Ride a different road to the other Iraq
One man’s bike mission to help the people of Iraqi Kurdistan
The beautiful-but-troubled area of Iraqi Kurdistan isn’t top of the list for a touring holiday, but that didn’t stop
In his 1959 book, Arabian Sands, explorer and travel writer Wilfred Thesiger wrote; “No man can live this life and emerge unchanged. He will carry, however faint, the imprint of the desert, the brand which marks the nomad; and he will have within him the yearning to return…” That passage explains why, on a miserably cold, wet day in November last year, I loaded up my 1997 Honda Blackbird and headed east from my home in Cambridgeshire to Harwich, then onwards, 3050 miles to Iraq.
I was 10 years a soldier, leaving in the 1990s but returning to serve in Afghanistan in 2009. It was there that a chance meeting with a bunch of retired soldiers working in private security sent my career in yet another direction. And so, when Islamic State exploded into Northern Iraq in the summer of 2014, I went to work there ready to support the coalition.
You may recall the news footage of helicopters dropping aid to the Yazidi people of Sinjar, forced to take refuge in the mountains when IS tore through the town, killing fathers, stealing childhoods, and selling women into slavery. But those pictures didn’t reveal the full tragedy of what was happening on the ground. Witnessing this at first hand, I became compelled to raise money for the Yazidi refugees and some of the families who’d managed to escape IS slavery. We set up a shop in the camp and also sent two Yazidi girls to the American University so they could learn English – but more than that, to open doors and get a taste of what life can be like.
Despite finishing my job in Baghdad and returning to Cambridgeshire in October 2019, a huge part of me remained in Iraq. I wanted to let the people I support know my commitment to them continues, despite no longer living in the country. Visiting in person, travelling overland, seemed a good way of doing it. From West to East With my heated waistcoat and lined touring trousers holding off the relentless cold and wet, I forged through Germany, making Nuremberg by the afternoon of my first full riding day. It was 200 miles the next day to Linz in Austria, then from there just 270 miles to Budapest, the gateway to the east. I stayed in the city centre and found a bar within 100m of the apartment selling my favourite beer. I might’ve been damp but I was happy!
The following morning it was my Blackbird that was in need of a drink. I’d owned it since new but it had been mothballed for four years whilst I was working in Baghdad, ‘I was nervous given Britain’s part in the NATO bombings there’ and after topping the coolant up I started to get traveller’s paranoia that I had blown the cooling system. I set off for a Honda dealership with a cautious eye on the temperature, feeling for the slightest change in the motor. By the time I got to the garage she was running smoothly, and with my faith in Honda’s reliability renewed, I pushed on for Serbia. From Europe to Asia The run from Budapest to Belgrade was enjoyable and even the weather gave me a break. Whilst there I had to buy Serbian motor insurance and a Serb phone SIM, and I must admit to being nervous about how I’d be received, given Britain’s part in the NATO bombing campaign there in
the 1990s. I needn’t have worried, the people I met were universally friendly. Even the bouncers in the clubs, who looked like retired war lords, were good to me; if you turn up cheerful and engaged people will generally warm to you, no matter where you are from.
After a few days exploring the roads on the Bulgarian/Greek border, I made it into central Istanbul in the early evening, fighting through the rush hour traffic as the rain yet again lashed down. The next day I bought the PTT card needed to travel on the toll roads, then saddled up and crossed the bridge over the Bosporus and into Turkey; out of Europe and into Asia. For the most part I was on clear motorway roads, heading through mountains towards Ankara, battling cold and rain, and often through scenery that reminded me, oddly enough, of Leicestershire’s Charnwood Forest.
I left Ankara in the dark, then reached a service station at the edge of town and stopped to fuel up and wait for daylight. As dawn broke, I cracked on southbound. By midmorning I was riding south along the edge of Lake Tuz, one of the largest salt lakes in the world; 1665 square km but for most of the year only a foot deep. Further on I saw what appeared to be a mountain in the clouds; Mount Hasan, a volcano which rises up over half a mile straight from the surrounding plateau and tops out at 10,673ft. The broken road to the Iraqi border Driving in the very south of Turkey was unusual. ‘You are driving through Turkey? But that is dangerous!’ my Iraqi friends warned. I drove parallel with the Syrian border, at times just 100m away, drawing strange looks from the Turkish soldiers stationed in their watchtowers.
On my last day in the country, I left the beautiful fortress town of Mardin, which sits near the Tigris overlooking the edge of the Mesopotamian plains, and headed south towards the Syrian border. From there it was east to Cizre, through Silopi, and on to the frontier with Iraq. My GPS was showing much longer than I would have expected for the route, and I soon found out why…
The road was terrible, allowing no faster than 20mph, and it went on for mile after endless mile. Just as my morale was on the edge of collapse, the surface changed and I was driving on a brand new, empty motorway at speed. Approaching the border, I filtered through miles of queuing lorries to finally arrive at the checkpoint. Gaining entry to Iraq took three hours, waiting for clerks, obtaining stamps, showing patience. Once through, I then had the Iraqi roads to contend with. They are regularly dotted with potholes big enough to swallow a car, unmarked speed bumps, and roads cut off with unmarked blocks of concrete. The living hazards are suicidal goats, dogs that chase bikes and drivers who trust in God rather than observation. I was most grateful to make it to Dohuk that night. Almost Alpine Iraqi Kurdistan is known as ‘The Other Iraq’. The mountains are so beautiful and the people so welcoming. In the 1800s it was a favourite holiday spot for wealthy Europeans – these days, less so. Nevertheless, I spent a day touring from Dohuk to Amedi, then following the mountain roads though Barzan to Shaqlawa and back to Erbil, a 180-mile trip in remote and often challenging terrain. The scenery here was almost Alpine, so much so that I had to remind myself that I was actually in a distant part of north-eastern Iraq. It crossed my mind that if I dropped the bike and hurt myself it wouldn’t be a helicopter coming to my rescue, more likely a man with a donkey. The route took me over beautiful passes, with cars parked each side of the road as the locals come to picnic, even in winter. Picnic is the national pastime here (along with kidnap, but that is another story).
As I summited the last pass, I saw a river running away into the distance, with the late afternoon sun striking a rock wall many miles away. A picture-perfect view. I stopped for photographs, although not for long; the Turkish Air Force conduct air strikes against PKK fighters in this region and travel in the mountains at night is not recommended.
I got back to Erbil in the cold of early evening for a welcome beer. Even though in a few days I’d have to say goodbye to Iraq and the Blackbird and fly away home, I knew I’d return one day to collect it, and in time, when security improves, perhaps with guests to show them the country and people I love.
‘Living hazards include suicidal goats, dogs, and drivers who trust in God rather than observation’