August, 2014 | Jason Around the World

Reflections on my trip to Erbil, Iraq

Attractions, Iraq, New Years 2009-2010 1 Response »

Aug 112014

Now that I’ve been to 158 countries, it’s kinda cool being about to watch CNN/BBC and see all sorts of places in the news that I’ve been. But, for some reason these last two weeks, the news from northern Iraq / Iraqi Kurdistan is really bothering me. Reflecting on my photo album, it’s really amazing how much we managed to see despite the circumstances, and especially given where things now – I count myself very fortunately to have been there.

When I went there a few years ago, I really enjoyed it. It was my first “you’re going WHERE?!” country, and the people were fantastic and it was really an eye opening trip. So, I’m going to repost here that trip report, with a few edits/thoughts from the last few years. Enjoy!

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Immigration was a breeze, and soon we were really there…we were in Iraq. But wait…where are the taxis? Now, I guess we hadn’t really planned this part too well, because it’s not like I should have expected for the Erbil International Airport to be really prepared with a modern tourist infrastructure. A couple years on, I can admit what happened…and just how stupid it was. After about 15 minutes of standing around and looking lost, we started chatting up a couple of mercenary looking types who’d arrived on our flight. Yeah, they were “private security contractors” and their company was picking them up. They sized us up, decided we were worth the risk, and offered to give us a lift to our hotel…no need to pay. So, into the Humvee it was when their driver arrived, and we were off. In retrospect, it was pretty insane….but how well it turned out said a lot. There’s only one other time since I’ve had to rely on strangers at an airport (this past January in Gabon) and that also worked well. Anyways, back to the story…

Soon we were at the Ankawa Palace Hotel, which we had randomly stumbled upon online, and based on the website and little information we could find about looked like a reasonable and safe place to stay. The rooms were clean and basic, the staff spoke very basic English, so all in all I would highly recommend it as a place to stay. Plus, a reasonable breakfast buffet and internet were included in the reasonable rate of $154 per night, and given this was December 30 and 31, it was a pretty good deal. It was 5pm at this point and we had two things to accomplish:

One, hopefully arrange a driver to drive us into the countryside the next day, and two find some dinner. Number one, again, we weren’t in the best position to negotiate. Like I said earlier, there aren’t exactly many tourists here, so if you want to arrange things there aren’t many options. The guy at the front desk made some calls over the next hour, and managed to arrange us a driver for the day. There were two waterfalls we wanted to see on the mountain road up to Hadji Omaran at the Iranian border.

Our plan was to drive past the Gali Ali Beg waterfalls and the Bekhal waterfalls, on the way to the mountainous region by the border. A driver was found for the full day trip, which seemed semi expensive, but how often do you get a chance to be driven around the countryside in Iraq?! That sorted, we headed off the the Mehdi Mall to hopefully find somewhere to arrange dinner. We didn’t manage to find anywhere to get anything to eat there, but did find a bowling alley, and lots of very unusual Christmas decorations. Now, Erbil does have a rather sizable Christian population, but it seems they’ve managed to take the American commercialization of Christmas to a whole new level!

Looking back now, it’s sad to see what’s happening to the Christian populations in northern Iraq. I didn’t quite understand at the time just how large this population was, just that it existed.

Want a blow-up Santa? For just 30,000 Dinars you’re covered!

There were also several rather strange costumed animals wandering around the mall, and Matt managed to make a new friend:

I wanted to go make friends with the giant cat wandering the mall, but he seemed incredibly popular with the locals (not to mention the half dozen santa people wandering the mall), so we opted to skip him:

They did, however, have a big grocery store in the mall selling, of all things, turkey!

Having failed to find a reasonable looking dinner option, we headed back to the hotel and decided that despite being dark, we were going to wander the suburb of Ainkawa and try and find the “Happy Time” pizza restaurant for dinner. It was listed on TripAdvisor, so how bad could it be…if it existed. But first, we had a 10-15 minute walk through the dark streets of Ainkawa to find it. Eventually, we found it, the food was adequate, and it put some of the nerves to rest having wandered around in the dark and not felt at all unsafe. A view of the pizza from the Happy Time:

Then it was back to the Ankawa Palace and off to bed early for the big day trip adventure the next day.

Our driver met us early, and soon we were winding out of the city in yet more very heavy rain towards the Gali Ali Beg waterfall. This is one of the most famous waterfalls in Iraq, and probably one of it’s most famous natural features. It is even on the back of one of the dinar notes.

Unfortunately, we were pretty disappointed when we got there, because of the amount of litter and rubbish just strewn all over the place. It was really rather sad. The other waterfall we stopped by was the Bekhal waterfall. Again, very similar. They were really cool to see, but the amount of litter was just really sad. In both places, we were the only people seeing them, but some of this probably also had to do with the rain.

Perhaps my craziest routing yet…Hawaii, Andorra, and Vegas, OH MY!

