Iraq's Kindest Taxi Driver!
good morning everybody i believe it's morning that's actually a tendency in these videos i don't know if it's morning or if it's night i'm pretty sure it's uh daytime here but we are heading to the marta monument a a monument built here in baghdad let me cross this road uh specifically for in remembrance of the soldiers that died in the iran-iraq war and obviously more recently it's also a remembrance for the people that died during the fight against isis now i'm here in baghdad i you would have seen i was in karbala last video and yesterday the one day i decided to not vlog biggest mistake ever everybody if you're a youtuber you want to be vlogging everything because that was one heck of a day i'll play some clips i got on my phone at the moment it was crazy oh my goodness oh my goodness and i got to a hotel it was fully booked out then i got to the hotel i'm staying at currently it was just an absolute crazy travel day here in iraq but yeah anyways you don't really want to be on the side of the street in iraq in a taxi swapping taxis to a completely random person and anyways it all ended up good at the end of the day but let's get a taxi everybody and we'll head on over to the uh mata monument yala uh got a taxi i don't know how much uh flus five thousand okay should go on movie so a lot of the times i'm just getting these taxis and just like showing a photo of the places that i want to go and generally like if it's like a 20 minute trip it's like 10 hour if it's like a shorter trip five thousand so thankfully people here aren't like going to rip you off much at least from my experience people are friendly people are humble and uh they respect the tourists but we're going down these uh side streets here and uh we'll head on over to the mantra monument which i believe has actually changed its name recently to the al shaheed monument let me check that let me double check that yeah i'll show you what i think ah i'm spot on i know my father i know my history here in baghdad one funny thing i've noticed in iraq without fail every single windscreen nine out of ten are cracked you can see the cracks here i guarantee if we go past see that one's cracked oh that's a oh no that one's they're all like literally when i get back on the street i'll show you guys but taxis guaranteed to be a cracked windscreen normal civilian cars maybe uh not so cracked but honestly 9 out of 10 of every vehicle here has a crack in the windscreen i don't know what that's from maybe rocks flying around but yeah it's something i noticed and it's guaranteed on your trip here in baghdad and the rock all right we're getting our first glimpse just over there oh there's a barricade but this over there is the uh big blue egg looking statue it looks pretty cool from the outside but i think we drive ahead and then go up to the right and uh we'll be entering hopefully i can film that i imagine there's going to be a ton of security on top of military i'm hoping that kind as they have been but also kind with the camera which uh just people in general are a little bit hesitant when the camera gets pulled out like this so hopefully fingers crossed we'll see no change it's okay thank you oh look there actually are a lot of tuk-tuks around here i was not expecting that coming to iraq but let me get my thing sorted get my phone then uh what not into the pockets there's a favorite military around so uh i might film uh once i'm inside but i can take photo yeah okay ah shook it on alright all right guys i rocked up and i was like yeah mata monument and they said la i'm like what voila i said voila and he said yeah but uh apparently i'm allowed but i'm not allowed in because they're cleaning i think just based off of my first look so they're cleaning something on the floor but he's going in i don't know oh i'm so confused am i allowed or not good yeah photo good okay he's giving me the thumbs up look so unfortunately i'm not allowed in it seems so we're gonna have to do something else for the rest of the day all right guys well we didn't get allowed in big l big fail and the biggest fail was i wasn't just recording for the past two minutes talking to those guys who basically said that they're not going to take me so big l number two so let's wait for a tuk tuk i just need to double check i'm filming i'm having major issues with this camera at the moment um yeah let's see if we can get a tuk-tuk i'm a little bit disappointed i wanted to go inside i think it's because i was wearing shorts i think that is the issue hopefully this red tuk-tuk is stopping no it's filled with people we'll get a taxi instead of comes i need to go to ashore yeah this is the weirdest 20 minutes of my life guys what the hell is going on you're from baghdad yes what's your name my name is luke you speak good english sure yeah straight out of it i was not allowed in ah in the theme park okay oh there's a big theme park there we got a ferris wheel on that side we've got a ferris wheel on that side we've got roller coasters australia it's a football stadium yes nice you like football yes who's your favorite team barcelona do you like messi messi or cr7 oh you're good messy number one ronaldo who is number one ronaldo there's got good ronaldo number one number one ronaldo zane yes yes how old are you mustafa