36 Hours in Iraq - First night

If you haven't been following along, shame on you. Just kidding. Check out the photos of the trip to Iraq. 

Tim and I have arrived in Dohuk, Iraq at this point. While we were quite hungry, we decided that it was more important to find appropriate sleeping arrangements. In my broken Arabic, I asked the taxi driver to take us to a hotel for which we had gotten a referral at the Turkish-Iraqi border. $55 a night for a double room. Too much we decided. We had the driver go to the most popular area of Dohuk and we started hunting for a room. The first place had a room, but it didn't have hot water. They told me that they did know of a place with hot water though. A five minute walk later and we were checking into the Shemal Palace Hotel. I'm going to be childish. Ready? Shemal is almost "shemale"!!! Ha ha ha! Giggle giggle. 

Moving right along, a 16-year old receptionist checked us in after we saw the room. We found out that it was $22.50 a night for a double (we received a triple room for our first night. Sweet.). He took our passports to hold them, which is standard practice in Turkey and Iraq. However, it was quite unsettling not to see our passports for a full 24 hours while they kept them. It wasn't insurance against us not paying because we paid upfront. I think they like to check out all our cool stamps. 

After handing the 16-year old a $50 for the room, he gave me back 7,000 Dinars. He showed me that the dinar-dollar exchange rate was 115 to 1. One Dollar = 115 Dinars. I took  the calculator to figure out why he had given me 7,000 Dinars. With his exchange rate, that came out to around $60.86. I spent the next 10 minutes trying to communicate that I didn't want change in Dinars for my $50 and also wondering why I had been paid $10 for staying at their hotel. Tim and I only figured it out the next day. If you want to find out, you'll just have to read on... such power I have! I gave up and wondered what I would do with my newly found wealth. Eat!!

We walked back to the main drag from the Shemal Palace and took a stroll to find some grub. We saw a place selling what looked like pizza. We decided to have a snack before heading to an internet cafe to tell our loved ones that we had survived the border crossing. There's the friendliest pizza guy I've ever met. He had a really raspy voice from a)inhaling too many fumes from the pizza oven or b)chain smoking while he baked? You decide. Either way, he was great and comp'd our meal the first night. We made sure to go back on our second and final night to order some serious pizzas to pay him back for his generosity. 

From Iraq and Diyarbakir1

After we ate, we headed to the internet cafe. Skype access, email, the works. It was a little slow, but we were quite pleased with the results, especially considering that we were in Iraq. 

We left the internet cafe and ate at a restaurant serving chicken, rice, pita, and salad. It was welcome fodder (an English word w/its origins in Arabic by the way) for two weary travelers. When we got up to pay and they told us that it was 6 Dinars each, we looked at each other, then down at my 7,000 Dinars and thought, "there's no way that life is this cheap here." I asked the guy what the exchange rate was: 1,150 Dinars for 1 dollar. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. (Moment of epiphany) The guy at the hotel had divided everything by 10, so I got $6 back from my $50 for the hotel room, explaining why the receptionist felt ok about giving me my change (not actually $60). Then I realized that this restaurant guy was taking even more zeros off of the bill. He meant 6,000 Dinars each. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. So our bill per plate with a ton of chicken, rice, and salad was about $4-5. Great! While I was a bit surprised that food wasn't as cheap as Turkey, it was still quite cheap, filling, and tasty. 

Following our speedy efforts in the consumption of poultry (time being midnight by our clock, 1am by Iraqi time), we goofed around a bit before crashing hard. Up at 4.30am in Istanbul for our flight to Diyarbakir. Twenty-two hours later, falling asleep in Iraq. Who woulda thunk it?

Check out the videos on the web album. 

Next: Our first (and only) full day in Iraq.