The Iraq Temptation

Salaam Aleikum friends,

This morning Dylan went to Iraq. Instead of being there with him I am in Van, a mid-sized mountain town on the huge Lake Van in the southeast corner of Turkey near the Iranian border.

Northern Iraq is Iraqi Kurdistan. The four northernmost provinces of the country are controlled by an autonomous Kurdish Government, with their capital in Arbil. The border posts are manned by Kurds, the police are Kurds, and the government officials are Kurds. It is the only relatively safe area in Iraq today, which is overall touted as the most dangerous place on earth. I even read somewhere that someone had calculated that foreigners have a 28% chance of being killed in Iraq. Don't ask what formula that calculation is based on; I am just as curious about it as you. When Dylan first suggested going to Iraq, my reaction was much like I am sure most other's would have been: fuck no. But of course I was curious, and my recent interactions and conversations with Kurdish people (southeast Turkey is almost all Kurdish; I'm just gonna come out and say it: this is Kurdistan) opened my mind a bit. The Turkish Kurds admire Iraqi Kurdistan for their success in achieving the goal of having an autonomous government within Iraq and for upholding some of the basic rights that Kurds in Turkey and Syria are not granted (and for just being the only people to have their shit together in Iraq). When we told people around here that we were considering going to Iraq, we were not given the 'you've gotta be insane' reaction that you would get elsewhere, but rather people just seemed to acknowledge it like it was no big deal, same as if we had told them we were going to Istanbul.

So we researched. Apparently at the border town of Silopi in Turkey you can get a visa for free on arrival, and be happily let loose into Iraq. No letters of invitation. No waiting. Just the fact that you could get a tourist visa to Iraq blew my mind. In Iraqi Kurdistan a foreigner hasn't been harmed since 2003. There are very few US soldiers. The Kurds heavily check everyone coming from Iraqi Iraq, and apparently it is very difficult for Iraqi Iraqis (ie. Arab Iraqis, who are rather bitter about the Kurds having so much power) to get in. The travel accounts we read of people who had been said that they felt entirely safe. Yet when it came time for me to make the big decision, I had a bad feeling in my gut (what IF something goes wrong...) and I told Dylan that I would take him to the border, but not cross. I told my parents that I was not going to go (whereas if I did go, I likely wouldnt mention anything until I got back, and rather tell someone else ahead of time to save stress and grief on their end --- sorry mom and dad!), and then hopped on the bus with him and cruised from the town of Mardin where we were yesterday to Silopi. The road sauntered through the breathtaking green hills and fields of Mesopotamia (a side note I wanted to mention: contrary to what I imagined, Syria and southeastern Turkey are LUSH with greenery --- not the sandy wastelands I had pictured. I can totally see how Mesopotamia was the cradle for so many ancient civilizations, and of course their traces are left all over this landscape in the form of Tells --- large mounds of thousands of years of accumulated anthropogenic debris --- which dot the mostly flat plains, and are often still the locations of contemporary villages.) and then into the mountainous region along the Iraqi border (northern Iraq, my Lonely Planet guide book claims, is the 'Switzerland of the Middle East'). The drive was gorgeous. Short of a much more apparent Turkish military force in the form of tanks and checkpoints, and fences, which are surely mined, the area is very similar to the rest of southeast Turkey: green and gorgeous. I don't know what I expected when looking into Iraq... burning villages? Crying babies? People hopping around with missing limbs? Of course not, but even though I knew what I knew about the place, it still felt strange looking across at a Iraqi mudbrick village that just looked like any other Middle Eastern or Anatolian mud brick village.

As soon as we arrived in Silopi late last night along with a bunch of Iraq-bound tanker and cargo trucks, and got off our bus, we were mobbed by taxi drivers shouting 'Zakho? Zakho?'. Zakho is the border town on the Iraq side. There is a taxi mafia in Silopi, and they specialize in 'facilitating' people's crossing back and forth. Apparently you just hop in the car with them, give them your passport, and they handle everything for you. And of course we were going to Iraq. Why the hell else would any other foreigner come to Silopi, which really was a shitty border town. There is big business in getting people to Iraq, and apparently its quite easy. Being right at the border, and seeing first hand that this was not a war zone in the slightest, but rather another area inhabited by hospitable Kurdish people, I immediately began to regret my decision not to go. The gut feeling was gone, but I still had other excuses: I told my parents I wasnt going. I have made plans to meet friends in Istanbul next weekend. I want to see Van before going back to Istanbul. If I go to Iraq I want to have more time to enjoy it. A whole bunch of pretty weak excuses, and I realized it, but I still didn't go. As I rode the bus away from Silopi this morning, and looked back into Iraq I felt a bit of remorse, regret, and jealousy. I feel like even after observing first hand that so many of our preconceptions about Iraq are just overdramatic generalizations based on stereotypes and shit media coverage, that I still let this scare me away. That said, there is still the inkling of doubt in my mind for sure. And things COULD be different IN Iraq. I will wait for Dylan to get back, hear his account, and let you know. Its just too bad that once I decide to go that it might be difficult to find a crazy bastard like him to come with me.

