- [Drew] How would you explain the marshlands
to somebody who doesn't know what it is?
- Well, water, a lot of water,
but it's actually nice, calming.
Can't really hear traffic, cars and the only way to go by
the marshland is by boat, there's no land.
(singing in a foreign language)
(fast-paced music)
- The Iraqi marshlands are quite possibly
the best hidden treasure of the middle east.
I'm telling you guys, I've spent over eight months
seeking out the best stories in the region.
And this is one of the most surreal
and exciting ones out there.
I invite you to watch this video until the very end,
so you can fully immerse yourself in one of the purest
places on our planet and find out how I ironically
got thrown in a police station.
- He's acting all formal on us and stuff.
Yeah, as soon as I said, it's super safe here,
we got busted by the police.
He's on the phone talking to his upper guy, the boss guy.
The Mesopotamian marshlands are one
of the largest wetland ecosystems
in the world, stretching hundreds of miles
from Southeastern Iraq into Southwestern Iran.
What's so unique is that this region is all desert,
but somehow the aquatic landscape provides a special habitat
for Marsh Arabs and important wildlife like Water Buffalo.
It may not look beautiful behind me, but in front of me,
there are these water planes that go out forever with
beautiful communities living out here.
And what's fascinating is the landscape.
We are out here in the middle of the desert.
To get down to the marshlands,
it was quite the adventure, we had to drive across the
country from Baghdad, which as you discovered
in my last video was not so easy.
We were faced with over 30 checkpoints along the route
and countless hours of stress.
- Don't talk English.
- But in the end we made it to a place
where very few tourists have ever been before.
I'm trying to find the way I'm a little bit lost.
So we're asking some locals how to get to our destination.
(locals speaking in a foreign language)
- We've just arrived here in a little village called
Chibayish in the Mesopotamian marshlands.
In front of me, I can see buffaloes
walking around on the streets.
People taking boats to get around like taxis,
kids running up to me like this kid.
And it's just a beautiful life out here.
And this is really my jam.
This is the kind of stories I love to tell most,
so hope you guys are excited to hear
about this beautiful place on planet Earth.
Upon arriving, we were greeted by a handsome local man
named Hussein who took us under his wing.
He so kindly offered his boat to take us deep inside the
marshlands to have lunch with remote villagers who were
living in reed houses, but in order to do so,
we must hit the market to buy freshwater fish,
known locally as Masgouf, the national dish of Iraq.
We've just purchased a fish in the market here,
and the lady behind me is skinning it,
cutting it with a knife, getting all
the guts on her hands and everything.
Blood everywhere, poor, dead fish.
- I completely got it clean now, ready to go for the grill.
- [Drew] That's our lunch?
- That's our lunch- dinner, so linner.
- [Drew] Linner?
- Something like that.
- [Iraqi Man] Where are you from?
- [Drew] You speak English!
- [Iraqi Man] Yes, where are you from?
- [Drew] Oh, I'm from America.
- America?
- [Drew] Yeah.
- I'm from Iraq
- [Drew] You're from Iraq?
Nice to meet you bro.
- Nice to meet you.
- [Drew] We are fully stocked with Masgouf and ready
to board Hussein's boats so we can enjoy lunch
with villagers in the backwaters.
This, my friends, is what travel is all about.
- As you can see behind me, the way people
are getting around, the main point of transportation
is by boat, kind of like in Venice,
just take a little boat to get around.
Obviously in Venice that's kind of a luxurious thing
to do and you pay a lot of money,
but here it's extremely cheap and it's how you get around.
- And of course like everything in Iraq is waiting.
- Always.
- A lot of waits.
- Smoking cigarettes, eating sunflower seeds.
- This is the way it is here, things are slow,
there's always approvals, they always need
to take it with someone else.
- Let's go, yellow.
Here we go, bro.
- [Alvaro] 7,000 bucks in cameras,
let's hope this doesn't sink.
