Global Wanderer

28/3/24 – 31/3/24

Back in 2022, I found myself sat in Istanbul Airport watching the departure boards. Turkish Airlines flies to a remarkable number of destinations, ranging from tourist metropolises to war zones, and I wondered who would be on each of those different flights. One of those destinations was Baghdad, and I told myself that one day soon, I wanted to be there.

After spending the day in Doha, I headed back to the airport to take advantage of my lounge pass. Several hours later, I boarded my Qatar Airways flight to Baghdad. There was an interesting mix of passengers on board, including Iraqis with Hungarian refugee documents, Pakistani migrant workers, and a small group of Chinese tourists. Oh, and me!

We touched down at Baghdad International Airport at around 9pm local time, and all of the foreigners headed for the Visa on Arrival area in the arrivals hall. Unfortunately, I’d been sat at the back of the plane, and ended up behind the Pakistani workers (who also appeared to be picking up their visas). Iraq, believe it or not, operates a pretty straightforward Visa on Arrival scheme, whereby you fill out a simple form, drop your passport off at the counter, and wait.

For me, it took an hour, for others I’ve heard of anywhere between 20 minutes and 4 hours! At the end of the day though, my name was called, and my passport was handed back to me, complete with an Iraqi visa sticker exclaiming ‘Welcome to Mesopotamia!’ I handed over my 80USD, and moments later was stamped into Iraq.

I bought a SIM card at the Zain store in the airport arrivals area, which was still open. I’d taken the advice of other travellers before me to carry USD and exchange it, rather than using ATMs, as the black market exchange rate for Iraqi Dinar was quite a bit better than the official one. Because of this, almost any businessperson, taxi driver, or ticketbooth operator, will be happy to exchange money with you. The guy at the SIM stall took my 50USD, and, after deducting the price, gave me the rest of my money in Iraqi Dinar at a 1500 to 1 exchange rate (which, by the next morning, was higher than the going black market rate in Baghdad!).

Avoid the taxi drivers, and take the minibus outside the airport’s arrivals gate to Abbas ibn Firnas Square, a garage (gathering of taxis, shared cars, and minivans) located just outside the airport’s security zone. Given the history of conflict in the region, the airport is understandably under strict military security measures!

Thanks to my Iraqi SIM, I was able to order a Careem once I got to the Square. Unfortunately, the driver could not find me, and thanks to the language barrier, the ‘Call Driver’ function was not proving particularly helpful. At this point, Iraqi hospitality kicked in, and a passerby stopped, took my phone, and instructed the driver on where to meet me – and he even walked me over to the car to make sure it was the right one! Honestly, this type of hospitality and kindness was EVERYWHERE in Iraq, and I truly believe it is one of the safest places I have ever visited. Everyone looked out for you, people didn’t want to rip you off, and I came away from Baghdad feeling a sense of trustworthiness that lots of more popular, touristic countries and cities, lack.

My first views of Baghdad

I woke up to a sight I’d expected to see in Baghdad – the military – who were outside on the streets performing some kind of operation. They’d blocked off some of the roads around the neighbourhood, which completely baffled my Careem driver that morning (en-route to the Iraqi National Museum), who spent a solid 15 minutes trying to work out how on earth to get out onto the main road!

According to several reports, during Iraq’s recent conflicts, up to 600,000 items were stolen from the museum by looters, including 15,000 in 2003, of which only 6,000 have been returned. Those numbers make for grim reading, and I expected the museum to be a shell of what it could have been, however, as I made my way through all of the museum’s exhibition halls, I couldn’t help but smile. Thanks to American and Italian investment, and an immense renovation and reconstruction effort, Iraq’s National Museum is now an impressive and worthy home to artefacts of some of the world’s oldest civilisations. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves:

Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians – they all feature in Baghdad’s Iraq National Museum

Being quite off the beaten track, travellers to Iraq are quite scarce, which in turn means up-to-date information can be difficult to find. Luckily, there is a Facebook page and online site, the Iraqi Travellers Cafe, where travellers to Iraq and locals share information, tips, and stories, and give solo travellers like myself the opportunity to meet with other people heading to Iraq.

I had made a post on their page several days earlier, asking a few questions, and had seen a post from another Australian guy who was arriving a day after myself. After exchanging a few messages, we arranged to catch up, and so I met with Dale on the eastern banks of the Tigris river that afternoon. We got along well, and agreed to join forces for a trip south of the capital the following day, to visit the ancient ruins of Babylon – but before that lay an evening in Baghdad!

