Congo National Parks

I recently spent an exciting few weeks in the Republic of Congo and DR Congo. I was there updating the relevant chapters of the Lonely Planet Africa guide and writing a few magazine features. I got to do all kinds of cool things like sleep in a shipping crate, pay insane amounts of money for leaky dug-out canoes, eat dog food and have my enjoyment curtailed by a rebel army, M23, invading the town I was heading for.

But the best thing by far was visiting the forest national parks in the Republic of Congo and have close up encounters with gorillas, visit forest clearings filled with elephants, bongo, chimps, gorillas and buffalo (you might have seen those on the recent David Attenborough series, Africa).

The following was published on the BBC Worlwide website a couple of days ago (and for those outside the UK here is the link to the real thing; http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20130117-gorilla-spotting-in-the-republic-of-congo) but for those people in the UK here is copy and paste version.

Gorilla spotting in the Republic of Congo

By Stuart Butler

 (photo - Stuart Butler)

Three days of uncomfortable buses and torn up roads, one day on a leaky dug-out canoe puttering slowly upriver, one hour wading barefoot through the thigh-deep waters of a jungle swamp – and finally, here I was, eyeball to eyeball with a western lowland gorilla. This was exactly what I had hoped for from a gorilla safari to the Republic of Congo.

The Congo? Isn’t that the home of cannibalistic militias and rebel armies? Isn’t that where Joseph Conrad set his Heart of Darkness novel and where the blood-stained battlefields of Africa’s World War can be found? Wrong. You are thinking of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the lumbering giant at the heart of Africa. This is smaller Republic of Congo, which lies to the north of its big bad neighbour. Sure, this Congo has also taken a battering at the hands of power-hungry politicians and has seen more than its fair share of war and misery (most recently with a civil war during the 1990s and first few years of the new century), but today the Republic of Congo is safe, stable and open to trailblazing visitors in search of the ultimate jungle experience.
There is no shortage of rainforest in the Congo; some 60% of the country consists of nothing but steamy lowland jungle, so pristine that the rainforests are considered one of the richest and most biologically important forest ecosystems on Earth. But it is only now, after years of false starts, that access to the area is improving, national parks are being established and a visitor-friendly infrastructure has been put in place.
Even with the recent improvements, visiting many parts of the country remains difficult. But whether you splash through dank swamps or relax on the terrace of a luxury lodge, there is no doubt that a safari to the Congo is a wildlife-watching bonanza unlike any other.

Parc National d’Odzala
One of the oldest national parks in Africa, established in 1935, the 13,600sqkm Parc National d’Odzala, located in the far northwest of the country close to the borders of Gabon and Cameroon, has had a turbulent past. Once celebrated for having around 20,000 gorillas, the population was decimated between 2003 and 2005 by several outbreaks of the horror movie-worthy ebola virus which  wiped out between 70% and 95% of the park’s gorillas. The park was also neglected for about 20 years, thanks to conflict and the ebola outbreak.
Today, the situation is much improved. Gorilla numbers are growing, and the park has received a much needed boost with the arrival of Wilderness Safaris, a company that actively manages park tourism on a day-to-day basis. The goal of the Botswana-based company – the only one operating in the park – is to use responsible tourism to build sustainable conservation economies in Africa. By working alongside local communities, Wilderness Safaris has embarked on a programme of rehabilitating the park’s previously crumbling infrastructure, building two luxury tourist lodges and training local guides and rangers. The benefits to the park, the wildlife, the local people and the tourist industry are already visible. In fact, despite the park having re-opened to tourists only in August 2012, Wilderness reports that their exclusive fly-in safaris from Congo’s capital Brazzaville are already heavily oversubscribed. And when the activities on offer include face-to-face encounters with habituated west lowland gorilla families, jungle walks with local Baka (or pygmy) guides and pirogue trips downriver in search of birds and other wildlife, it is hardly a surprise that Odzala has been garnering such attention.

Parc National Nouabalé-Ndoki
When a team from National Geographic magazine called this northern corner of Congo “the worlds last Eden” in the mid-1990s, they chose their words wisely. The 23,500sqkm Parc National Nouabalé-Ndoki is the world before the chainsaw. This vast region of swampy forest is home to healthy populations of western lowland gorillas, forest elephants, chimpanzees and more. And what makes this park so enthralling is the ease with which these creatures are seen.
The forest is known for its natural clearings in which elephants and gorillas gather, and the World Conservation Society (WCS) has built viewing platforms alongside these clearings where travellers can ogle the antics of Congolese megafauna. If you need to get even closer to the wildlife, Nouabalé-Ndoki also has groups of habituated gorillas.