- And we're off to explore the wetlands
of Southeastern Iraq, what a special treat this is.
Alvaro told me about this place, a couple
of days ago, I had no idea it existed.
And now that I'm here, I'm really happy
that we decided on this because it's
fantastic to see this really unique,
authentic culture of Arabs living in the marshland.
We've now been in Iraq for about seven days.
And this is by far the best experience for me personally.
I love doing this kind of stuff, going places that people
never heard of before, experiencing the culture.
There's so many little communities
scattered around the marsh.
And right now we found one that has this
red and white walls around it.
And it's very makeshift and there's
a horn of a bull on top of it.
And we're really excited to go explore
and see how the people are living.
- The coolest place we've seen in Iraq at least,
and top 10 in my travels.
(speaking a foreign language)
- It's kind of a bummer, they didn't
want us to go in and shoot them.
So we respected that and we kind of backed out
and we're heading back down the marsh.
- If you didn't duck there, your head is off.
Moments later, we arrived at one
of Hussein's friend's houses ready for our feast.
- [Drew] Wow, dude.
- This is awesome, man.
Walking through some barbed wire
to get to these little huts.
Look at this place, completely made out of sticks.
Ground, floor.
- Dude this place.
- Bro, unbelievable.
- Amazing.
- This is why we travel, for moments like this.
- It's a UNESCO site too, for a good reason.
Our friend Heider is already working
on the wood for the fire.
- So we got the fish over here,
they're cleaning it first in the water.
Now we're putting it over the fire.
(soothing music)
- Yo, he's about to pray,
this is incredible, don't miss this.
This is so cool dude.
(chanting in a foreign language)
- And now the moment has come it's time to try the Masgouf.
- Starving, bro.
- It's going to be delicious, let's go.
(calm music)
One thing about Masgouf is that it has a lot of bones.
You can see coming out.
- Careful, man.
That was so good, what an experience man.
- Amazing, sometimes you need to put the phone down,
obviously we're recording this for you guys,
but like let it all sink in, such a beautiful place.
- Sun is going down over the marsh.
Droning right now in the marshes of Iraq.
Droning in Iraq is awesome.
We had to go through three different
drone guys to find this guy, right?
My guy failed, the next guy failed.
And now we've got this guy.
- It's the beauty of this place and the vastness
of the landscape, you can only appreciate from above.
- Having a little chai here as the sun's going down.
Super nice guy.
What an amazing experience, eating here,
hanging out in the middle of the marshlands with all the
Habibis and now we're heading back to the mainland.
As beautiful as these ancient marshlands are,
there is a sad, recent history that should not go unnoticed.
During Saddam Hussein's presidency,
in the 1980s and nineties, he tried
to kick Shia Muslims out of the marshlands.
He drained the precious water to 10% of their original
levels, killing most of the wildlife
and forcing 90% of local residents to move out.
- Saddam destroyed it.
How do you feel that he destroyed your home?
- There is no life because the people go to the city.
- After the fall of Saddam's regime in 2003,
the marshes have partially been recovered,
but drought along with dam construction have hindered
the process from coming back to life.
Nonetheless, the marshlands have finally been declared
a UNESCO world heritage site in 2006
for its cultural uniqueness and natural beauty.
It's a reward that is damn well deserved.
The video is not over yet.
Our local friend here took us through a mud house.
Look, they have electricity, you can see a fan,
but it's really still made out of mud.
And who knows how old it is?
The mud is like coming off the walls.
I don't want to touch it cause I don't want to ruin it.
But man, super cool.
(speaking in a foreign language)
- He's just saying he had a lot of fun too
and he welcomes any guests all the time.
They boats are there, the house is open for you.
Any time you can come.
- [Drew] So actually we were planning to stay here,
but we're not sure if there's any hotels around here.
So ask him where we can sleep.