Its unfortunate too, because I will miss Dylan. Traveling with him was like traveling with Miles. We were both totally relaxed, easy going, and agreeable, both had the same sort of travel philosophy and goals. We just went with the flow. So today has been a bit emotional, but exciting things still lay ahead, and I hope to meet up with Dylan again in a few weeks (though he will likely be traveling the opposite direction as I, so it will brief) or hopefully travel together again in the future.

But lets backtrack a bit to our exit from Syria into SE Turkey. As soon as you cross the border there is a marked difference, not necesarilly in terms of landscape, but in infrastructure, and people. Turkey is far more wealthy than Syria, and this is very apparent. Also, Turkey feels so much less 'Middle Eastern' than the rest of the Middle East... even in the deep southeast the European influences are evident in building styles, advertisements, fashion, etc. And you can see girls' hair and arms... whoooooo! After getting a ride with some friendly border police who were cranking Rihanna's 'Umbrella' to the minibus station in Akcakale, the Turkish border town we crossed into, we went to Sanliurfa, a town where Abraham was said to have been thrown off the fortress that dominates the city by the evil King Nimrud, but Abraham landed on a patch of roses and survived, or something like this. What I found the most entertaining piece of information about this city was that it used to be called Urfa. When the nearby city of Antep adopted the name Gaziantep, which means 'Heroic Antep', the Urfans were jealous, so they changed their name to Sanliurfa, which means 'Glorious Urfa'. Wicked. After getting into the Turkish swing of things in Glorious Urfa (which wasn't all THAT glorious in my opinion) we made a day of checking out some nearby ruins for my archaeology fix and then doing a suite of minibuses (called Dolmuses in these parts) to eventually get us up into the mountains near one of Eastern Turkey's most famous sites, Nemrut Dagi. Nemrut is a MASSIVE tumulus mound of crushed rock on the top of a mountain, under which the pre-Roman King Antiochus, who's short-lived Commagene kingdom was the buffer zone between the Persian east and the Hellenistic west in the first century AD. On the east and west side of this tumulus mound Antiochus build massive statues of himself alongside Hellenistic gods. During the past few years earthquakes have toppled the heads off of these statues, and so there are no massive heads sitting eerily at the feet of the statues in the shadow of the tumulus. It's a very cool place, and it being one of Turkey's most famous attractions, we expected it to be packed, but to the contrary, Dylan and I hiked 15 km from the village we stayed in beneath the summit to find ourselves the only ones there, and the heads on the west side to be chin-deep in snow, which was really cool.

As a matter of fact, we have so far found ourselves to be the only foreign tourists in this part of the country. We have barely seen anybody, less backpackers than were in 'dangerous' Syria, which I find surprising.

After enjoying Nemrut and getting our exercise we did another dolmus and ferry combo to Diyarbakir, the capital of Turkish Kurdistan and homebase of the notorious PKK. Nearly everyone we have met in southeastern Turkey has been Kurdish, and this is no more true than in Diyarbakir. EVERYONE here is Kurdish. The large city was the site of the majority of the violence in the 80s and 90s that I wrote about in my previous e-mail. The old part of the city is surrounded by a massive ancient basalt wall which totals over 6 km in length. It really adds to the somewhat 'rough' feel of the city, but once again we were met with nothing but hospitality from the locals. We met two Kurdish boys who we got along quite well with and wandered around the city exploring with them and getting a bit of a tour. After a while the inevitably opened up about the problems the Kurds face. Like the Syrians, they felt that they were being denied basic rights, and desired an autonomous government. "We are proud to be from Turkey. We do not want our own country, but only the right to our own government, the ability to use our language, etc. We only want to be like Iraqi Kurdistan."

