Cass Avery: Welcome to Baghdad, a city overflowing with surprises

Baghdad. City of sunshine. A thriving metropolis that welcomes visitors year round - though the Saddam International Airport has been virtually out of use since the early 1990s.

The road in is a long drive from Jordan through a landscape of sand dotted with picnic tables from which to view the flat-line horizon. To enter Iraq on your way to Baghdad you need a passport and a visa. American passports are not valid for travel to Iraq.

Located on the river Tigris, Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, a place known earlier as Babylonia and Mesopotamia, ruled once upon a time by King Nebuchadnezzar. An iconic part of the ancient world - the Euphrates river runs past only 50km from Baghdad city - this is the legendary site of the Garden of Eden.

Today, Baghdad is home to between four million and five million people, 70-80 per cent Arabs. The majority of the minority are Kurds.

Getting around in Baghdad is easy. The city has an excellent transport system with subways, trams and buses working the popular inner-city routes.

The streets are wide and there are plenty of taxis, easy to spot with their white paintwork and yellow wings.

Taxi drivers will often have extraordinary qualifications but are unable to get work in their specialist field after more than 10 years of sanctions that have partially asphyxiated the economy. Not so strange - we have a similar situation here. My last taxi driver in Auckland was a fighter pilot back in Iran.

Highlights for the traveller in Baghdad include 13th-century mosques and palaces, and numerous beautiful churches. Architecture of the 70s and 80s is ultra modern and pretty wow in places.

You can buy everything from made-to-measure suits to a 1940s Rolex watch. There are fruit juice bars and tea can be drunk on the pavement tables.

Tourists make much of the friendliness of the Baghdad locals. They will invite you home and are keen to chat, as long as the conversation stays away from politics.

The climate here is like the southwest of the US - hot, dry summers and cold winters. The hottest months are June, July and August. In winter the days peak at about 4C, in summer about 40C. March is a great time to travel, with temperatures in the 20s.

Travel tips: mobile phones don't work (though a walkie talkie might) and don't take any photographs without asking a policeman or security person first. If you're just taking aerials no one may notice. Never point at political monuments.

Security is tight but The Lonely Planet travel guide concedes that while the authorities regard all foreigners as spies, the locals think the opposite.

For a little bit of history you can't look past the irony that Baghdad is known to Arabs as the city of peace. Overthrown by the Turks in 836, the city began a passage of turmoil.

Overthrown again in 945, again in 1055, and in 1258, hundreds of thousands of citizens were massacred by the Mongols.

Sacked again in 1401. Conquered and swept into the Ottoman Empire in 1534.

Conquered again by the Persians in 1623 and taken back by the Ottomans 15 years later.

The British took it from the Ottomans in 1917 and in 1920 it became the Iraqi capital.

In the 1970s oil brought prosperity, escalated the drive to modernity, and planted a seed of inevitability for the March 20, 2003, attack by US forces.

Teenagers in Baghdad are familiar with garage music and Britney Spears' posters are hot items.

A writer for the Associated Press scoured a Baghdad suburb recently for signs of Western hatred and was greeted with My Fat Greek Wedding and Men in Black II in the video stores.

In well-heeled suburbs you can pick up Huggies nappies, Kraft mayonnaise and Colgate toothpaste.

Nightclubs such as the one at the top of the Monsour Melia Hotel are popular with tourists.

Frank Sinatra is on high rotate in some of the stylish restaurants.

And everyone buys and sells in dinars, which are familiar to New Zealanders because the dinar is the also the currency used in the TV series Hercules and Zena.

The learning centre of Iraq, Baghdad has three universities and more than 1000 primary schools. Education is free and valued.

Despite the embargoes there is still some fine theatre in Baghdad, once the cultural centre of the Arab world, and the fine arts, particularly painting and sculpture, thrive in Baghdad and are relatively cheap. It's a great place for shopping.

After oil, the next biggest commodity in the region is rugs, an international design currency. Baghdad is also a great place to pick up some corridor cover.

Food and medicine shortages caused by sanctions have hindered the cool runnings of Iraq's capital city - it's hot, subject to sand storms and sometimes chaotic.

But it is also a modern, tall-buildings, street-lights, libraries, restaurants and cafes kind of a place.

It's a city that might surprise you.

Herald Feature: Iraq