The streets of Old Baghdad – and the photo on the right is of a shop selling masgouf – a fish caught in the Tigris which is chargrilled on an open flame. There were tens of these masgouf stalls on the banks of the river!

Mutanabbi Street, named after a famous poet whose statue graces the road’s end, is a must-visit in Baghdad – a place where book sellers, juice vendors, and other assorted businesses set up shop on the streetside, cafes churn out chai, and small shops hand out shawarmas. Given Ramadan hours were still in force (although much more loosely applied than in Pakistan!), we had to wait until sunset for most things to open up, but it was worth the wait – and we did get the chance to sit and have a tea in the historic Shabandar Cafe!

Al-Mutanabbi himself

Whilst waiting for sunset, we walked north into a more suburban part of Baghdad. Here, beige coloured apartment blocks, no more than 8 storeys tall, stood covered in bullet holes, reminding everyone who walked past of the recent horrors this city has faced.

Given the rather loose enforcement of Ramadan in Baghdad, many teashops were beginning to open despite it still being almost an hour til sunset – it seems in Baghdad that every second store is actually a teashop! We stopped in one, and sat watching the street as the sky finally began to darken.

Not long after this, we were approached by some young Iraqi guys, who explained that they were university students. No need to practice their English – these blokes were pros! – but instead, they stopped and talked to Dale and I about their country, their heritage, and how happy they were to have people visiting Iraq (a refrain I would hear a thousand times more before leaving!). They left us with their phone numbers, telling us to call them if we ever had any problems in Iraq. Human experiences, they are what make these trips so great!

Mutanabbi Street at night was a whole different beast, and was capped off with yet another example of Iraqi hospitality. Whilst eating a shawarma, sat by the curb, two older men INSISTED we come and sit, and eat falafel with them! One of them ordered us Pepsis, and refused any attempt to take our money – and I translated (albeit poorly!) for Dale as they told us how proud they were that people were no longer afraid to visit their city.

We spent the rest of the evening strolling through Baghdad, crossing back across the Tigris, and stopping in at several teashops – all that sugar is addictive!

Liberation Square, the largest in Baghdad, is the site of an impressive monument dedicated to freedom, a giant mural, and a beautiful array of Saddam-era fountains. We found ourselves here at around midnight, a time where, at least during Ramadan, Baghdad is at its busiest!

The following day, after returning from Babylon at around 5:00, we set out on a challenge – to explore Baghdad’s infamous Green Zone, the international area which had been strongly defended during the last conflicts, and had only recently, according to some, opened to the public. The area is impressively fortified, surrounded by tall, concrete blast walls, machine gunner nests every 20 to 30 metres, and checkpoints at every road and pedestrian entrance – and this is supposedly LESS secure than it used to be! There are a few interesting sites located in the Green Zone, including the Victory Arch, built by Saddam Hussein to commemorate the Iran-Iraq War, which I wanted to see.

Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out the way I’d intended (as things rarely do). There aren’t any footpaths leading in to the Zone, presumably due to the threat that pedestrians pose, so we were forced to walk alongside highway traffic. The blast walls also prevent you from crossing streets and changing direction, which meant we were funnelled, along with the traffic, into an underpass. The exit to the underpass, leading up towards the location of the Victory Arch, was controlled by a military checkpoint, manned by two guards (one young, one older).

I explained to the guards in my best Arabic where we were going, but the older one refused to budge. Lah, mamnue aldukhul! No entry! No entry, but our only other option was to walk back the way we came, against the flow of traffic. The younger guard was more amenable, and tried to suggest solutions to his colleague, to no avail. Finally, I was the one who scored the breakthrough – I asked the older guard if the gun he was carrying was a US issued M16 (don’t know where I remembered that one from!). His attitude changed instantly as he began to talk about his weapons, and he decided to call his supervisor to work out what to do with us. Cue the supervisor, who marched out of a nearby building, and demanded to see our passports. ‘Australia!’ he exclaimed. ‘I love Australians! You wait here, I help!’ Moments later, he had stopped a car in traffic, and instructed the driver to drop us off on the street running above the underpass!

This, however, was the closest we got to the Victory Arch! The next set of guards were not as forgiving, and told us that access in that direction was closed 😦

One last night in Baghdad’s centre, soaking up the lively atmosphere, was the perfect way to end the day, and to cap off my time in the country’s capital.