TRAVELING ACROSS IRAQ FOR 7 DAYS (Kurdistan)

2021 is an entirely new chapter for yes theory with matt stepping away to focus on writing the first yes theory book and our newsletter we feel like we've reached a whole new sense of alignment for our future our objective is to show people through stories and experiences that life's greatest moments and deepest connections exist outside of your comfort zone we've got two big goals this year first bring you the best and most consistent yes theory content we've ever made and second grow our youtube channel to 10 million subscribers at the end of 2021 so if you enjoy what you see here then please take a second right now to subscribe to yes theory and help us get closer to our goal we've got a massive plan for the 10 million celebration to let the journey begin with episode 1 of our incredible year ahead iraq has for my entire life only been a synonym of one thing american and coalition forces are in the early stages to disarm iraq it is now a full-scale invasion we didn't find any weapons of mass destruction the militant surge continues men took to the streets with every weapon they could find the u.s is continuing the war against isis yet recently as i've grown more curious about world history i connected two dots that i never connected before that the mesopotamia that i studied in history class as a kid considered one of the most ancient civilizations and in fact often referred to as the birthplace of modern civilization was in fact located in what today is iraq but unfortunately iraq's highly complicated history has made most of the world forget that and sadly a large portion of the country's historical places haven't survived the countless wars the nation has been subjected to over centuries but there are a few hidden places and ancient traditions in iraq still standing today notably the yazidi religion hidden in the mountains of northern iraq they are considered one of the oldest religions likely originating all the way back seven thousand years ago some of the oldest christian churches in the world still stand in iraq and the brave local population still living there are said to be incredibly welcoming and generous to go on a trip like this you need an experienced team the person who first suggested this trip to me was drew binsky a travel storyteller who's been documenting stories from every corner of the world for the past 10 years i'm getting cultured here in equatorial guinea exactly then lexi limitless who is in fact the youngest person to have traveled to every country in the world and is coming back to explore more of iraq with us then corey martin who captures some of the best cinematic travel content and also directed the iceman documentary we helped produce last year and last but not least our wonderful local friend and guide for this trip buttercup buttacon was born and raised in iraq and is on a mission to show his country that you can travel even with the worst passport in the world he's already been to more than 70 countries even though getting visas anywhere with an iraqi citizenship is very difficult although the earliest memory from his childhood is living in a refugee camp he's one of the most positive and goofy people i've ever met and i cannot wait for you to see that [Music] i got the rack stamp and my passport the custom guys were like youtuber youtuber for the first time in our lives entering the country of iraq where is this when i was here a year and a half ago he showed me around he has the world's greatest since badakhan doesn't live in the city he had asked on his instagram if someone would be open to hosting some strangers over for dinner and when angie answered little did she know that she'd be hosting her favorite creators at her house [Music] hello hello welcome that sentence doesn't make any sense settle everything in okay good here take all the time every meet and greet like your phone number in usa everything is just like i'm never gonna meet these guys well like impossible and like right now you're here in our house that's so weird [Music] [Applause] where we going man excuse me [Laughter] which troop you want to go mars moon [Laughter] i'm laughing because of weather tomorrow we're gonna leave um ariel i feel sorry for the little guy like give me this [ __ ] uh i suggest you guys to sleep when you go back to your countries like use all our energy here or we can sleep when we die yeah at this point you're probably wondering how dangerous is a trip like this and the truth is that in a country like iraq things can happen at any moment northern iraq although relatively stable still sees weekly attacks from various militia groups from the region they fought a gruesome war against isis and just recently fought them off with many refugee camps still existing in the area however it is not as dangerous as the rest of iraq you see in 1991 the northern part of iraq also called iraqi kurdistan has been a semi-autonomous region with its own border rules technically the kurds are the largest ethnic group in the world without their own independent country the other half of iraq however is almost impossible to get into and is much more dangerous our plan was therefore to do a week-long loop around the northern part of the country in the search of this region's hidden history and tomorrow on our first day we are going to have to get dangerously close to the border to try to get access to the most ancient christian orthodox church in the world and little did we know that would be much riskier than we thought oh my god we're gonna go deep in kurdistan like we're not lots of stuff yeah we are so lots to learn and lots to see how do you feel about it i feel good [Music] we will leave the last kurdish personal checkpoint we will go an area which is kind of buffer zone between peshmerga and iraqi military hopefully they will let us leave the last checkpoint because mosul's right there and we're going like almost to it and then we're turning off to the right it's right there at checkpoints thomas don't film like obviously that's like a reason for them to not let