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Northern Iraq Part 3: Sad times in Sulemani
The next day we left the hotel as soon as possible. Adam claims he heard gunfire during the night which was probably fireworks. I decided to… borrow one of their blankets which was really nice and comfortable, Adam, albeit accidentally, stole the room key and Will stole part of the curtain rail which fell off in the morning. The girls left at the same time as us as they didn’t want any hassle when they left as they didn’t speak Arabic or Kurdish.
We took a taxi to the Sulemani garage and from there we negotiated a taxi to take us to Sulemani on the long route which didn’t pass through real Iraq as we didn’t want to die. This was a great idea as it took us over some mountains that looked absolutely awesome with great views of the town Dukan and the massive dam and lake next to it.
We were dropped off at the main garage in Sulemani and we got picked up by our next taxi driver, Tarik, who used to live in Manchester so he could speak English perfectly. We chatted a bit to him in the taxi and he gave us his number to call the next day. He then dropped us off at Hotel Chrakan and said he could take us to Halabja the next day for 80,000ID, so we said we’d think about it and then said goodbye.
We then checked into the hotel for $26 each per night which meant two separate rooms, and as I snore I got a room to myself. Another win there. The rooms were quite nice too and comfortable, which was a relief after the night before. As it was lunchtime we popped into the restaurant downstairs which served us a variety of dishes including kebabs, schwarma and salad. This was all really good food but they decided to rip us off at the end by overcharging us and saying we had to pay for the salad even though we didn’t order it. Majnoon! (Crazy)
We then walked to the Amna Suraka (Red Security) museum which was where Saddam Hussein tortured and maimed countless numbers of Kurds during his purge in the 80s. It has now been turned into a museum to remember the people who died there during Saddam’s regime before it was overrun by angry Kurds in 1991.
We started taking pictures of the place just outside and then some undercover policemen came over to us and started to question why we were taking pictures of it which was slightly scary, but luckily a man in a big car who spoke English came over and we explained to him what we were doing and he explained to the policemen and then everything was fine, apparently a celebrity lives near there and they were worried we might be taking pictures of their house. He then drove us round to the main entrance of what is now the Amna Suraka museum.
Unfortunately due to the forthcoming Eid the place was closed, but the driver had a chat with the guy at the door and we were let in to wander around as we liked. We headed over to the main courtyard where a variety of tanks and military vehicles were left to rust after the prison was overrun. We then looked around the place where we could see into the gutted buildings that had bullet holes strewn all around them.
An tourist group of some American teachers from Abu Dhabi meant that the actual museum part of the place was opened up. This included horrendous photos of the torture the prisoners endured in this place lit up by red light in a darkened basement.
The next part was a corridor decorated by mirror shards and fairy lights on the ceiling to create an eerie atmosphere. We were then told that each mirror shard represented a Kurdish life that was taken and each light represented a Kurdish destroyed during Saddam’s reign of terror over the Kurdish people.
After that we saw a representation of a typical Kurdish home and told the story of a couple who were about to be married but they were taken out of their homes and tortured and were never seen again. We then went back out to the tank graveyard, seeing somewhat now the horrific nature of the place. We left the American tourists, who were at this point on the tanks pretending to shoot people, and headed back to our hotel, feeling somewhat pensive about what we’d just seen.
Later that afternoon we headed into the centre of town which was buzzing with activity. We’d heard tales of a legendary Chinese mall which our friends who’d been to Sulemani a month before had visited so we were keeping our eyes out for this. There were many big malls but we couldn’t find the Chinese one. We did however seen rows of turkeys lined up on the side of the street ready for Eid, and Adam commented that it was amazing that they could stay there without moving, that was until he realised that all their feet were bound together and were therefore unable to move.
We then found an Iraqi sweet shop which we went into and tried lots of different sweets before purchasing a range of them to take back home to Syria. They didn’t cost much but when we told the man we were British he tried to give us the sweets for free. However, feeling this would be slightly unfair on him we paid him anyway.
We then managed to find the Chinese mall which was filled with a ridiculous amount of shops selling absolute rubbish. From fake kevlar vests to “breast plumping cream” there was a lot you could waste your money on in here. I however settled on a toy of the dwarf Sleepy, except this one had red eyes and looked a bit more like Stoney. Amazing purchase. We then got talking to a Kurdish guy who told us he could find us someone to take us to Halabja for cheaper than 80,000ID.
Unfortunately this didn’t work out however he did write a note for a taxi driver to tell him to take us to a cheap restaurant, as most taxi drivers didn’t speak any Arabic or English. We sadly left the mall and headed off where we found a taxi driver who took us to Sarchnar district where we found a place called Snak Bar which served us chicken with lots of salad again. At this point I was getting a bit tired of chicken.
Feeling reasonably full we headed back and started to play some cards whilst drinking a few beers we’d bought before watching The Walking Dead on TV and then bed ready for our trip to Halabja the next day.