um here let me get the calculator out uh 1919 so you are 10 years older than me 31. cool guys so i guess here is a shared taxi or a bus point because everyone's like yelling uh places like kabala and all that but it's absolutely chaos it's chaotic it's what i love markets street food everything i did not know that was a checkpoint and the cop looked right at me you're the spark so this is a big bus station wow this guy's a legend this is why you don't meet on a tour everybody let me give a mustafa water taste test very good very good zane water so many markets we got people selling jeans shoes socks chickens even electronics all kinds of things look how cool this is but uh we're on the main strip i'm trying to get to a specific point where i want to start this next video and it's just we gotta go around and the other way but the traffic honestly it's lots of traffic in baghdad like uh cars motorbikes taxis a lot yes yes you you'd do this in the hospital and the baghdad yeah yes it's just so cool so many things that has been like sold on the streets here just like on the side we got a guy selling like electronics you know just people set up shop and sell their goods like over here we've got somebody selling a fan a blender a printer and all kinds of other things uh no i can't i don't i don't want to change all right guys so i'm in georgia at the moment and uh the baghdadi museum is here just down the street i haven't actually i've been there yet so we're gonna do that before uh we head out look at that horsey assalamu alaikum this area is actually where me and mac end up jesus this is this area is where me and mac ended up catching the uh oh my god it's so busy where we caught the taxi to the train station when we head down to our base wow he's running everybody over apparently i think it's right there i think that's it there all right let's cross i think this is it there's a horse chilling over there it's just so much like industrial baghdad museum museum where is the baghdad museum museum oh this way yeah oh yeah people are funny out here man we got to navigate everything oh look at that yeah thank you it's a good place yes interesting all right this is the first time i've ever had to put a mask on ever in iraq even in the airports you don't have to wear them just one ticket please where are we from australia this is your first time here yeah first time it's a good place it's good yeah museum heritage and habits and jobs in the past not now uh in the past the history it's about maybe maybe 19 20 30 but now no now it's good how much is one ticket what ticket one thousand one thousand dollars do i have to wear the mask yeah as i wish all right i wish to not wear it thank you all right oh my god let's get the crap out of me i thought there were people all right well we got our ticket this is so cool oh look at this i'm gonna hit my head wow these are actually like pretty realistic oh look they're the sweets this is sick they're so realistic then you got ami marley in there like this actually kind of like looks like real people it's almost like the wax music so i'll tell you what the bloody the roofs are a bit short for a australian guy like me but here this is how they are used to make all the rugs and stuff so obviously i don't know how to do it but uh the professionals somehow weave that all into a full rug that's so cool and you got all the wall up there as well it's unfortunate i can't read anything but you know like pictures and stuff a picture tells a thousand words right that's what they say and it really does you know all these times that iraq had to face over many many years and still to this day you know conflicts going on it's good to see that things are getting better here and tourism is starting to kick off and hopefully these videos will hopefully uh encourage people come visit and show like the reality that you know can you imagine like from like the west right u.s australia like england the media just for years has uh absolutely just demolished iraq's reputation and here i am traveling solo as a foreigner with a camera just showing like the truth and showing the hospitality and the friendliness yeah that's what i'm trying to do in every country because i know like 99.9 of
people are actually good at the other day and the media tends to uh portray the complete opposite i wonder what the sculptures are made out of if it's like waxed or silicon i imagine silicon just because the heat here in summer would be outrageous these guys would just like melt if it was actually wax i'm pretty sure old mates playing the trumpet we got the the drums the symbols or the tambourines or i was never a musical so i don't know but wow so cool oh there's like multiple levels to this thing look at this we're going upstairs guys hello how are you guys hello doing good good zayn you're from australia you're from baghdad yes yeah and uh oh nice okay this is your first time in the museum wait first first time yes oh wow this is like a full setup that is so cool that lady's looking at me out the window oh this is actually so cool i don't know what you said bro they honestly look realistic is that an ice cream man i'm gonna touch one just to see what it's made out of all right so it's very hard it's like concrete i think it might be ceramic but i think that's it guys