us pass wow yes they're playing soccer down there is there another we should go back this way this is [Music] right yeah because of you for me it's fine but for you guys they will take you to the court and like jail and long process because you got into iraq illegally my heart dropped when he was like yeah that was the arrest yeah that was a lot we passed the border right yeah at the checkpoint and then we're gonna take another road and end up in the buffer zone again the curtis dropped yeah maybe you should hold the steering wheel you know [Music] after successfully treading close to the iraqi border we finally made it to marmatai built in 363 it's recognized as one of the oldest christian monasteries still standing in the world today most ancient places like this have been destroyed over the years but there's a few and this one in particular still standing it is the oldest orthodox uh christian monastery in the entire world survived countless wars and more recently attacks from isis who tried to enter these small christian villages down in the valley you know minority always live in fear so they try to protect themselves it's so hard to be a minority in the middle east a lot of massacres over centuries but they survived imagine this is telling the story wow so some people think about christianity that it's born somewhere else but it born here in the middle east when was this founded in the 4th century imagine [Music] there's very very few people here walking around and naturally it's because it's protected but also i mean how many people make it all the way to this part of iraq [Music] oh [Music] although i felt like we had seen nothing but the beauty and openness of the iraqi people on the drive we also couldn't help but see some scars from wars past and present so i wanted to get a better understanding of the situation here from someone who's been living through it what's the first memory you have for me and for a lot of people who born here my first childhood memory on the border we flew from saddam regime troops to the iranian border i was just four years old kid and we were scared that um when saddam hussein regime troop get in they will massacre everyone so your first memory was basically in like a refugee camp on a border and i'm very thankful for what i saw what i experienced how long were you there for uh it was couple weeks but it was very hard because there was no enough food that was just the beginning of more wars saddam again the kurds were and also again the international community against saddam and later on iraq war and we continue with al-qaeda and then isis so we adapted all these struggles and we made fun of it in order to live and build our country and be better version of ourselves we made fun of and made a lot of jokes about our situation is that why yeah that's why i keep laughing when you give energy you will get it back so if you keep laughing believe me you will get a lot of laughters when i talk about it i get a little bit emotional because because we should make sure that our next generation will not face the same thing [Music] so in 1991 we kicked out saddam regime from kurdistan since 1991 we are ruling ourselves by ourselves we have our own president our own parliament so when you guys overthrew like the saddam regime these kind of prisons and everything became abandoned so at the beginning people used it as a shelter because of the war and later on uh became a kind of refugee place for displaced people so some of them turned into museums so we will not forget what happened so this is one of saddam hussein's abandoned prisons yes like even now i get what you call goosebumps because of what we went through [Music] some other things written in arabic praising the regime saddam regime back in time is it weird for you to be in here yeah it's very weird a lot of people lost their lives in here and it's uh it's a very emotional place to walk around for buttahn when i think of a prison i think of people like in a cell like being being fed and stuff but they can't like leave when you think of prison is it like they're being tortured yeah torching and killing wow so they came here to be killed yes or maybe if they were lucky enough they could get out but after uh getting horrific trauma but so hard yet to be here also [Music] wow [Music] whoa these are bullet holes pretty crazy walking around here especially because when you're in the city and you're with people like badar khan you can forget about all of the really intense history that happened really not so long ago how do you feel being in here i don't feel good actually because it's so hard to see like um your relatives your people got killed here or got tortured but also on the same time it's good to be here to see to not forget what happened and make sure to work hard to not repeat it again for next generations life is beautiful you said that you're happy that it happened is there a part of you that's sad when you think about your childhood i get emotional and i say i ask myself should i start crying and they say oh no time to cry let me continue you know for being a kid seeing a lot of hate and racism it's really hard like we introduced to hate and racism before even knew the what does it mean like later i figured out oh there's a word for racism there's a word for hate when i travel people told me like why you want to go back to iraq why are you going to go back to kurdistan it's war zone it's unstable area but believe me we born here and we will die here if we don't be part of changing the society changing our country to and develop it and construct it to a better thing then who would do it we bring like random people to fix things no it's not about just surviving it's about education it's about progression it's about becoming better person building so i'm so happy that our people are adopting all these things and going through stronger you know like when someone tries to push you you stand up stronger we shouldn't just wait for a miracle to happen people will are the miracle people are doing those things changing um one mentality changing