Visiting Samarra & Abu Dulaf

Getting to Samarra

After the hotel’s simple breakfast, we walked to the Tikrit garage that had cars to Samarra.  Because we wanted to go to both Samarra’s mosque (which is closed for restoration) plus the one at Abu Dulaf, we couldn’t get a straight up fare.

It was a hassle haggling with the various drivers.  One driver agreed to do the trip for IQD40000 return but others pushed him to make it IQD40000 each way.  We departed around 0830 with an agreement that the price was return.

As we left town, we saw another one of Saddam’s palace on the riverside.  He was born in the Tikrit area.  His mausoleum was also built in the area but his remains were shifted just prior to the place being destroyed or damaged (reports vary).

Travel squabble

Then E and I had a disagreement about the order of our visit.  I had briefed the driver based on Samarra first then Abu Dulaf second.  My reasoning is that Samarra cannot be visited, so we would have the highlight second.

He wanted to do the trip in the reverse order due to light conditions.  As it wasn’t important to me either way, I didn’t mind giving in.  But he made quite a big deal out of his logic even after I had relented.  This came at the end of a series of hair-splitting corrections about many things that I say.

My perfect travel companion from the Saudi trip last year didn’t seem like the same person anymore.  This disagreement added on to the one regarding my photography inside the shrines, and as we were at Abu Dulaf, I got so angry that I removed his access from our shared Google Photos album.  As he’s not in the habit of taking photos, those were most of the photos he would have from the trip.

There appeared to be two issues here:

• his apparent need to be better than me, more right than me, more knowledgeable than me, and
• taking a moral high ground about the things that I do that are “wrong”.

[Edit:  Fortunately, E and I made up and he’s still my best travel buddy.  We’re learning more about each other’s quirks on our second trip together.  And we’re good for another trip in the future, inshallah.]

Abu Dulaf Mosque

Around 0915 we saw the Abu Dulaf mosque and minaret from the road and asked the driver to make the turn into the site, which was a fair distance away.  He refused, fearing that the police wouldn’t allow it.

I could see people walking on the minaret even in the distance.  We tried to convince him but to no avail, so we asked him to stay and wait while we walked to the site on foot.

That didn’t quite work so we paid him a fair amount for the journey so far, took our packs and started on foot towards the minaret site.

On our walk, the people that were on the minaret had started their drive on their way back to the main road.  They confirmed that we were all good to visit the site.  By now, our driver had seen them in the car after a successful visit, had come in to pick us up to take us all the way into the site.

Abu Dulaf mosque was completed in 859AD and has a 32m spiral minaret.  The courtyard beneath it was massive.

We climbed up straight away to the top of the minaret.  The spiral stairs, wrapped around the minaret, was fairly wide but narrowed towards the top.  Without any railings, I felt a little nervous even though I don’t really have a fear of heights.

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Great Mosque of Samarra

We left Abu Dulaf continuing south through a series of checkpoints.  These ones were stricter than others we have encountered anywhere else.

I had read that Samarra is a militia-held area and that’s the reason we cannot overnight there at all.  As we got closer, photos were taken of our passports and our faces.  At the second-to-last checkpoint before the mosque, our passports were held until we exited.

The Great Mosque of Samarra was completed in 851AD, a little later than the Abu Dulaf one but has a much taller minaret of 52m.  As I knew that the site is closed for restoration, there was no disappointment when we arrived around 1045.  I hopped out for a photo from the roadside and we continued our journey back to Tikrit.

 

 

Abbasid Pool Palace

Taking the same route (rather than the other side of the river) back to Tikrit, we made a stop at the Abbasid Pool Palace.  Our passports were once again held, at the gate to the site.

There was a fairly intact palace in which a pool was in the centre.  Nearby stood the remains of the walls which I presume were the surrouding walls that protected the palace proper.

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We continued back to Tikrit around 1115 and arrive about an hour later.  Our nice driver then said the price was IQD40000 each way, which was what all the others had wanted.

We couldn’t do much about it but just coughed up.  It was a little too much compared to the journey we had did yesterday in a nice modern vehicle, but not crazily overpriced.

Continuing to Mosul

Back at this morning’s garage, we had trouble finding a ride to Mosul at decent price.  They seemed to be touts and rip-off artists here compared to other garages which were very straight-up and transparent.

We hopped in a local taxi to get to the other garage north of the city which was dedicated to longer-distance travel.  Yep, it was much easier dealing with the drivers at this second garage.  We got there around 1245 and were on our way after the big yellow American car filled up with another guest some 25 mins later (with another being picked up mid-way through a phone booking).

At one checkpoint, we met a very light-skinned police officer who looked European.  At age 27, he had more wrinkles than me, who was 31 years older!

We were dropped off around 1540 in front of the Baron Hotel which I had booked through WhatsApp.

Exploring Mosul

It was cold as well in Mosul as the sun was already low.  We took a walk through some very ruined neighbourhoods before having a good kebab dinner around 1730.  The waiter spoke good English from watching movies and Italian from interacting with archaeologists.

Mosul is a city that faced the brunt of Islamic State (ISIL) occupation until 2017 and attacks by a coalition to flush them out.  It was also attacked by the US in Gulf War.

Mosul is the successor to the Biblical city of Nineveh.  Unlike the parts of Iraq we had just visited, it is largely Sunni and also has a significant Christian population.

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Flight cancellation

Back at the hotel around 1830, I received an email that our Wizz Air flight from Erbil to Abu Dhabi in less than four days had been cancelled.  This flight had been in jeopardy (in my view) for a long time due to the airspace situation resulting from missile exchanges between Iran and Israel.

Wizz had been cancelling flights in blocks of two weeks several weeks in advance.  Our flight was the first to resume after their previous block of cancellation.

But this time around, they cancelled a block of several months with only days in advance.

I spent time weighing up the options, namely:

1. Flying Turkish standby from Erbil to Istanbul and then Delhi.
2. Flying commercial on Air Arabia from Erbil to Sharjah, then public transport to Abu Dhabi to fly Etihad standby to Delhi.
3. Flying commercial on Air Arabia from Erbil to Sharjah, then taxi to Dubai to fly Emirates standby to Delhi.
4. Flying commercial on Air Arabia from Erbil to Sharjah with an overnight connection to Delhi, staying with E in Sharjah on his own layover.

Option 1 was the winner in terms or price and standby flight loads seemed OK so I made the flight listing.

[Edit: A couple of days later, the Option 1 flights filled right up.  Option 2 was too much of a hassle.  Option 3 became full as well with all four Emirates flights to Delhi being full.

That left me with Option 4 as the least risky but pricey solution.  I threw money at my problem to solve it by booking on Air Arabia.

In situations like this, I try not to think of the high price but focus on the price difference with the next option and what that difference buys me (eg. convenience, time, risk etc)].