IRAQ Part 2: ISIS Border + Holiest Village (no shoes allowed)

Good morning from Kurdistan, Iraq. Today we are getting outside of the capital city. We have hired a guide who is going to take us into the Gharan Mountains to see Saddam Hussein's former palace. We are making a lot of new friends and eating some beef.

We have no clue what's happening.

We will leave our shoes here.

Okay.

Here we go. Oh, yeah, it burned your feet. Yeah.

50 degrees outside.

Wow. We have just arrived in the town of La Lish, and. And it is so holy that you're not allowed to wear shoes in this town.

And it's still cold.

So this is the most holy town in the world for the Yazidi people. Did I say that right? Yazidi. So how often do they have to make the pilgrimage?

Once a life.

So once in their lifetime, every person in the Yazidi faith has to make a pilgrimage to this village, to one of the temples and the village.

There's locals here all walking around just barefoot, all the kids.

That was a big rock. I read about this place online, and I had a hard time believing it actually existed. A place where you couldn't wear shoes. I just think this is the coolest.

Not in the wind. No, no, no. They don't like you in Sunday in chairs. No, they don't have this. They don't have that. But what they have a new year.

So.

This is one of the most fascinating places I've ever been. Apparently, it's kind of like Mecca. It's just a place where you make, like, a pilgrimage to. And so no one actually lives here except for two families. And they're in charge of taking care of all the temples. And once per day, they go around the entire complex and they light 365 candles where they. One for each day of the year. And that's what we just got to see.

They said they didn't mind. We were just following them around while they were lighting all the candles.

There was a guy who had the candles. He was sticking the candles. There was a lady falling behind him with smoke. And then there was a third guy who went behind kissing everything that they laid candles off.

Yeah. Very interesting. I've never heard of this before.

So one of the reasons this town is so holy is because the museum people believe that this is the rock that God made Adam from at the beginning of humanity.

Kind of hard to be barefoot. I'm feeling really guilty right now. I just accidentally committed one of the cardinal sins in the Yazidi faith before they walk into their temples, they kiss the doorstep. But I didn't Know that? And I stepped on it. My feet, where everybody puts their limbs. And Haval's been giving me a very hard time.

Thank you.

So they have these cloths strung up around the entire temple. And apparently this is the most holy place that you can make a wish in the Yazidi religion. But it's kind of a nice gesture because before you make your own wish and tie a knot, you have to untie a knot that's on the fabric. And that means that someone else's wish will come true. And then you can tie your own and make your own wish.

So if it comes true, I can't tell. It's a wish. Why is everything black?

It's mud and olive oil. They used to save olive oil to help them to make a fire. They used to save olive oil in this pot. This pot actually is 300 years old.

What? Yeah.

These are content all the emporium.

Okay, I like this. It's like a competitive game in the religion. So you try to throw this sheet on top of the rock with your eyes closed. You get three times. And if you can do it, then your wish will come true.

Nope, that didn't sound good.

Oh, that was really bad. No wish today.

Close your eyes.

Ready? And.

Bit harder.

Okay.

You did it.

She did it.

I forgot to make a wish.

Really?

Oh, I just really wanted to do anything.

Oh, she didn't make a wish.

She was really concentrating.

Next time.

I'm so happy.

So the tomb behind us is the most holy tomb in the entire Yazidi faith. And there's this really, really itchy material that it's covered in called harqa. And we just learned that in order to become a priest in this religion, you have to wear this as underwear. So you lose the pleasure of life. Is that right? The pleasure of life. So he can't marry. He has to wear itchy underwear. He has to fast during the hottest days of the year and the coldest days of the year. 40 coldest days, 40 coldest days in the winter and 40, 40 hottest days in the summer. In the summer it can get up to. It just keeps getting worse. In the summer, it can get up to 50 degrees here. And they're not even allowed to drink water from sun up to sundown. This sounds like the worst.

Don't step on this.

Here we go. It's over.

Okay, we're going over 10. So walk over.

Walk over.

It's very cold and wet.

We're going up to some viewpoint. The water makes bare feet even more uncomfortable.

No, I Walk here without.

You've been here in the snow?

Snowing? Yeah.

Wow. Yeah.

Okay, let's go.

Ow. My feet have turned into frozen bricks that are painful. We have been to a lot of religious sites during our travels, but this one has to be the most fascinating.

The most unique for sure. If you're ever born.

Google Yazidi. Yazidi. And they're disappearing over time.

Yeah. Apparently you can't join the religion. You have to be born into it. There's no way, like if you are not Yazidi right now and you want to become Yazidi, too bad.

And there are three different castes and you can only marry within your caste.

And there have been 73 genocides done against the Yazidi people.

Yeah, they've had a wrap.

So fascinating.

Okay, we're getting in the car.

Oh, it hurts.

So we just passed through a checkpoint that was closed for three, three years because it leads directly to the front line of where the fighting was with ISIS. So from where we are now, it was 15 kilometers to the front line where the Peshmerga were fighting ISIS trying to not let him take any more of Kurdistan. Is that right? Very good. Okay. So right now we are 36 kilometers away from Mosul, which was basically the capital of ISIS. Rain really hurts.

So this is the change. This is the border between.