Airports, Andorra, Flights, France, Hawaii-France-Andorra-Vegas, Spain 2 Responses »

Aug 092014

Earlier this year, United published, either by mistake or not – it’s not entirely clear – a $1500 all-inclusive business class fare for the summer from a handful of U.S. cities to a handful of European cities. There were somewhere around 100 possible combinations. Unfortunately, Washington was not one of them.

This was probably a good thing, because my leave time for 2014 is already all committed, due to my upcoming four weeks in the South Pacific in November, and two plus weeks in East Africa over new years.

But wait…Baltimore is on the list…now that’s tempting…even for a three day weekend. But it was $1500 for any combination…Baltimore felt lame when perhaps I could do it from the west coast. Yup, I found San Diego…but that meant getting to San Diego…and if I’m going to go all the way to San Diego, I wonder if….YES once again United seems to want to FORCE me to go to Hawaii. Honolulu to Paris, business class in August, $1500. In contrast, the lowest coach fare at the time was about $1650. This is an absolute bargain.

Alas, I didn’t have the leave. Didn’t stop me from looking how I could conserve days, and when I could do it. Wait, I need to be in Las Vegas for a bachelor party late-August. Las Vegas is on the way back to DC from Hawaii. That was already planned Wednesday through Friday, so I just needed a way to get Monday-Tuesday off. I trimmed a couple days off my South Pacific trip…and it was set.

Now…to justify the cost of flying to Hawaii. Ok, Hawaii-Paris would earn 25,000 more miles than DC-Paris, so that justifies $400 of the fare to Hawaii. My ticket to Vegas was going to be $1200 for a P fare, so suddenly $1600 is justified. Buying DC-Honolulu and upgrading with a regional upgrade, done. One way Honoulu-Vegas on a P fare…done. Vegas to DC on a P fare…done. It was all too perfect.

Unfortunately, to guarantee the upgrade, I had to fly DCA-Cleveland-LA-Honolulu. Ugh. Leaving at 6am. Double ugh. Oh well. But then, there was a schedule change. I whined to United I wasn’t comfortable with a 30 minute connection in Cleveland now. I found upgrade space on DCA-San Francisco-Honolulu leaving at 8:30 – 2.5 hours later – and connecting to the same Honolulu flight. I begged. They relented. It was getting too awesome. Simply too awesome.

The routing was set:

You may have noticed Barcelona in there. See, I decided that 48 hours in Paris in August might get boring since the city clears out a bit. Plus, I’ve been to Paris literally dozens of times. So, I did what any good country collector would…set out to find the last country in Europe I haven’t been to: Andorra. Only way really to get there is to drive from Barcelona and Toulouse. Barcelona had better flight connections…plus, the only automatic transmission rental car I could get was a Smart Car. The chance to drive, my 6’3 self in a smart car, through the Pyrenees was way too much to pass up. I booked it.

Then, looking at a map of Andorra, I noticed something super fun.

See this?

Thats Llívia, Spain, a little tiny Spanish enclave not connected to Spain, but completely surrounded by France. To a geography nerd like me this is perhaps the coolest thing ever. Then, I thought…wait, I’m going to enter Andorra from Spain…I could exit out the other side of Andorra into France, and then drive to Llívia, back into Spain!

But of course, this isn’t nerdy enough. So, I’ll get to Andorra, and spend the night. Next morning, drive into France, then back into Spain at Llívia, and have coffee…or whatever one does late morning in Spain. Then, I’ll drive for a very short way BACK into France at Bourg-Madame and have a nice lunch. Maybe a Croque Madame in Bourg-Madame…then back to Spain and Barcelona Airport, where I will fly to Paris for the night. Before flying back to Hawaii.

So, are you lost yet? So far we’ve done:

Day 1: DCA-San Francisco-Hawaii – Overnight Honolulu

Day 2: Day in Honolulu, and Honolulu-DC redeye

Day 3: All day in DC where I hope to have brunch with friends, play some hockey, before the redeye DC-Paris

Day 4: Paris-Barcelona, drive in my little Smart Car to Andorra

Day 5: Drive Andorra to France to Llívia, Spain for coffee, to Bourg-Madame, France for lunch, to Barcelona, Spain for a flight to Paris, France where I’ll spend the night, get a great meal hopefully and maybe some drinks with friends.

Whew. Because next up is:

Day 6: Paris-San Francisco-Honolulu, and dinner in Honolulu

Day 7: Honolulu-San Francisco-Vegas

Day 8-9-10: Vegas. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

Day 11: Vegas-Houston-DC

I’m already tired, and the trip hasn’t started. If I pack strategically, I can take a suitcase to Honolulu on Day 1, with everything I’ll need in Vegas, and leave it there to be picked up on Day 6. Of course, if I forget anything, I have 10 hours (random) in DC on Day 3 to pick up anything I forgot…plus pack a weekend bag for Paris and Andorra, lol

This is crazy. I’m insane. But you’re going to read it…admit it… 😉

booking the South Pacific

Flights, South Pacific Tour 2014 4 Responses »

Aug 052014

This is, without a doubt, the most complicated trip I’ve ever planned.

