Taiwan travel agency to send regular tours to Iraq (Feature)

Taipei - A Taiwan travel agency, after sending a successful test tour to Iraq, plans to start sending regular tours to the war-torn country despite warnings from the Taiwan government. 'Our first regular tour will leave on June 13. After that, there will be about two package tours each month,' Wu Tang-sheng, 50, manager of the Globair Travel Service, told the German Press Agency dpa. 'Every day we get telephone inquiries, which shows many people are eager to visit Iraq because Iraq has not received foreign tour groups for 20 years, since the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88),' he said. Globair sent a tour to Iraq in early May to test the waters. The 11-day tour, in Wu's words, went as smooth as silk. 'I phoned Iraq's tourism ministry. My call was passed from one person to another, but finally the right person talked to me, in English,' he said. 'In less than a month, all the arrangements were made. As Iraq does not have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, I planned to apply for visas from the Iraqi embassy in Amman. But that was not necessary. They gave us visas upon landing.' The Taiwan group, led by Wu, was the second foreign tour group to enter Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, after a group sent by the British travel agency Hinterland Travel, which toured Iraq in March. Most of the 17 members of the Taiwan group, plus Wu, were already experienced travellers who had visited many countries. One 75-year-old man named Wang said that out of the 192 member countries of the United Nations, he had visited 191. Iraq was the only country he had not visited and he had been waiting for the opportunity for 10 years. The tour group flew from Jordan to Baghdad and traveled in a coach in Iraq, accompanied by a guide and two armed guards. It visited five cities - Baghdad, Basra, Najaf, Karbala, Nasiriyah - as well as the US-controlled zone in Baghdad, the National Museum in Baghdad, ancient Babylon, the Zaggurat Pyramid at Ur and several mosques. The tourists saw the heavy presence of US troops at many checkpoints on the roads, 'but we never felt danger,' Wu said. 'We heard no explosion on the tour. It was only after we had left Iraq that we read about one attack on a US soldier. One US soldier shot another US soldier. In my opinion, the violence in Iraq has been exaggerated by the press. On a daily basis, there are more road accident deaths in Taiwan than kidnappings and suicide attacks in Iraq,' he said. The security was better in southern Iraq than in the north. 'In Baghdad and north of Baghdad, we were advised not to go out after dark. In the south, we could go out at dark. The further south you go the safer it is,' Wu noted. In the Iraqi capital Baghdad, the group stayed at the Sheraton Hotel, which was half empty. After dinner, the group would stay inside the hotel to watch TV - which offered some 100 channels including CNN and BBC - or looked at the city from the window. The hotel was surrounded by a low wall for security reasons. Sometimes the guide took them to local people's weddings. Hotels in Iraq offer double rooms with TV, telephone, shower and air-conditioning. Meals include rice, pancakes, fish, meat, salad and tea. There is coffee, but the Taiwan tourists said it was not good. The only 'security incident' on the tour happened when a tour member went out to take photos in Baghdad by himself one morning and was detained and questioned for an hour by two dozen police. He was released after the police contacted his hotel and learned he was a tourist. Wu said most foreigners want to visit Iraq for its culture, as a cradle of human civilization, and its many archaeological ruins, or for religious reasons, or just for the adventure of a country that has been off-limits for so long. Najab and Karbala, two holy cities for Shiite Muslims which previously barred entry to tourists, are now open. According Wu, who visited Iraq in 2000, most of the archaeological ruins in Iraq are intact. 'I would say the destruction is less than 10 per cent, but many of the artifacts in the National Museum in Baghdad have been looted. When I was there in 2000, the museum had 20 showrooms. Now it has 12,' he said. Wu and his 17 tourists returned home to Taipei on May 13 with beautiful memories of Iraq's historical sites and Iraqi people's hospitality, but very few souvenirs. There was not much to buy, he said. The only thing they brought home were dry dates. The Taiwan government does not encourage travel to Iraq. The foreign ministry has issued its sternest travel warning for Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. 'The country is still unstable. Extreme militants often attack the allied forces. Not advised to travel,' the warning on the ministry's website reads.