Parc National Conkouati-Douli
The Parc National Conkouati-Douli is an altogether different experience to the previous two reserves. This 5,049sqkm coastal area stretches from the beaches of the Atlantic Ocean where turtles clamber ashore at night to lay eggs, through a band of savannah and up into jungle-clad mountains where shy groups of gorillas, chimpanzees and elephants slink through the shadows. As with so many protected areas in Congo, the years of conflict meant that conservation was very low on the government’s list of priorities, and as such, this park, with its open terrain and easy access, suffered more than most from human encroachment and poaching.
Today, the day-to-day management of the park has been largely taken over by WCS, and the society has started training new guides and rangers, cracking down on poaching, establishing new accommodation for tourists, and setting up safari-related activities such as river boat trips in search of elephants or forest walks to look for shy and elusive gorillas. The park also contains a chimpanzee rehabilitation sanctuary where travellers can see young chimps, orphaned due to poaching, being reintroduced to life in the wild.
Since the animals here are not habituated to humans, sightings tend to be much more fleeting than in the northern forest parks. But as poaching levels drop, the wildlife are likely to become less fearful and encounters more frequent.

Practicalities
For many people, just the name Congo implies adventure, and getting to most national parks here is going to make you feel like an explorer. Wilderness Safaris offer packages to Odzala National Park, where everything including flights from Brazzaville is included. This is the recommended option for those who require comfort on their safari.
Safaris to Nouabalé-Ndoki and Conkouati-Douli are organised through the WCS and are better suited to those with more time and stamina. You will have to make long overland journeys by bus or private car from Brazzaville and be prepared to walk long distances through the forest, even wading through swamps and riding boats up-river.
No matter which park you choose to visit, you must inform either the WCS or Wilderness Safaris in advance so that they can prepare for your trip.

Maha Kumbh Mela India 2013

Yes, I am guilty of blog neglect! But I've been busy, busy rushing around France, Spain, Indonesia, both the Congos, CAR, Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda over the past six months!

But, fret not, you'll be delighted to know that I am now back in front of a computer. Well, for 2 weeks anyway, after which I'll be on a short trip to India for the huge Kumbh Mela festival. And what you may ask is the Kumbh Mela? Well, read this, the first of my BBC blog features/articles and you'll find out. Whilst at the Kumbh Mela I'll be doing frequent (well, one or two if I get around to it) twitter updates for the Lonely Planet twitter account.

This was published on the BBC Worldwide Travel website a couple of days ago. This is the original link but if you're in the UK you won't be able to see it. Everyone else can. http://www.bbc.com/travel/blog/20130116-india-hosts-the-worlds-biggest-gathering

And for those in the UK (because I'm sure you're simply desperate to read this) here is a copied and pasted version of the same.

India hosts the world’s biggest gathering

By Stuart Butler

Until 10 March, the Maha Kumb Mela will see some 100 million Hindu pilgrims cleansing their sins in Allahabad. (Getty Images)

It has been 144 years in the making, but India’s Maha Kumbh Mela is finally here.

