Taj Talha Hotel Sanaa

... to have a mouthful of Kat. Yemeni coffee was the appetizer. Afterwards we wandered a bit in the city and came upon a wedding, nothing seemed to be happening so we left since we were hungry. We found a very Yemeni restaraunt and ate, they cooked a single plate which was beans, cheese, and spices - quite yummy. After finishing the meal we decided to go back to the college but then crossed the wedding again. There was a circle ...

... how they really felt about it and I also wondered if a husband or child might have difficulty identifying their wife/mother if they got separated from them in the market 8. More roadside and city litter than just about anyplace I had ever visited, although Sana'a was not too bad. Sometimes there were several layers of plastic bags, food wrappers and smashed water bottles along the roadside of villages I passed through. 9. Friday at noontime is a ...

... the hilltop village was pierced by a loudspeaker not so far in the distance, and at first I assumed it was another Muslim call for prayer. After all there were 8 mosques in the tiny village, home to maybe 500 people. I usually considered the blaring, incomprehensible wail as a sort of noise pollution, acceptable considering my location, but not soothing like church choirs I remember from Togo, Romania, and Fiji. This noise wasn't coming from a mosque after all, but ...

... thereof. Today, the palace is an open museum of sorts, and a very popular place to visit, not only for tourists but also for local Yemenis. You are able to climb all the way to the top and peek into every room of the palace. No elevators here. The palace interior isn't terribly elaborate inside except for the many colored glass windows. But the design was practical...there were "summer" and "winter" rooms ...

... I was flying Qatar Airways, one of only five holders of Skytrax's Five-Star airline rating. I wanted to get to the Doha airport a little earlier than normal so that I could avail myself of Qatar Airways' Premium Terminal for first and business class passengers. Qatar Airways competes fiercely with Emirates and Etihad in the region, so it makes great effort in distinguishing itself. The Qatar Airways Premium Terminal is a ...

... to traditional Yemeni weddings (although the fact that we were in mixed company was clearly untraditional). The rest of the evening, we danced and partied with the hotel staff and the other tourists. The next day, we woke up early to get an early start on our hike, as to avoid the cloud cover that we had experienced the day before. Our hike, which lasted four and a half hours, wandered through more beautiful villages with fabulous views of ...

... We also visited the Ismaeli shrine at al-Hoteib, a village largely populated by Pakistani and Indian muslims for whom the shrine holds particular significance. Since the weather was cool, I didn't notice until I got back that I was burned to a crisp! I got too much sun on the back of my neck so felt a bit sick when I got back to the hotel, but this soon wore off after a square meal. Ross and I came back to Sanaa in the back of a pick-up truck, since no ...

After spending ten months in Aden, a person can go a little stir-crazy (even with a trip to the States in between). Aden is a great city for a lot of reasons, but it's seriously lacking in some bare necessities of entertainment. For starters, we don't have any nice coffee shops (as an absolute coffee addict, it amazes me that I have even been able to survive). Secondly, the closest thing we have to a "nice" restaurant is a ...

... trip, going through Egypt and onto Syria, Turkey, and the Silk Road! On Sunday I went with another friend, Johan, who is from Kerala, to book our air tickets for Wadi Hadramawt - frequently said to be the most beautiful part of Yemen. I also opted to bring my flight to Cairo forwards in order to give me a bit more time to settle in before beginning the course there. However, I had a 'local' haircut today which looks decidedly lawnmowed, and I ...

... I walked back from the Bab al-Yemen I was engaged in conversation (as one frequently is) by a few guys gathering nearby. Before we'd exchanged any information about oursleves, one of them told me I had a sound Syrian accent. No doubt he was being over-complinetary, but that said I was pretty chuffed nonetheless, as Syrian Arabic is considered (at least by the Syrians) be fairly close to fus'ha. That said, Yemeni Arabic is definately closer to what I'd been learning at uni.