With only 2 weeks on our Iranian visa and now on a deadline to catch our flight from Istanbul to London at the end of October, it was time to hot foot it out of Iran and start on the homestretch - overland to Turkey via Iraq.

From now on I will mostly refer to our time in Kurdistan Iraq / Iraqi Kurdistan as just 'Iraq', for simplicity, but this part of Iraq is not the Iraq you see in the news. The region's slogan is "The Other Iraq", and while it's technically part of Iraq, it might as well be a separate country: it has it's own parliament, passport stamp, language, culture, and army. Kurdistan refers to the region spanning eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, northwestern Iran and northeastern Syria, which is mostly populated by Kurds. Iraqi Kurdistan first gained autonomous status in a 1970 agreement with the Iraqi government, and its status was re-confirmed as an autonomous entity within the Iraqi republic in 2005.

Our journey that day was rather epic (involving a taxi, two buses, another taxi, a shared taxi, bus and then a final taxi) taking us from Tabriz in Iran, through a 'will they/won't they let us in' border crossing between Iran and Iraq, to arriving 12 hours later in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish region of Iraq.

As you would almost expect in this part of the world, the road leading to the Iran - Iraq border was dusty and remote, winding round a mountain side and looking like a road to nowhere until we turned another corner and it was then obvious we were approaching the border by the sight of the massive line of parked trucks and tankers in the valley below. We got out of the taxi and into the queue, the only foreigners shuffling along with a bunch of Iranians and Iraqi Kurds waiting to exit Iran, in an outside queue which happened to be fenced in by chicken-wire fencing, giving a sort of prison-like feel to proceedings. At the first check point, Simon's passport seemed to cause some confusion but we were both stamped out and we then grinned as the final Iranian migration official said "Goodbye, and welcome to Iran", even as we were leaving...it's like 'welcome to Iran' is the national greeting, and a pretty accurate one at that.

On the Iraqi side there were two rooms / processes we had to go through: the first, putting our bags through a security scanner, after which I was pulled aside to a separate room and asked some questions by a stern female official. She searched my bag, appearing very perplexed by our pocket Scrabble game - was it that that had aroused suspicion? - but luckily it was deemed a non-threatening item. Through to the second room and penultimate check point, where once again both our passports got lots of raised eyebrows ('these two cannot be tourists....?') and we were called into another separate room where our passports were checked against a list of nationalities not allowed into Iraq, lots of discussion amongst the two officials, phone calls made etc, while we waited nervously, hoping everything would be ok as we were right now in no-mans land between Iran and Iraq, not somewhere we really wanted to be stuck or detained as you can imagine. But all was fine in the end, we were stamped in through the final - and 5th - check point and we were through, goodbye Iran, hello Iraq! Now there's a phrase I never thought we would say...

With a jubilant removal of my headscarf (I didn't mind wearing it but I won't deny it wasn't a relief taking it off!) we boarded the bus to Erbil, ready for whatever Iraq would throw at us. By this time it was near 5pm and we drove off, literally into the sunset, as the setting sun illuminated the side of the mountain in a golden hue, and very appropriately, a shepherd with his flock of sheep.

Our first stop was Erbil, capital of the Kurdish Regional Government and the largest city in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as the fastest-growing city in Iraq. With its wide boulevards, flash cars and modern shopping malls, it looked more like a Dubai-wannabe, and couldn't be more different from Iran, or indeed the images you have of Iraq...and you certainly got the feeling there was a lot of money around. Our guesthouse near the ancient citadel and the city's bazaar however gave us a better feel for 'old' Erbil, with claims that the citadel is the longest continually inhabited (the last 8000 years) urban area in the world. It was an imposing structure, rising 32m above street level and the main square, built on layers of successive settlements. It is now being restored, and a walk to the top gave us great views of the city, a glimpse of the original, crumbling citadel walls, and a walk past the one remaining home, the only family to remain in order not to break the 'continuously inhabited' title!! The kindly caretaker who showed us around claimed that the restoration work will be finished in 5 years, I would say 15-20 is a more accurate estimate!

