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British agency offers unique vacations -- tours of Iraq

Fancy two weeks of guaranteed sunshine and fabulous archaeological sites in a country truly off the beaten tourist track?

A specialist British firm is one of a handful in Europe offering regular trips to -- wait for it -- Iraq.

"It's an amazingly beautiful country," says Geoff Hann, director of Hinterland, a travel agency in Godstone, southeast of London, that specializes in adventure tours.

Since 1972, this 65-year-old Briton has been been taking small groups of intrepid tourists to the ancient region of Mesopotamia in present day Iraq with the blessing of the authorities in Baghdad.

"We used to operate in Iraq from the 1970s and until 1990," Hann said.

The 1991 Gulf War forced him to stop making the journey for almost a decade, but he finally resumed visits in 1999.

The threat of a new war in Iraq and a warning this week from the Foreign Office urging British nationals to leave Iraq immediately, have not scuppered Hann's plans for another trip next month.

He leaves London with a group on March 16, flying to the Syrian capital Damascus before transferring to a car to complete the final leg of the journey to Iraq where the group hopes to spend 15 days.

A place on the trip costs ?1,340 (US$2,100) plus ?134 for visas and about ?310 for the flight to Damascus.

Despite widespread fears that a war in Iraq is just weeks away, the March trip is fully booked.

Hann acknowledges that March 16 -- when some military analysts think a war might be underway -- "is an unfortunate date."

"We don't know what's going to happen. People are booking now on the premise that if we cancel they will get a complete refund," he said.

Hinterland says that tourists interested in exploring Iraq are typically in their 50s or older with an interest in history and religion. Sometimes a journalist also joins the party, with a different agenda.

"There are sometimes some of them coming without saying what they are up to. It causes some dissension with our clients who want to see things and not to find problems and look for the politics," he said.

But the group does not enjoy the right to roam freely around Iraq -- the country's tourism ministry provides a "guide" to keep them company on the trip.

"We have to submit our itinerary to our people in Iraq, then it goes to the ministry who supply us with a guide. We have to stick to our itinerary," Hann said.

"We can speak to people, but of course if we go to the town or souks and bazaars we have our minder with us," he said.

Members of his group are free to snap away with their cameras, so long as they point the lens away from military sites, ministries and hospitals.

"But it's the same in the France and UK. You don't take picture of tanks, planes or military people," Hann said.

Although Hann's groups are steered clear of areas of absolute poverty, he has nevertheless detected a deterioration in the standards of living of the Iraqis over the years.

"The biggest thing is the middle class have lost a big deal. They can't buy clothes, can't get good medicines ... the children are often sick," he said.
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