Middle East
Yemen 
This article is from Angie Whitehead. Check her website at http://www.srilankaundiscovered.co.uk
Constantinople – Colombo (via Yemen,Ethiopia,UAE) December 2007/ January 2008
Yemen
(exchange rate 1 US$ = 200 YR; 1 GBP = 400 YR; 1 Euro = 300 YR YemeniRials YR)
After a 4 ½ hour Air Arabia flight from Istanbul to Sharjah and another 2 ½ hour flight from Sharjah to Sana with the same airline I finally reached Yemen and its capital, Sana, a splendid-looking city viewed from the air, ringed by shadowy mountains and at a height of 2800 metres The airport is small and basic. Visas cost US$ 30 and are issued upon arrival at the airport quite quickly.
 The hotel had sent a taxi to meet me but had forgotten to give him their address, so he went first to a hotel of the same name (Sana Nights) in the new town and after about one hour prowling around (Sana is quite a big city and the capital of Yemen) we finally reached the correct hotel in the old town. Sana Nights Tourist Hotel was charming – an old palace several stories high with traditional Yemeni décor. However, I asked for a bed rather than a mattress on the floor. The room cost US$ 16 with a private bathroom. It was cold at night so blankets were given. Breakfast cost an extra US$ 2 and there was an excellent restaurant outside with traditional food. The all-male staff spoke excellent English and the owner arranges for permits (required to visit all places outside Sana) and landcruiser hire.
I made 2 trips outside Sana – one alone to the Marib Dam and the other in the company of an Australian student to the hill villages of the Haraz Mountains. The Marib Dam trip was made in convey with several other landcruisers and an armed guard (this is free of charge). I was stopped very frequently and my permit carefully scrutinized (there have been many kidnappings in Yemen so they are extra careful with foreigners). The old dam walls and the new dam with its lake were spectacular, as was the moon temple , but the highlight of the visit was the ruined old city of Marib. Two soldiers with guns followed me all the way round here at close quarters but I still dreamed of how the Queen of Sheba might have felt when she lived in the area so many centuries ago! Marib formed part of the Kingdom of Saba (and the Sabean queen was Sheba).
 Shibam and Kawkaban (around 1200 years old) were the first two hill villages Paul, the Australian student, and I visited. We were the only foreigners there but local guides sprang from nowhere to show us around the craggy dwellings and then lo and behold a row of shops opened specially for us! The night was spent in the village of Manakah; the hotel provided an evening of local music and dancing (all men taking part) as a German tour group of around 12 people was also staying. Next day we visited a hill-top shrine, dedicated to an Indian Muslim saint, and the village of Al-Hajjarah, where we encountered a large group from a French cruise ship.
Upon returning to Sana I took a room in a much cheaper hotel in the new town – Al Ikhwa Hotel – for only US$ 7 including private bathroom, balcony and TV. Pricing in Yemen can be dual – Yemeni rials and US dollars – and ATMs give out both local rials and dollars. In this way I was able to stock up with dollars cash for my visit to Ethiopia.
Sana is a sizeable city with quite a lot to see and do if you don’t mind being one of the only women on the streets and probably the only foreigner also. Mindful of this I wore my long batik trousers, long sleeved shirt and 2 scarves – one for the head and one for the nose and mouth (also useful to minimize inhaling too many traffic fumes, a big problem in Yemen). There is an excellent museum, several interesting mosques, a pleasant park with amusements (the only place I saw women – I talked with two female school teachers), souks (I bought a curved dagger here, the emblem of Yemen and worn stuffed down the front belt which ties up the robe of every Yemeni man) and some western style shops. It is interesting to watch the Qat arrive in bundles on trucks around 1 pm in the old town; all the men appear to chew these narcotic leaves for hours on end, which gives them fat-looking cheeks and stained teeth.
The Taj Talha Hotel in the old town has a roof top with a fine view of the whole city and the surrounding dusky hills, a great place to sip a Muslim aperitif (coca cola or fanta) at sundown and to catch the sound of Sana’s many mosques. By the way you have to like mosques and not mind about that pre-dawn call to prayer booming out from Sana’s loudspeakers (travelers to the Middle East will know all about this).
My visit coincided with the festival of Eid al Adha (celebrates the end of the Hajj to Mecca) so for the final 2 days all the shops were closed. Fortunately my usual 2 cafes were open for meals, where as a woman I was served in lone splendour, men having rushed to vacate a table. An ice-cream parlour I found even had a special place for women to eat behind a curtain. Food consisted mainly of rice or bread (flat or normal) with chicken or fish or eggs and various vegetable dishes, particularly beans and costs around US$ 1-2 (Rials 200/400). There is one supermarket in the new town where I bought stuff for breakfast – many western delicacies are on sale here at very reasonable prices, with a pack of 10 cheese slices at US$1! (Same pack costs US$4 in Sri Lanka, where I spend a lot of my time.)
Comment: Yemen has a very traditional Muslim culture and way of life. It has a large population (around 20 million as against around 3 million in Oman, which has the same surface area), most of which is sedentary in villages and tribal. Almost everyone wears traditional dress and few females are seen on the streets, which are nonetheless very crowded! English is not widely spoken but people are helpful and courteous. I visited in December and the weather was hot in the day (up to 25 deg. C some days) and cool at nights (10 deg. C). There is a lot of motorized traffic and a cavalier attitude towards rubbish – plastic bags forever blowing in the wind! |