(speaking in a foreign language)
- He's just saying you can stay by the place where
we had lunch or stay here or at the office.
- [Drew] You want to stay at the place we just ate lunch?
- Sure, it was a beautiful place.
A lot of mosquitoes though, at night.
- [Drew] I think it's too cold.
Where does he recommend we stay?
(speaking in a foreign language)
- He's offering for you to stay in his home.
- Really?
We accept the offer, obviously we'll pay for it,
but it will be an honor for us to stay in his place.
- He's saying it's perfect, you're going to be alone
and no one's going to bother you.
It's a perfect place for you and he doesn't mind at all.
- [Drew] Thank you, that's very nice of you.
- Obviously we'll pay him for it, very nice guy.
And honestly, there's nowhere else to sleep.
- This is the thing, there's nowhere else
to sleep but we're not free-riders.
So completely against just free-riding off locals
and we want to support them a hundred percent.
This is a great win-win for everyone.
- Absolutely, so it's almost dark, we got
to take the boat, now back to the mainland.
(fast-paced music)
This experience could not be any better so far and it's just
so beautiful to be on this boat right now,
watching the sun go down, it's almost pitch black right now.
You can just see the colors in the sky, oh man.
This is what it's all about.
Yo, the flags look at this.
- [Alvaro] Careful, careful, oh my God.
- [Drew] Jesus, almost cut my head off.
Wow, this is so awesome.
Look at this place.
This is incredible, we're sleeping here tonight?
Filled with rugs.
Beautiful stick archways.
This is his home bro.
- Dude, so generous.
Beautiful call dibs on this one.
- Dude, this is literally perfect.
We got to thank him.
Okay, see you tomorrow.
Where you going man?
- Bathroom.
- Straight ahead.
- Surprise, surprise, there's no toilet paper.
- [Drew] That's the toilet.
- That's quite the toilet.
- [Drew] Close the door, close the door.
Do you have a blanket or what's going on?
- I don't think there's any.
- [Drew] You got to use your sweatshirt, dude.
- I'm just gonna sleep like this fully dressed.
It's quite cold, but we'll manage.
- Oh, I guess I can curl up like this, goodnight man.
- Goodnight bro.
- Having a little morning walk.
- In front of us, we see a bunch of Buffalo
and the owner guy right there, he's like pointing.
He's gesturing to us to like go hang out with the buffaloes.
So here we are.
Careful, it's all buffalo (beep).
Mashallah, mashallah.
Wow, look at this, that's so cute.
I wish I could speak to this guy.
It's really cool that the ecosystem here
in the marshlands can have buffaloes.
Like where else in Iraq can you find buffaloes?
It's a very desertous country and they're different kinds
of buffaloes than you've seen in the Serengeti.
I was recently in Tanzania on a safari.
Those were massive, these are also massive,
but they're much slimmer and their bodies have adapted
to this climate that we're in right now.
(calming music)
For our final stop of the morning,
we are heading to the local market here in Chibayish
to get some breakfast, meet some people
to kind of see the life that's happening in the marketplace.
Hussein, what's up bro?
- What's up man?
- How are we doing, man?
- We're all right.
- [Drew] You look like a bad-ass.
- [Drew] You have a really cool mosque right behind you.
- Really?
- [Drew] Yeah.
So Chibayish is actually bigger than I thought.
When we head to the marshlands, I was thinking like, oh,
we're going to be in a remote little town,
but there's actually like a bustling life here.
- [Hussein] I'm surprised myself.
- Yeah, like the markets here are really busy,
which we are now entering right now.
Where's the main area, where all those men are gathering?
It's so beautiful out here, man, the weather's nice.
People are very respectful here.
- Yeah, it's very, very calm, very simple.
- Would you say this is one of the safest places in Iraq?
- Yeah, I would say.
- I mean we've traveled all over
the country and I feel pretty safe here.
- This is really, really safe because no one will try
to do anything stupid because you see they try
but everybody protects their own selves, you know.
