Nasiriya, Iraq
June 10, 2023
Iraq has no buses between its cities, nor bus routes within its cities. Between cities the options are shared vans seating seven passengers or shared taxis taking four. They all leave from a station(s) called “garage” and have no fixed departure times, but leave when full. I had been traveling throughout Iraq using the shared taxis. But from Basra to Baghdad runs a train, the only train in Iraq. It leaves Basra daily at 7 pm and passes through Nasiriyah at 11 pm. I didn’t have to think twice. I was going back to Baghdad by train.
I said my fond farewells to the musketeers, to Abu Mustafa at the café where I had met them first. It was only a few days ago but it feels like I have known them much longer. I get to the station and buy my ticket. Electricity in Iraq is iffy at best and frequent power cuts are the norm. The roar of generators is ubiquitous in every city at all hours of day and night. Just as the train pulled in, the station lost power. The generators had yet to come on and the railway personnel signal using laser pointers. The thin crowd shuffles toward their coaches as do I. I have a berth in a four-berth compartment reserved for women. I had hoped to chat, but they were all asleep. Pillows, sheets and blankets are already laid out and I clambered up to my bunk. This is an old Chinese-made train that shudders through the night with many squeals and shrieks. I manage to sleep in snatches.
It was early the next morning that I met my fellow passengers as we pulled into Baghdad central station. We chatted some in my hash of Arabic, mostly via google translate. Two of them were sisters and the third, a friend. They were from Basra but coming to Baghdad to visit a friend. They oohed and aahed over my visits to the shrine cities but paid no head to the antiquities of Iraq. At the station we had to line up all bags for the sniffer dog and its handler to go through the line. Apparently routine, it was quickly done and I headed back to town.
ITCHY FEET TRAVELS 