Alright guys, it is time to move on to the next country, so saying bye to
this hotel room I stayed up with Luke. Luke just took off, he's gonna be
exploring more of Iraq, and I am heading over to Beirut, at
the moment. So yallah, let's go. We're gonna check out
this place, probably need the key, not a bad idea
and that's a day.
Alright, it is time to get a taxi here. Let's see if I can
locate one. Maybe we'll try going up this way,
see if we can get a taxi down on the main road. Yeah, I will say guys traveling
during the pandemic, the biggest thing is like when you arrive to these cities
or when you're departing these cities, I should say, it's finding a Covid test that
can be a bit of a challenge but the good thing is— is most hotels like are dealing
with that on a daily basis. So, they can be the ones to tell you where to get a
Covid test. So, I would always recommend to ask your
hotel receptionist if you're not entirely certain, and they'll be able to
help you get a taxi help, you find a place. I’m just going to pick up
my results. It's about 24 hours. I paid 75 dollars here in Basra for my test, so
definitely one of the most expensive ones I’ve had in a while
but you know that's the pain of traveling right now. Alright, we found a
guy here who's gonna be our man for the— the taxi ride.
Salaam Alaikum [Peace be upon you] we just got in a cab here, trying out Google translate. I just took
off with my phone. I put in Google translate, I wanna stop first at the
hospital, and then to the airport. So, he's asking someone to show him so I
guess we'll-- we'll find out if we make it. Meshi [Okay]
Alright, looks like we worked it out. We’re-- we're heading over to the
hospital first, then the airport. So, let's see how successful the translation was.
Mash il haal [It’s okay]
Mac, what's your name. Faisal, nice to meet you.
It’s a pretty warm morning over here in Basra for the last, and final day
and it's actually almost November time, so goes to show you
it stays pretty warm here most of the year.
Alright, we have successfully made it, making a quick pit stop over here to
pick up the Covid test. So hopefully, it's ready.
Originally they said 1 p.m. so we'll see if that's actually the case.
Salaam Alaikum [Peace be upon you]
Their machines are down, so they can't even give me the Covid test for two hours.
My flight's at like one but he's like, oh you're fine, you're fine but I’m like
dude obviously, it's not his fault but it's
just like this goes to show you if you can get it more than 24 hours in advance
definitely do it. Now, I gotta find my driver, convince him to break a 25,000,
and then after that we'll do it which literally screws everything up because
now, I only have a 25 gotta break that. And-
Hello, salam alaikum [Peace be upon you]
No change.
Sorry.
I feel bad because the poor guy, it only costed like one— one thousand or just
over one thousand. I had to have him break the 25, so
we'll pay our guy, and we'll-- we'll call it a day from here.
So, Shukran [Thank you] habibi.
It’s truly a great adventure, just getting stuck here,
and hopefully we make it. We'll see if two hours is the reality.
The bummer was, I was gonna use today as a work day, and unfortunately now that
I’m kind of like stuck here, it's well I guess, we got an hour here. You
could probably make the most of it. We get a little work done here in the Covid
lab but well guys, that's the fun of traveling,
things always happen for a reason. So I guess, you know when you give yourself
a little bit of extra time in the morning to head to the airport to get
there early, these are the reasons. So, you arrive to find out that you're gonna be
sitting in a random place for a couple hours
but that is how it works. They got the AC blasting, and you're on one hand which
is great. When you walk in, it's a quick cool down from how hot it is outside but
on the other hand, I’m like it is so cold in here. I’m gonna catch a sickness
from that because it's like probably like a 15 Celsius degree difference in
here, so it's funny though. This morning, I wasn't
actually gonna do any filming, any recording, and then I was like you know
what the last step to the airport, something
could go wrong, I might as well film it. So,
as always, I get to share with you guys the realities of traveling in 2021,
during a pandemic. And you can't always expect your Covid
test results are gonna arrive right on time, so InshaAllah [God Willing] they will.
Shukran [Thank you] This is all. Yeah, shukran [Thank you]
So, luckily, 20 minutes. Two hours turned into 20 minutes. Let's
see if we can score ourselves a— a taxi here too
hopefully. Alright luckily, there's a lot of cabs that are coming in and out
of this place so toss the bags
right up in here, and
Airport.
Alright luckily, we were able to get picked up from this spot real quick here,
nice guys taking us over to the airport. And
I think it's like a 20 or 30 minute drive because the hotel told me, it's
gonna be about 20,000 to— to get over there.
What’s your name? Name? Ouray. Ouray. Mac, nice to meet you.
