From the nomadic steppes of Kazakhstan to the frenetic streets of Hanoi, Asia is a continent so full of intrigue, adventure, solace, and spirituality that it has fixated and confounded travelers for centuries.
Our last stop today was an Assyrian archaeological site Khinnis, also known as Bavian (🎫 5000 IQD), facing the River Gomel Su. There are remains of rock reliefs built by king Sennacherib around 690 BC. It was made to celebrate the construction of a complex system of canals whose aim was...
Just some two kilometers off the main road surviving pieces of an ancient aqueduct may have fed into the lost Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The muddy road is only for off-road vehicles. The aqueduct is part of the larger Atrush Canal built by the Assyrian king Sennacherib between 703 and...
Just outside the small Assyrian town of Alqosh sits Rabban Hormizd Monastery, one of the holiest sites for the Chaldean Catholic Church. Some friendly locals brought us there a day before, but it was closed (every Friday). So today, we hired another local man with his Toyota (20000 IQD)...
In the afternoon, we drove to the Alqosh, a small Assyrian town in the Nineveh Plains just 45 km north of Mosul. You will not find here a single mosque because the locals are Assyrians who mainly adhere to the Chaldean Catholic Church. We walked the old town around the tomb of the Prophet...