Blogs from Iraq, Middle East - page 3

January 31, 2005 � Hello everyone, Greetings from Baghdad . . . It was a dark and eerie night. . . . We staged this morning, the day of the first Iraqi elections, at 0545. We readied our gear, double checked our equipment, and rolled out into the streets of Baghdad at 0600. The streets that are normally jammed, bumper-to-bumper, are on this day vacant and the air still. Aside from us, the only other sign of life was the Iraqi Army positioned near the 3rd ID bridge, directly across the river from yesterday's attack on the International Zone. We continued to move through the streets; blank windows stared back at us, and ownerless slips of paper blew haphazardly along; We were on patrol yesterday ... read more

I'm still somewhat chastened by the HUGE response to my posts about Manila- 80,000-plus hits and more than a thousand comments, 99% agreeing with me, the rest mildly offensive (I publish those with real names attached - most don't have them) and a tiny minority of four girls, Filipina rich kids, resident abroad who were so egregiously abusive I was lost in despair at what they represent. What also amazed me is the number of folk who had the time to comment on what was essentially a trivial moan after a bad trip... but then again, you could ask the same question of me. Why bother to write this stuff? Actually I only do it for fun when hanging around in a Costa Coffee shop at some airport like I did the other day in Dubai ... read more

Woke up early to leave for the next city, Erbil, about 180 kms away is the capital of Kurdish Iraq. I have to wake up reception, still sleeping at 9am, paid my bills and he wrote me a place I can stay in Erbil. Walked to the share taxi stand next to the bazaar, I paid 15,000 dinar and waited half an hour to get more people before we set off. 3 hours more or less we drove into dry desolate landscape, brown and arid at this time though there is already a chill in the air as it is now autumn, I noticed a number of checkpoints and we got checked 3 times, most soldiers can't read Roman letters and they thumb through my passport meticulously and asks where I am from as if my ... read more

INTRODUCTION: A little after-the-fact... I didn't even realize that I still had this blog unpublished. I've thrown in the last of my pictures to highlight my time in Iraq (/Bahrain/Kuwait/Qatar). I plan to make my other deployment blogs public (as opposed to the private status they're in now) as soon as I comb them over and make sure there's nothing compromising in them. I also hope to blog the upcoming adventures I'll be having (as well as the couple I've just had!). MY FIRST DEPLOYMENT (cont'd) I write this as we fly over Europe - the first leg of our long journey home. I had intended to blog my way through deployment. There’s no question that there was ample time to blog, but my laziness kicked in (or is it just inertia?) and here I am, ... read more

For more of my photos, or to buy my book, please visit www.nickkembel.com Before you read ahead, forget everything you know about Iraq. The ancient Mesopotamian ruins of Ur and Nineveh, where civilization began and writing and law codes were invented, the site of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the purported location of the Garden of Eden, and capital city Baghdad are all scratched off my Iraq travel itinerary. I am going to the ‘New Iraq’, a relatively safe and stable, visually stunning, and quickly developing semi-autonomous state in northern Iraq, occupied by some of the friendliest and most hospitable people in the world. My exposure to Iraqi people and culture actually began before I even entered the country. On a recent bus ride from Turkey to Syria, I shared a seat with Jabbar Hassan, ... read more