmerga (Kurdish militia) were successful against Saddam Hussein, and commanded control of northern Iraq. Kurds I've spoken to insist that this liberation was enacted out by the Kurds in 1991 and not by the Americans in 2003! This area forms only a small part of Kurdistan, which was carved up after World War 1, and was divided over Turkey (20 million Kurds), Iran (10 million, Iraq (5 million) and Syria (3 million). Now Iraqi Kurdistan is the first and currently only Kurdish region to be autonomous and largely independent.

So why isn't Iraqi Kurdistan its own country, since the Arabs in southern Iraq are now disunited? One Kurd I spoke to put this down to oil, Kurdistan's key to post-war recovery. Without cooperating with the Arabs in southern Iraq and staying in federation with Iraq, oil-rich Kurdistan may have no other access to the sea to export the oil. Especially when its neighbours Syria, Iran and Turkey are trying to prevent their own portions of Kurdistan breaking away. Helping Iraqi Kurdistan export its oil may come back to haunt these three countries, especially if Iraqi Kurdistan aids separatist movements like the PKK in Turkey...

Nevertheless, even though a violent history exists between Arabs and Kurds, there were plenty of Arab tourists from Baghdad at Sipa waterfall in Akre. Re-educating the Arabs on attitudes towards Kurds? The disputed city of Kirkuk remains a hot spot for violence between Kurds and Arabs, along with Mosul.

War veterans in Kurdistan, like Nawzar's father, are now treated as national heroes and now receive benefits from the Kurdish government, such as housing and education.

A hilltop view over Akre showed that a massive re-vegetation project had been underway for more than five years. The aim was 2000 trees every year. Most of the surrounding hills were now covered by very young trees. On another hill stood a castle, only 70 years old, which had housed Saddam's army in Akre, apparently so feared by the Kurds that they were afraid to look at the castle for fear of being taken away by night. The castle now houses the poor, and I must have spotted a hundred satellite dishes when I visited! There are plans to tear down the castle, replacing it with the new government headquarters. New government buildings are dotted all over the city, Some of them being architecturally very impressive.

Kurdistan: Day 13, Khalifan to Akre, 75km

Relaxing is hardly the word I would use to describe today's ride. Rather tiring it was, with the constant ups and downs.

Not tiring enough that I couldn't defend myself against a mad donkey though. A year ago, the cartoon picture of a donkey was my logo for my 'mad ass' trip around the world, and today he wanted his revenge. But after a pathetic attempt to charge me, followed by a short standoff, I had the feeling he was a chicken. The sound of the taser probably had something to do with it. I charged him in return, and he bolted off with a fart or two. The dip-shit-of-an-ass made a couple of lacklustre counter charges. The goats thought he was a bit silly too.

After checking the news on my phone, I tried to call my dad on Skype. It didn't quite work too well, and he misinterpreted all the sound of the cars and wind in the background as guns shooting, rockets firing, and grenades exploding. If I had made the call from Europe it might have been a different matter altogether. Iraq does conjure up some scary images for Westerners. No matter, the issue was soon resolved. I then checked my email and discovered I would be meeting my Norwegian friend in Istanbul in a few days, completely unexpectedly. All this while riding my bike though the mountains of Iraq, listening to Metallica, and tracking my position, speed and altitude via my phone's GPS. Ahhhh, the joys of technology! The only thing left, will be for video calls via Skype, so my friends and family can watch where I'm riding while talking to me, anywhere in the world, even Tibet!

As I neared Akre, I encountered a few dangerous drivers intent on driving past as close as possible on an empty road. However, this was nothing compared to the soldier I encountered at the checkpoint 5km before Akre. While all other soldiers had been friendly and polite, this one decided he was going to be a prick. He started with an absurdly stringent physical pat down, then requested to check all my luggage. When he began to act aggressively, pulling things of out my bags himself and dumping them on the road, I snapped at him and he quickly backed off. He subsequently heard a few creative English expressions for the next 10 minutes. After searching all my bags, except one that he missed (the one with all the bombs en route to Al Qaeda), he finally returned my passport and pissed off. The wanker also missed my taser.

I spent the evening with Nawzar, who was also an English teacher at the school in Soran. After another delicious meal prepared by his sister, I had another peaceful and relaxing night.

Kurdistan: Day 12, Soran to Khalifan, 15km

Another visit to the university, but this time to teach! I was taking the second year students for 2 hours, all 40 of them. These students had a reasonably good ability in English conversation, but like many Kurdish English speakers the pronunciation of most vowels were rather different to a native English speaker. By the end of the class they were producing some rather different vowels which they found rather amusing. For me, it's encouraged me to consider teaching English at some point in the next few years, and contacting a school directly seems to be feasible proposition. For this school, gaining access to a native speaker has been difficult, and English language agencies perhaps haven't established themselves here to the same extent as I have seen in China (even with comparable salaries). I'm sure the situation will be the same in many other developing countries.


I made a few other visits to classes, including some silent visits, and noticed a more committed, interested, and active class than I've seen in other Western classrooms. The teachers taught in an interactive, participatory manner and no students seemed to have dozed off like I had in the past in my classes.

I rode my bike that afternoon in the mud and rain through the 'Grand Canyon' of the Middle East, to the village of Khalifan. The ride was spectacular, as was my bicycle's new paint job. I stayed the night with Karmand, the head of the English department. I was told not to worry about my bike since almost everyone in the village was his cousin! After a delicious meal, we joked about the news on BBC about Gordon Brown and his 'bigot' mistake.  The evening was peaceful and relaxing, much needed as I near the end of my journey.

Kurdistan: Day 11, Soran

A visit to the university in Soran was rather interesting. I was introduced to a few English classes, and participated in some question-and-answer sessions. By far the most popular question was "What do you think of Kurdistan/Kurdish people?". There were questions on my journey and on Western culture, particularly about women in Western society. I got the impression that many of boys (who formed a majority in the class) thought it was absurd that many women work, and that many men share the household chores. "So who takes care of the children?" one asked. By this point, Iran definitely seemed more Westernised than Kurdistan.