Plaza Suites Hotel Sanaa

Tonight I and two friends went to the old city of Sanaa. We found a place called Burj alsalaam, a hotel. On the roof of this hotel we smoked sheesha and talked about Middle Eastern politics. The view from the roof of the hotel beautifully overlooked the city and the mountains in the back ground. Luckily we caught the maghreb and 'ashaa call to prayer. Some of the voices were beautiful while other voices were not, some of the callers ...

... track of time. 6. Jambiyyas make the Yemeni man, or so they believe. It seems like men here would literally feel naked without it, and I found it a colorful characteristic of Yemeni culture. I learned that very few men have jambiyyas with rhino horn handles, mostly using other materials like the horn of a bull. 7. Almost all of the women dressed in black with no part of the body showing except the eyes. They looked anonymous, hidden from the public. I ...

... the homey feel that Yahia created. He would even walk into my room unannounced, bringing tea and a plate full of nuts, raisins, and candy. There was a functioning electrical outlet in the room so I was able to work on photos while listening to old Dennis Prager podcasts, so I would not get bored for one minute. There was even hot water for a shower, so I was perfectly fine, but I wouldn't have felt comfortable bringing Sophia and Suzan there. After dinner the quiet ...

... The palace was constructed as a summer retreat by the country's supreme imam in the 1930s atop a large boulder in the middle of the wadi. Together, the boulder and palace dominate the surrounding area, and the picture is just as amazing from afar as it is close up. The imam was the country's leader in the 1930s. Apparently this guy was quite insecure which explains the location of his palace and the unique ...

... up. "Ah, there is Yemen. Nothing has changed there!" Yemen definitely has the feel of old Arabia, especially in comparison to its more oil-rich neighbors. The fact that it's the only country on the Arabian Peninsula without a McDonald's helps with the image, but more than anything it's the culture, the traditional dress, the ancient architecture and the hospitality of the Yemeni people. But first, I had to get there from ...

... traditional Yemeni clothes" and participate in their staged Yemeni wedding, playing the roles of the brides and grooms. We agreed and then the boys and us girls parted ways to get dressed for our brides-and-grooms-to-be. Of course, when we reconvened, we all burst out laughing at how ridiculous we looked. Then we were paraded through the dining area to the amusement of the other groups of tourists. We were then seated on our "thrones", staying ...

... this is Yemen! Ross, incidentally, has spent the last eight months travelling hear overland (and a bit of sea - from Djibouti) from South Africa. Yesterday morning I breakfasted at dawn, the day promising to be a lot clearer than the previous one, and set out with my guide, Ali. There are no decent maps of the areas as far as I can tell, but we estimated we must have covered about 25km over the course of the day, including some beautiful mountain ...

... run. It's nice to be back in the cool air of Sanaa, and within the means of commuinication with the outside world! I plan to visit the Heraz mountains this week too, and spend a couple of days there walking. However, I do feel like I've done Yemen a reasonable justice in terms of places visited. I've enjoyed it all thoroughly, but now, naturally enough, I am looking forward very much indeed to seeing Giulia in Cairo in one week! All the best to everyone and thanks for reading.

... Yeah, yeah...So we went to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and went through the necessary obnoxious Yemeni bureaucracy where they needed copies of every piece of paperwork and asked why I didn't have a letter from my work to travel. Finally, I got the tasrih, but they told me that I would not be able to travel until the next day. So I called my friend T and told her that I would be staying another night. She said, "Why ...

... footsteps and experiencing another part of our family history. I'm really settling in in Sana'a now. Before, I couldn;t help comparing it with Damascus, where I spent several amazing weeks last year. It is fair to say that Yemen is a lot poorer than Syria, and Sanaa lacks Damscus' coffee shops and nargileh bars, and general chicness. However, it is of course a very different city, populated with extraordinarily generous people and filled with a culture all of its own ...