But the Turkish government of course has none of it. "They deny that we exist. Everyone in this town is Kurdish, except of course the mayor, and the municipal government officials, who were appointed in the west. We are being ignored, or worse, considered terrorists." One of the guys worked in the west coast resort town of Fethiye during summers, and said that he has been treated like an animal by Turks that he worked with.

One of the most poignant things that he said was this, when admiring a flag flying over a statue of Ataturk in the central square: "Is this Turkey's flag, or a Turkish flag? I don't know. If it is Turkey's flag, then it is my flag. But if it is a Turkish flag, then this is not my flag."

We also happened to be in Diyarbakir on April 23rd, which marks the anniversary of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the formation of the Turkish Republic under Ataturk. Around the country this is a big holiday, but we were likely in the worst place possible for any festivities. "This is a big day for Turkey, but not so big for us. Under Ottoman rule we were allowed to be Kurdish and operate under a Kurdish system of government. With the formation of the Republic, Turks tried to erase Kurds and Kurdistan."

And its really tough not to feel that you aren't in Kurdistan in SE Turkey. People don't speak Turkish to each other, they speak Kurdish. When you say Tessukuler (turkish for thank you) to someone, the nod in acknowledgement, but when you say spas (kurdish thank you) you get a warm and knowing smile. When we were in Mardin, all the hotels were booked full with tourists, but they were ALL Turkish tourists, getting away and celebrating the long weekend, many of them from Istanbul. So when people asked us where we were from, we also asked where they were from, to figure out what part of turkey they had come from. One fellow we met at a Monastery near Mardin smiled at us and turned his back to the crowd of Turkish tourists mingling around. 'I am from Kurdistan.' He told us proudly, but slightly conspiratorially.

Finishing our day in Diyarbakir ended with our friend taking us back to his house for dinner with his amazingly friendly family, which included long discussions about many things, primarily of course a continuation of the Kurdish topic. There is a lot of pent up anger and frustration there, and most common from all Kurds we met, including this family were quesions such as "do you know any kurdish people? are there kurds in Canada/US? what does Canada/US know/think about kurdish peoples?" After my time and experience here, I cannot help but sympathize with the plight of the Kurds in Turkish Kurdistan.

I hope that topic hasn't been beaten to death, but I have been finding it all very interesting, and have been having some fascinating discussions with people, so I want to pass them on to you. Its probably something that everyone could do with a little bit of awareness of.

After Diyarbakir we went to Mardin, which is a really really really cool old city built on a steep hill that overlooks those gourgeous Mesopotamian plains I wrote about above. The town is amazing, and its no wonder that it draws the Turkish tourists. As there was literally not a single room in a hotel in town, we slept on the roof of one instead. And it was after Mardin that we went to Silopi, as I wrote about at the beginning.

Now I am alone in Van, which is up in the mountains, and has a gritty, almost Central Asian feel to it, which kind of warms me. The surrounding mountains really remind me of Kyrgyzstan. After a few days here checking out Armenian castles and Churches I am going to burn all the way across the country to Istanbul, to chill out and be stationary for a while, as I feel like I have just been constantly on the move, and I want to visit some friends there and relax before making my next move.

So I will continue to keep in touch as the days go by, and I hope that you all do so as well!

Stay safe and enjoy the beginning of summer!

Love Bryn

Under Suspicion in Kurdistan AKA The Middle East: Its Complicated!

Hi Everyone!

I am now in Sanliurfa, in the southeast of Turkey. Last time I wrote I was leaving Jordan to try and get into Syria, which was expensive but painless for me. Whereas I was able to waltz through customs quite quickly (I passed the test of answering 'no' to the question 'have you ever visited Occupied Palestine?') some Americans that I met had to wait 8 hours to hear whether or not they got their visa or not.

First stop in Syria was Damascus, the capital, which I can easily say is one of the most beautiful cities I have visited in my life. If you believe the silly anecdotes that you get from Lonely Planet guidebooks, it says that the Prophet Mohammad came to overlook Damascus from the mountains on the edge of town, and decided not to visit it because he said that he did not want to enter Paradise before he died. The main part of town is aptly called the Old City, and it is a maze of alleys between really old buildings (some dating back to the Roman Period), filled with souqs delicious food stalls, gorgeous mosques, khans, and medressas, and some of the most friendly people I have met outside of rural Central Asia. I slept on the roof of an old hotel overlooking the city skyline. After 5 days in Damascus I went north to Hama, a gorgeous town famous for its waterwheels and delicious sweets, and from there I traveled with my friend Dylan, who I met back in Egypt, to Aleppo, Syria's second largest city, which also has bustling souqs and a lot of 'character'. From Aleppo we traveled east with a Syrian friend that we met into rural Syria, and then north, to Turkey.

