Barefoot in the Lalish snow

"Heavy" snowfall in Kurdistan blocked many of the roads out of Erbil but we were determined to not let it stop us from seeing some of the more amazing things in this amazing area of the world!

After linking up with Jagar (@jagar_amen), we planned a day trip to the mystical town of Lalish and to the lovely mountainside town of Akre.

The trip started early in the day and began with an attempt to visit one of the Syrian refugee camps present just outside Erbil. In truth we were a bit hesitant in even attempting to visit the camp as our purpose of understanding that particular reality could easily be mistaken with some sordid type of poverty tourism. Though finally we did attempt to enter the camp and spoke with the officer in charge at the entrance, it was not to be. Visits to such camps are usually off-limits from anyone other than press with pre-booked appointments and after a bit of time trying to convince the military that we just wanted to talk to the people and understand their plight, they politely turned us down. Unfortunate but understandable.

A bit disappointed we moved on to what we knew was going to be something out of the ordinary.

First on our list was a visit to Lalish, one of the holiest cities of a fairly secretive and relatively unknown (to most) religion by the name of Yazidism. With an aproximate 1-1,5 million followers, this middle eastern religion exists mostly in the northern Arabic peninsula and is as secretive as it is interesting.

Yazidis follow a strain of pre-Zoroastrian beliefs which emerged in the 12th century and has managed to outlive historical persecution from both Arabs and Turks alike despite being treated as devil worshipers. More recently they came under the the attention of ISIS in the mid 2010's as the barbaric terrorist state committed genocide by killing 5,000 men, enslaving many thousand women and children and displacing up to 500,000 people from their ancestral lands.

Upon arriving at Lalish, which is considered as the centre of the world by the Yazidis, the first thing you will be required to do is to take your shoes off. For the Yazidis this is sacred ground and all shall be humbled while walking there. Also, be sure to not step on any doorstep! Yazidis kiss the doorstep upon entering the sacred buildings and it is especially disrespectful to step there when entering. Be especially careful if you do so with wet feet as you will leave an actual mark of shame behind you. Don't be that guy!

Now this may sound somewhat romantic but in late January, which is when we visited, the ground is filled with ice and melting snow which means you will be walking barefoot (ok you can wear socks) on the freezing and wet ground.

And no, no exceptions are made to the barefoot rule, not even for the construction workers who were rebuilding some of the houses so don't expect to get any breaks with that, even if you do try to put socks over your shoes (also not allowed though we might have seen somebody attempting to sneak his way out of the barefoot rule like that).

As for our experience, walking barefoot in the snow was as much of a humbling experience as it was sometimes a painful one. It really was super cold and though it would not deter us from doing it again, cold wet feet in winter are not an amazing thing.

Lalish itself is a fairly small place where only a few families live throughout the year. The village itself is kept in pristine state and it is a short walk to the Yazidi places of worship where chances are you will indeed see worshipers going about their particular rituals.

Unfortunately, you will not find any plaques or information of any kind about either the temples or the religion itself (did I say they are on the secretive side?) and without a well informed guide you might miss out on most of what you went there to learn about in the first place.

If you are lucky and inquisitive as we are, you may just meet one of the local elders who may be in the mood to share some time in front of the heater and exchange a few stories with you.

As the elder told us, Yazidis consider their religion to be particularly special as they view it as one of the eldest monotheistic religions in the world. A religion that claims to stand for tolerance and peace.

Yazidism is made further special by not allowing anyone to convert into it nor anyone to convert out. In practice this means that you can only be born into the religion and can neither convert to nor marry into it, a fact that only makes the ISIS genocide of the Yazidis more dramatic as it directly affects their capacity to keep their religion alive.

It also means that any that attempt to leave the religion is taken as a grave offense and has led to the offender being murdered in the past. Perhaps not the most tolerant thing it can boast of but a clear indication of how serious they take their worldview.

Though we left Lalish with dozens of questions left unanswered, we were truly happy to have gone there and learned a bit about this unusual (to us) religion. It was a really mentally stimulating exercise in opening ourselves up to things we may have not otherwise have ever heard of and we are truly grateful for being able to go there.

But time is fleeting and after gratefully changing from our frozen and wet socks into fresh new ones in the comfort of our winter shoes, we drove on to Akre, an entirely different experience.