First Impressions of BAGHDAD, IRAQ! Iraq Travel Vlog
[Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] good morning guys i'm here in baghdad we got an early start to the morning it's not so hot yet i'm a little tired i was up kind of late last night we are here for breakfast [Music] hello good morning this uh looks delicious thank you good yeah let's try it rip some off here juice stripping off of it oh my goodness okay so take some of this and you just scoop it up boom wow that is so good really good so flaky and sweet but not like overpowering those sweets it kind of reminds me of like fried dough that you get at like the carnival in the states this is made from buffalo this was really good i really like it all right let's go take a look inside at the production wow that's big big oven oh my goodness and this is the sweet huh okay the whole production from start to finish in the big oven thank you so much shukran because i just found out this place was open in 1957. [Music] unbelievable there's the bags of the sweet syrup for takeaway right out of the bucket guys tea in iraq i can already tell is going to be very sweet look at all that sugar at the bottom very sweet yeah very tasty we're seeing some of the men at this tea stall drink the spillover from the dish like this so do as the locals do all right guys so we're here in tahrir square same name as the one in egypt and also very important here in baghdad uh this is where mass protests occurred in 2019 there was uh some violence and so as a result it's pretty sensitive area there are a ton of police and military here and we've been instructed not to film them so unfortunately i can't really give you a good view of it but let me just do a quick twirl and i'll show you guys behind me we're taking some selfies on the street here we go [Music] oh wow i'm getting a nice head massager [Music] we're definitely generating a lot of interest on the streets here people are asking us to take photos with them take photos of them but right now we're heading off to our next spot [Music] all right guys we're just walking along now it is friday morning which is the holy day here in the islamic world so the streets are pretty quiet right now i think it's only around 8 30. so things are kind of slowly opening up and then later in the day after the friday prayer people will be more out and about i believe we are walking into an old cinema here it's so cool i believe it's from the 50s look at this all the old actors and actresses when was this open 1952 32 all right it was wrong it's even earlier than that 1932 this place opened come in come here come [Music] in that's a cool picture these poses are out of control i love it so i think this man is a bollywood aficionado uh-huh so he's selling these or what is this trap he says indian movie guys we're here in the theater the power just dropped which apparently happens every so often here in baghdad on and off it should be back soon or a generator you kind of forget with everything you see on the news about baghdad like how historical and how incredible and cultured this city is and has been for hundreds and hundreds of years look at all these pop culture references i got rick and morty we got sia amazing tons of street art here [Music] hey guys right here is the tigress river the historic legendary river that runs right through the center of baghdad right behind me if you were to cross that bridge you get to the green zone which is basically a thing that from what i understand was set up during the american invasion in 2003 as like a super secure kind of semi closed off part of the city a lot of the major foreign embassies are there including the u.s embassy hopefully
we'll be able to get in there at some point so guys as i said in my previous video you'll see a ton of these basically heavily fortified concrete barriers around the city and i was asking what's behind here and uh they're saying i'm not really sure it's either some kind of a government building or a bank but you'll see them all over the place the nice thing is a lot of them have been painted with all sorts of street art and uh it's really cool really gives some personality to these you know otherwise imposing concrete walls all right guys it's only 9am but it's already getting starting to get pretty hot it's about 103 degrees fahrenheit or like 39 degrees celsius already the really cool thing is though everywhere we walked we've been outside for about an hour and a half and we've already had people give us free water bottles we were just walking by the banks of the river and some guy was on the balcony of his house and just threw down like a bunch of water bottles to us and we had a shopkeeper giving it to us is all right guys we're on the road to the market another beautiful old cinema here and people out and about enjoying this friday morning the architecture here is amazing a lot of it is pretty weathered but it's so rustic and beautiful [Music] this is the coolest shop tucked into a little alley here love finding places like this all with genuine iraqi handicrafts not from china as he said from iraqi only yes sir all right we got some coffee here so nice of them just the shopkeepers here offered to us very hot very dark it smells delicious sweet and rich you visit in baghdad visit to my shop of course i happy inshallah thank you oh we're happy thank you very happy these lovely people have insisted that janet takes these gifts are too nice i feel so bad she said uh we are the first foreigners to come to this shop since 2003. thank you so much thank