I give you this quick framework of where we have been without any details because I want to focus more on what I have learned from the people I have met in the past little while in terms of how the Middle East works, and I will do so with reference to the people I have met along my northward journey from Jordan to Turkey. I hope that I can express the rather random bits that I have in a way that at least makes some sense... though at the same time, I think maybe the point, and the main thing that I have learned in the last little while, is that things here are complicated to the point that they dont make any sense:

-first off, Syrians are some of the most genuinely friendly and generous people I have met on this trip. Unlike Egypt, Syrians for the most part have no alterior motives, do not want your money, and are genuinely interested in what you are doing there. Many seemed bewildered that I would be there, and I was constantly asked why I was in Syria, what I thought of it, how it compared to other places I had been, etc. I believe that since the country sees so much less tourism due to people for some reason thinking that it is dangerous/too difficult to get into, that the people do not see foreigners as money/a nuisance (like in Egypt).

-Syria does not recognize Israel as a country (Jordan and Egypt are the only two Middle Eastern countries that officially do so, though most of the people in those countries think differently as well). Syria strongly sides with the Palestinian cause, and if you have any trace of having been in Israel you are not allowed into the country. The flag of the ruling party of Syria is an inverted Palestinian flag, and they are flown beside the Syrian flag everywhere, so for the longest time I thought that they were flying just as many Palestinian flags as Syrian ones, though I still do not think that the similarity is a coincidence.

-my first evening wandering Damascus' Old City I stumbled upon some old men doing what old Middle Eastern men do best: sitting on the street smoking and drinking tea. Seeing me, they beckoned me to join, and I got a bit of a history lesson in broken english along with tea and nargileh. One of the dudes' name was Michael, whilst everyone else was Mohammad, Ahmed, etc. I asked if Michael was Christian, and he said yes. 'We all live in peace here in Syria. People think we are warriors or something, but this is a lie. Muslims and Christians live in peace. We are all friends... But the Israelies... they are liars. We are a peaceful people, but they are trying to fight a war. What America thinks are all lies.'

-One man that I met in the Bazaar shook my hand and asked cautiously: "are you American?" When I replied negative he looked openly relieved and said "Oh good."

-the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad is one of these guys that likes to have his picture everywhere (like King Abdulla in Jordan, though Assad looks much more sinister in most of his photos). He is featured on every governement building, on posters lining the streets, in shops and on decals in car windows. His father is equally well-displayed, as is this badass looking dude with a thick moustache sporting camo and dark aviators. I couldn't figure out who this fellow was for the longest time, and then, when I asked a friend that I met in Aleppo he said in hushed tones that it was the president's brother. 'Younger brother' I asked. No, it was his older brother, but he was dead. 'Dead how?' An 'accident', I was told, and the subject was changed. Regardless, the Assad dynasty is credited for the formation of modern Syria as it is today (they have been in power since 1970) and some people are happy with this, others not, as I will get into below.

-Along with the Assad family portraits everywhere, there are also pictures of a mad looking bearded chap waving an AK. I was told that this is the leader of Hezbollah, the militant group out of Lebanon that clashes with the Israeli army... apparently the government quite likes them as well, but does not get along well with the Lebanese government, as Lebanon used to be a part of Syria. I find these tensions a bit confusing, and don't know enough yet to comment much further.

-In Damascus I met many people just through sitting at a coffee shop in the evenings. I befriended several young people who took me around town and spent a lot of time with me. When I asked them about the Assad gov't, they told me that they loved him, and that he was a level-headed and peaceful leader, focusing on the growth of Syria and not on war. Apparently there has not been any international fighting during the time that Bashar has been in power... which I think is true. When I asked about the pictures of him everywhere (because in my experience countries that have pictures of the leader everywhere have been dictatorships with governments that the general population dislikes, and I feel that the pictures everywhere is something of a way to justify power, and a bit of a scare tactic to remind people that the dictator is omnipresent...) my friends got a bit on edge and told me that the gov't does not put the pictures up everywhere, but the people do because they love him. 'He is like a rockstar' I was told. I countered that it seemed unlikely that the general public was responsible for putting multi-storey photos of him up on sky-scrapers and government buildings, but the conversation got a bit tense at that point so I let it drop. Point is this: there is a portion of the population, and this portion had university education, that is entirely content with the government.

