Saturday Afternoon Road Trip to Iraq

Friday, January 21, 2011 / Posted by Bodhi /

So I'm newly landed back in the little country of Kuwait. The land of economic migrants where fun is Harem (against God or something of the sort), and drinking a beer will get you shot. Or at least deported.

So in this land of coffee shops, and not much else, what is there for a bored, single guy to do on a Saturday weekend afternoon? Well, not much it turns out. So what the hell. Let's go to Iraq. And seeing I haven't posted on my blog in over a year and a half, I figured I'd resurrect my blog from the ashes and bring it back to life.


My IPhone GPS, showing my route from Kuwait City to Iraq. And me at the Iraqi border.


The view from my windows this morning before hitting the road. Hardly deserving to be called a view, but that's what's outside my window.


On the road heading out of Kuwait, bound for the Iraq border.


Turn right for Iraq.


Looks like Sadam Hussein forgot one of his bombs in Kuwait.


Sucks to have their job, fixing hydro poles in 52 degree Celcius afternoon heat.


Danger ahead. Nice of them to warn me.


That's where your oil comes from. Not the most environmentally friendly of places.


Arriving at the Iraq border. Not much of a border. Not that they probably get much tourist trade.


About as close as I could get. There were soldiers with big scary guns.


The gate on the Iraq side of the border. Kind of hard to see Iraq. But I can say I was there, and I saw it. Kind of a long way to drive (1.5 hours each way), just to peer through the border gates. But I was here, so I had to at least say I saw Iraq. Even if I couldn't actually get there.


I guess that's what keeps the Iraqi terrorists out of Kuwait. Beat up warning signs.


This soldier came running over after this shot, yelling "No picture. No picture!". That's about the extent of the english he knew, accept for the word "DELETE!! DELETE!!". So I made a show of deleting the pictures, but he seemed more interested in shaking my hand, so I didn't actually delete the pictures. Maybe a risky thing to do, lying to a soldier with a gun on the Iraqi border, but I wasn't about to delete my pictures that proved I was there.


My Yaris, getting back in and heading back home to Kuwait City.

So that was my big day out in Kuwait. I could hardly say I was part of the 1st expeditionary force in the ground invasion of Iraq in search of WMD's. The only WMD's I found were a couple bricks that dropped off the back of a truck in front of me going 160 km/h. That was enough to almost wipe me out. But Allah was smiling on me that day and I made it back home to Kuwait City safe and sound.

So I can now say I've been to Iraq. Or at least as close as I'll probably ever get. So another country added to the total. Still conquering the world, one country at a time.

Bodhi

3 comments:

Comment by Ben Shingleton on 31 January 2011 at 19:38

Good for you Bodhi. Shame you couldn't make it across, but I dont blame you for staying the safer side of the border - looks like a pretty desolate kind of landscape tho - Cheers, Ben

Comment by Bodhi on 1 February 2011 at 22:07

Thanks Ben, as you rightly point out, sometimes you have to sacrifice what you want for the safer option. I did make it over to Thailand for a bit, but it's always the toss up of pay now or pay later. So I decided to bite the bullet and put the time in now, so I can (hopefully) reap the rewards later. True it's pretty desolate in these parts, but it's only for a limited time. But I'm actually working on a Singapore role at the moment, so may soon be crossing over to your side (or close at least), soon enough - Cheers, Bodhi

Comment by Martyn on 17 February 2011 at 02:44

Bodhi good to see you back again on the computer keyboards. Hopefully we'll all get a few regular updates of life in Kuwait. As for Iraq, I reckon James Bond would have thought twice about getting that close to the border.

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