one stereotype slowly slowly the changing will the circle will grow more and more and more and later on people will not call me a terrorist they will call me a tourist [Laughter] [Music] we're on our way to see the citadel in the center of herbal and uh it's friday which is uh the local day off and we've been completely stuck in traffic for past 30 minutes so now we're gonna have to walk to the [Music] citadel [Music] i think most people when they think about iraq they just think of war and of isis and conflict but the truth is this is where civilization started and this citadel is the testament of that and it's also fascinating the fact that they've preserved it and been able to sustain it and the fact that there's still a family living here six thousand years after it was estimated that the citadel was built all right let's go catch up with the group [Music] are people usually allowed in here no so even if it wasn't a pandemic if it was not closed down no one is allowed to get in here [Music] [Music] before we continue with this video i just want to mention that the only way these videos are possible to make is through your support in our clothing brand seek discomfort it allows us to support causes that we believe in from a school in afghanistan to superhuman feats in antarctica there are plenty of incredible designs out now so if you want to support us and see more videos like this one then go to seekdiscomfort.com now back to iraq [Music] on our third day in iraq we drove to the city of duhok to explore the local markets and try some let's just say interesting cuisine this city is so safe they literally leave 100 bills just behind a glass shelf on the street everywhere this is crazy we are exploring and discovering markets here in duhok [Music] the best part about walking around here is the incredible smells from all of the spices and the tea [Music] whoa i've never tasted anything like this what is this magic drink it's not every day that you get a flavor that you've never even gone close to tasting before one thing that the guys probably haven't noticed since we've been walking around this market is that it is probably 90 90 percent all men in these markets on the street it's very rare to see women if they if there are women there's a lot of them with uh their families with children and it just shows that like while we're traveling especially solo the experience can be very different for a solo female traveler in this region of the world than it is for a man i feel so unattentive for not having noticed that now we are heading to get some traditional lunch let's go check it out and see uh what strange foods kurdistan have to offer [Music] dude what is that why is it dripping [Music] many jokes i can make right now but yeah we'll save them out there [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] dude [Music] pretty good oh there it is there's the balls i'm not a fan of that i don't mind i'm not a fan of that round two yeah you have a lot of options a lot well we're buying some clothes for the uh we're going to tonight we're on a wedding yeah yeah i've never seen the female kurdish clothing before but if it looks half as good as buttercon's clothes does it's gonna be pretty great look at this guy look at here [Music] [Music] we are on our way to crash a kurdish wedding i don't know what's happening i don't know i don't know whose wedding it is i don't know where it is i don't know what we're supposed to do we're questioning a curtis wedding [Music] well we crashed the curtis wedding at least we didn't put these outputs on for nothing exactly good that's exactly the kind of moment we want to end our trip we decided to visit the 4 000 year old city of lalish the holiest city and home to the ancient yazidi religion although there's only about a million yazidis in the world we had heard of a yes fam member who was a yazidi and decided to surprise him with a call what's up bro oh my gosh thomas i'm doing very well can i take a screenshot yeah absolutely yeah he said the stories on instagram you have even fans in lalesh imagine wow i mean it's unbelievable from for me to think that there's people that watch yes theory in kurdistan in iraq so we have to remove our shoes because we are entering uh the holy place for the acd's you have uh long yeah yeah yes i haven't worn pants in like months i haven't worn anything butt pants this entire trip thomas oh my gosh is that you yeah what made you to come here i can't believe it that one day you would be hearing kirsten i can't believe it was sick discomfort how's your english so good just from your story videos and movies oh that's great what's your name my name is zayn yes spam all the way out in lalish yeah you want to take us around should we go around yeah [Music] thank you very much thank you for taking us around this is so great oh my god you can only be born into the yazidi religion yes there is no like entering to the yazidi religion and there is no going outside it's actually like a grave for the religious guy that i've talked about each color belongs to a tribe of yazidis he's hoping that all your wishes come true he's kind of praying for you people they hope to get married and they don't find the right girl this guy's praying for you to find the right girl what's your name corey [Music] as i told you we think as yeti we think that the first place which got created after the big bang was slavish and this is the main gate in lavish we are yazidis are living peacefully with our muslim brothers and there's no problems actually all of my friends are muslims all of my best friends are muslim are you worried that the religion is slowly phasing out because you have to be born yazidi uh actually all of these idiots are worried about this especially when isis came they killed thousands thousands of yazidis because yazidis were their target because they were from minorities and a different religion how many years ago did isis uh come in 2014. so six years ago yeah very recent there was so you can say everybody has family and friends that were affected everywhere even when