-interesting experience with these friends: they invited me to their home out in the suburbs of Damascus, where the fellow lives with his family (strong family ties mean that most households contain 3 generations of family or more; even when the young generation is pushing 30). When I arrived I had to wait outside until all the females inside the house had gone to their designated room (Harem). It is forbidden for guests to see members of the opposite sex in traditional Muslim families. My friend's best friends had never met each others mothers. I knew that this was how things worked, but to experience it first hand was still a bit strange for me. The reason I was given was that once a woman is married, they are the man's queen, and should be treated as such, and cannot be seen to tempt other men. These are the women that wear the full veils (chador) when they are out in public. I obviously don't entirely agree with the reasoning I was given in this instance, but it is certainly not my place to argue these family's traditions.

-on a slightly related note, I reckon that these fully veiled women must wear some seriously kinky underwear underneath their chadors, because there are all kinds of lingerie stores, and these women always seem to be shopping in them...

-I look like a famous turkish actor named Kivanc. In the middle east he has been translated and the guy's name is Mohandnat. When I was in Turkey at the beginning of the trip I was told that I looked like him, and in Syria everyone started saying I looked like a Turkish actor named Mohandnat... it took me a while to put together the fact that they were one and the same. In Hama I was watching the sunset from a large hill in the middle of the city that was the ancient citadel. Syrian families were out in force for picnicking, a favorite Middle Eastern pasttime (if it involves sitting, eating, smoking, it flies). A few girls came up to me and asked if I was alright, what I was doing there, etc. After some introductions and a lot of giggling they invited me to go and picknick with their mother. After talking to them they admited that one of their friends had seen me earlier and went to tell the others that there was a guy that looked like Kivanc walking around, and they had set out to find me. When I was walkıng around the streets of villages, small chıldren would whısper my celebrıty name as I passed by and gıggle...

-one of the girls was attending University in Aleppo, and she told me she had a Lebanese boyfriend there, whom she was in love with, but it was a big secret and her mother did not know, because she was not supposed to be in love before marriage. 'Love comes after marriage, not before. If there is love before marriage their may be problems. If my parents knew about this, they would be ashamed and cast me out of the family.' She told me all of this was grinning and giggling in front of her mother. 'she does not understand english, so I can tell you all my secrets right in front of her!'

-In Aleppo, the second largest city in Syria, up in the north, Dylan and I encountered the same incredible friendliness and curiosity as the rest of the country. We met many young people from the University of Aleppo who invited us to come and see the campus. Of these people we met three very nice Kurdish fellows studying Medicine, who we arranged to meet for breakfast in the med school cafeteria the next day. Kurds are an ethnic group who live in northern Syria, southeast Turkey, northern Iraq, and eastern Iran. They are not related to Turks or Arabs, and have their own language and customs. They do not have their own recognized country, though they claim that these territories are Kurdistan. They have their borders drawn, whether imagined or not, their own flag, and their own government. In Iraq they control the entire north, which is designated as the Kurdish Autonomous Zone, and is the only part of the country that is relatively stable. The police there are Kurdish, the border guards are Kurdish, and by all their accounts, this is Kurdistan, or a part of Kurdistan at least. Our frıends, who we wıll call Ahmed, Khalıd, and Mohammad, were very forthrıght on lettıng us know that they were Kurdısh. 'Thıs ıs the Arab Republıc of Syrıa', they told me 'but where are the arabs? There are more Kurds ın thıs room than there are Arabs. Thıs whole country ıs more than just Arabs. There are Kurds, Armenıans, Turks, Persıans. Unfortunately thıs fact seems to be ıgnored'.