The Maha Kumbh Mela, a mass Hindu pilgrimage, has been taking place for thousands of years, with its origins in Hindu mythology. In Hindu creation myths, the gods and demons fought over a kumbh (pitcher) containing the nectar of immortality, but during the fight four drops of the liquid fell to earth, one at Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh, one at Hardiwar in Uttarakhand, one at Ujjian in Madhya Pradesh and one at Nashik in Maharashtra.
Today, a Kumbh Mela is held roughly once every twelve years in Hardiwar, Ujjian and Nashik. The one in Allahabad, which is also held every twelve years, is the most important and largest, and this is called a Maha (or great) Kumbh Mela. Thanks to an unusual alignment of the planets, this year’s event is even more auspicious than normal. In fact, the last time there was one this important was 144 years ago and the next will not be until around 2157. Pilgrims believe that by attending the festival and bathing in the waters of the rivers that run through Allahabad or the other host cities, they will cleanse away their sins and bring salvation.
When we say the Maha Kumbh Mela is big, we really mean big. The last Kumbh Mela, held in Hardiwar in 2010, was attended by an estimated 40 to 70 million pilgrims. But for this year’s event, running until 10 March, Allahabad authorities estimate that some 100 million pilgrims will pour into the city of 1.2 million inhabitants to take a dip at the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Sarasvati Rivers. Although people bathe every day throughout the festival, there are three especially holy days when bathing brings even greater merit. The most auspicious of these is on 10 February, when up to 35 million people are expected to dip in the sacred waters.
The Kumbh Mela brings together Hindus of all castes and creeds, but its most famous attendees are the sadhus (wandering Hindu holy men who have renounced caste, money, possessions and social position). On each of the main bathing days they lead the dawn charge to the river, but always at the very front come the nagas (sadhus who have renounced virtually everything, including clothing).
The Maha Kumbh Mela got off to an awe-inspiring start on Monday, with the first of the main bathing days seeing an estimated 10 million taking a dip. However, if you want to attend, you will need to be quick. The authorities have set up tented camps along the banks of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, but with about 100 million people attending, demand for accommodation is very high.

The TripAdvisor Experiment: Crowd-Sourcing Vs Lonely Planet | Travels with a Nine Year Old

I found this blog piece about the age old (well a few years anyway) debate over which is better - a guidebook or TripAdvisor and such like?

The TripAdvisor Experiment: Crowd-Sourcing Vs Lonely Planet | Travels with a Nine Year Old

For me I obvioulsy prefer a guidebook but I do use TripAdvisor as a way of reconfirming my personal opinion on a hotel if I'm not sure about it (ie - if its a new place that seems fantastic but I'm not sure then I like to check what other people say). Would I go away without a guidebook - no, no and no!

It would be interesting to hear other peoples opinions on this.

Oh yes and before we go down that path. Yes, we do go to the place we write about, no we don't get paid to write good reviews and so on. For example I have been to Iraq for Lonely Planet this year - not exactly a lot of tourists there but still they send me and shortly I am off to the very remote far west of Ethiopia - again very few tourists there but as normal we go out and cover it.

Tracks Magazine - Java feature.

The new Tracks magazine is out in Australia with 'Conversations with a Dancer', my article on surfing in Java in it. http://www.tracksmag.com/20110211459/Magazine/Magazine/In-This-Issue-2011.html

And for those of us unlucky enough not to be in Australia then here is the full version of the story (but minus the pretty magazine style layout).

CONVERSATIONS WITH A DANCER

Her name means melody and she could be the modern face of Java. I first met Nada in a hotel in-which I was staying. She worked the day shift behind the reception. She told me her hotel job paid the bills, but that she saved her passions for the night.

I had been to Indonesia before of course. What surfer hasn’t? I’d surfed with the masses in Bali and some years ago I spent several slow months riding cargo boats and ferries down the entire length of Sumatra; back then some of the waves I surfed were mere whispers of rumours, but now they host surf camps and yacht charters. And though, like many surfers, I knew all about the surf in Bali, the Mentawais, Nias, Lombok and so on, all I really knew about the waves in Java was G-Land. Yet, after Sumatra, Java has more Indian Ocean exposed coastline than any other island in Indonesia, but stories from the line ups of Java are few and far between. This silence couldn’t help but make me think that I was missing something. And so I decided it was time I went for myself to look for surf in the heart of Indonesia.

And what a heart it is. With over half of Indonesia’s 240 million inhabitants, Java is the undisputed political, economic and commercial powerhouse of the archipelago. From its glittering fields of rice to its equally glittering shopping malls, Java, with its backbone of slumbering and lumbering volcanoes, is an island of extraordinary beauty and great diversity. It was Nada though, and my conversations with her, who really brought home to me just how refined, artistic, cultured and utterly contradictory this island could be. I had been on the road for a month or more when I first met Nada and in that time I had experienced the whole range of Java’s different surfing moods. From skirting the reefs of One Palm Point to playing in crumbly beach breaks or kicking back in hidden villages fronting idyllic beaches with perfect reef breaks. But I hadn’t just come to Indonesia for the waves. I’d done that too many times before and always left without really getting to know the place. This time I had vowed to explore Java in depth. I would venture inland, away from the waves, and explore the islands towns and cities, hike its mountain trails and peer into its volcanoes and I would talk to as many Javanese as I could. Nada, the smiling girl who had checked me into her hotel, was just one of these people. Our conversations began one afternoon, as I was sat in the hotel lobby waiting for a rainstorm to clear, she came and sat down beside me and offered me some bandrek (ginger tea with coconut and pepper) and spicy snacks. From then until the day I checked out every afternoon was the same; as the heavens opened we sat together drinking bandrek and, watching the rain flood the streets outside, we talked. She told me how it was to be a young woman in Java and she told me about Javanese culture and in return I told her stories about sleeping under a sickle moon on creaky, wooden boats and about diving into the ocean at dawn to race the swell lines of Antarctic storms.