- We're not gonna have problems shooting, right?
- [Hussein] No, no, not at all.
(tense music)
- Let's go back over here, is everything all right?
Police stopped us.
Problem or no?
- He's acting all formal on us and stuff.
- As soon as I said it's super safe here,
we got busted by the police, but it seems to be all right.
It seems to be like, we're going
to get out of it, no problem, he's on the phone
talking to his upper guy, the boss guy.
Always got to get permissions here.
(tense music)
I'm in the police station right now in Iraq.
Pretty much impossible shooting here.
But what an experience that was, we have to talk about this.
Well, I guess that's the end of the video.
We got stopped in the street by a policeman who seemed nice
at first and then called his boss.
All of a sudden there were eight policemen
around us in the middle of the street.
I'm texting Alvaro, he was waiting in the car.
I was like, dude, I'm going to the police station.
Sure enough, they walk into the police station, sit down.
Some guys were friendly, some weren't.
Told them I was from Spain, talking about Real Madrid.
- You were from Spain?
- He said I was from Spain since--
- He didn't see your passport?
- No I didn't have my passport.
That's it end of the video guys, thanks for watching.
It was an unbelievable experience
to come here to the marshlands.
Did you enjoy it?
- There was a lot of fun.
- [Drew] There was so much fun, did you enjoy?
Thanks to this guy, he's from here.
Hussein is the man.
It was a wonderful, wonderful experience.
My favorite video, I made in Iraq.
And the trip continues, see you guys later.
- Hey guys, quick reminder that on August 12th,
I am launching the Drew Binsky
ultimate travel hacking course.
Literally it has all my best travel tips, hacks,
secrets, resources, and advice that I've picked
up from visiting 194 countries.
And the reason why I've done that is because I want to help
you guys become better travelers and save money.
The course is broken down into 12 chapters,
like how to find the cheapest flights and hotels,
how to make local friends, how to navigate cities
and airports, how to maximize travel reward points.
What are the best travel apps, how to exchange money,
literally everything that I've learned poured
into this course, I've literally spent the last
five months compiling all this
information and I'm super excited to be sharing
it with you for the very first time.
And I have a very special offer for you guys.
If you purchase a course in the first 24 hours,
you will be getting 50% off, which is the biggest
discount I will ever be offering.
And in order to get that deal, you have to be signed up
for my email newsletter, which is a link
in the description below.
And I will be sending a special code and I'm super excited
to help you guys get on your way to becoming better
travelers because we should all be travelers.
We should all learn from the world and traveling makes us
wiser and smarter and better people overall.
So that's all I have to say.
Stay tuned for this awesome course.
And I'll catch you guys later.
(energetic music)
Behind me, we have made it to the meeting point
of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
I know it doesn't look like much from here,
but I learned so much about this place
as a kid in preschool, about Mesopotamia,
the birthplace of humanity, the cradle of civilization.
And that is exactly what we can see right here.
We have the Tigris river and the Euphrates,
really, really cool to be here.
And the sound of the prayers just came on.
Wonderful place, great atmosphere.
Gosh guys, I don't know.
Iraq is a beautiful country.
You really get the chance to explore places
that people have never really been before.
Outsider, foreigners, tourists, I'm talking about.
Everybody keeps asking me for my military ID because when
they see a US passport, they really think that
I am a part of the military because
it's like unheard of to have a tourist and American tourists
in Iraq, but this place continues to impress.
It's so beautiful and I can't wait to see more.
If you could say one message to every person
in the world, what would you say to them?
- Grow a beard and a mustache. (laughs)
I would really want everybody in the world
to just be nice to one another, yeah.
- [Drew] Beautiful.
- Yeah, that's it.
- I'm Drew Binsky.
And if you like my travel videos, please click
subscribe and ring that little bell,
so you can get notified on all my upcoming videos as I take
you to every single country in the world.