However, there was no outrıght anımosıty between these people and Arabs, as a matter of fact, many of theır frıends who we met were Arab, and there were even Kurd-Arab couples. There has been anımosıty ın the past however, especıally ın Turkey ın the 1980s and 90s. One of the Kurdısh governıng partıes, the PKK or Kurdısh Workers Party, launched a vıolent separatıst campaıgn that restulted ın thousands of deaths, but was more or less surpressed, wıth the leader beıng ımprısoned on an Island south of Istanbul, where he stıll chılls. From what I gather there was sımılar vıolence ın Syrıa as well. I asked my frıends about the PKK, tellıng them that so far the only perspectıve I had been exposed to was that of the Turks, who have offıcıally declared them a radıcal terrorıst group. I asked Ahmed ıf the PKK was seen as radıcal or ıf they had the support of the majorıty of Kurds. I was told that of course Kurds support them, they were one of theır strongest governıng partıes and they had brought some change to the kurdısh sıtuatıon (the PKK as ıt ıs today ıs mostly non-vıolent, I should note). 'Kurdısh people are treated unfaırly by the Syrıan and Turkısh governments' I was told.'We are not allowed to learn ın our language, we are denıed upper level jobs, we could not, untıl very recently, have Kurdısh radıo or televısıon. It ıs dıffıcult to publısh ın Kurdısh language. It ıs as ıf we dont exıst.' I know that on Turkısh censuses, there ıs no optıon to select 'kurdısh' as an ethnıcıty, even though over 12 mıllıon kurds lıve ın the country.

I asked Ahmed what he thought of the PKKs vıolence. 'It ıs complıcated. Obvıously we do not lıke vıolence, no one should be kılled. It ıs the law of Islam. But we trıed talkıng. We trıed beıng peaceful. We trıed askıng for our rıghts that we were denıed. But we were eıther ıgnored or persecuted. So we had to fıght. And when we fought, we succeeded ın beıng heard, and gaıned some of our rıghts. What ıs better, to be peaceful and be treated terrıbly, or to fıght and gaın some of the basıc rıghts you are beıng denıed?' I had been prepared to engage ın an argument, but I ended up fındıng ıt dıffıcult to argue wıth thıs logıc.

After spendıng some great days wıth Ahmed and co. (we ended up stayıng ın theır place and beıng on the recıevıng end of the excessıve Syrıan hospıtalıty, whıch was overwhelmıng at tımes), Ahmed ınvıted us to hıs vıllage ın the northeast where hıs famıly lıves. From here ıt would be a short hop ınto southeastern Turkey, where Dylan and I were headed next. When travelıng from Aleppo, to Aın al-Arab (ıt means Arab Sprıng, but there are no Arabs here, Ahmed joked), our passports were checked, as routıne procedure. The polıce ın the bus statıon seemed more worrıed about a group of syrıans on the bus that had not performed theır mılıtary servıce than us. When we arrıved our bus drıver ınsısted that he drop us off at Ahmed's door, whıch we assumed was just general hospıtalıty. However, just after we went out to explore the beautıful green vıllage and surroundıng fıelds, polıce went ınto Ahmed's house, demandıng where we were, what we were doıng here (we were probably some of the fırst foreıgners ever ın thıs vıllage), what our relatıonshıp was wıth Ahmed, etc. They demanded to know everywhere that we were goıng and when we were goıng. A bıt shaken, Ahmed explaıned to us that they eıther thought we were Western spıes helpıng Israel or, more lıkely, somehow aıdıng the Kurdısh cause. 'The polıce are the only Arabs ın thıs town, because Kurds are not allowed to become polıce', Ahmed saıd when I ınquıred. 'They are paranoıd of us. The only reason for theır actıons ıs because you are wıth me and I am Kurdısh'. Sure enough, the polıce contınued to call to make sure we hadn't left, and to make sure that they were ınformed as soon as we dıd.

Aın al-Arab ıs on the Turkısh border. There ıs lıterally a turkısh vıllage flyıng turkısh flags about 500 m away, across a fıeld. Thıs vıllage ıs mostly populated by kurds as well. There used to be a crossıng there, but ıt has been closed for securıty reasons. The Turkısh government was afraıd of PKK actıvıty and ınteractıons between Syrıan and Turkısh Kurds, and as an extra measure has mıned the entıre fıeld between the two countrıes. 3 weeks before our vısıt, a chıld from the vıllage had had hıs arm and leg blown off when he went too far playıng ın the fıeld and stepped on a mıne.

When we left Aın al-Arab to go to a vıllage where there was a border crossıng (where there was a less domınant Kurdısh populatıon, we were told), the polıce were notıfıed, and every step of our way, there were armed men who knew that we were from Canada and US and where we were goıng. After numerous stops, we were dropped off ın the Syrıan border vıllage, where we could have easıly slıpped under theır false facade of securıty and gone elsewhere, as there were no polıce awaıtıng us at our actual desınatıon. Regardless, we ate our last felafel of the Mıddle East, and trundled across no-mans land to Southeastern Turkey where we are now. When I started thıs emaıl, we were ın Sanlıurfa, but we are now ın Dıyarbakır, as thıs has taken me several ınternet sessıons to wrıte. I wıll wrıte about SE Turkey ın my next letter, as thıs ıs long enough, and I know there are thıngs that I wanted to say ın thıs one but have already forgotten.

