Maysan

Amarah grew up in the 1860s as an Ottoman garrison on the Tigris, set down to hold the Bani Lam and Al Bu Muhammad tribes who ran the surrounding marsh; the river still frays into canals through the town, and a handful of silversmiths still work the old riverfront market the city was once known for. The reason to come further east is water. The Hawizeh marshes — Iraq's first Ramsar wetland, listed in 2007 and later folded into the UNESCO Ahwar of southern Iraq — are the marshland's eastern half, and they see a fraction of the boats that reach Chibayish. You cross into them by mashoof, past buffalo standing chest-deep and reed houses lashed together without a nail, the Iranian border a low green line ahead. Parts of that border still carry earthworks and rusting armour from the 1980s war. Come October to April, and go out by eight, before the wind flattens the light and the heat builds.