Exploring Hawraman in Iraqi Kurdistan

I know it has been a long time since I made a post about travel, but now that I have something of lull between work and grad school. Therefore, I am finally able to give some much-needed attention to “Traveling with a View” after a significant absence.

When countries were implementing lockdowns and travel bans throughout the world (still ongoing), it became difficult for everyone to travel (still true to a certain extent). In my case, it was the same thing. In addition, since I decided to return to graduate school in mid 2020, travel opportunities were few and far between. However, the desire and yearning to explore and see new things never left me. This desire to travel and be out on the road again continued to slowly build. Admittedly, it drove me somewhat crazy since armchair tourism, while kind of pleasant and relaxing, just wasn’t doing it for me. Despite being inundated with work and grad school assignments, I still wanted to see something new and was determined to do something about it.

While overseas travel was essentially out the question while I was still in grad school, it was still possible to do day trips throughout the region relatively easily.

This might come as a surprise to many of you, but even though I have lived in this region for over eight years, I am relatively untraveled in this particular area. At the time this trip took place, I had rarely if ever left the confines of the city I call home.

For those of you who do not know, Kurdistan is extremely beautiful in the spring time. The weather is not too hot nor is it particularly cold (a light jacket suffices). In addition, the rain from the winter makes everything lush and verdant.

Back in March, I decided it would be an excellent idea to check out some of the treasures that Iraqi Kurdistan (northern Iraq) had to offer since this was the prime time when everything would be green, and the weather would not be oppressively hot. There was something of a time limit to this time since the weather would be getting increasingly hotter, and it would not be long before the lush green would give way to a boring and monotonous brown that would stay until October/November.

During a break during work and grad school, myself and a friend hired a local taxi driver, whom we both know quite well, to take us to the area of Hawraman. Hawraman, which is a mountainous region in the area of western Iran and northern Iraq, is known for its beautiful landscapes. Since neither my friend and I felt comfortable being too adventurous in this region due to a lack of local language skills and lack of infrastructure for tourism, we decided to go with someone who knew the area, and who could also translate for us at checkpoints in case there were problems.

Once everything was arranged, my friend and I were picked up in the morning, and the journey to Hawraman began.

It is important to note that Hawraman is a region and not a city, so I cannot say that there are particular places, such as museums to visit (not that I am aware of at least). However, the true beauty of Hawraman lies in its small villages that are often placed on hills in a terraced-type of setup.

During our excursion, we had the opportunity to stop at a handful of small towns, such as Byara, Balkho, and Tawela. These are small towns where a traditional way of life is followed, and it was also in these towns that I saw a type of Kurdish clothing that I had never seen before. While it is not unusual to see Kurdish men wearing the traditional clothing where I live in daily life, many of the men in these small villages often wore a type of vest made of rough material that has somewhat elongated shoulders in addition to the traditional Kurdish clothing that tends to be ubiquitous in both cities and small villages. To be honest, I cannot remember the name of the item, but I have never seen it worn anywhere else except in this region, so it was definitely interesting to see and try on.

While the small villages and hilly/mountainous landscapes of Hawraman were amazing to see and nice break from the usual routine, it was also something of a novelty to know that Iran was very close. These small villages are essentially on the border between Iraq and Iran, so in many cases, we were not too far from the border. However, there were no excursions between the border.

While the region of Hawraman overlaps the border of Iraq and western Iran, it was not possible to go too far lest we run into potentially serious trouble, so we stayed firmly within the territory of Iraqi Kurdistan. As much as I would love to visit Iran one day, I have a suspicion that might have to wait. This is likely to be as close as I’ll get to Iran in the near future.

At the end of the trip, it was truly amazing to be able to finally get out the city and see a part of Iraqi Kurdistan that I had never seen before but had always heard about. Even though I was not able to do any overseas travel, this was a very worthwhile trip since I got to feel the joy of traveling and exploring again after 14 months of rarely venturing far from home and doing nothing but doing work and grad school assignments.

Since that time, I have also had the opportunity to visit other areas of Iraqi Kurdistan, so please keep an eye out in the future for another entry on specific places to check out with Iraqi Kurdistan. There is more to see and talk about, but I want to dedicate another post to its treasures.

Please enjoy the photo gallery! All photos were taken by me using a DSLR and iPhone.