I wıll probably not post thıs on my blog, as I thınk ıt mıght be a bıt sensıtıve, but ıf you know anyone who wants to read ıt, feel free to forward ıt to them. And lastly, I have trıed to remaın as neutral as possıble ın thıs letter, and more focus on expressıng just how damn complıcated thıngs are here. I have amazıng Turkısh, Kurdısh, Syrıan, Palestınıan, Israelı, and Egyptıan frıends, and I would never take any sort of stance agaınst a frıendshıp. It ıs always ımportant to remember that a people must be consıdered separate from the ıdeals of theır government, as the realıty of thıngs ıs often much, much more complıcated than any offıcıal stance that ıs beıng taken. I hope I havent offended anyone ın thıs e-maıl, just remember that I love you all.

And all you other ınfıdels and heathens, I love you all as well! Please keep ın touch, and I wıll wrıte agaın very soon!

All the best,

Bryn

Mohammad, Moses, and Eminem

Hello everyone! It has been a little while since my last letter, so I guess I have a lot to try to catch up on. Right now I am in Amman, the capital of Jordan, and after I write this I am going to attempt to get into Syria.

Literally every other person you meet here is named Mohammad. Sometimes I feel like people are just joking with you when they tell you that their name is Mohammad, because you have met so many Mohammads, but it really is just the fact of that matter that about 60 % of people in the Middle East are named Mohammad.

After I wrote last I went to the Sinai region of Egypt. The Sinai is a hot, rocky desert that has been contested and fought over due to its strategic location and proximity to the Suez Canal. It was occupied by Israel for a while, but it now belongs to Egypt and a peace agreement has been signed. From Cairo I took an overnight bus to Dahab, a town on the Gulf of Aqaba that is renowned for its relaxed atmosphere, world-class Red Sea diving, and hippies. Across the Gulf you can see Saudi Arabia --- just a long swim away. The place is nothing like the rest of Egypt, to be honest, I didnt even feel like I was in Egypt anymore. It was the first place I was able to wear shorts and feel comfortable in a month, and when I saw a girl in a bikini I think I went into a state of reverse culture shock. People say that you go to Dahab and get stuck there due to its incredibly relaxed atmosphere, and I would say that it is quite true. I met people who had been there for months. I only planned on spending 3 days and ended up staying nearly a week. The highlight for me was the diving. I took a refresher course and then spent several days (and several $$) diving the gorgeous coral reefs and checking out the extrememely diverse aquatic life --- it was like Finding Nemo in reality. Seeing as I have only dove in cold old Canada prior to this, it was quite a special experience for me.

I also climbed Mt. Sinai in the middle of the night to watch the sunrise from the top. This is where ol' Moses saw the burning bush and got the 10 commandments from the big man upstairs. There is a monastery at the bottom where the burning bush is still growing... though it doesnt look very burnt these days. Our bedouin guide to the top of the mountain was named Mousa, which is Arabic for Moses, which I found quite fitting. I wonder if his name actually was Mousa...

In Dahab, everyone is your 'brotha'. In the place that I stayed, Eminem was one of the brothas running the joint. Shaggy was another. Around town I also met Zorro and Dr. Sheesha. It was kind of wierd.

When I finally did get out of Dahab, I went to a town called Nuweiba, to catch a ferry to Aqaba, the port city on the south end of Jordan. The ferry was a bit of an operation worth noting, and gives one final example of 'foreigner protection' measures employed by the Egyptians: there are 2 daily boats, a fast boat and a slow boat, both of which are quite expensive, the slow boat being slightly cheaper. Somewhat excited for a boat ride, I wanted to take the slow boat. I went to the ferry ticket office in the morning to buy my ticket, where a very rude fat man told me that I could not buy a ticket for a the slow boat; it had already left. So I purchased a ticket for the fast boat. I then went to the ferry, where you go through Egyptian exit customs and enter a large waiting hall with all the other passengers. I was in this waiting hall by 11:30 AM. At about 3, a boat arrived, and everyone got up to rush to the gate. I did so as well, and a police man asked to see my ticket. This was the slow boat, I was told, I have to wait for the fast boat... Indeed, the slow boat had not already left. So I waited longer, and at 6 PM the fast boat finally arrived. All foreigners were rushed aboard, where our passports were taken for (free!) Jordanian Visas. Then the Egyptians and Jordanians were let aboard, where they had to line up for Jordanian Customs to get their passport stamps. Being as there were hundreds of Egyptians and Jordanians on the boat, this process took 2 hours, and we did not depart until 8 PM. We arrived in Aqaba at 10 (Jordan is an hour ahead of Egypt)... probably about 5 hours after the 'Slow Boat' had arrived...

