The Modern Side of BAGHDAD & Meeting Locals! Iraq Travel Vlog
[Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] good morning guys sabal here from beautiful baghdad iraq we are starting here with day number two of exploring the city and we're actually a little bit outside the city right now we are here at the ziggurat of akarkov it's absolutely massive and it is really really ancient it actually dates all the way back to the 14th century bc in ancient mesopotamia so this is the ziggurat that you're looking at now and this is a type of massive massive structure that was built commonly in ancient mesopotamia it was seen as basically a temple to the gods and the sumerians the the people of ancient mesopotamia believed that the gods lived in the temple at the top this is actually constructed of sun-dried bricks and every seven layers of bricks are followed by a reed mat that's used for drainage and to basically hold the structure together by the way guys the part that's sticking up there the ziggurat itself that's all original from 14th century bc but the rest of this the stone structure around it and the staircase leading up to it uh is a reconstruction that was that was completed during uh the saddam era no guard rails to be found here that's for sure that is just a straight drop off the edge and i was just reading believe it or not uh some scholars actually believe that these ziggurats may have inspired some of the ancient egyptian pyramids especially the ones at sakhara man and it probably goes without saying but as with every place we've been so far in terms of tourist sites here in iraq we are the only ones here and it is absolutely incredible just getting to explore this place alrighty guys down we [Music] let's go [Applause] all right guys we're here now opposite the ziggurat in uh some of these smaller temples so you can see here here's the original mud stones and then on top saddam decided to build or restore directly on top of the ancient ruins which you are not a fan of which no because see the original here and this is the the new one yeah right just like exactly right on top yeah even if you would like to uh reconstruct you would use the same materials of the old one yeah if you would like to build on not with new modern bricks yeah it's so so different so different and that's why iraq in general had some issues with unesco because this is against the criteria of protection this decides the ancient sites i don't want to be the dead horse with this guys but i i i just can't describe to you how hot it is here it's unlike anything i've ever experienced before in my life so anyway we just finished up at that beautiful site it's 10 20 so we're gonna head back to the hotel relax a little bit freshen up and then uh head off to see more of baghdad so let's go alrighty guys we're taking a quick stop here in the mansour district of baghdad it's uh from what i understand pretty upscale neighborhood here in baghdad and we're stopping here to take a look at the saving iraqi culture monument basically what it symbolizes is the revitalization and rebuilding of iraqi culture iraqi landmarks iraqi history so you can see there on the monument there's a column it's a broken stone column it's kind of falling over then you can see this figure with five hands holding up the monument kind of preserving the culture if you will and uh putting it back in its place i love seeing things like this you know so hopeful and points to a better future ahead and man a great testament to iraqi culture because just in two days here i can personally tell you there is so much to be seen here historical modern everything you name it so guys right there is the baghdad tower or baghdad communications tower it was built by saddam hussein and when he built it he named it after himself it was known as the saddam tower the guy definitely had an ego all right guys we're here at a local restaurant called cuba of baghdadi for some lunch let's check it out okay from what i can tell this reminds me a little bit of ichikofta from turkey like there's some kind of a bread on the outside and it looks like there's ground meat on the inside [Music] all right guys this is something resembling iron do is this uh hey ali what do you call this stuff yogurt we call it like suleimania it's me it's made in iraq as it's written here in suleimania it's made in suleimania that's in kurdistan right yeah awesome let's try it no it's way similar to turkish iran i love it all right guys here's the kuba i think you take some of this red broth top there soak it in there looks so good and this thing in here this black ball is apparently called uh they apparently originated from india and they got the name basra because that was where they first came to into iraq into boston mmm there's almost like a sweetness to it very good then we've got the pickles and pickled chilies and bread of course guys i'm just looking around and i'm learning from this little dude right over here he just took the whole cuba and put it inside a part of the bread so i'm gonna do that let's try it okay that's right all right here we go looks like a little ice cream cone but with meat and bread just squish it down so the kid next to me delicious this feels like iraqi comfort food just filling and tasty and a lot of bread a lot of meat i love it ali is it possible to order another one yola just say was it i want one more that was it was it the iraqi dialect of arabic is very guttural very i don't know how you would say like aggressive pronunciation almost it's wrong strong yeah very strong can you say it again okay [Laughter] all right guys we've been allowed into the back into the kitchen to see this production in action wow this thing is huge oh my gosh that's all the meat and check out that huge pot of the soup the basra lemons and the cuba floating in there soaking up all that juice i had i had two two very good thank you so much oh it's hot in there