In the steamy tropical night, when the cry of cicadas was strongest and fruit bats swooped low on the horizon, I squeezed past coy couples and noisy families and eased myself down onto the hard stone bench. Moments later a rhythmic drum beat brought silence to the audience and the darkness of the stage was pierced by a spotlight. And there stood Nada. She was transformed, like the melody of her name, from demure hotel receptionist to something confident and bold, something full of energy and passion, something of art and sometimes something of sin. Her exact form depended on the night and the stroke of a make-up brush. On one night she could be a graceful ballet dancer, or another the cowered and veiled girl in a gritty tale on contemporary life in the slums of Jakarta, but tonight she was a dancer in her favourite role; that of Sita, the beautiful wife of Rama, from the Hindu Epic the Ramayana.

Our first conversations were tame. We spoke about the sights of Java. I told her about the beautiful beaches I had seen and she told me where she likes to go for picnics with her family and friends when she has a day off. Her favourite place to picnic, she said, was on the grassy lawns in-front of a Hindu temple complex more than a thousand years old. She asked me where my favourite places to surf had been and I told her about how I had ridden down muddy dirt roads in clapped out bemos (minibuses widely used as public transport throughout Indonesia) and on the back of slowly-dying mopeds to reach a tiny half-forgotten village in the middle of nowhere where I had found a room in a villagers house and each morning I had walked across a beach that bubbled with ghost crabs to surf a long left point break with nobody else around. In return I asked her about her home city, Malang, and she said that each year, when a big festival was held, dancers, actors and musicians took over the roads for a week of street theatre. I could just imagine how much she enjoyed such a show. “But”, she said, “I prefer my adopted city of Yogyakarta because here the streets are art and everyone is an actor or an actress all of the time”. She asked me where else I intended to visit in Java and I told her of a newly found wave not far from where we were sat which broke more like something from Tahiti or Hawaii and of course I told her of G-Land and how you slept in a hut in the jungle and rode endless lefts that set the standard for waves the world over. But I also told her of how I would venture inland to exploding volcanoes and to photograph miners who descend into the depths to dig stinking sulphur out of the belly of one such volcano. We both sighed and agreed that there could be few islands as diverse as Java.