Kurdish Peshmerga and isis. Do you see that mountain? The half of mountain was under ISIS control, the other half was under Kurdistan or Peshmerga's control. So after 3km, there's a town called Bashika. Bashika was under ISIS control for three years. Kurdish Peshmerga, they liberated Bashir, I think December 2016 or January 2017.

So now that ISIS has been kicked out of the region, that has actually turned into the border between Kurdistan and Iraq. So to go much further, we would have had to pass through an Iraqi checkpoint, which would have meant that we needed an Iraqi visa, which we don't have. We just came into Kurdistan, got the 30 day free visa. So that was as far as we could go. But definitely super interesting to see and not something that I thought we get to see on this trip.

So if we drive pretty kilometer more, you will see all these ruins, damage destroyed. Every single corner was like this.

So we were just watching videos of what this city that we can see about 20km away looks like right now. And it's just crazy knowing that like it's right there and the soldiers were fighting so that they didn't come in ruin anymore. I mean, the entire city City is ruined and I just wonder if one day we'll get to go there and see all of the new buildings.

So you may ask, where is the people right now? So most of them still, they are in refugees camp nearby Erbil province.

Yeah, it looks like the entire town is destroyed. And we were just getting to see exactly what the eight months of fighting did to the city. And it's just absolutely crazy, super sad, but also really encouraging to see the new construction going up in the city.

Back to your bill.

We go.

Start spinning.

Don't stop.

Okay, that's okay.

Okay.

Comfortable?

Comfortable. I think.

I think it's okay. You think it's too tight?

No, I think it's perfect.

Okay.

Tada.

Haval has invited us to go to dinner with his family, which is just a super nice gesture, but he thought it would be even more fun if we dressed up in the traditional Kurdish dress to go to dinner.

It's so fun. And we have his two kids with us and we all just got in the car together.

It's like we're going to dinner with the fam. I asked him if it would be offensive if we wore the traditional dress and he assured me that it wouldn't. But we're getting a lot of funny looks.

I love it.

Have to loosen my dress.

We saw this fish.

On the side of the road that they put in this cage looking thing around this bonfire and they cook for like two hours and then they take it off, but it's still in this little cage thing and they put it on a grill so it's nice and charred on the bottom. This place also has a really cool story. The guy who started this restaurant started a little street stand of falafel in 1963 when he was 13 years old. And now it's this beautiful restaurant.

Okay.

Actually about the fish, usually we didn't have this dish before until 2000, but when a lot of other people, they come from Baghdad, the rich people who brought their business to Kurdistan because Kurdistan was the only safe park in whole Iraq. So a lot of rich people, they came to Kurdistan and they opened business. So we learned to do this dish from them.

I love all the meals here at Family Style. Everybody's just like.

Wow, the skin is amazing. It's like salty and a little crispy. It literally just melts in your mouth. So soft. Yeah.

We've made it to two kilos of fish. He helped a little.

Bit. You like it? It looks good. Thank you.

Everyone's so nice.

I've never worn a female girdle before, but I feel like now I have a little bit of an idea. It's like after eating all that food, my belt's feeling a bit tight.

At this point, Nate asked Haval, what happens if you have to go to the bathroom? He said, I don't go to the bathroom. What a day.

How do I untie? How do I get out of my wrap?

Okay, easy.

Okay. I might throw my fish up. Oh, this feels good.

This is the equivalent of women taking their bra at the end of the day.

It is official. Hval is the best tour guide that we've ever had. It is now 11 o'. Clock. I can't see my watch, but it's around 11 o'. Clock. Our flight is not until 4:30 in the morning. We told him, just take us back to our hotel, drop us off in the lobby and we'll just hang out there until we have to head to the airport at like 2 in the morning. And he insisted on us coming back to his house, sleeping for a couple hours, and then him taking us to the airport.

Can we just stay all week, Amal?

Oh, yeah, you can stay. We have two toilets. Western toilet.

Two western toilets.

I feel it's your brother's house. So anytime you want, just even for a weekend, anytime, you are more than welcome.

Thank you.

So if you come to Kurdistan, and you should, we're gonna leave all of Hval's information in the description below so you can contact him and go around with him. It'll be the best day you have.

This is seriously the nicest thing ever. We insisted on sleeping on the floor and the kids insisted on giving us their room.

We're sleeping in their Spiderman beds. Who would have thought?

I can't believe we have to get up in two hours. I feel like at the end of this year when people ask what the highlight of 2019 was, I feel like it's going to be these two days for sure. Like, the most unique experience ever. Okay, for we're going to sleep. It's.

Thank you.

Apparently we're next to the equivalent.

He just left.

My insides are nice and warm now, thanks to this tea, but.

Doesn'T help speed. They're still freezing.

Cristiano.

Okay.

Okay, okay.

That was a good joke.

Oh, that was mud. That's a lot of mud.

New photographer.

Sorry.

Terrible.

Did you.

Did you tie this very well?

I don't think so.

So you are. You should tie very well.

I didn't want to be too tight while I was eating. I don't want my pants to fall down.

Are you filming this?

Yeah, Just told us in the car.

Oh, ye.

There.

Wait, wait.

Okay, let me think about it.

Okay, Okay.