Iraq

We were all very brave men when we were telling everyone that we were going to Iraq but as we came closer and closer to the border a little bit of worry/panic started to set into us all. Nervous laughs and jokes was the order of the day. Seje was the worst by far and to be fair he had good reason being an American and standing out of a crowd like he did didnt help the situation. I have to admit I was worried he might attract some unwanted attention to us which could escalate into something more serious. We had a sneak preview of this when we stopped for breakfast in a small town just before the border. We were walking around looking for something to eat and getting the normal stares and laughs from the locals but when I stopped and asked some kids for direction to a restaurant, within minutes we were surrounded by lots of kids and some adults which was fine but then someone in our group shouted to get the hell out of here and I was happy to drive up the road a bit away from the crowd. Nothing bad would have happened, the people were only curious but when we all sat down for breakfast you could tell it had freaked us all out a bit.

We got to the border and it was funny how straight forward it all was, well on the Turkish side at least. We had never intended to drive in Iraq, the plan was to leave the car in a town close to the border and then take a taxi in. I wasn't so happy about how safe the car would be in the town we passed and thought it could be damaged or even worse stolen so decided to try and leave the car in no-mans land between the borders. After talking to some of the people at the border in the little English that they had this didnt seem possible so we had no choice but to cross over ourselves.
The boys got there visa's within and hour but the car was a total other ball game. Nobody spoke English and being Iraq nothing is computerized, everything written by hand and has to be signed off or stamped by what seemed like 20 different people who all had offices in different parts of the complex and decided to take lunch or go for a good old prayer and a cup of tea when I needed them.
I did get kind of lucky dough. I meet an Iraqi guy who lived in Germany and was temporally importing a car like me so I basically followed him around the place.
To import the car the number plates had to be changed, I had to stump up 500 dollars for a security bond and hand over my passport so that I wouldn't leave the country via another route. I then began to have images of being stuck in Iraq with no passport and down 500 dollars.

After 6 hour of fun at the border it was 8 pm and we pulled away in to deep dark Iraq. We had no map, had a general idea where we wanted to go but we didn't think it was a good idea to just drive off into the night by ourselves in case we came some land mines or get shot at by some locals. To think things out a little we stopped at a gas station to get something to eat and to claim the nerves a little as we were all a little edgy at that stage. I knew I would have to drive through the night so I slepted a little in the car and let the boys do what ever. When I woke up the boys still weren't back so I went to look for them. They had had a stroke of luck which always seems to happen when your in the shit while traveling. They got talking to the owner of the gas station who had a friend willing to drive us to our destination through the back roads, which would prevent us from being killed on the first night there (He forgot to mention how bad these back roads were and how fast he would be driving). For 130 dollars we were happy out. The owner of the gas station could only speak Kurdish and Swedish.......(lived there for a few years) and as we had a Norwegian with us (Danish,Norwegian,and Swedish are very close and they all understand each other) we were sorted. While we were waiting for our guide to arrive we were brought in for tea and made feel very welcome. Within the hour our guide Mohammad arrived. He had perfect English and had worked for the US military as a translator during 2003-2006 and only stopped working for them because he was able to get better money working for International companies trying to get a toe into the Iraqi market. For us the most obvious of such companies are the American car giants Chevrolet Chrysler Ford etc. Nearly all the new cars, 4x4s and trucks we seen on the roads are American built and it was unbelievable the amount of trucks we seen loaded up with new cars on route to the different parts of Iraq.
We left the gas station after the customary cup of tea, photos and lots of hand shakes oh and the last minute fish sandwish which was fairly good. It turned out that Mohammad didn't really know the road to Erbil that well but he had a friend that did. I cant remember his name so ill just call him Steve. I tried to explained to Mohammad that his 6 cylinder Chevrolet was a lot faster than our fat Passat and to take it handy on the road.....well he didnt. Driving at 80 -90 mph on back roads in Iraq was an experience especially without any road markings or cats eyes to help see where the edge of the road was, just two read break lights that I had to keep up with.
Along the way we were stopped by several security checkpoints. All went well I think only two of them asked to see our passports, mainly because they were bored sitting in the middle of nowhere all night.
We arrived in Erbil at around 11:30 pm and soon realized that we couldn't get a hotel for the night and that we had to sleep in the car. We arrived in Iraq at the end of the Muslim fasting period of Ramadan, after which you have Eid ul-Fitr.

“The Islamic holiday of Eid ul-Fitr (Arabic: عيد الفطر‎) marks the end of the fasting period of Ramadan and the first day of the following month, after another new moon has been sighted. The Eid falls after 29 or 30 days of fasting, per the lunar sighting. Eid ul-Fitr means the Festival of Breaking the Fast; a special celebration is made. Food is donated to the poor (Zakat al-fitr); everyone puts on their best, usually new, clothes; and communal prayers are held in the early morning, followed by feasting and visiting relatives and friends. The prayer is two Raka'ahs only, and it is optional (mustahabb) prayer as opposed to the compulsory five daily prayers. Muslims are expected to do this as an act of worship, and to thank Allah (God).”

As Kurdistan is one of the safest regions in Iraq, during the 4 day holiday of Eid half of Iraq flocked there. Syria also closed its borders to Iraq that week so we were just shit out of luck with regards accommendation. That night we slepted in the car in a hotel car park which was not very comfortable.
The next day we organized a guide to give us a tour of the city Erbil. It was obviously his first time doing such a tour as his top tourist attractions were the airport which we weren't allowed into( we were so disappointed cause id never see one before)....and the supermarket, it sold food and clothes just like you would expect. There wasn't mush to see and do as you would expect from a city that was almost completely flattened during the early stages of the war, so we were told. But it was cool to have a look around for a few hours. That evening as we had no place to stay in Erbil and we really didn't want to sleep in the car for a second night we moved back up the road towards the Turkish border. Unfortunately there was the same situation of no place to stay in that town as in Erbil. As none of us wanted to sleep in the car again and not to mention how unsafe sleeping out in the open could be there, the decision was made to get back over the Turkish border and in to a nice bed. Our Iraq trip was short but we were all glad we went.