On the lighter side-Travel- Iraq-8

Although the heat was bearable but walking through one mile in that dry heat was enough to make you dehydrated. Also you had to go through several check points before reaching your destination. But it was an experience of a life time, as we were walking in a town which was more of a desert some 1500 years ago. This was the same area where the Battle of Karbala was fought between the household of Prophet Mohammed and the forces of Yazid. At that time, the access of water in the nearby river was denied for three days. At least we had water to rehydrate and I was drinking very little water but I was realizing how hard it was on them not to have water and still fighting the war exhausted with all the heat blazing. After we reached the shrine of Hazrat Abbas (A.S), the brother of Imam Hussein, we paid our respects and then went towards the shrine of Imam Hussein which was under construction. There were throngs of people around the area and our guide after we paid our collective respects outside told us that since it is Thursday and there might be rush so we should initially go individually into the shrine to pay our respects which we did and as with other shrines we had to first ask permission to enter which was inscribed on the entrance and then went inside.

After paying our respects to the shrines we had another walk of about 15 minutes before reaching our hotel. It was a very nice hotel, with all the amenities that you can see in any medium range hotel. It was getting to be night so after getting our rooms keys and putting our luggage in our rooms we headed towards the restaurant where it was a buffet style dinner.

Since we were too exhausted to do anything that day, we called it a day and went to bed early waking up the next day and then taking a shower. Our tour guide use to slip the next day’s itinerary through our hotel door late at night or have it posted on white board in the lobby so we were supposed to be prepared in advance. Although the timing when we had to leave to visit various place were strict but if you have tried to organize more than hundred people at one time, we always missed our departure time and even if we were in the lobby at the required time, sometimes the buses were late held up at