by Paul Archer
Over the next few days we slogged back through Turkey driving solidly for two days on smooth highways, climbing ever higher into rolling mountain valleys that seemed to be populated only by herds of cows and sheep. The signs pointed to new unusual names that were beyond our lazy pronunciation skills; Erzurum quickly became, 'Er-zoo-thingy', far-off Doğubayazıt, on the border with Iran, became, 'Doggy-biscuit', and Noyemberyan became classic nineties power ballad, 'November Rain'. Eventually we started to see occasional signs for 'Irak'.
'Um, what's that ticking sound?' Paul suddenly said, quickly killing the conversation about the current state of Iraq.
'What ticking sound?'
'That ticking sound. The engine feels weird… oh shit!'
One look at the engine temperature said it all. The needle was beyond the red indictor, indicating clearly, 'You're screwed.'
Our feet had just about defrosted from the previous chilly evening's camping by the time we struck the small rolling hills. Having spent the night shivering with cold, the engine overheating was not at the forefront of Paul's mind.
Up came the bonnet and steam hissed everywhere – the classic breakdown.
The radiator had blown.
After some bodge repairs, we limped onwards, passing countless checkpoints and vast fortified barracks manned by teenage conscripts cutting their military teeth against the Kurdish rebels. They seemed undertrained, uninspired and very bored, and we had our first experience of feeling vulnerable in checkpoint queues.
We spent the night at a border town called Cizre, apparently built at the foot of the mountain where Noah's Ark came to rest. Although we stayed in a very shoddy resthouse, it turned out that three single rooms were about the same price as a shared room, meaning, tents forgotten, we each spent a blissful night alone for the first time since we left the girls in Bodrum.
CHAPTER 18
TURN RIGHT TO CERTAIN DEATH
The road was smooth, virtually empty and hot.
Johnny Cash sang out from the iPod and as the taxi drove towards the Iraqi border, it felt like the air got hotter with every mile and the land became more spartan and desert-like.
Eventually we saw the border in the distance. Like all crossings, it was marked out by queues of lorries looking to trade their wares across the country line. Capitalism in its purest form, there was everything from ice cream to motor oil, ketchup to cheap Chinese-made bathroom fittings – all evidence that people's desires for plastic toothbrush-holders-cum-mirrors often seem to supersede their interests in current affairs or the war that was raging in the southern part of the country.
Mr Cash was musing over the hot beverage and smoking choices of wealthy rail passengers as we passed through the Turkish side of the border, pausing to arrange vehicle paperwork with the typically Turkish border guard in his booth. He went through the taxi's various documents with a practised eye and I gazed at his cigarette as it slowly burnt down to the MARLBORO letters by the base, causing the scorched paint where he placed it on the windowsill to bubble and steam slightly. Leaving the cigarette burning, the border guard left his booth and headed towards the car, his ample midriff spilling out of his knock-off 'Tid Baker, London' T-shirt. Expecting a full car search, I watched his grave face suddenly break into a huge, sporadically toothed grin, and he asked me to take his picture with the car.
'What model? Mercedes?'
'No, LTI, it's a London taxi.'
'Ahh yes, Mercedes…'
'Um…'
'How old? Fifty years?'
'Twenty.'
'Oh, it looks older,' he said, looking mildly disappointed, and as he waved us through, it dawned on me that Leigh, Johno and I would have been barely out of nappies by the time Hannah rolled off the production line.
The area of northern Iraq is part of Kurdistan, populated by the Kurds who were continuously oppressed by Saddam Hussein until a no-fly zone was established there in the 1990s. Since the fall of Saddam, Iraqi Kurdistan has become a semi-autonomous region of Iraq and the Kurds are free for the first time in decades. It's now considerably safer for travel than the rest of the country, and is one of the very few places where George Bush Senior and Junior are both hailed as heroes.
On entering the customs office of Iraq, we were welcomed immediately by Kurdish hospitality. A cup of sweet tea was thrust into my hands and I was sat down on a comfortable leather sofa in a fresh, air-conditioned room. A man with a Wolverhampton accent introduced himself; he lived in Britain but had come to Kurdistan for his mother's funeral the following day. I made the right sounds, as one does in these situations, but I was cut short by his immediate invitation to come to his for lunch and to stay in his family home. This would have been a kind offer at any time, but being on the eve of his mum's funeral made it especially generous. It seems that nothing can suppress the famous Kurdish hospitality. I had to decline – joining a family of mourners had the potential for a few awkward moments – and besides, we had to get to the capital.
The next stage was to import the car into Iraq, a process that involved eight different windows, with eight different officials, armed with eight different red pens, date stamps and carbon paper – now a far more daunting sight than any soldier clutching a Kalashnikov.
