The worst trip I've ever been on? Security into Iraq...

Kurdistan might be the safe part of Iraq, but security is still dreadful. Turkish Airlines change the gate 20 minutes before departure so we all troop, like a school trip, to an unspecified gate in a different part of Istanbul airport and have to go through security again - I lose yet another bottle of water. Then they list the name and passport number of every passenger by hand, one at a time, and we each sign the paper. Then, one at a time, come questions: "Do you have a visa?" No. They flick through my passport, looking at each page with Arabic stamps on. "None of these are for Iraq?" No, duh, or I would have said yes last time. I don't need a visa for the north, I explain, just Baghdad. "Have you been to Iraq before?" No. A mutter of Turkish to a colleague (my heart sinking) while pointing to a Syrian visa. "OK, you can go." Why, I think, because I went to Syria a few years ago? "Stop stop!" as I walk towards the plane: "Your boarding pass please." Compares to my passport, again. 3 metres on exactly the same check, boarding pass to passport. "Have you been to Iraq before?" NO! IS THAT A PROBLEM? "No, no, I just wondered. Welcome to Turkish Airlines."

I wait in passport control in Erbil for over an hour (having been in transit for 16 hours) all the time worrying about my visa-less state. Masa' al-khayr, I say to the official, eventually. "Oh, you speak Arabic. Very nice. Very nice." I give fingerprints, have my irises scanned, my photo taken and finally my passport stamped. Al-hamdu li-llah. "One thing - why do you sound like you are from Syria?" I studied in Damascus. "Oh, very nice, very nice. Now you learn Kurdish? You must sound now like you from Kurdistan!" I don't give a FUCK just LET ME IN so I can GO TO BED. I smile and head into the 30 degree heat...at 3am...