Taj Sheba Sanaa

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... sincere words of "welcome" said to me 17. Viewing and editing my photos at the end of each day 18. Having plenty of time for writing post cards and my journal, and for going online to do my first online travel blog ever 19. Feeling like I was about the only solo traveler in Yemen (never really spoke with any other travelers at all) Other comments and impressions of Yemen 1. Very good value country, with great prices for most everything. I averaged about ...

... trip about the tourist kidnapping incidents in Yemen. I also updated my travel blog and uploaded some photos onto Picasaweb. I checked the United flights and the Dubai-Dulles flight looked fairly good. I sure hoped I could get a seat in First or Business. I skipped dinner, still not fully back to normal, and retreated to my room for my last night in Yemen. I wrote two days of journal entries and went to sleep around 11.

... to Shibam for lunch, and I took another taxi to go that 15 km. I went to the highly recommended Hamida restaurant where I was presented an unbelievable smorgasbord of Yemeni food meant for 3 or 4 people. There were various Yemeni dishes which I read about in the guidebook while I was eating, plus rice, potatoes, goat meat, and bottled water. It was a magnificent feast for just $5, but I felt guilty that I couldn't even eat a quarter of it. After lunch it seemed that ...

... ones manage to get their message through. It never occurred to me that this could be so fundamental. But it made sense. On our way out of the city, we were driving in what appeared to be a sunken freeway, but my driver pointed out that we were actually driving in a drainage canal. Think of the drainage ditches in Los Angeles, except that here people drive in them. When it rains in Sana'a (and it does rain even though ...

... Antiquity and modernity go hand in hand in this city. In the old souq, internet booths next door to donkey feeding grounds are not an odd sight. Strict segregation in public spaces and women covered entirely in black reflect the society's conservative decorum. And possibly due to the separation of the sexes, men, like in other Middle Eastern cultures, hold hands and are not shy to show physical affection. My stay was at the ...

... she lost her sheep. Since we arrived at around 2:00, the mountain was nearly enveloped by the region's afternoon cloud cover. However, the scene was truly gorgeous and the cloud cover made it feel even more magical and serene. After leaving the Ismaili Center, we drove to place where we could park the car and go on a hike up to another village. The higher we hiked, the more we were surrounded by clouds. We continued to hike until the tiny ancient ...

... inside one or two of the mud palaces here. This rather enigmatic structures are constructed entirely of mud mixed with dung and straw, which was then plastered over in baroque style and painted. As such, they look like French chateaux or Italian casas, but in the middle of a Yemeni desert wadi! Unfortunately, they are rapidly falling into serious disrepair, but must once have been very extensive and palatiall. On our last day in the Hadramawt, we visited Shibam, dubbed ...

... as I DIDN'T lifted it during the WHOLE trip because if I did, they would get in BIG trouble. "Fine," I said. "No problem." I paid my taxi driver, started getting on the bus and suddenly, they changed their minds. Damn. But my taxi driver thought that I had a good plan going. So he said, "Look. We'll go to another bus company and we'll go in together. You just keep your face covered and I will do the talking." It sounded ...

Yesterday was brilliant. My teacher, Adil, invited me to a luch of 'selta' - a sizzling hot dish of meat, vegetables, cereals and stock, spiced with the interesting and piquante fenugreek. We were joined by Andreas (from Spain, another current student) and Patrice, a Frenchman from Perpignan who studied with Adil nearly ten years ago. Patrice's wife is a draughtswoman and works with a team of Venetian restoration workers on some of Yemen's mosques. This association allows ...