it's so nice of them to let us go back there and check it out now we're walking next door to see where they bake the fresh bread that was so delicious wow oh my gosh here comes the pole there's a very very long hole that he's using to reach all the way back into that very deep oven just rows and rows and rows of bread wow it's like a fresh bread slip and slide guys it looks like this entire stack of trays that's close to as tall as i am is filled with layers and layers of dough that's up next to be cooked so it is just mass production rapid fire here lots and lots of bread so good very hot very hot i can't believe you're doing this here all day amazing look at that guys bye thank you so much all right guys we are going to go check out an iraqi mall you can see right behind me got babylon mall i don't know what to expect but it's gonna be nice to go in there and cool off get a little coffee and see what an iraqi mall is like so let's go walk around [Music] so guys they've got like the proper mall upstairs with all the brands and everything and then down here where we just came down to is what they call the bazaar and it's almost like an indoor kind of more traditional marketplace so you just got hallways of little shops i got a bookstore right here you got cologne you got all sorts of little knickknacks and little products that you might find in a traditional marketplace lots of dates guys i don't know is this date butter or something you got all kinds of different date products and some honey ali was saying they got a lot of turkish brands here so there's one right behind me lc waikiki i don't know guys just like a normal mall like any other mall i've ever been to i'm selling macbooks ipads iphones here yeah you guys kept asking me when i was in egypt to go to new cairo to show the modern side of cairo and so i wanted to come here to include this in the video but for me it's like any other malt really but it's cool to see that it exists here because i think most people from back home from where i'm from and from other countries in the west and around the world wouldn't necessarily expect to find some really nice fancy mall here in the middle of baghdad the only unusual thing about this mall is that they have uh real dinosaurs walking around [Music] all right guys i just came up another level now i'm at the food court level this is probably the only part of the mall that i would say is a little unusual or different than any given mall back home for me because you've got different restaurants not really international chains here however i am super happy because i found an ice latte from this place called dip and it is so good alrighty i just went up one more level and this entire level looks like it's basically full of activities and games for kids got like a big arcade there behind me it's got pinball machines it's like inflatable slides all that kind of stuff there's a ton of families here just having fun it's a great place to be in the middle of the day it's like four o'clock five o'clock right now because it's so so hot out right now at this time i mean it's hot out all day but especially at this time so you know malls are essential in this part of the world wow okay oh my gosh guys there's a terrace oh my gosh the view is insane thank you oh my gosh man you can see so much of baghdad from here unbelievable incredible view and i just want to point out a few uh specific things for you guys so right here you have a partially constructed mosque that was started by saddam and he had ambitions to make it the largest mosque in the world but it has been at a standstill literally as it is right now frozen for around 30 years or more basically construction stopped when iraq had a bunch of sanctions placed on them after the gulf war in 91 and since then it has been just like this so the cranes and everything are still standing there but no work's being done and then over here that tall glass kind of more modern looking building matti was telling me that building was supposed to be a hotel they wanted to turn it into a hotel but they basically prevented it up until this point because it's really tall and it overlooks the green zone or the international zone where all of the foreign embassies are and a lot of important uh administrative buildings and they're worried that it could be used as a sniper point because it's such a vantage point over that international high security zone you know one of the realities of of securing baghdad to be honest that kind of speaks to at least what what my impression has been of of the the safety situation here in baghdad so far like there are a lot of precautions that are taken such as what i just described you see a lot of blast walls around banks and you know any sort of important government buildings you see a lot of armored vehicles around the city uh so you see a lot of things that are preventative and that are for safety and security but you know they're they're just that they're to prevent and to keep things safe and lately they're doing a really good job of it i mean i i feel totally safe to be honest walking around the the streets here i haven't felt uncomfortable once i felt totally welcomed so yeah you can definitely see the the the signs of of you know the past here and and the turmoil but at today at this day and age it feels uh quite safe to me because of a lot of those measures that they've taken so guys we came here to go to the al shaheed monument it's like the one that looks like the blue onion you may have seen it before unfortunately the guard was being kind of crabby at the entrance gate and wouldn't let us in so we're going to try to come back another day and get in there but we went a little bit further along the road and met the most friendly policeman possibly in all of baghdad ali muhammad ali nice to meet you say hello hello alrighty guys can't really believe this but we came here to see the arabian nights uh statues