guys this is absolutely incredible to be
able to see this ancient monument this
beautiful persian palace at sunset
and as we're coming here the sun is
literally coming through that arch um
that vault and i did not know there was
places like this here in iraq like it is
so green it is so fertile there's
beautiful rivers palm trees and then
these beautiful monuments and we are the
only tourists here
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[Laughter]
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so
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so where are we we are currently in an
area called salman pak it's about one
hour drive outside of baghdad and we are
here looking at one of the most famous
sort of landmark buildings or historical
buildings outside of baghdad we're
currently in a place called panorama
building which is was once a museum
built by saddam hussein it has amazing
views of one of the other landmark
buildings in this area which is this
incredible arch that you might be able
to see in the distance behind me which
is apparently the
single biggest sort of freestanding arch
not art but vault
in the world made with bricks that are
not reinforced
it's a pretty incredible
old persian palace so guys this building
actually used to be a pretty cool museum
um and since about 2003 it's been
totally neglected and abandoned and
looted
and now you know it's kind of just the
remains of the building really as you
can see but you can still kind of walk
through it which is kind of cool
okay so we're gonna walk upstairs now in
this yeah abandoned building
wow it's just like bits of brick and
everything
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i follow
so we're just using torches
whoa
yep
this is the elevator shaft all the way
down
whoa
okay it's getting bright again
after about five levels
super cool views up here guys
a bit of a hike up hey
so is this all part of it here these
buildings yep yeah
this swimming pool and everything oh
yeah
you guys can see remains of the building
here as well this was all part of the
same complex
okay yeah
if you're wondering why it's like in
pretty bad condition it was totally
looted after saddam hussein's period
ended essentially and they saw it as a
kind of symbolism
saddam hussein because he had loved this
building so he kind of came here and
looted it and graffitied it and now it's
kind of in disrepair um you can still
come in and visit but it's like pitch
dark going up the stairs and yeah like
graffiti and bricks everywhere it's
probably not the safest place but it
wasn't one of his palaces but a lot of
people saw it as one of his palaces so
they wanted to kind of break it down and
show
that they were not happy with it
do
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this really is just incredible it's so
beautiful it's honestly really peaceful
we're obviously the only tourists here
we're just wandering around this
ancient i guess
runes of this beautiful persian palace
and there's birds chirping and flying
around
it's super green and super fertile
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so obviously while most of iraq is very
dry and very desert like right here you
have the tigris river and this is why a
good bit of
baghdad is actually quite green and
quite fertile because of this incredible
river i'm guessing this is why the city
was built here as well because of the
river tigris but yeah all around here
you really do have all of these cool uh
artwork and graffiti
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you shoot me down but i won't fall it's
funny but in a weird way these big
planks of wall remind me of the berlin
wall
look at this guy's hair
give it a try
your hair is amazing
this guy is a famous drink guy here in
in baghdad can we get two
oh
this cafe is pretty famous cafe here in
baghdad and it dates back to 1917 so
it's over 100 years old in 2007 it was a
big bomb in
mutanape street here
so the owner of this cafe he lost three
or five of his sons
and one bomb wow
i love this cafe so much okay so we are
trying basra
is
in there so if i want to say what's up
how cool does that phrase
hello
okay for lunch today i'm gonna be trying
dolma for the first time super excited
just like stripped vegetable rice inside
of the vegetable and loads of sauce as
well
ordered a mixture of loads of different
foods this is sort of a green rice and
iraqi green rice i know it's just
cucumbers and tomato but it looks so
fresh
there's so much food on the table well
we can obviously share this
so guys the way it works here is it's
just dishes all over the table like
they've got the dalmatian rice
sauce and salad and everyone just picks
it everything so no one really gets
plates like you can have them played in
front of you
actually is just tear piece of bread off
and then dip it into whatever you like
kind of use it as cookery i guess
what's your favorite
i don't know if you can see guys but on
either side of this street which is
rashid street you have all these
beautiful columns like this and they
were built specifically to shelter you
from the hot sun of baghdad during the
summer and i guess the elements during
the winter they have all these amazing
columns it kind of reminds me of other
countries like you'll see this in in
bologna and in milan and many places in
italy or on either side of the road you
have these beautiful columns to
shelter you from the elements so many of
these buildings are so beautiful you've
got carvings on the archways carvings on
the side
beautiful pillars
so we're checking out the baghdad
cultural center it's a lot of people
with different books
crafts
dream house deposit fund
shells
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we
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good morning
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you watch
okay so we came here just because we
wanted to see the arabian night statue
but it turns out there's like some sort
of festival going on behind us so we're
just walking around saying hello to
people a lot of people like wanting to
come up and talk to us
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piggy blinders is so good i'm from
ireland yolanda
you know cranberries don't analyze don't
analyze don't go that way don't live
away
that well i forget the
rest you guys are like looking for a
participant
we're just we make youtube videos
so we're here as tourists but we're
making youtube videos oh about iraq
i like your hair
sorry your hair is very cool yeah a lot
of iraqi people have big hair
like you guys like to have your hair up
like this right um yeah is that like a
style in iraq
well
kind of
you're an american quick you're an
american
no i'm from the north
from this side
i'm from alabama
do you know new york do you know the
office
of course my english is they have like
the uk version and they have the u.s
version at large mountain chandelier
river
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he won't ask you if you're a youtuber
yeah yeah yeah youtuber youtuber
youtuber yeah
coronavares is dancing around
okay i think i've seen jokes so i'm
gonna go see what they're up to oh
there's people drumming that's pretty
cool
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[Laughter]
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that was actually pretty overwhelming
amazing we just met so many people
everyone was like asking us for selfies
and stuff and just asking where we're
from and trying to speak english and
saying they watched piggy blinders and
trying to do funny accents and then we
listened to some music and it was
amazing
we've been requested for some
photographs with these
army
okay guys we are here at the iraqi house
of fashion we just left that other
festival which was an accident but
amazing and now we're at some sort of uh
sort of folklore music right yeah iraqi
folklore so we're just gonna go in now
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is
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it's been a long day guys we're
absolutely wrecked and we don't have
time for dinner hello hi
so we're just going to these food trucks
for dinner
one is called dr burger and there's
another one here um
so we're just having uh some food truck
food for dinner here tonight
this is dr
okay so i've just ordered a burger from
dr shawarma with a fries which they call
fingers here and just like a drink and
the whole meal set was like 7 500 iraqi
dinner which is about
five dollars i guess four euro five
dollars so kind of american prices i
guess fast food prices
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