louiseinlimbo

My group tour ended in Basra, down in the south of Iraq and tantalisingly close to Kuwait, another country I hadn't yet been to.  So I decided that instead of flying out from Basra, I would cross the desert into Kuwait, spend just three days there (enough time to see the place as well as to make use of a decent internet connection and relax a little).  A friend was doing the tour with me, and we went together to Kuwait, taking a taxi to the border, the public bus between different border posts, and then another taxi to our hotel in Kuwait City. As I was becoming used to in this part of the world, we were separated at the Kuwait entry point with women sent to a separate room.  There a lady took our passports to fill in her register.  She clearly neither spoke nor read English, and when she summoned me for the return of my passport I could see that she had painstakingly copied out BRITISH CITIZEN, from the third line of my passport, as my name in her register!! From th...

Iraq wasn't only about religion (and Hussein), of course.  It's also well-known as the 'Cradle of Civilisation', with amazing sites such as the above partially restored Ziggurat (temple) of Ur, built in the early Bronze age (in the 21st century BC) and crumbled to ruins by the 6th century BC. Some places, such as Babylon which dates from the third century BC, did not need quite so much restoration as some of the old walls were still in place - including their incredible decorations such as this relief of the mythical mushkhushshu, of which there were many. I'm quoting the age of these buildings as information for those reading this, but should perhaps admit that to me they are just 'old', and whilst I like old buildings in a general way, older doesn't necessarily mean better or more impressive. What was surprising was the quantity of pieces of ceramics on the ground - mostly broken pieces of pot, but also quite a number of the ceramic 'plugs' tha...

I'm not a religious person, but still find it interesting to hear about others' beliefs, and enjoy visiting their cathedrals/mosques/temples/shrines and witnessing their ceremonies.  I particularly like Shia mosques, which are incredibly ornate and beautiful.  & the southern part of Iraq is full of Shia mosques and shrines (like the above mosque of Imam Ali in Najaf) so I was in my element visiting the region on a guided tour last month. But it wasn't just that the buildings were beautiful.  These were the most important buildings in the world for Shia Muslims - the mosques and shrines comemorating Imam Ali (Mohammed's cousin and son-in-law, whom the Shia believed should be the one to succeed him as leader of the faith - who eventually became the fourth caliph but was then assassinated) and Hussein (Ali's son, killed and decapitated).  To my surprise, we foreigners were allowed into these buildings (provided we were properly covered) - not just into the courtyar...

Still feeling the costs of trying to squeeze in too much travel in a short time, as I finally get some free time to log in here ... aware that I've been to Kurdistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Ethiopia and Somaliland since I last posted.  More importantly, going straight from one trip to another does not allow that downtime to reflect on and process the trip you've completed nor to plan properly for the trip that's about to start.  I don't travel simply to observe, but also to learn, meaning that a trip to an interesting part of the world is enhanced by reading about its history/politics/culture/whatever else it is that makes it an interesting destination.  Which I didn't have time to do for any of the above... I knew that Kurdistan covers parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, and that the Kurds suffered under Saddam Hussein, but little else.  I didn't know that as well as Muslims, it also hosts a population of Yazidis. Researching it now on Wikipedia, I see that Yazidism ...