One evening, a fortnight or so after I had met Nada, I was in the small fishing village of Batu Karas, about halfway along the Javanese coast. Breaking off the rocky, forest-clad headland that fronts the village is a right point. The wave begins with a steep, sucky drop before quickly reinventing itself as a gently sloping wave that peels down sandbars for a couple of hundred metres. It might be far from Java’s best wave, but as a fiery-orange sun dipped below the horizon, I was still able to get out of the water happy to have surfed a rare righthander in this land of lefts. Walking away from the waves, I reached the point where the beach became the village and found dozens of red plastic chairs being set out around a makeshift stage. I rushed back to my guesthouse, hurriedly changed out of my wet gear, and returned to the centre of activity just as the wayang kulit, or shadow puppet performance, began. Wayang kulit is one of the most visible forms of Javanese cultural expressions. It is also, with its performances based on the great Indian Hindu epics of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, an obvious example of how Javanese culture reaches back into the days long before Islam when Hinduism dominated the island. Traditionally a wayang kulit performance lasts all night and is performed by a single puppeteer who manipulates dozens, sometimes hundreds, of puppets in a performance. As if this weren’t enough the puppeteer also has to direct a gamelan orchestra at the same time. Consisting of around sixty instruments the hypnotic tempo of a gamelan performance could be described as the sound of Java. Whilst this wayang kulit wasn’t as grand (or as long – something I became thankful for after a few hours!) as some, it had a rough and authentic feel to it that made it stand out from the more polished performances I had seen elsewhere. As the show wore on I remembered back to one of my conversations with Nada. She had told me how her grandfather had been a renowned puppeteer and that when she’d been small she’d been fascinated by how he could make these static puppets burst suddenly to life and enthral an audience. She thought perhaps it was this early exposure to the glitz and glamour of the stage that had led her to dancing and she said that even now she loved the stories of the wayang kulit. “There are so many different characters in the puppet shows, some are Kings, some are Gods, some are ordinary people and some are monsters with magical powers. In the old days people believed they were all real. Maybe some people still do. It would be nice to believe that stories like these could be real don’t you think?” Then, with a hint of a smile creasing across her lips, she asked “Do you know the stories of the Queen of the Southern Sea? Do you believe in her?” I had told her I knew that Nyai Roro Kidul, as she is called, was responsible for the storms that wrack the oceans, that she was both gorgeous but deadly and that it was she who took fishermen to a watery grave. I then told her that there was one place in Java where I’d genuinely felt close to Nyai Roro Kidul. “Really?”, she had cried, “Tell me about it”. So, pouring another bandrek I had launched into my tale.

I told Nada how my journey to Panaitain Island, a tiny wild blob of an island, had begun in a sleepy fishing village close to the western tip of Java where I had boarded a rickety wooden fishing boat and puttered and spluttered off out into the treacherous channel that separates Java from Sumatra. Passing the brooding cone of Krakatua; the volcano that in 1883 was responsible for the most violent eruption in recorded human history, my boat had rolled with the swell into one of Panaitain Islands wide bays. I described to Nada how before me had been immaculate coastal forests, pristine white beaches and waves. My goodness what waves they had been. On seeing One Palm Point for the first time I was simply silenced. There, in-front of me was the most perfect wave on the planet. It was 4-6ft, the winds were offshore and there was not another human being for a hundred kilometres. I instantly dived off the boat and paddled to the line up and my close encounter with Nyai Roro Kidul. However, as faultless as the scene appeared to be, as soon as I took a look over the edge of a wave I had realised that there was a beast hidden within this beauty. Never before had I attempted (and I use the word ‘attempted’ with reason) to ride quite such a ferocious wave. What looked like the worlds best wave from the safety of the boat had turned out to break at the speed of a hunting shark and it had teeth to match. The wave raced off across ankle deep, fang-like coral for hundreds of metres and once committed to it there was no emergency escape exit. It was merely a case of outrunning the lip for as long as you could, but in the end the wave would always win and then it was just a matter of how hard she’d whip you over the reef. Yes, I’d told Nada, if ever there was a place where the presence of Nyai Roro Kidul was palpable then it was surely in the beautiful but deadly waves of Panaitain Island.

Nada was sublime in the role of Sita. Sitting on the hard bench I was transfixed for hours as she and her fellow dancers spiralled and twirled under a rainbow of spotlights. With their dance they carried us far away from the Java of today, across an Indian Ocean ripe in spice, to an India of thousands of years ago, when Sita and Rama lived and loved together. As the night wore on the Javan dancers told us a story as old as Asia. They showed how the happiness of Sita and Rama was not to last. Sita, the goddess of the Earth, and the embodiment of the perfect woman, may have been in love with Rama, but that didn’t stop her from having other admirers. One of these was Ravana, the evil King of Lanka, who abducted Sita and took her back to his island kingdom where, (in what is probably a classic example of how not to win a woman’s heart), he kept her prisoner for one year. Meanwhile, the heart broken, Rama and the monkey God Hanuman scoured the world in their search for Sita. Through the use of acrobatics, fireworks and fire walks the dancers showed us how Rama and Hanuman finally found Sita hidden away in Lanka and then how they launched an almighty battle against nasty old Ravana and Sita was rescued. As the final explosion of fireworks died away, the drums fell silent again and the dancers wiped away their make up it was hard not to reflect on how the many thick layers of local and foreign cultures have shaped the past of Java and will continue to mould its future.

