Achrafieh, Beirut

In 10 minutes, you can walk from a scene in a war film to...a scene from Sex and the City. Welcome to Beirut.

Permissions not given by anyone in these photos.
Apologies to cupcake eaters and soldiers alike.

Ed Milliband he aint

I just had lunch with the leader of the opposition, Nawshirwan Mistefa. I'm a bit too overwhelmed to say anything else.

He is a bit scary. I thought he just didn't know enough English to understand my questions, but it turns out staring at people who have just spoken, and so allowing an uncomfortable silence to develop, is his specialty.

But it was incredibly kind of him to give his time to a random foreign researcher, and he answered my questions thoughtfully (albeit up to a point). He also gave us beautiful Iraqi-style fish - that is, grilled over a flame which is a metre away, with rice and tomatoes and onions; lovely.

With tea, I interviewed his son, Nma, who grew up in South London and has the accent to prove it but was wearing traditional Kurdish dress and says this is definitely his home. What does he miss? The services: the internet doesn't cut out regularly, and nor does the electricity...we're good at something in the UK. And that reminds me - people compare the Brits favourably to the US colonisers: apparently we left them with roads, schools, a justice system and hospitals, but what have the Americans left? Broken roads and fast food. I don't mention that, along with the infrastructure, we left them an artificial and unstable country which led to the present mess...

Suli

I'm in a lovely hotel with wifi and proper aircon, and today's been awesome so all is good. First thing this morning, a day and even possibly a night at the Makhmur camp in Erbil (Thursday/Friday) was set up by a "negotiator" (how Jack Bauer is that? I wasn't even allowed to know his name). After a 4 hour journey to get here (Sulaymania, Kurdistan's second city), I met and interviewed two members of the incredible Hardi family: sons of the strongly nationalistic poet Ahmad Hardi, Asos is the founder and general director of Awena newspaper (winning the Jibran Freedom of Press award in Beirut in 2009), and Rebin is a political activist who was recently kidnapped after his prominent role in the Arab Spring-inspired demonstrations in Suli. He's pretty famous (the Elvis Presley of Suli, according to Hoshang), as I can tell by the amount of people approaching him in cafes. (He's quit smoking, which means that everyone who recognises him and plenty who don't get asked for a cigarette.) They are both very jolly despite their hard-bitten realism about the present situation in Kurdistan, of which more later.

Tomorrow I'm meeting another member of the Hardi family - the director of a women's rights NGO; the leader of the opposition (I'm quite scared by that one), two female students and two male so Suli in general is half way to fixing my interview stats and Friday will make the whole thing a success - if the negotiator does his thing. And right now the room is cold enough to snuggle into a duvet which feels like the ultimate luxury.

Wot, no guns?

The mall I'm in doesn't allow guns. Air conditioning and weapon-free: coolio. I have seen guns while I've been here, one in a very strange incident yesterday, on the road from the mountain back to Erbil. The road is wide enough for 3 or 4 cars but there are no markings and thus nothing to guide the BMW in front, nothing to stop it wandering all over the place. Hoshang beeps. And again. Then goes to overtake at which point the BMW swings over and and clips us. We meet on the side of the road; all three of the passengers in front getting out to meet a very angry Hoshang. I stay in the car, and stay very firmly when I see the driver wearing a weapon belt: I see guns, knives, and a hand grenade. He is belligerent but nothing against Hoshang, and another steps in, conciliatory, smiling, an arm on Hoshang's. It turns out that all three are very drunk. Drunk in charge of a BMW and a hand grenade. The soldier at the next checkpoint doesn't even seem to know whether drink-driving is legal or not...I know I know I promised Kurdistan was safe, but I didn't think to ask about driving habits...

Trying to go camping

The main worry now is that we still haven't got into Makhmur camp despite many inroads and even more assurances: contacts are stalling day after day after day. The PKK have refused every journalist for months: why did anyone make out that it would be easy for us? The military structure of the PKK is such that no current member wants to speak to us without permission, and they live in a camp where they cannot even leave without permission. There are many ex-members in Erbil whom I originally thought were sad second bests but right now they seem like gold so I'll set up interviews with them, and we'll start trying to get into the camp near Diyana, where Hoshang's sister (mother of the beautiful Vina) lives.

This is where the trip succeeds or fails, and given there is little over a week left I'm getting very worried...tomorrow I have been promised a meeting outside the camp with an official very high up who seems impressed with my ARTIS credentials so fingers crossed he'll give permissions and hopefully an interview.

I carried so many presents for the kids in the camps! Hoshang's family will have to eat all the sweets and use all the colouring pens - I am not carrying a rucksack full of presents home.

From Costa, Erbil, Iraq

I won't freakin well go to Costa on Mill Road but here I am in Erbil, drinking pretty gross coffee (UHT milk does not a latte make) and eating a mediocre muffin and being charged $17 for the privilege...all in the name of anthropology (and Western toilets).

At first I thought it was all fat businessmen and spoilt boys (and a few tourists inside with the air conditioning), but now families are coming out, and groups of girls too, tight jeans, high heels, make-up; studiously ignoring everyone, including me.

News has just come in that there's been a PKK attack in Diyarbakir, Turkey, where this project began: 13 Turkish soldiers dead and 5 injured, and perhaps 5 PKK members dead too. So perhaps we can't get into the camp tomorrow...maybe we should just stay here and interview spoilt rich kids and sod the terrorists.

So I'm going to approach the cool chicks now; more intimidating than any PKK member I've ever met in any country.

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...