The global tour | I was in Iraq
Hello everyone, I am Shen Dianqi, a field traveler who travels the world and pays attention to Chinese people around the world.
Today I leave Turkey for my next country, Iraq.
1, a German Hansen who went to Iraq
At the exchange shop at the airport, I was ready to exchange some Iraqi dinars, and I consulted with the waiter at the exchange window for a while, only to find that there was no way to exchange Turkish money for any Iraqi money.
Then a European in the queue behind me, he walked up to me and said, you can hardly find the Iraqi dinar in Turkey, because the currency has a very low rate of universality, and even in Iraq itself often uses dollars instead of dinars.
And then he traded euros for a little bit of dollars, and he said, you're going to Iraq too, right?
I said, yeah, so are you?
He said, yes.
Then we found a spot in the departure hall and I talked to him.
I learned during the chat that he had already been to Iraq once last year. That time he went to Iraq, he went to southern Iraq. It turned out that he had gone on a religious pilgrimage to The Shiites in Iraq. (I don't know specifically, I probably know that Shiites walk from Basra to Karbala, a journey of about 300 to 400 kilometers)
I asked, will you not encounter any accidents on the pilgrimage with such a "Western face"?
He said that I sometimes pretended to be a Turk.
I said, but the Turks are all Sunnis, and they didn't ask you how you became a Shia?
He laughed at my serial questioning, saying that it was true that there were a lot of people who questioned my appearance and attracted attention, but overall, the Iraqis I met on the pilgrimage were very enthusiastic.
Then I asked him what was the security situation in Iraq?
He said that the Shiite zone in the south is safe, and that there are still many extremist groups in Baghdad and the Sunni zone north of Baghdad, which usually hide in the mountains and are still fighting government forces, so the Sunni zone in northern Iraq (excluding the Kurdish zone) is more dangerous.
I said, is there going to be an explosion in Iraq or something?
He said, I can't guarantee this, There will be explosions in Baghdad every once in a while, but the streets of Baghdad are full of police, there are checkpoints everywhere, so overall it's okay.
In short, he summarized the dangers of Iraq, mainly Sunni areas, or the sunni-Shiite border.
2, successfully arrived in Iraq
After a three-hour flight, I arrived at baghdad airport in Iraq, the 51st country I traveled
When you get off the plane, first there will be personnel to check your vaccine certificate, but the inspection is very perfunctory, I have not opened my vaccine certificate, the staff said I saw, go ahead...
You have 1, passport ready in advance. 2. Hotel reservation form.
Next, you have to fill out a form of basic information, which is as simple as five minutes.
After writing and submitting the form to the staff, and then waiting for about 25 minutes, the staff will put an Iraqi visa on your passport, pay a visa fee of $77, remember to come to Iraq to exchange the change, if you give the whole family will not find change.
Then it was smoothly out of the customs~
It's been so long overseas that I've seen so many compatriots at once for the first time.
Heavily armed, it travels directly from the country to Baghdad and then from baghdad airport directly to the project site.