>>1045884I honestly didn't use public transportation on my first trip. It's sort of funny - I had more money for those three months than I've had for any subsequent excursion, but I budgeted myself very strictly. I did a lot of walking around cities like Duhok and Erbil and tried to avoid any unnecessary transportation expenses. I like exploring new cities by foot, so it worked out well enough for me.
Honestly, I can't remember there being too many intercity transportation options, so far as buses went. I'm sure they had them, but I don't remember them and they're not in any of the pictures I took.
Taxis were very cheap. I tried to get a shared cab on the Duhok-Mosul-Erbil route. The guy in charge of the company kept trying to get me to take one by myself. I kept refusing, not to haggle, but because I genuinely wanted to go with other people to save money. He started off around 60,000 IQD and reduced the price to somewhere between 15k IQD and 25k IQD over the course of an hour without me even saying a word, so I wound up going solo. Regardless of what the "real" price is, I thought $15-$25 for a four hour taxi ride was good enough.
And I'd like to go Syria as well as Yemen. Of course, that doesn't mean that I'd go right at this very moment, with both countries being taken by civil wars. I just think that "Manhattan of the Desert" looks cool. I'd like to visit there, as well as some of the cultural sites.