behind me and it turns out we pulled up there's a ton of people here and we're like what's going on it turns out they're having an iraqi talent show so this whole park is absolutely filled with people a bunch of different people skaters singers performers of all sorts so let's walk around and meet some of them all right guys this is oscar he's a skater and uh he tells me that he is going to show me something that foreigners and no one has really ever seen before on skates okay okay [Music] amazing bro thank you that was so cool you are insulting michael scott by saying that the office you're a big fan yes i'm a big fan of the office and almost heaven west virginia blue ridge mountain chatting the river clearly someone important has just arrived i have no idea who it is but he has quite the entourage we are right on the banks of the tigris river we got some beautiful sunset coming look at that right here is the the talent show festival i mean look at this park this is crazy it feels like a music festival or something [Music] hello [Music] hi oh okay thank you lovely shukron [Music] [Applause] [Music] i'm wondering how like how can some american make a friendship with british those people eat i'm wondering the same things a lot of tea a lot of cake a lot of cake what cake what what the hell blood cake what the hell is that what's up bro boom boom [Music] one thing i've noticed in every arab country i've been to they love their loud music hey and as i was saying before i feel perfectly safe here and part of that is because they take things like this very seriously in security very seriously so i'm not going to stick the camera in their face but as i walk here you'll probably see behind me there are a ton and i mean a ton of military here protecting this this uh this festival so it's very good they got it under control so yeah a lot of a lot a lot of soldiers here and uh taking care of the people here and keeping everything safe really great to see people there having a great time that was amazing all righty guys we've arrived here at our next stop it is at the iraqi house of fashion and we're here for a concert from what i understand it's going to be iraqi folk music and i don't know much beyond that but let's go in and check it out [Music] sorry [Music] thank you [Music] that lady selling the sweets just stopped this guy who's leading us to tell him she wanted to give us biscuits thank you so much [Music] [Music] alrighty guys so we come to a cafe now and this is dr hi he is uh local iraqi and he's founded this amazing community on facebook and your friend osama he's also co-founder oh you're the other co-founder yeah yeah wow okay so dr and osama here have founded this incredible community on facebook mainly right called the iraqi travelers cafe yeah as there is like more than one goal to achieve community and like helping foreigners to come to iraq to understand their right through people and understand the culture and make that their trip easy because there is not that a lot of resources on internships so it's very hard for them to know how to go that place how much to the taxis the prices so we make things easy for them and also we have iraqi locals on how to travel outside of iraq yeah both ways yeah because that's a challenge that they're actually it's very challenging thing and also our aim is how to to use the travel as a bridge to bring peace because the more you travel the more foreigners and people from different cultures and this is a good opportunity to engage with them and to learn so our main goal in iraq tells us cafe is to travel to learn i love it yeah i love it yeah and yeah they were instrumental in our information seeking process when we were the three of us were deciding to come to iraq so i will definitely link to the to the page down below and if you guys are thinking about coming to iraq i highly highly highly recommend getting in touch with dr and his team because they're incredible can't wait to have like more amazing people like you oh thank you man i hope i hope i hope a lot more people come inshallah hello guys how are you doing yeah i'm doing great we've been talking about something so important that's why you know please don't interrupt us again [Laughter] look what i got yeah who got those flowers for you i don't know a special someone i don't know from i don't know maybe a beautiful girl definitely i'm flying away osama is flying got a little uh iraqi shisha rocky pretty tasty oh my gosh guys that was so fun hanging out with uh dr and osama they're just incredible guys it's it's just amazing because i feel like now i have friends in baghdad genuine friends like which is just great anyway we just left the cafe we are here now just down the street actually and we're getting a quick dinner from these food carts they've apparently been open for around five years so it's a relatively new trend here in in baghdad they're selling burgers and shawarma and juice so we're gonna get a quick dinner man that day was absolutely incredible i i don't know what else there is to say hello hello how are you i love your ears man your ears very good please oh these tamam okay nice surya [Music] see everyone here is so friendly so yeah guys i'm absolutely loving it here i feel perfectly comfortable here more than comfortable i feel extremely welcomed and just so so happy to be here tomorrow we head off to the ancient city of babylon of course i'm going to be documenting it all right here on the channel for you guys so stay tuned if you want to keep up with my travels in real time go ahead and follow along on instagram i'm constantly posting live updates there for my travels and if you're enjoying these videos please consider subscribing it really helps me out and keeps me traveling and bringing more videos to all of you so thank you guys so much for watching i truly truly appreciate it and i will see you tomorrow in the next one bye you
2021-09-08 02:51
