Iraq: Life Between the Frontlines 🇮🇶 I S3, EP32

in the previous episode i left Iran during the internet blackout after a short transit in Dubai i reunited with Flo this time we landed in Baghdad the capital of Iraq a country that over the past few years seems to have quietly faded from the headlines for many people Iraq is still just a word associated with conflict

but that's not what we came to see through a friend of friend i got in touch with a local ayham together we wandered through crowded vibrant markets sat down for some of the best food we've had on this trip and slowly began to see a side of Iraq that feels warm complex and deeply human hi everyone welcome back to the channel

and welcome to Iraq a very young country born on one of the oldest hello hahaha born on one of the oldest lands on earth and modern Iraq is very young its modern history only started in 1918 when Britain took over this land from the ottoman empire

and merged 3 very different regions together but ever since then this young country hasn't really been given the chance to develop in peace in over about a 100 years this country has lived through wars invasions and internal conflict for a long time Iraq is only be seen in the headlines and today i'm here i want to show you a real Iraq

we were staying Baghdad in the Karada district the downtown area though it's considered downtown Karada feels divided into two very different sides near our hotel many residential buildings stood empty long abandoned you could tell they were once carefully built life however was convenient small shops and street vendors were everywhere

our hotel locates near the tahrir square which is pretty central but this neighborhood used to be one of the most most dangerous one there are lots of drug issues and also gun issues but in recent years things have gone a lot better thank you thank you you're welcome for a free no no no no no no hahaha thank you no

no no no i don't need it's for a free thanks thanks you're welcome thanks so much now you feel the the love from Iraqi people i don't know what to say it just i feel like we're spoiled kids on the street other parts of Karada look completely different more than polished lined with beautiful cafes

one of them we met ayham a 20 old engineering student he grew up here he knows the city well welcome to Iraq thank you thank you thank you just for fun fact so he is actually the friend of a friend of a friend of a friend the story is very long but i really like it how Iraqi people connect with each other so firstly i have an old contact

that i knew from China he is Iraqi from Iraqi Kurdistan so we chat a few times on wechat so this time before visiting Iraq i asked him do you have any friends maybe we can have a cup of coffee so he give me a contact i contact that contact that contact gave me another contact and then another contact

so yeah so i don't know how it works but it's kind of magic you know through the contact of the contact of the contact you get to know someone is it very common in Iraq that you try to reach out to someone through your connections like a friend introduce you to a friend to a friend to a friend yeah that's very common that's very common

like i said you talk to my friend his name is Abbas and he told me that i have a friend i want you to go with he is a youtuber yeah he gave me your number so i came to tell you yeah so it's normal to talk friend to friend to friend to friend yeah i love it it's so cool i really like how the society works

people really take care of their relationship of their friendship to really help each other out together with ayham the first thing is that we're going to take the bus to have a short trip in Baghdad Hahaha that on is on me five hundred dinars going and back for one thousand which less than a dollar how do you know this is the right bus

did you ask him no no because there are there are lines that these buses go on so it's a routine it's a fixed line and then you just stop the bus anywhere yes anywhere there's no bus stop they make a new bus station modern one with the AC converter and half an hour free wifi oh wow with the roof

so it's kind of modern yeah how hot is it in Baghdad in the summer above 50 degrees Celsius yeah yeah do you still go out like you can cook in an egg in street on the sun i swear you can't do anything even in night by the way at night it's 41 degrees wow maybe in the cold days

it will be 39 degrees what's the best time to travel to Baghdad right now in the end of January finally we picked the right time to visit Iraq last time it was 45 degrees during the day to be honest even our summer was only three months yeah the rest of it there's no autumn there's no spring

it's all summer yeah it's all summer there's a double decker bus oh wow now we are changing to a more luxurious bus Salam going to the second floor this is so fancy we can even sit in the front why are those house so broken？

i told you before the owners of these buildings are getting away from Iraq before the war of 2003 so they forget about it i don't know where they are now so they left the government takes it as personal property so they don't get involved yeah

so they leave it as it is and no one restores these buildings because it's like a very central location maybe there's people who return to it but they rent it as storage for these shops so it's not left behind in a city center high rise buildings stand tall

their walls marked with bullet holes many of them empty yet the streets below are full of life we pass through a noisy Bazaar there are stores selling clothes and shoes and small local restaurants serving traditional dishes hello hello how are you good good hahaha thanks and make us honor to come here can you speak Arabic?