But, Kurdish hospitality was again to prevail. Within seconds a short man with beady eyes and a calculating face had grabbed my arm and marched me to a window, announcing in perfect English that I would not be able to cope without his help. He whisked me through the procedure at each window and told me that if we had any problems at all, day or night, to call him. As he noted down a couple of numbers for me, he mentioned that his cousin also happened to run the Iraq–Iran border post. Checking the numbers thrice and waving him goodbye, I decided that he was a very useful person to know when moving forward into a country still ravaged by war. I also couldn't help but think how I had never seen a British businessman stopping in Heathrow to ensure a Kurdish family didn't have any problems with immigration.
Throughout the region shopkeepers often refused to allow us to pay for goods and people constantly offered us food and drink. One of the best Kurdish sayings we heard was 'A Kurd's stomach is never full'.
We headed down towards the regional capital – written as Erbil, Arbil, Urbil, Hawler, Hawla, or their equivalent Arabic, depending on which road sign you looked at – where we planned to spend a few days looking around and repairing the patched-up radiator.
We had been told that there was a certain turn-off on the highway with poor signposting where the secondary road split off towards the relatively safe Erbil while the main road continued on towards the extremely dangerous city of Mosul, the location of regular suicide bombings and extreme violence. With the help of the satnav and a quick look at Google Maps, it looked like it would be clear where we should and shouldn't drive. Unfortunately, Leigh looked up from his book at exactly the wrong moment, just as we passed a sign pointing the way to Mosul.
'Johno, stop, we can't go to Mosul, remember.'
'We're not, the road splits in a few miles and goes right to Mosul, left to Erbil.'
'Stop now! We can't go to Mosul!'
'Dude, I've been following the satnav the whole way, we're not going to end up in Mosul…' I promised, but his insistence overruled my internal GPS and we stopped to check with a passing truck driver.
'Erbil?' I ventured, pointing alternately in each direction.
He looked blank.
'Arbil?' asked Paul.
Nothing.
'Irbil?' tried Leigh.
'Ah! Orbil!' he erupted. 'Yes, yes, Orbil.' He gestured along the way we had been going.
'No Mosul?' we asked.
'Orbil,' he motioned forward and left; 'Mosul,' he gestured forward and right. 'You, no Mosul,' he said deadly seriously, pointing at us then drawing his finger over his throat.
When we came to the fabled junction we looked to the right and in the distance saw the largest military checkpoint yet. I doubted they'd let us pass even if
we wanted to, but it was a stark reminder of the unrest that is still rife in the country and we were glad to be turning left down the road to Erbil.
Erbil's landmark is a citadel that sits on a hill in the centre of the capital and is considered the longest continuously inhabited urban dwelling on earth. Until fairly recently a large number of poor families lived in the citadel – almost as historical squatters – but the government decided that they were damaging the ancient buildings. They forcibly relocated all but one family, so they could keep the continual-habitation record going. The city sprawls in orderly ring roads out from the centre; the oldest in the middle and the new dwellings hugging the outskirts.
We were to collect our Iranian visas from their consulate in the city, our invitations having supposedly been sent there from Iran. So, duly, on the day after we arrived, we traipsed on foot for an hour in the midday heat trying to find the embassy, eventually discovering it down a neat residential street, only to be told they had no record of our invitation. Phone calls were made and we were told to return the next day. This happened for four days straight, which meant we spent what we had left of each day either sleeping off the midday heat or exploring the endless bazaar in the town.
Iraq is known as the cradle of civilisation, which makes watching the world go by an enthralling pastime. I would saunter through the tight, twisting streets, stopping to sit with the local old folk and sip from small glasses of black tea, served with a dessert-spoonful of sugar.
The bazaar was hectic; the initial impression was one of utter chaos. However, order begins to become apparent as you spend more time there. Each area sells roughly the same thing. Babies' cribs are piled high for three storefronts, blending easily into the copper-piping stalls, which merge smoothly with bedding shops, before sacks of fragrant spices identify the spicemonger. Kebabs, fruit, honey, cheese, fake iPods and lingerie. If you know what you're looking for, then there will be a cluster of shops selling it. You just need to know where they are and that's no easy task in the alleys around Erbil bazaar.
Suddenly a sweat-drenched Leigh burst through the door into our blissfully cool hotel room.
'Did you not hear me outside?!' he panted, 'I thought I was being kidnapped!'
Leigh had been slaving away trying to fix Hannah's various ailments in the midday heat when a white van screeched to a halt alongside the taxi and three men grabbed him and started to bundle him into the back. Leigh fought back and started to shout, but was soon stopped as all three men burst into laughter and the owner of our hotel hopped out of the driving seat with a mischievous grin on his face in what was probably the most ill-themed practical joke this side of Baghdad.
Our new joker-friends gave us directions to the Auto Bazaar – a collection of mud buildings where any and every type of auto activity was being carried out. The place was a sprawl of garages with wrecked cars on top of each and oil-covered mechanics hammering, welding and fixing things.
