IRAQ-RIVER TAXI Basra's river taxi provides sight seeing tours of city's landmarks

Record ID: 159814

  • Title: IRAQ-RIVER TAXI Basra's river taxi provides sight seeing tours of city's landmarks
  • Date: 13th April 2015
  • Summary: FAMILIES IN RIVER TAXI RIVER TAXI MOVING AWAY FROM SHORE
  • Embargoed: 28th April 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAE1QAPTGDLQI9PUW70NX3ZYVBW
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: A water taxi service has recently operated across the Shatt-al-Arab waterway in the southern port city of Basra.
    As a first stage the service is meant to give Basra's visitors and locals the chance to see the city's famous landmarks. The service hopes to develop further in the future into a water transport service that eases traffic jams in the city with a population of more than two million people.
    Mahdi Askar, head of Iraq's Naval fleet said besides being a tourism project, the project could help transport Iranian visitors who want to visit the holy Iraqi Shi'ite cities of Najaf and Kerbala.
    "Basra has a 100-kilometre long coast on Shatt-al-Arab stretching up to Faw (peninsula) and we have the potentials that we can use to promote religious tourism and transport visitors from Khorramshahr to Basra port . We have the idea of further developing it to be not just a river taxi for tourists, but also to transport visitors by water," said Askar.
    The project starts as a first stage with four modern-designed boats to be increased to 10 in the future. Two of the boats can hold up to 40 passengers each, while the two others have a capacity of 30 passengers.
    The service was seen as a revival of traditional boats known as 'al-Shakhtoura' that used to sail in the Shatt-al-Arab waterway in the 1960s and 70s and were used as a means of transportation linking the two sides of the city, as well as a river cruise.
    "It is a revival of tourism in Shatt-al-Arab, which flourished in the 1970s for a set of factors including an increase in the number of delegations visiting Basra and representatives of investment companies working in Basra. This in consequence prompted us to look for entertainment and modern transport facilities to help attract investors and tourists to the city, Therefore, as a start it is a tourism project and in later stages it will provide a transport service to transport people from the centre of Basra to the districts and sub-districts in the coming days or in the coming month, God willing," said maritime Captain Kareem al-Idani.
    According to Idani, the 750-hp Yamaha motored boats is equipped with up-to-date safety and communication devices, are air-conditioned and have all the facilities that help provide a comfortable trip.
    The ticket for the 30-minute cruise in Shatt-al-Arab is 2000 Iraqi dinars (1.5 U.S. Dollars) for an adult and 500 (less than one U.S. Dollar) Iraqi dinars for a child.
    Basra locals, who flocked to take a boat trip in droves, welcomed the move as a reminder of Basra's good old days.
    "This initiative has taken us back to the old good times of the 70s and the 60s when there used to be boat tours in Shatt-al-Arab. In the past people were used to moving from one area to another by boat because of lack of cabs and roads. At that time people were used to transport by Ashari boat. We have missed it and now it has returned back in a new look," said Basra resident Mohammed Jawad.
    Alongside its fame as a trade hub, Basra became an intellectual centre, renowned for its architecture, mosques and libraries. It produced a number of leading Islamic thinkers and philosophers.
    In the 1970s and early 1980s it evolved into a tourist destination with many Kuwaitis crossing the border in search of good times.
    The southern city, which used to be called "The Venice of the Middle East", bore the brunt of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war on the shores of its disputed Shat al-Arab waterway where the rivers Euphrates and Tigris meet before running to the Gulf.
    Two major wars, a rebellion and 10 years of economic sanctions have turned Iraq's southern port city of Basra, once a hub of trade and tourism, into a poor, desperate town.
    The birthplace of Sinbad the Sailor, the hero immortalised in Arab literature, has recently attracted a number of world's major oil firms to tap its giant oilfields.
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