isis came i was affected by them i left my school i left my house i left so many things we went to the turkish border we stayed there for two months and after isis was beaten by peshmerga we went back i left my school i left my dreams behind i remember this i was in school okay listening to the teacher and the strike bombs of the of the strike the shock waves like my desk was shaking my window was shaking and we got used to it there are people who are still not in their houses they are staying in camps until now and what's the situation right now that the isis is gone and most of the yazidis are returning back to their houses but the sinjar city because it's very destroyed people cannot go back because their houses there's no house if he goes back there's just the flat earth we've gone through a lot man so from this story you will figure out that people of the middle east we suffer from terrorism more than anyone else around the world so don't sterotype us with terrorists so no matter if we are yazidi muslim or jewish we all pray for the same god mashallah peace so when i came up to ask this woman for a photo she invited us to try some of the food that she just made so she's going and getting it right now if you want more she can bring more food if you want thank you so much thank you is that he's got a very great he's saying that give what you have to other people because there is heaven and hell waiting for you and at the end you're going to go there so just give what you have the money all the things that you have give us [Music] so actually brought this for you i forgot thank you take it to the yes house please well we are rolling into one of the more scenic parts of the trip so far and honestly one of the most beautiful places that i've ever seen this is absolutely gorgeous when you think of northern iraq i mean nobody really thinks about beautiful nature and mountains and waterfalls and rivers and that's exactly what we're seeing right now get ready to enter one of the most beautiful places we call the los eden we welcome our beloved tourists it says on the sign beautiful man like who would have known that this exists here right now we're like higher up in the mountains and it's actually it's actually cold and this water looks incredibly cold all right william time for me to prove that i learned something oh the water is so pristine though this is absolutely gorgeous i was not expecting to find this in northern iraq [Music] as our time in iraq came to an end as this trip happened before afghanistan i realized that this was the first country i've ever traveled to that ended up being completely different from the stories i'd always been told yes there is war but in the news that's the full picture rarely do they talk about the generosity of the people the inherent kindness and the depth in the culture once again i gained a whole new perspective of what travel can truly do to one's perspective of the world some trips are for joy some are just for pure adventure and others like this one challenge our ideas of what the world and its people are like spending time with butter khan who is roughly the same age as me but grew up in a completely different circumstance taught me that the greatest power we have as humans and the path to reaching our full potential as a species is through empathy for each other and staying open to those who may at first seem different from us we are different from outside but similar from inside we share more things together that things which make us a part nowadays politicians they just spread hate to divide us in order to rule us easily but if people of the world they just come closer to each other then they will realize how ignorant we were before sitting next to each other people think that on middle eastern people hate americans no we don't hate americans we are humans we just don't like politicians no matter if they are american they are french they are kurds or the arabs or iraqis or anyone every year you check on the internet they show iraqi passport the worst passport in the world they just brainwash us so that we cannot leave the imaginary walls which they built but believe me it's not like this we can travel outside so far i have been to 75 countries with iraqi passport and believe me we can double it but it's not about numbers it's about experiencing new things what do you think iraq needs today to heal like what do you think love love because with love we can change everything to better virgin if we change the mentality about how international communities look at us then they will understand we are real people don't judge us come visit us and then have conversation with us have tea with us nowadays we have islamophobia in the world there is two billion people following these beliefs we get judged because of our religion before they knew who is badar khan before they knew who these muslim people they judge us directly oh he's a muslim so he should be a terrorist believe me we suffer from terrorism more than anyone else check the statistics how he pronounces statistics yeah you see where the biggest terrorism attacks happening it's happening here our people are dying so we are not the terrorist people we are just human just like like you and i but i'm really happy nowadays uh we get we get a lot of positive messages from all people from around the world from different ethnicities different race people showing love and this is give us more energy to continue and to never give up and never look back we might walk slow but we will never stop [Music] i turn i didn't hide that right there here we go you

Channel: Yes Theory

Views: 2,254,526

Rating: 4.9552083 out of 5

Keywords: yestheory, seek discomfort, yes theory strangers, yes theory travel, yes theory subscribers, getting out of your comfort zone

Id: TWRlPKMAkRk

Length: 36min 56sec (2216 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 28 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/EmilAjarr]

The video is awesome

[u/[deleted]]

Awesome

[u/trmsnd]

Extremely insightful into a place most people don’t/won’t talk about