Arabia Felix Sanaa

In the downdown of sana'a city, there is an area names "Bab-Yemen", means the gate of Yemen. This is a small and old town with more than 300year history. There are still people living in the old buldings, and the government pay these people in order to keep the old building in a good way. Of course, these people are the owners of the old buildings.

Most of the ...

It was my last day in Yemen, and I was ready to go home. I still wasn't feeling 100%, awaking at 3 am after only 4 hours of sleep and my stomach was still unsettled. I wrote 6 post cards while sitting up in bed, wondering how many people still send post cards these days. Traveling solo with digital camera and computer meant I was writing more in my journal, more post cards, and more photo editing than when I traveled with Suzan and Sophia. This trip had ...

I slept a solid 6 hours from 1 to 7 am, and I awoke feeling a little better than the previous evening. I still wasn't up for anything other than getting myself back to Sana'a, so it meant that I wouldn't visit Hajjarah after all. It also meant I wouldn't have a second day of hiking in the Haraz Mountains, but I wondered if a second day would have offered anything different than the first day anyways. The villages ...

Finally a full day in a single country, and I did a lot. I only slept 6 hours at most, from 830 pm until around 2:30, and that gave me enough rest to seize the day. In the wee hours of the morning I edited all of my photos and wrote in my journal, appreciating the privacy of my single room without any worries about turning on the light at such an early hour. I was happy to see that the day dawned clear, and I took some more photos of old Sana'a before having ...

Yep, as I feared, I was awakened by the call to prayer at 4.30am from the minarets just outside my window. Rather than the imam climb the minaret, they use loudspeakers...an understatement...they are LOUD! I didn't just want to visit Sana'a, I wanted to get out of the city to visit some of the ancient Yemeni towns and countryside. I had hired a driver and guide from the travel agent the night before at my hotel. I was to ...

... is over the top. The building is large, bigger than some cities' main terminal buildings. There are hotel-type porters to assist with baggage. In addition to dedicated check-in and immigration facilities, the terminal boasts a full size business center and a full size duty free shop. I bought Brian the newest Harry Potter book here in 2007. But the second floor is where the posh is. Huge separate lounge areas greet first ...

Looking for fellow travellers to share cost of rental car. I will be traveling from Skopje to Tirana then over to Podgorica and some of the Montenegro coast. Next will go up through Western Bosnia to Belgrade and then back to Skopje through Kosovo. This will be a three to four week trip starting Sept 3rd 2008, so if you are traveling anywhere along these routes, email me. khushafa@hotmail.com

... trade and pick up some necessities. He said that about 200 people live in the village. When people marry, they don't necessarily marry another from their village, but they must marry within their tribe, which could stretch across multiple villages in the area. After about ten minutes of sitting with him, we had nowhere near exhausted our questions, but it was time to go. So we thanked him for his hospitality and continued on. We got back to our ...

... t you just take a shared taxi?" This is the part when I started to kick myself at my own stupidity. Yemen, like Morocco and probably many other developing countries has these things called shared taxis which fit about 8 people and travel between cities. Because they're not run by a company, they aren't so strict with the tasrih rules. I don't know why I hadn't thought of this before, but I sure felt stupid. We went to the ...