First, I thought Iran was bad…because it took me two tries to get to Kish Island, and showing up at a local office in Dubai with a wad of cash to buy tickets for the next day. There was no info on Kish Air anywhere on the internet, and it wasn’t even all that clear if they really operate the flight that often…but once we’d bought the tickets the plane showed up more or less on time, got us there and back, and was relatively drama free.

Then, there was Somalia. Of course, I made this one harder, entering from Kenya and going out to Djibouti. Daallo Airlines from Somalia to Djibouti actually took my reservation at a call centre in the US, and made the booking, and after faxing back and forth about 20 times with copies of credit cards, etc, it was all taken care of. Now, getting there on African Airways Express from Nairobi was more interesting…they assured me via e-mail that they had an office at the airport, and I could just show up with a few hundred US$ in new notes, and they would take me. Eventually, right after landing in Nairobi, found the office where I sat and had tea with a guy as he hand-wrote the tickets in carbon copy.

This was all a piece of cake compared to the south pacific…and I haven’t even started this trip yet, where I’m sure a million things will go wrong. Why is it complicated? Tuvalu, for example, has two flights a week…and they often are canceled, or don’t show up, or have twice as many people booked as they can carry. So, fitting all the flights between these countries was a giant complex jigsaw puzzle on its own that took months to plan. Just when I had it planned, one of them would change their flights. For example, Nauru has one airline, appropriately called “Our Airline.” Well, it was until yesterday, it’s now called Nauru Airlines. I’ve been in touch with a very friendly lady in Brisbane, Australia who is their “reservations supervisor” and she’s been answering a million questions.

You see, Nauru has all of 6,000 people. In the entire country. The airline has one plane. So it’s unclear if I’ll really get there when I expect to or not, but at least I finally have tickets.

Last reason this trip has been crazy difficult – it’s expensive. Extremely expensive. See, when you only have two flights a week you can get away with charging $1,000 as a discount fare for a 2 hour flight months in advance. Ugh. I’m also trying to do nine new countries this trip, to finish up those I have left in the Pacific. I’ll be using Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji as hubs, since that’s pretty much the only way to get to many of these countries.

If all goes well, I will be visiting the following new countries:

Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor Leste, Tonga, and Tuvalu

I’ll also be visiting one new territory: American Samoa, with the cool city name of Pago Pago.

Speaking of fun names, I’m kind of excited for Tuvalu, because not only does its capital have a cool name of Funafuti (almost as cool as Ouagadougu, Burkina Faso), but it has the great airport code of FUN!

I’ll also be spending nights in Singapore, Bali, Darwin, Brisbane, Auckland, Tokyo, Seoul, and Frankfurt.

Tired yet? This will all take place in the span of 32 days. I’m sure things will get moved around. I’m sure I’ll end up likely paying several hundred dollars in change fees, but this promises to be a grand adventure.

What’s there to do in most of these island countries? From what I understand, not much. If all goes well, I plan to Scuba in Timor Leste, Solomon Islands (home of amazing World War II wreck dives), Tonga, and Samoa. Maybe Brisbane as well, but I’m thinking it might be a bit cold in late October. We will see. Other than that, at least off the islands, I’ll have plenty of time to have fun and relax in Brisbane and Auckland, and who really can complain about a forced overnight in Bali? Not me.

So, other than the new countries, this trip was prompted by the desire to use and maximize United miles before they were devalued. On the outbound, I managed to get Washington to Tokyo on ANA in first class, followed by Tokyo to Singapore on United in First. Not bad, and super excited to try ANA first!

Returning, I fly Auckland to Tokyo on Air New Zealand in business class on the 787, overnight in Tokyo, continue to Seoul on an Asiana 747 in business class, overnight, Seoul to Frankfurt on Asiana in first class, overnight in Frankfurt, and finally Frankfurt to DC in United first, which if I’m lucky I might get to change to Lufthansa first closer in. Quite a great value for the miles, and excited for the overnights in Tokyo, Seoul, and Frankfurt!

All total, this should take 29 flights and over 46,000 miles:

It’s finally all booked, about 11 weeks before I leave, so let’s pray there’s not too many schedule changes! One of the most amazing parts is that I only need one visa for this trip – for Nauru – and it’s visa upon arrival so I’m set there as well!

Oh, and for a final bit of insanity…I return on the Sunday before Thanksgiving to Washington and Wednesday night three days later? I’m off to Israel and Palestine for five days…assuming the stop firing rockets and such at each other before then. So in reality, the map should be:

Yes, over 58,000 miles in just over 5 weeks. I might be insane. But by the time this is over, I will have hit country #159 (Andorra) in late August, 9 countries of the South Pacific (#160-#168) in early November, and Israel and Palestine late-November bringing me to 170 countries with 26 to go!