After two nights in Erbil (lots of tea-drinking, shisha-pipe smoking, people-watching) we made our way to Dohuk, by way of a shared taxi with two other passengers. On our way out of Erbil we were at first following signs to Mosul (an important al-Qaeda stronghold and apparently one of the most dangerous cities in the world) and Baghdad, which felt kind of crazy - if we felt being in Iran was a bit of a 'wow' it was nothing to the daily realisation that we were in Iraq (sort of)!

Despite our taxi driver driving as if he was on an F1 racecourse, we arrived safely in Dohuk after passing through lots of police checkpoints. Dohuk is a busy town set between two mountain ranges, and we spent just a couple of days there to visit the nearby village of Al-Kosh - thought to date back 2500 years and with an incredible monastery built into the side of the mountain overlooking the village. We almost didn't make it there though...a lot more checkpoints along the way (am glad we had our passports on us as our taxi driver was being asked a lot of questions about us) and when trying to enter Al-Kosh we were almost turned away, but eventually we were let through. It was a steep drive up to the monastery, round hair pin bends on a road built into the mountain, meaning you could barely see the road - or the monastery, which is the same colour as the cliff it is built into - from the village below.

By now we were on friendly terms with our taxi driver who was very friendly, and ended up coming on a bit of sight-seeing jaunt with us as he had never been up to the monastery before. The village of Al-Kosh is a bit of an anomaly in that it is 100% christian, and the monastery - dating back to the 7th century - is supposedly still inhabited by monks, although we didn't see any. We explored the chapel and lots of nooks, crannies and tunnels, with mini altars and shrines, some with lit candles - it was funny to see signs of life when there seemed to be hardly anyone else around, bar a couple of caretakers and one man dressed in military uniform, sat around drinking tea outside. We were invited to join them, and sat down to drink tea with them. One man was wearing a t-shirt with London images and slogans on it, and we tried to use that as a means to tell him where we were from....he seemed excited to think he was wearing a football shirt, so we left it at that! They were of course very friendly - like everyone we had met here so far - and the amazing views from the top of the monastery, overlooking the plains towards Arab Iraq, were amazing. On arrival back at Dohuk our kindly taxi driver at first refused to take any payment from us, making us think that either the Ta'arof system from Iran has moved across the border, or it was an interesting day out for him being a 'tourist' too which he didn't want payment for...it is unlike us not to accept anything going for free, but since our time in Iran, and the kindness and generosity we have experienced there and in Iraq, it actually makes you want to pay people more / spread the good will on.

The next day we set off for the border town of Zakho, to cross over into Turkey. We travelled across the border in a minibus carrying us and another passenger, and the driver must have been the most efficient person in the Middle East - a bundle of nervous energy, everything he did he did at full speed: jumping in and out of the van, running with our passports through all the various checkpoints, zipping us through to get our visa....so much so that crossing the border in to Turkey only took an hour or so when we had been warned it would take three, a total breeze compared to the Iran-Iraq crossing! Before we knew it we were on the bus to Diyarbakir, a city in Eastern / Kurdish Turkey...the first thing we noticed was how smart the coach was, with huge, clean windows looking out onto some stunning scenery. The second was that we were in Turkey - whoop! - and therefore nearer Europe, one step closer to home...which felt very exciting (or it is when you are only coming home for a week and know it is not the end of your travels!)

We only spent five days in (Kurdish ) Iraq, as a means of crossing into Turkey, but it was a very interesting place to see, similar to Iran in terms of the friendliness of the people and the conception-busting experiences. I still can't quite believe that we have been there despite the passport stamp to prove it - even though it is practically a separate country to Iraq, there is no physical border to the two, it is still Iraq, and isolated incidents - such as a car bomb in Erbil in September - are enough to make you think twice...but with the mindset that terrorism is a threat in many parts of the world these days, and bearing in mind that it is still a very conservative area (no headscarf necessary for me but still no strappy tops /shorts either) it was a great experience and certainly worth a visit. Despite all that it was also the only country on our trip that we didn't tell our parents we had been to until we were safely out...but looking back that wasn't really necessary!