you [Music] all right guys we're at suk al-arabi first time in an iraqi market here in baghdad these are copies right how much do you think they sell a pair of sausages [Music] how are you [Music] good morning and so i know a lot of you watching this are probably wondering about my impressions and how i'm feeling safety wise and you know just what it's like here on the streets to be honest it feels pretty similar to other middle eastern cities that i've been to specifically like egypt i would say plus a ton of security guns humvees military vehicles checkpoints etc so it has that same middle eastern vibe but with a lot more security built in and in terms of how people are interacting with us everyone is so friendly so welcoming a lot of english is uh being spoken we're definitely drawing a lot of attention so that's one thing our tour guides have said is let's just keep moving we don't want to hang around one area for too long just out of an abundance of caution you know everything's fine but they said let's keep it moving because we do draw a lot of attention we're like some of the first tourists to come to iraq in 20 years so it's unusual but yeah so far so good i feel totally comfortable walking around here iraqis have some of the best hairstyles i've ever seen and here we've got someone getting a special lightning treatment on the street check out this spice shop guys beautiful wow your father abu ah wow amazing the smell is overwhelming in a good way though so we're heading deeper into the spice market here and it's actually a covered market here which is why it's a little dark in here and i've got to say i'm pretty happy about it nice place to come to cool off hello how are you huh me uh i'm ricky nice to meet you yes yes how are you good how are you a lot of people asking where we're from and uh i don't know i've had nothing but positive reactions to telling people i'm american you were saying as far as that goes most people when you come in as a tourist just totally fine you're a person they treat you as a person they'll be as hospitable for you as any other other nationality and it's just normal right yeah most people everywhere understand that individuals are individuals even if they have you know opinions that are negative about whatever government or military etc people treat individuals with kindness pretty much everywhere i've ever been in the world and here is no exception temperature update it is 111 degrees fahrenheit or 44 degrees celsius and it is 10 30 in the morning we're hanging in there all right guys we're at the next market that we're exploring it's the copper market take a look this one is pretty spectacular the nice thing about being a tourist in iraq one of the many nice things is that when you come to a super market like this if you're looking for souvenirs you're pretty much guaranteed that this stuff is genuine because there's no tourist tchotchke made in china stuff to be seen here can't wait too long to drink your water here in iraq walking around on the streets i've been carrying this one for about 20 minutes i just took a sip it's like tastes like it's just been boiled [Music] guys we've been stopped here in the leather market which we'll explore in a second for an interview here [Applause] guys look at this gorgeous specimen of iraqi hairstyles incredible bro your hair is amazing all right guys let's get some coffee look at his whole get up i love it oh what is it a juice ah okay all right thought it was coffee it's tamarind juice not my favorite has kind of a chalky texture okay good to try all right guys we're heading into a cafe called chabando right behind me to get out of the sun for a second maybe get some coffee wake up a little bit in 2007 it was a big bomb in montana street here so the owner of this cafe he lost three or five of his sons oh my gosh so sad but the place is really i like the atmosphere inside okay cool let's go i hope you like it too hi how are you good guys this is crazy i love places like this tons of pictures on the walls hazy air filled with shisha hookah smoke wow what's up guys what's up yes yeah yeah i like your shirt new york yes that's where i'm from look at all that sugar let's give it a try whoa interesting it's like a pretty unique flavor it's different than what i've had before it's kind of sweet and tangy you want to be on the video it's okay what's your name okay guys this is sama she's originally from iraq but now lives in canada saskatoon cool yeah i'm just back visiting for a while nice are you going to go around the rock or just packed up yeah we're planning to go just around our area just to just drive around and visit other places awesome maybe we'll run into you again all right guys we got a little power outage here in the cafe maybe you can hear me better now that the fan behind me is off so this happens all the time quite often yeah you're going to be famous say hello yeah this happens quite often but it usually comes on pretty quickly right after [Music] i'm hoping a lot of you guys consider that after uh seeing all these videos hopefully beautiful place and lots of friendly people guys these guys are getting a real kick out of our pronunciation of shakumako which means what's up in arabic disclaimer i don't know what i just said [Music] [Applause] [Music] well done thank you you have a great voice really so many friendly people it's my favorite part of any of this any traveling visiting new places just moments like that in the cafe meeting all those hilarious friendly awesome people it's priceless all right guys it's 