So, he's gonna be the nice guy who's taking me to the airport. Guys, I think
it's gonna work but knock on wood, you never know when something else can go
wrong but that's luckily a good sign that I
was able to get my Covid test printed out. I don't know what happened if his
system just randomly came back online. Maybe he was told by his IT team, it was
gonna be two hours, and then all of a sudden, it was 20 minutes but
whatever the reason, I’m just happy to have this thing printed out, and ready to
go because I can't wait to head to Lebanon today, and I was getting pretty
sad if I was not going to be able to make it so, and it was gonna be expensive.
Oh my God, guys I was wondering how I got
so dusty. I don't know if you saw my other videos not too many people wear
seat belts here in Iraq, and I was like how did I get the dust all over me, and
it must be because this seatbelt's worn so infrequently, that it's covered in dust.
Wow, I am like actually like blown away
by that but that's proof that seat belts are not really worn here. As you can see
here, we've got quite a bit of morning Basra traffic here. It almost reminds
me of Baghdad with just basically a car in every single
direction, horns honking. Luckily not as bad as Baghdad. One of the
days in Baghdad, we were cruising through the streets, and it was probably like
an hour to go, what would normally take like three or
four minutes of driving. It was crazy like I would have walked most of it or
Luke, and I would have walked most of it but
since— since we had all of our suitcases with us, we just like stayed in the car
but it's like at least here you can see the— the streets open up pretty quick,
and hopefully it'll stay like that on our whole way to the airport. Actually
it's probably quite good that the Covid test arrived when it did because looking
at the map here after already been in the car for about 10 minutes, we're still
about 26 minutes away from the airport about like 15 or so kilometers. So it's
like you know, some of these airports, you know like some of these airports
that I’ve been out here in the Middle East, you can end up waiting a long time
to go through the whole check-in process,
the security process. Luckily I’m not checking a bag, and I’ve already checked
in online but also some of these airports might actually make you print
out your boarding pass there. So, if I have it on my phone, it may not work. So
the fact that I got my Covid test now, and then still have another 30 minute drive,
that's gonna get me to the airports around 11 a.m. which gives me a fair
amount of time. So, I think the flight board's at one, so two hours before I
should have no problem but like that's what I’m saying though if it would have
been any longer that I waited for the Covid test, that's when I could have ran
into a serious issue. As you guys can kind of see from here,
you know as you the further you get away from city centers, that's usually when
you're gonna see a bit more of you know, unfortunately some of the poverty.
You know a bit more of that I guess you could call them slums out here,
a little bit further in the distance, and right there as well. We're crossing
over some train tracks, and there's quite a few different types
of flags I see waving here. Unfortunately, I’m not entirely certain what each one
means, so you know you're more than welcome to comment below if you know but
actually Basra is really close to the Iranian border, I think we're only maybe
25 kilometers or so. Yeah, we're starting to make good progress towards the
airport. And it's interesting to see this place though, during the day because
the only time I drove quite a distance through here was in the middle
of the night when we came from the train station. The train station was definitely
not as far away from the city center as the airport is. So,
I think, we're actually getting quite close to the airport now.
I will say thank goodness for the AC in the car though right now because it is
toasty outside, and this keeps us a little cooler as we're
cruising through here because we're still in the middle of the desert. I’ll
tell you that. Alright, looks like we're in the right
direction, that's Basra international Airport
or motor as they say. Actually, since we're going through checkpoints right
now, I’m gonna go ahead, and put this away. I don't wanna be stopped in,
question on my last like two hours here. So, we'll see you on the other side. So
interestingly enough when you take a taxi here, you take an airport taxi over
to the main airport. So we're going, this is our
guy right here, yeah. Yallah. How are we doing? You're welcome.
Shukran [Thank you]
What a process. It's one taxi than the next,
paid the guy 25,000 to get here just because I’m honestly just getting rid of
my Iraqi dinar at this point but I guess, I wonder if we're riding with
other passengers here if we're going solo.
So, guys a funny point here, I gotta head into since I put my GoPro away is as
soon as you get dropped off at the airport, you're dropped off in like this
civil drop-off area, and then they actually have specified taxis, and the
guys did tell me it was 30,000 but I’m looking at the receipt, and it's 20 000.
So, they were gonna make a couple extra bucks off me, weren't you? But
hey, you can't blame them. Everyone's gotta eat, right. But yeah, so
luckily they were able to take about nineteen thousand that I had, and out
of what they quoted was thirty thousand but
the actual necessity, the actual amount you should be paying is twenty thousand
from here, I guess. And then, how long is the drive from here?