no unfortunately not China yes China Germany and they're German Germany Germany welcome thank you thank you welcome welcome thanks shokran thank you have a nice day hahaha say something it's so nice like so many random people just started talking to us so we are now in the center of Baghdad

to a special bazaar that sells hello that's my work it's your work so this gentleman is a craftsman that's his work oh no no hey oh together okay hahaha no thanks we had tea before yes thanks thanks thank you

you can really find a lot of stuff the badges the police and also the masks, gloves and also salam salam and even that China welcome thanks how are you ha ha hello hello hello come in hello hello hello ni hao welcome welcome haha nihao nihao hello

China this is from china he said my name is abu sajad the Chinese hahaha Chinese translation of the arabic writing i do business with china yiwu guanzhou Shanghai you go to guangzhou shenzhen i'm from near Shanghai they take products from yiwu and guangzhou

so you buy all this from yiwu guangzhou many products are chinese from guangzhou Guangzhou and yiwu and even the bags are they also from Guangzhou Guangzhou Guangzhou good quality guangzhou guangzhou good guangzhou good

yiwu not good yiwu not good little copy copy guangzhou so guangzhou is better wuhan wuhan yes even wuhan wuhan he says come eat with us thanks thanks a lot yeah welcome to China hope you come more often two weeks after chinese holiday i will go

are you going there again to guangzhou yiwu thanks a lot thanks a lot we going then we followed ayham to one of the city's oldest markets al sari market we arrived at the bazaar a little bit late so many shops are closing but you can still see it's quite busy there are all sorts of stores like bookstores

or a board game store or you know toys for kids shokran shokran shokran shokran oh these chessboards are nice salam i just want to show you the photos of the celebrities that have been to this restaurant Swiss delegation wow what a history this is the most visited restaurant in this bazaar

Kubbah al-Saray Kubbah al-Saray yeah this is the first place that invented this food yeah or kofta kofta yeah kofta and soup vegetable vegetable together yes on the bread on the bread yeah yeah is it a traditional food in Iraq no no this is in the Baghdad only Baghdad

okay in Baghdad wow look at this meatball with some gravy we paid three thousand for that meal that is about two dollars and now we're continuing going through the bazaar but now it's a bit late so many shops you see have been closed their pens are very special so it's just a piece of wood a piece of maybe it's bamboo so how is life in Iraq

compared with like 10-15 years ago economically it was nearly the same as now but like it's so safe right now and you can go at night you can go at afternoon every time nothing will happen to you everybody is welcoming you can say that you saw it yeah everybody welcome you

everybody want to give you something yeah take a photo with you yeah so so welcoming it's better the situation than before and 10 years ago now they made the 911 emergency line if something happened to you in all the languages you can talk in any language the 911 emergency number they will help you

every country has scammers and some bad people i'm not saying it's all safe every country, you see that that so just call 911 even if you speak german english chinese they have translators they have everything so in case of any emergency just call 911 it's totally free every service

we're going to try our first dessert in iraq how much on me no no no no we have to pay yeah we just got this dessert so it's like deep fried doughy food with lots of lots of syrup and sugar for 15000 dinars we're going to get

a beautiful boat ride on the tigris river oh cool haha here we call it Datli datli is it a very typical food here yeah it's famous this is a tigris river and it has existed long before any borders existed today and he has seen the rise and falls of empires it's so beautiful

just like the life in Iraq it still flows so we are exactly on the bloodline of the country without this river there won't be Iraq so many mosques in Baghdad the architecture style is very close to the ones that i've seen in Iran especially when it comes to the color and also the ceramic tiles the mosaic on the minaret let's get some

three for one thousand three is one thousand let's get people are feeding the birds here so you can buy these chips throw it on the ground and then the birds will come and pick it up throw it up throw it up no no hello hahaha that's something you have to do to feed the seagulls with the chips ah you should throw it oh hahaha he got it

