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Iraqi Kurdistan, Vacation Paradise?
26.2.2011
By Jackie Spinner |
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Sure,
it's scenic and relatively safe, but tourist
destinations need public restrooms and ATMs.
February 26, 2011
ERBIL-Hewlêr,
Kurdistan region 'Iraq', — Fifteen minutes
into my interview with the tourism minister for the
Kurdistan region of Iraq, I was ready to ask the big
question.
Journalists know about the big question. In the
parlance of the trade, it's called the bomb,
although I was uncomfortable using the B-word even
in this relatively secure corner of Iraq. Noting how
safe the region is, the New York Times last month
listed Kurdistan as No. 34 on its 41 places to
travel in 2011. It beat out Miami.
A government Web site that markets the region as
"the other Iraq" notes that Kurdistan has few
American soldiers on its soil. This is no war zone,
bub. The Web site also boasts that no foreigners
have been kidnapped here, which would be true if
three American hikers hadn't mistakenly wandered
into Iran in July 2009 and hadn't gotten arrested in
Iraq, according to a recent WikiLeaks report. The
hikers went on trial in Iran on Feb. 5 and pleaded
not guilty to charges of spying and trespassing. (By
the way, I asked an Iraqi friend if he would take me
to the spot where the hikers were arrested. I had
the exact GPS coordinates from the WikiLeaks report.
He flat-out refused. No one just wanders around that
part of Iraq, he said.)
I was leaving Erbil the next morning and driving to
Sulaimaniyah, a two-to-three-hour drive, depending
on whether you go through the mountains or around
the city of Kirkuk. I was traveling with two
Fulbright fellows from Oman who were visiting Iraq
for the first time. One of them was pretty nervous
about the trip around Kirkuk, even though I assured
her that it was safe enough—enough being a great
qualifier for most things in Iraq. Safety wasn't my
main concern. She drinks a lot of water. And a lot
of coffee.
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Sulaimaniyah city, Kurdistan region of Iraq. Photo:-
Jackie Spinner
Erbil city, Kurdistan region of Iraq. Photo:- Jackie
Spinner |
I knew from making the
trip countless times before that there's no public
rest stop along the way, and that's what I wanted to
ask Tourism Minister Samir Abdulla Mustafa about. If
the New York Times plug resulted in more tourists to
the Kurdistan region, and if all these tourists hit
the road, where were they going to use the bathroom?
"The security in Kurdistan is very good, but that
doesn't mean we have everything we need for
tourists," Mustafa acknowledged, responding like a
man who'd made that trip many times himself and knew
not to load up on tea before he got in the car.
The Kurdistan region has not escaped the unrest
sweeping the Middle East. On Feb. 17, Kurdish
security guards opened fire on a crowd of
demonstrators in Sulaimaniyah, killing two people.
Since then, thousands have continued to gather and
march all over the country. A countrywide "Day of
Rage" anti-government protest is planned for Friday,
Feb. 25.
Andrew Engel taught at the same American Language
Center in Damascus where hiker Sarah Shourd worked.
Undaunted by the arrests eight months earlier, Engel
decided to visit the Kurdistan region in April 2010,
although he never made it to the border where the
hikers disappeared, because he ran out of cash
before he could travel that far. "Point 1, the KRG
needs ATMs," he told me, referring to the Kurdistan
Regional Government. Most of Iraq is not connected
to an international banking network.
"The infrastructure is incredible when compared with
Syria or other Middle East countries or with the
challenges the Kurds have historically faced," said
Engel, now a research assistant at a think tank in
Washington, D.C. "The roads were newly paved, we
marveled at how clean everything was, and
construction was everywhere. But, for the Western
traveler flying in from Europe or Istanbul, this
might not seem as incredible. Kurdistan is unevenly
developing, but this might be a part of its charm."
The New York Times called the region "Iraqi
Kurdistan," a name that can be quite contentious,
even offensive, though tour operators love to use it
because it plays up the difference between the
region and Baghdad. It implies a country called
Kurdistan that has Iraq connections. That just isn't
so. Kurdistan is a region of the Republic of Iraq,
and that is undoubtedly one of its draws as a travel
destination. People can visit Iraq without assuming
the risk of, well, going to Iraq. Baghdad certainly
didn't make the Times' list. But Kurdistan is not a
separate country, even if it has its own parliament,
its own military, its own language, and its own visa
stamp. It is more of a renegade state. Even the
prime minister of the region, Barham Salih, concedes
that Kurdistan is more powerful as part of a
democratic Iraq than as its own separate nation,
although die-hard Kurdish nationalists don't share
that view.