Jordan is much more laid back than Egypt, and much more wealthy than Egypt. The Jordanian Dinar is almost 1:1 with the British Pound, so things are shockingly pricey here after Egypt. The country apparently gets a lot of its money from Israel (Jordan and Egypt are the only 2 Arab countries that recognize Israel as a nation) and from other foreign investment (there are TONS of different banks in the country) and from goods shipped to Aqaba... because really it does not seem like there is an exceptional amount of anything being produced here... most of the country is arid desert.

The majority of Jordanians are actually Palestinians, who have migrated (mostly by force) from the Palestinian Territories and Israel. I have been told that Amman is actually 80% Palestinian. I haven't had many discussions about the fact with locals, but I think there is some resentment between the Hashemite Jordanians (who are supposedly part of the bloodline of the Prophet Mohammad out of Saudi Arabia --- the King, King Abdulla, is a Saudi and part of the Hashemite bloodline) and some Palestinian Jordanians... but I do not know enough to comment on it in detail.

After a night in Aqaba I came north to Amman, where I met up with my friend from Istanbul, Turan, who took a week off to join me. Amman is a cool city, very relaxed compared to Cairo. It is incredibly hilly and the streets do loops and curves around the hills, making it quite difficult to navigate around. Unfortunately, there is little to see here in terms of tourist sites, except for a stunning ruined Ummayyad citadel on top of one of the hills and a gorgeous Roman amphitheatre carved into the side of one of the hills in the middle of downtown. And the cool thing about downtown is that it literally is downtown --- it is at the bottom of all the major hills, so you wander down any steep street heading down and the chances are that you will arrive in downtown.

From Amman we went to a town called Madaba, from where we went and floated in the Dead Sea, which is 400 m below sea level and so salty that you can only bob like cork in it. We also went to Mt. Nebo, where Moses first climbed and saw the Promised Land in Israel below. From there we could see the Jordan River, Dead Sea, Jericho, and Jerusalem. Spectacular views across these famous biblical landscapes.

We saw several fantastic crusader castles, on our way down the King's Highway, which was traditionally the main north-south traderoute from Gulf of Aqaba up to the north and across into Europe --- sort of a crossroads with the the Old Silk Road, and it was also the Easternmost Crusader frontier.

Back in the south of the country, we went to Petra, the ancient capital of the Nabateans (300 BC - first few centuries AD) and one of the most breathtaking archaeological sites I have ever seen. Here beautiful tombs and temples are carved into red sandstone cliffs... the whole site is accessed by a 1.25 km walk through a narrow rift, only a meter or two in width in some places, called the Siq. If you've watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, it is the site where he finds the grail in the end. Petra is absolutely massive, and you can hike around anywhere - up to the cliffs above teh city with beautiful views of the surrounding landscape. It feels endless. We spend 2 and a half full days there wandering the ruins, and I still could have used another full day.

After Petra we went and camped in the protected desert area of Wadi Rum, where bedouins have set up camps and take you around of Jeep tours. Sleeping under the stars in the red desert was quite relaxing, and the landscape was breathtaking.

But now I am heading to Syria, where officially I am not supposed to be allowed to enter as I was supposed to have arranged my Visa back in my home country, but unofficially everyone is eventually let in at the border. I am pretty confident that I will get in, and quite excited to see the ancient cities of Damascus and Aleppo, which I am told have a lot more atmosphere than Amman... From Syria I will move back to Turkey, and my next move is still in the air after this, but I am still holding out on getting into Tajikistan for some archaeology.

I know most of you are probably going crazy with exams and papers these days, so I wish you the best of luck on all that, and if you get a chance please write, I would love to hear how things are going back at home and around other places! All the best of everyone, and all my love.

Bryn