The old ideas of Java are being left behind and a tide of new thought and influences is flowing over the top of them. In the distant past Java had been both a Hindu and a Buddhist island. Today Islam rules supreme but even here Java has put its own twist on things. In some parts of Islam’s Middle Eastern homeland for a girl to dance in-front of a mixed sex audience would be unheard of, and possibly even dangerous for all involved, but here in Java it seemed as if Islam was a colourful, cosmopolitan and accepting version of the faith that stands in utter contrast to the Islam of Saudi Arabia. Nada had laughed when I said this to her and she told me that this was only partially true. Yes, for the vast majority of Javanese there was something of a live and let live attitude to other peoples beliefs, cultures and desires, but it wasn’t always like that. “When I was younger, I suppose about fifteen years ago, people here became more conservative. More and more people started to attend the Mosques and some people called for Sharia law (a code of conduct, or Islamic law, as laid out in the Quran). Imagine Sharia here? I suppose if that had happened then I would have had to have stopped my dancing – at least in public”. She paused, as if reflecting on what could have been, before continuing, “We Javanese are very religious you know, but we are not extremists. You are right we have a colourful form of Islam. We still believe in spirits and magic from the old religions before Islam and so when some people started killing for Islam with bombs in Jakarta and Bali the rest of us turned against them and now not so many people talk about Sharia and I can still dance in the evenings!” That Javanese Islam is like this is important, because with Indonesia having the worlds largest Muslim population, some 90% of whom are found on Java, what happens to Islam here matters to the whole world.

My journey through Java eventually came to an end on the surf beaches for the city surfers of Jakarta. Don’t get me wrong, Cimaja isn’t all that close to the capital but even so every weekend a jam of cars and buses carries surfers the five hours from Jakarta to the long, playful waves found around here. Proximity to the big city wasn’t the only reason why Cimaja seemed to me a suitable place to end my trip. You see the Cimaja region, with it’s small fishing villages and often remote coastline, is a Java of old. It’s here that the myths of Nyai Roro Kidul, the Queen of the South Sea’s, are strongest (a large hotel in the area even has a room set aside only for her use) and traditions run strong. Yet for two days every week the waves of Cimaja are invaded by the new face of Indonesia; and some of these people no longer fear Nyai Roro Kidul. For better or for worse, as the surfers of today’s Jakarta arrive with their big city ideas and aspirations and Java, old and new, meet on beaches that have been ruled for so long by Nyai Roro Kidul, a wave of new ideas is being spawned and another layer of culture, this one dominated by Californian surf vibes, is slowly being added to the tapestry of the coast of Java.

But in the end, no matter how much Java moulds itself into an ever more complex, artistic, refined and cultured an island some things will probably always remain the same. The people will continue to smile at visitors, the volcanoes will continue to bluster and blow, dancers will continue to recreate the Indian Epics, the cities will continue to bustle, the villagers will carry on consulting the Gods of old at the same time as attending the Mosques of today and the Queen of the South Sea’s will continue to guard her lair with it’s precious liquid jewels born a thousand miles away across an Indian Ocean ripe in spice.

Kenya 2011

Kenya 2011, a set on Flickr.

Finally I have got around to editiing my pictures from a Lonely Planet research trip a few months ago to the remote north of Kenya and to the beautiful Kenyan coast. I was there updating the relevant chapters of the Lonely Planet Kenya guide - and the Kenya book is always one of my favourite jobs to do!

Holidays (almost) in Mosul

And today in Iraq we went to church, made wishes by tying knots in sheets and skirted along the edge of Mosul, arguably the most dangerous city on Earth (yeah this bit was quite scary).

Driving south out of Dohuk we travelled through flat arable land and semi-desert to the small village of al-Kosh which is unusual in Iraq in that it’s 100% Christian. The village itself was simply lovely and one of the only places we’ve been here that has actually felt genuinely old thanks to its mud wall gateway, narrow streets, houses with little courtyard gardens. I was walking a little ahead of Toby and Marion and was basically kidnapped by an old couple who forced me into their house to drink coffee and eat biscuits. It was a struggle to escape without having lunch there. The highlight of the village though was the old monastery built into and around a system of caves high up on a honey coloured cliff face above the village. The amazing thing about this small island of Christianity in Iraq was that despite being just 30 odd kilometres from the violence and mayhem of Mosul where killing Christians is almost a hobby, the war hadn’t touched the village at all.