12 45 heat update uh it's hot it's very hot it's kind of crazy because it's like this dry heat but when the wind blows it feels like you're taking a hair dryer to your face like it just burns your face guys we're stopping real quick at zamala was founded in 1900 it's apparently a pretty famous spot for juice let's go check it out [Music] wow thank you uh every president and every king of iraq had been here and ran centuries for me this exact shot so there they are guys all of the leaders of iraq who have all come to this juice shop from the kings all the way to saddam there he is and beyond some traditional iraqi hats here with the wonderful owner of this historic juice shop i think the juice is coming soon thank you thank you oh my gosh it's so cold so sweet i'm so happy there's another one of saddam and now i believe we are off to have some lunch and i'm very excited which is a chunk of meat with with with white rice or dipping green rice and the uh and two sides two options of side dishes all right we got some doma this is uh vegetables this is stuffed with rice looks delicious here we go oh wow that is so quick okay thank you wow it was right in the middle of trying toma and uh this just arrived for me an entire fried fish so good all right check out this table it filled up so quickly usually amazing here's the green rice with papa beans and dill oh my god i love anything with dill that's incredible we're kind of sharing everything we don't each have plates so you kind of just go in with your spoon take your bite continue [Music] [Music] alrighty guys we just took about a two hour break at the hotel we're now stopping for coffee before we continue on our tour for the day and check this place out it's called alibaba i bet most of you would not expect to find a place like this here in baghdad thank you check it out so bougie and on we go yellow all right guys so now we're on our way to takasura which is a persian monument on the outskirts of baghdad oh my gosh yes this is a cool time of day to be here yeah it's beautiful about this building it is the panorama it was built in 1989 why it was bought because it's used as a panorama museum for the battle of al-qaeda which is a famous battle between arab and persian where arab defeated persian the expansion of islam so saddam when he uh when he thought that he beated iran in 1988 after the war what he called the the battle the war between iran and iraq al qaeda too because you know obviously iran which is the modern state of persia so he thought that he defeated persia again why he put it here the panorama because it's just like in front of the throne of the palace of the persian palace when they invaded iraq before islam even wow so this is pretty neglected as you can see it's basically in ruins before 2003 it was really protected well preserved this place but after 2003 what people uh they just the reaction of the hate of saddam they showed it here they came and they stole everything they destroyed everything because they thought it's one of the castle of saddam this place meant to him something so he just want to revenge of saddam and his time and what he did to the people wow it is really dark in here we're on our way up to the top it's really in pretty bad shape just use your lights please oh my gosh oh my gosh guys this edge right here drops straight down to five flights below i'm so afraid of heights this is the liberty shop elevator okay that makes sense this is crazy okay look at this view oh my goodness yeah and guys here's the view from the other side look you got all these kids just playing out here on this open kind of uh lot and this thing is just open i mean there's no security or checkpoint or anything to get here this is over the edge way taller than it looks from the ground yeah anyone can just walk in here let's check out the third side oh wow yeah it's so green beautiful palm trees you got kids playing there on the roof all right guys here we go all right guys here it is this is the arch of tessaphone at takasura it's the largest unreinforced brick vault ever constructed in the history of the world it's closed off right now because it's over a thousand years old and it's at risk of collapse so this is what it used to look like originally way back a thousand years ago oh my goodness now all that stands is the arch and part of the left side [Music] alrighty guys it's a little bit later now we've made our way back to the city of baghdad and check out this area we're in it's so modern and we are going into our wreath cafe let's go check it out cigars and we order on a tablet pretty cool boom look at that english menu on a tablet here in baghdad all right i made it back to the hotel just had a much needed shower so i'm feeling cooled off and really just feeling so happy to be here that was such an incredible first day met so many incredible people had so much great food and just it was just amazing exploring this city so much history so much to be discovered really i feel like we're only scratching the surface so excited for the next few days to come we're going to be exploring more of baghdad then we're going to be going to babylon karbala and more so stay tuned if you guys want to stay up to date on my travels through iraq go ahead and check out my instagram and if you're enjoying these videos please please please don't forget to subscribe it really helps me out and keeps me bringing you guys more videos from amazing places like this so thank you guys so much for watching and i will see you tomorrow in the next one [Music]
2021-08-27 00:16