A mechanical clatter and the smell of exhaust fumes permeated everything and the young boys rushed around ferrying cups of tea half-full with sugar to fortify the men hard at work.
As with the general bazaar, there were clusters of specialists for all types of parts, ranging from fan belts to exhausts and eventually we found the radiator section.
Leigh quickly negotiated a price and our piping-hot leaky radiator was immediately unscrewed and pulled out by the asbestos hands of a hardened mechanic. He held up the ailing radiator in one hand as the last of the dirty cooling water drained out and squinted at it, before grabbing another from a large pile and expertly braising on all the correct fittings by eye.
Half an hour later Hannah had a freshly working radiator, and the next day we were eventually granted our Iranian visas. It was time to move on.
CHAPTER 19
GUERRILLA CAMPING
After being granted our visas we had spent an entire day in the British Embassy, which was based in one of the only sparkling, glass five-star hotels that occasionally popped up out of the sand on the outskirts of Erbil. We had thoroughly made the most of the buffet, Wi-fi and bathrooms. Unfortunately only embassy staff were allowed to stay overnight so we set off into the dusk to find a place to stay. Before long yet another car problem left us limping along in dire need of a proper mechanic. We decided that all we could do was find somewhere to camp in the Iraqi countryside and fix it the next day.
It was nearly 1 a.m. when we found somewhere that would have to do – a large stretch of wasteland, away from the main road and covered in spiky thorn bushes.
We pulled the tents down from the roof, found some bushfree patches and were about to settle down when an old man on an underpowered motorbike rode up out of the dark.
After a short conversation he got on his phone, started saying something about, 'Inglisey' and then motioned for us to follow him.
The day had already brought us the news that we might need extra permits as well as our Iranian visas to get across the border.
'You really think three young British men in a London black cab will be able enter Iran from Iraq without special permission?' the embassy official had asked us, with a condescending look that implied we had said we were going to do a naked-unicycle marathon through North Korea.
So after leaving the embassy earlier in the day, unsure whether we'd be able to leave the country the next day, we weren't in the most buoyant of moods. Then when Hannah broke down and a random man on a motorbike told us to follow him into the dark we all thought, 'Why not, how can our day get much worse?'
The motorcyclist led us out of the wasteland and up a dirt track into the lights of a village. As we approached a slight hill he raced off around the corner and when we caught up we saw that he had met up with another guy.
As we edged closer we realised he had an AK-47.
He motioned for one of us to get out.
'Shotgun not me!' Leigh and I both shouted. Perhaps a poor choice of words, but Paul cursed himself for losing and opened his door. He walked down the track with our potential captors, constantly looking over his shoulder at Leigh and I trundling along a safe distance behind.
And by safe I mean completely unsafe and well within the range of an AK.
We followed them into a courtyard where a humongous man who looked suspiciously like Jeremy Clarkson, but with a shock of white hair, was flanked by another rifle-wielding stranger. After a short conversation the three men beckoned for us to follow them down another dusty trail and Paul set off, as Leigh and I nervously made jokes about him being the sacrificial team member from the dubious safety of Hannah.
They took us to what appeared to be a deserted community centre and ushered us inside. We held our breaths as they showed us around, not sure whether to expect a torture room or prison cell, and eventually we were shown into one room full of beds. They quickly said their goodbyes and then we were left alone, seemingly having been given a free place to stay.
'I don't care if they do kidnap us,' shouted Leigh, 'this room has air-conditioning!'
We passed through the Iraqi border exit procedures with no problem; they had even given us tea to sip as they stamped our passports. That side of the border was never going to be the problem though; getting into Iran was and now we were approaching the Iranian border guards with nervous apprehension.
As Paul and I slowly exited the car on arrival, they fixed us with a solemn glare. Then Leigh shouldered open the stiff passenger door with all his might and in the process smacked the corner right into my head.
'OOOWW! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!' I shouted with anger as I jumped back clutching my scalp.
The guards looked at us then at each other before bursting out laughing. Our slapstick routine might have just saved the day.
Thankfully, the Iranian guards were very friendly and efficient, even giving us helpful advice on nice places to visit in the country. And then, just like that, everything was done and we were driving down the mountain road towards the city of Piranshahr, and our 30th country
.
CHAPTER 20
SPECIAL BREW IN A DRY STATE
'I dunno mate, they all just look like squiggles to me.'
We were well and truly stumped. The Iranian border town was completely nondescript except for one aspect: neon. There were neon signs everywhere.
Growing up in the UK we had all come to subconsciously associate neon Arabic or Persian lettering with fast-food joints, but here it seemed that just about every establishment used neon signage, from shoe shops to lawyers to hairdressers. Everywhere apart from hotels.