It was somewhat reluctantly we left here and continued onto Mar Metti or St Matthews Monastery, which at 1650 years old is the oldest church/monastery in Iraq. Like the one in al-Kosh this one was also set like an eagles nest way up on a cliff face. Unlike the al-Kosh monastery though this one was huge and once (well 1000 years ago) it housed over 2000 monks - today there are seven although this is up on the two Monks of a few years ago. Getting to Mar Metti was something of an adventure. We had to pass very, very close to the suburbs of Mosul - in fact we could have walked from the road we were travelling along to the city outskirts in about 5 minutes. Had we realised the road went quite so close to what is possibly the most dangerous city in the world we probably wouldn’t have bothered; as Marion kept saying “What are we doing? Driving by Mosul just to see a church. I never even go to church at home”. She did have a point! The security through the area we drove through was shared between the Kurds and the Iraqi army and was outside the full control of the Kurds. The look and atmosphere of the place was radically and instantly different. It was immediatly much poorer, much dirtier, much more desperate and, frankly, much, much more scary. This was exactly the Iraq you see on TV. There were road blocks everywhere. Driving through one town there were army road blocks on almost every street so they could check who went in and out of each and every quarter of the town. Everyone at the check points said we were safe here, but stopping for a kebab for lunch just didn’t seem all that appealing when you could see down the hill into Mosul itself. Things weren’t improved much by the fact that the driver hadn't been here before, didn’t seem at all certain of the security situation himself and was a little worried he'd take a wrong turn and in a kilometre or so end up in Mosul itself.... When the road finally turned north again and re-entered areas fully controlled by the Kurds the people of Mosul could probably have heard the sigh of relief! That was definitely a close enough view of the 'real' Iraq!

From Mar Metti we drove north into an area of lovely hills covered in olive trees and grape vines to a place called Lalish, which is the holiest place in the world for followers of the Yazidi faith. There were several pyramid shaped temples here and a number of cave like chambers below them. As there are only 500,000 Yazidis in the world and it wasn't a holy day there were few people around but a nice man showed us around and explained how we could make a wish come true by tying a knot in a sheet. I think we all wished not to have drive back the way we came! Our wishes came true because it was a simple drive from there back to calm and collected Dohuk!

Taking the high road in Iraq

Think Iraq is all desert and sand dunes? Think again. The last couple of days have been spent up in the Zagros mountains bordering Iran and Turkey and you’re more likely to see a snowman up here than a camel. Actually, if the truth be known we didn’t see any snowmen or camels but we did see big wheels. Lots of them. Take any beauty spot and you can be certain than an Iraqi will have tried to improve on nature by building some monsterous hotel or theme park. Of slightly more interest to most western tourists we did see a ski resort they were in the process of building – though they did seem to have picked the rockiest and most snow free mountain slope around on which to build it. Away from the tack though the scenery was truly beautiful; huge snowy mountains and deep valleys and gorges. In another time and place this could be a major trekking and winter sports holiday destination.

As public transport is limited up in the mountains we hired a taxi and driver for three days – the driver is a funny guy who has taken great pleasure in playing practical jokes on us like pretending to take the wrong road and drive into Mosul (which would be very, very bad) and other such hilarious antics – this proved a wise decision when we couldn’t find anywhere to stay in the mountains and so were able to carry on last night to the city of Dohuk. The city had something of a surprise for us this morning (and no, it wasn’t yet another kebab – well ok we did only have kebabs but that wasn’t the surprise) - an art gallery. Now I don’t want to sterotype but I wouldn’t imagine a place like Iraq to have art galleries. Even bad ones. But Dohuk had an art gallery that wasn’t just not bad, it was really good. And it’s not just Dohuk. In Sulyamaniya the other day we visited another almost equally good gallery. Yes another unexpected side to Iraq.

After the human art we went off in search of more natural art. Back into the mountains we drove into scenery that was possibly more stunning than yesterdays. Huge mountains seperated by a wide fertile valley in the middle of which the small town of Amadiya was perched atop a table top shaped mountain rising out of the valley floor. The weather was gorgeous, we sat in a restaurant in the sun and had a big lunch (kebabs - again....) looking out a stunning mountain vista. Who would imagine that Iraq could actually feel like a holiday destination? I’m surprised to say it but I’m really enjoying this place!