Changes

=== Personal Experience ===

August/September 2015 - "I hitched around iraqi kurdistan most of the time and never had problem getting rides. People were as expected very friendly and hospitable. The only thing making hitching less smooth were the numerous checkpoints and the Asayish (some kind of secret police). While most of the time I could pass trough the checkpoints easily I was stopped and interogated a few times. Most of the times these interrogations were just a few questions (where to, where from and why) and after 5 minutes I was back on the road. But on a few occasions I was kept for a longer amount of time . The longest of these encounters were while I tried to hitch to Amedi taking the big road in the east (trough Barzan). I was stopped halfway there and then brought to a local chief of the Peshmerga. During the whole time my poor driver had to stay as a translator, being the only krudish english speaker around. After a few hours of waiting and answering questions I was let go but was strongly advised by the official not to take this road any further but return to Erbil. According to them the Checkpoints wouldn't get any more relaxed from this point and cars would become more and more sparse anyway. Might have been just a lie to make me change course but in the end I did return to Erbil since the better part of the day was gone anyway.