Onwards to Iraq

  Hassake, Syria to Cizre, Turkey to Zakho, Iraq, Turkey
Saturday, February 17, 2007

From Palmyra, I took a bus to the northern city of Hassake, a place not known for tourism but a pleasant enough location nonetheless.

01. One of the private bus terminals in Palmyra

   The most surprising thing about my journey to Hassake and further on to the border community (with Turkey) of Qamisle was the relative abundance of other ruins in this part of Syria .... definitely a reason to return.

I also noticed in my LP guide that there is another crossing between Syria and Kurdistan Iraq which I have no information on in terms of the ability for foreigners to cross.  This crossing (Al-Yaroubiyeh) leads to the Iraqi town of Sinjar but it seems that the only other road continues on through the dangerous city of Mosel. However, I later learned through Dohuk University students from Sinjar that there are other roads such as one that goes to Zakho.  It would be interesting to try this crossing in the future. 

From Hassake, I took a taxi to Qamisle 

05. On to Qamisle

where I crossed into Turkey at the town of Nusaybin.  In this sleepy little town I was surprised to see a relatively large contingent of army personnel in riot gear which made it clear that the Kurdish-Turkish issue is a major concern for the government here.  After taking a minibus,  

08. On the road to Cizre

I then ended up in the small city of Cizre for the night.  Here I got my first real introduction to a community of Kurdish people who were incredibly friendly and hospitable. From spending 1.5 hours sitting on the sidewalk chatting with some older shopkeepers to 5 hours in a local restaurant talking with people about life, politics, religion, sports and almost any other other topic that could come up, the warmth and sincerity of the Kurdish people was very evident.

11. Some new friends at a restaurant in Cizre

From Cizre, I took a mini-van to Silopi which is the border town on the Turkish side.  However, Silopi is still some 25 km away from the actual crossing, so I grabbed a cab to take me to and across the Turkish-Iraqi border.  This was rather expensive (I negotiated for $30) but after seeing what the cabbie had to go through in terms of getting all the paperwork approved (especially on the Turkish side) and paying the odd bribe, I felt at the end, the price was well worth it.  I am sure that on my own, the process of crossing the border would have taken much, much longer.
However, everything did not go as quickly as I hoped on the Iraqi side as the friendly border guards (they let me take a picture of the crossing welcome sign) ended up telling me that I had to have a chat with their big boss. 

15. Welcome to Kurdistan Iraq!

So it was a short ride to the main administartion building where I was escorted finally to the office of a very confident, no-nonsense official who was quite clearly very respected and the obvious boss.  He also spoke pretty good English and again asked me the same questions that had already been asked....."why are you coming to Kurdistan, Iraq"...."do you not know somebody here"?  After he understood that I was indeed a lone tourist just coming to check out Northern Iraq, he indicated that his main concern was that I have no problems during my visit.  He also wrote down his name and phone number saying that I should call him if I have any type of problem.  This was the "official" hospitality that I experienced and fortunately this meeting was not too intimidating ...but it certainly could have been!
After leaving the office, I hooked up again with my cabbie who then drove the last little bit so that I was outside of all the government border buildings and officially in Kurdistan Iraq!  From there, I grabbed a ride with the Turkish businessman who crossed the border with me.  He was very friendly as were his business partners and after helping me change some money, they treated me to a wonderful lunch and then took me a the same hotel the Turkish fellow was staying ($20/night...not bad).