The Kurdistan region is appealing because not many
outsiders come here. It is still authentic. The
Citadel in Erbil dates back at least 7,000 years and
is considered the oldest continuously inhabited
settlement in the world. When the government forced
the residents of the Citadel to move so they could
rehabilitate it, they let one family stay, ensuring
it would maintain that status. In 2009, the Citadel
was temporarily placed on the UNESCO World Heritage
list and will receive a more permanent spot once it
is rehabilitated.
St. Matthew's Monastery, or Dayro d-Mor Matay, as it
is known locally, is another ancient site tucked
into the mountains about 20 miles from Mosul. The
monastery dates to the fourth century and features a
chapel and a crypt that holds the remains of
Matthew, a Turkish-born monk who died in 411.
Unusual for a tourist site, it doesn't allow
photography, but the monks who live there are
friendly and showed an Iraqi reporter and me around,
leading us into caves where the monks hid from their
attackers and showing us an ancient chain that
villagers would put around their necks to say a
prayer. More recently, Christians who fled the
violence in nearby Mosul sought refuge in the tiny
rooms of the monastery.
The Kurdistan region is studded with similar
reminders of its bloody and not-so-distant past,
including the Red Museum in Sulaimaniyah, a
converted jail where members of Saddam Hussein's
regime tortured and murdered men, women, and
children as part of a genocidal campaign against the
Kurds. Many of these atrocities occurred in places
so breathtakingly beautiful that it's hard to
reconcile these postcard vistas (not available yet
on postcards) with the more-familiar images of Iraq
from TV news.
"It is one of most historical and archeologically
endowed places in the world," said Douglas Layton,
general manager of The Other Iraq Tours. "It is also
scenic, unlike most of the rest of the Middle
East—crisscrossed with dramatic rivers, lakes, and
snow-covered mountains."
About 80 percent of tourists who come to the
Kurdistan region visit from inside Iraq. During the
summer months, when the rest of the country is
smoldering from the heat, Iraqis crowd the hotels
and resorts around the northern region's three major
cities of Duhok, Erbil, and Sulaimaniyah,www.ekurd.netwhere
the weather is more temperate and the jade waters of
Lake Dokan lure swimmers, boaters, fishermen, and
kayakers. Another popular spot is the waterfall at
Ahmed Awa, not far from the scrabble border with
Iran where the American hikers were apprehended.
Mustafa, the tourism minister, said that as part of
a comprehensive plan his ministry is developing, the
government will provide warnings to tourists about
the dangers of venturing off the beaten path. In
fact, he said, tourists should follow only
recommended routes so they don't accidentally leave
the Kurdistan region or wander into Iran, easy to do
if you're unfamiliar with the surroundings.
Without turning this into an endorsement of
traveling to the Kurdistan region, which the U.S.
State Department still advises against, I must say
that the Kurdistan region doesn't feel dangerous.
Iraqis from all over the country are friendly, and
their culture is beckoning, perhaps because it has
been off-limits for so many decades.
"It's more safe than many European cities, even New
York," said Akram Jibouri, general manager and owner
of the Safeer Hotel in Erbil. "People here are
friendly with the foreigners and especially the
Americans. When I say it's safe, you can walk alone.
You don't even need a guide. But the problem is the
infrastructure. The travel agencies are not in a
position to handle a big group of people showing
up."
Indeed, I discovered this last spring on a boating
trip to Lake Dokan. After a bumpy, two-hour road
trip to reach the lake from Sulaimaniyah, after
helping to blow up an inflatable boat, after
drinking a bottle of water so I wouldn't get
dehydrated under the blazing sun, I needed a
latrine. There was no latrine. I had to sneak into
the van and quickly relieve myself into the empty
water bottle, a trick honed in 2004 during six weeks
with U.S. Marines while covering the Battle of
Fallujah.
Daniel Williams, a Canadian university student,
ended up in the Kurdistan region last year after a
two-year backpacking trip across Asia. "I wanted to
go to Iraq for the chance to see something no one
else could and because it was a mystery to me," said
Williams, who spent two weeks in the Kurdistan
region. "I had no real idea of what it would be like
to see the Euphrates or Mesopotamia in real life. My
only image of Iraq beforehand was via CNN, and I was
sure that couldn't be the whole story."
Williams told me the Kurdistan region was one of the
most interesting places to which he's ever traveled.
He fell in love on his first day.
"There is no guidebook for the KRG to tell me where
to sleep or what to see, so I cluelessly began
wandering town when a young boy invited me into his
father's shop for a drink," he said. "In
quintessential Iraqi style, he eventually gave me
dinner, a place to sleep, a guided tour around
Erbil, and bought my bus ticket to my next
destination after three days of hospitality."
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