How many minutes to drive. How many minutes?
Five minutes. Oh so, they're making good cash then.
Wow, that's nice money then. So, 20,000 that's-- that's 14 US dollars to go
five minutes away, once you're already in the airport. So
nice part is we're in AC, nice air-conditioned weather with my good
friend here, that we met. Thank you. He's from Basra, a nice guy.
Yes. Yeah so, that's a nice place? Well nice, nice but we're going through
security checkpoints guys, so I’m gonna put the camera away now before they arrest me.
I will tell you, the nice part about the airports in everywhere I’ve
been in both Kurdistan as well as Iraq proper, the airport security is
impeccable. Basically you go through multiple checkpoints just to even get
close to the airports, and they check your passport, they check your boarding
pass, and that's probably one of the reasons why they have these specific
taxis. Oh, we're going through another checkpoint. So yeah, that's how many
checkpoints they have. And as I was saying guys where I got cut
off there is yeah, the airports here you feel very secure. We just went
through like that took a little five minute break there from filming, moving
through another security checkpoint where they check your luggage, and then
we're still driving. So, before we even get close to the airport,
we have already gone through multiple checkpoints. They've checked my luggage,
checked my passport, and we still have probably another two or three minute
drive because I can't even see the airport from where I’m looking at right
now. And so, it makes sense why it costs our guy
20,000 to bring us because he's gotta stop, and wait for us at each checkpoint.
It’s a lot of work over here but I’m happy with the security. I love
coming to airports where they take care of security. Alright, guys this place is
looking much more like an airport than where the first taxi dropped me off. It
seemed like the first taxi had never been to the airport. He didn't know where
to bring me. He had to ask people, and now we're pulling up to Basra international Airport.
It looks quite nice, a very modern look to it but I’m gonna
put the camera away otherwise people are gonna be asking questions.
So, here we go, this is Basra International Airport. We got the
departure spots. There must not be that many flights that fly from here because
it's a relatively small airport overall but that's good, that means it'll
probably be quick for me to hop right in there. So, we're here in the Basra
International Airport, pretty quiet here today. It doesn't seem
like there's too many flights from this area. So, should make for a quick process
to get through security. Alright so, we made it into the airport here. As you can
see, it's a small little place here, and quite old school, got the
wood trim all around, and it probably took me only 25 minutes to go through
the entire process but geez, I probably went to like security like
like bag checks, like probably four or five times just to get in here.
So, that was crazy, lost the cologne on the way through. So, even if it's 3.3
ounces, they still don't let you. So I gifted the security guards. I said, you
can enjoy the cologne because I’m not checking my bag.
So, yeah now, it's time to head on over to Beirut.
One piece of advice; if you're taking Middle Eastern Airlines, make sure you go
to the checkout counter. I did an online check-in, I didn't have any bags to check.
So, I basically just went straight, I went straight over to hold on, it's
kind of loud here. I went straight to departure, showed one of the guys my— my
boarding pass that was on my phone, and he was cool with it, and then when I got
to the actual gate, they had to run up a boarding pass
because when I scanned my digital one, they're like, this one doesn't work.
So just
FYI, if you're flying out of Basra International Airport, make sure you stop
at the ticket counter even if you don't have to
check any bags. Good news is, I made it on the flight
but it was a close one, I didn't get it on video but I had to run after the bus
because I went down the wrong when I was actually doing that last
update, I went down the wrong like pathway, and
then I got back up, that's the security. They’re like the other one, the other one.
So, I ran down to the bus, drove away, so I’m flagging them down.
They came back, and got me, so yallah [Let’s go] Lebanon.
So, guys after a quick flight from Basra, Iraq, I have now made it to Beirut. It
feels good to be back here after it's been a solid month since I was here last.
So I’ve got our man here driving me into Beirut.
Good to— to be here in Lebanon, and that's what we're driving into. I’ve
actually never flown into Beirut during the day. So, this is actually like a new
drive for me to see this place during the day
from the airport. So it's cool, and no cell signal at the moment. So,
we're gonna see if we can find our way over to Beirut Digital District but
I hope you guys enjoyed coming on my journey, traveling from Basra today, going
through quite a few hoops to getting over to Beirut after just a short two
hour flight. So, as always guys, if you've enjoyed the video, make sure you hit that
thumbs up, and if you wanna see more videos all around the world, hit that
subscribe button below, and I’ll see you guys in the next one.
[Music]