you have to be fast and you have to be careful and remember to leave before you run out of food because you can get shit on your head hahaha the most Iraqi food most of people say it's dolma but dolma actually maybe it's ottoman maybe it's some from Syria Lebanon i don't know but the most famous one which is 100 percent Iraq is the masgouf

masgouf is other kind of river fish from Tigris or Euphrates so we cook it like this it's kind of far away you only put salt if something other than salt in it it's ain't masgouf masgouf masgouf Hahaha so here is the fish you can see it they are from the Tigris river and then simply grilled

near the fire like this hello we call it cag because it's with sesame Iraqi traditional cookies with dates they have different sizes some are bigger or smaller sweet and there was something like that

it's called mahmoon or cletcher yeah is there something inside yeah date you can see it from here it's also date yes all our sweets are made from date so you can see the black thing that is the date inside here too wow no no no no thank you habibi hahaha thanks thanks nice to meet you so he just got this bread for free

i really wanted to pay him but he refused so it's amazing and it's hot it's still hot he just made it freshly there are two different fillings so one is with mozzarella with cheese the other is with meat and he need to stretch it until it gets into a very thin piece of dough he say no you won't pay you won't pay he say you won't pay no no no he say you are visitor

shukran thank you it happened to us many times that we would like to pay because we want to try one piece of those food and they said no it's a gift what's this food called this is called burak burak is basil and cheese or basil and feta and inside there is mozzarella cheese yeah this is mozzarella cheese mozzarella cheese

it's for breakfast or anytime most of time it's for breakfast eating that for breakfast so this food is a crispy layer of dough and there is cheese and also some vegetable in it very hot inside and very crispy from the outside Shukran hahaha you're welcome he said welcome every day come every day

always thank thank you thank you i thought this is more of a Shisha shop but the shop owner told us that we can nihao they told us that we can stay here and order our fish so our fish will be delivered in like twenty or thirty minutes and we can stay here for for dinner hookah places seem to be very popular in Middle East like there are so many guys

mainly guys here and they are playing cards with friends meanwhile smoking shisha at the same time this area it's famous for us it's called the hunter bite hunter bite hunter bite because it's so meaty without bone the best thing you can do it's with the bread you put meat and onion

with a little bit lemon juice you should try it from here you see no bones okay go for it thank you one bite all of it so you take a piece of bread and grab this hunter the so called hunter bite okay so that the bones are out and then a little piece of onions

and some lemon juice oh my god i am from near shanghai Hangzhou we have lived in wuhan 2.5 years, 3 years 2.5 years, 3 years did you do business in wuhan?

呃学习学习 we studied civil engineering civil engineering 土木工程 civil engineering nice to meet you whats you name my chinese name is cang wu my arab name is saif abbas mehad zhang li zhang li my chinese name

mida you all studied in wuhan together yes come to china more often thank you thank you thank you thank you welcome thank you bye bye bye bye let me give you a very quick room tour so i found the hotel price in Baghdad

is relatively not that cheap we paid about 30 dollars for the room per night and we checked different hotels the facilities in our hotel room are quite simple so we got two beds let me quickly show you what it looks like outside yeah that's it there are lots of power generators outside

and we have kind of very frequent power shortage but it usually don't last long like one minute or 30 seconds and then the power generator starts work and we have electricity again and let me also show you the bathroom so we have two toilets a sitting toilet and a squat toilet

this is kind of a budget hotel in Baghdad and a good hotel cost often more than 50 us dollar per night and star hotels even more than that it can go up to one hundred or even two hundred so the hotel price in Baghdad is kind of pricy the Iraq visa policy has also changed a little bit so three years ago we were in Iraqi Kurdistan

we've linked the video here and there was a visa on arrival i think it was about 70 us dollars something like that and now you have to apply for an e visa beforehand which cost 150 us dollar per person so we paid three hundred dollars together which is actually quite expensive the visa policy in Iraq is also interesting

so if you apply for the visa of Federal Iraq you could go to Iraqi Kurdistan easily but if you enter from Iraqi Kurdistan and if you apply for their visa then you have to apply for another visa if you want to enter federal Iraq so they actually have two different visa systems that's the interesting part