oh she's looking at you all right let's walk this oh it's actually wow oh i thought you were a statue they moved they're in the gated area and then they moved i was like what the hell is going on oh they got turkeys look at that imagine how much effort this would be to position it perfectly to get each individual one set got the man making the chai stuff a woodworker banana man oh the fruit man all right i can confirm that they are not solid they are hollow and we got the shoe cleaner mate can you clean me shoes they're a little bit dirty no not not in business today wow oh actually let's have a quick look at the photos black and white 1920 literally over a hundred years ago that photo was this one's 1905. man what do you even film with back then it must be a big camera that specifically is there for black and white photos you don't just have your gopro like this and vlogging around getting 1080p 60fps times have changed eh 1910 collar coming from mosul to baghdad wow honestly this country's just filled with so much history so fascinating thousands of years of like documented history as well oh my man he knows what's up it's she sure o'clock isn't it buddy she share a clock can i have a hit what do you got hammer nana or you got the bag daddy or the uh the bastro one oh you got bag daddy uh baghdad is number one how big all right let's finish up guys let's head on out sometimes you get at first go sometimes you don't wide minute eh bato in all right guys we are off and racing back to the hotel in batowin maybe i will show you the hotel actually i was going to finish up the video here but i think i'll show you what around like 80 dollars a night gets you it's uh i'm staying there for one more night before flying out so this is uh the final video here in iraq massive series honestly in this country that uh it's been an insane travel experience you know being here documenting it all and i'm super super excited to share it all with you guys so i'm gonna head on over to the hotel oh i got the hiccups i can taste the orange juice that i had that you'll either see in the previous or the next video i filmed a cheeky little video in between these but uh yeah let's head on over to the hotel all right guys we made it to our own hobby we made it to our hotel all right looks like they've cleaned the room let's uh go inside alright guys so this is my room i booked on booking.com last night for around uh i like to say like 80 usd when i extended this morning i went down there and i said 60 usd so around 90 000 iraqi dinar for this if you just come directly through the hotel so it's honestly like extended expectations super nice lobby and everything but uh this is the room it's a bit messy because i've been here for a day but got some my clothes drying because your boy will never pay that uh ridiculous dry cleaning and laundry fee at any hotel so my tip for uh laundry in a hotel is you chuck it in the bath with you in the shower and you pour some gel on and you stomp on and all the dirt comes out but this is the room got my covert test that ended up coming back part negative and uh yeah it's actually pretty good we got a nice desk here bed is pretty comfy tv how rude of me not to do the bathroom first though here we are here is the bathroom we got the bidet and we also got the bomb gun this is a bit of a vicious one so that much it works it's got some good range on it look pretty good range just a solid meter and it's still making it pretty accurately shower is in here um nothing really too special about the shower it's actually got very good water yeah pressure coming up super fast and you know just do it your normal room it's super spacious that's what i love you know you got your big bed you got the two bedside tables you got a little table two chairs there even and you got a full desk and last night uh they were kind enough to give me a ton of fruit with my dinner but i didn't need it because i had like two shawarmas i had hummus i had so much food already but that's just sitting there i'm not sure i'm gonna touch that um but yeah they gave that to me complimentary and let's do a bed test it's a nice bed i slept on it yesterday ah nice pillow one pillow is good which pillow is it i think this is the pillow that i was maybe it's this one one of them is good i think it's this one yeah this this is the good one that i used the other ones just ended up on the floor but yeah ac is absolutely pumping super cool in here when you get out of the iraqi summer heat but guys unless something exciting happens this afternoon uh i'm about to fly out in the seven or so hours at 3 a.m in the morning and uh yeah that concludes the iraqi series everybody what a series this is up there as uh definitely one of the craziest travel experiences i've had the first couple days of mac and then going on this adventure solo and everything hopefully i have destroyed a fair few stereotypes about the country and proved that you know at the end of the day 99.9 of people are kind and the media likes to [ __ ] a lot so hopefully i'll show that to you guys and uh yeah hopefully you enjoyed this series but we're gonna finish up the video here everybody thank you so much for watching as always chase your dreams and we'll see you all in the next one for the final time here in iraq yala
2022-02-07 13:24
