Any Travels

Yemen is located in the south-west corner of the Arabian Peninsula. It borders on Saudi Arabia and Oman in the nort and has the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean as natural borders in the south. Yemen used to be known as Arabia Felix, the happy Arabia, because of its richness, but nowadays it is the second poorest country in the Arabic world (only Mauritania has a lower per capita GDP. Yemen is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. You will feel like you jumped back in time, some good thousand years. Men and women still wear traditional garb, the houses look like pictures from your children's Bible (or Koran).

Sanaa the capital is great and is probably your point of entry. The old city is on the world heritage list of UNESCO. Marib is another must see. The Great Marib Dam is a very impressive structure and shows how developed early Yemenite civilizations were. Shibam is dubbed the Manhattan of the desert and is far away but very pretty.

You are sure never to forget a trip to Yemen. Either you enjoy the fantastic ancient architecture, have a great time in the beautiful mountains and appreciate the desert landscapes or you are kidnapped by one of the many tribes who look for tourists because they are good for ransom.

The second of these two options is by far the least likely to happen, but you can't exclude it. A few tourists fall in the hands of rebelling tribes every year. Don't worry too much, though, the tourists are rarely harmed.

Places of Interest:

Sanaa
Sana'a, the capital of Yemen is spectacularly beautiful. It's a fascinating city with unique architecture. If it weren't for the men carrying semi-automtic machine-guns you would think you were back in the middle ages in some tale of Arabian Nights. The way people dress and the way the buildings look has not changed the last thousand years. even new-Sana looks and feels old. The city is set in a pretty valley highlighted by rugged mountains.

The houses of old Sana'a are known as "tower houses" with some reaching eight storeys. In old Sana'a there are more than 14,000 of such houses. From the middle of old Sana'a cow market (Soq al-bakar), one can walk 500m in any direction without coming across new buildings. The ground and first floors of the old city houses are built of stone with the upper floors being built of mud. The floors are separated from one another with a strip of the same building material. The rooms are lit with marble arched stained-glass windows. The exterior walls are decorated with ornaments coated with lime in an up- Dated architectural style and similar materials. The ground floors are used as stores, while the large first floors are used for entertaining. There are also rooms allocated for women and children. The Mafraj is the male domain, located at the top of the house, and is a rectangular room with broad windows allowing good sight of the surrounding. It is the most decorated and beautiful room in the house.

A new quarter was added to Sana'a in the 14-th century called Quarter of Beer al-Azab, which was populated by the senior officials. This quarter was distinct in its architectural style differing from that of Old Sana'a with regard to orchards and fountains. In the middle of the 16th century, Sana'a again expanded by adding the "Qa'a Al-Yahud", The Jewish Quarter.

Old Sana'a was encircled by rampart (Sor) dating back to the first century but it grew with the expansion of the city to include the new quarters. The rampart was in the shape of an 8, and used to have six gates, four of which were used for the old city. These gates were closed each night at 8.00 o'clock and were opened before the dawn prayer at 4.00 am. Today only the southern gate (Bab Al-Yemen) has survived. Many parts of the rampart together with its towers have collapsed but still some parts exist. Particularly the eastern and the southern part adjacent to Bab Al-Yemen.

Marib
Marib is located in the east of Yemen. High mountains, beautiful valleys, plains and desert are all nearby. The most important valley in Marib is Wadi Dhanah or Shebe Valley', in the banks of which flourished the Sabean dynasty, the foundation of Yemeni history. Marib is the most famous ancient city in Yemen. The old city of Marib lies in the Sabean plains on the outskirts of the east Yemen desert Mafazet Saihad'. It's strategic position lends itself to its important role in history, as it controlled the ancient incense routs. It was a meeting point for caravans coming from the Qana port on the Arabian Sea coast, crossing the Wadi Hadhramout.

Close to the city are many attractions, the most famopus being the Great Marib Dam. All of these can easily be seen as daytrips from the city.

Shihara
Yemenis love to build their houses in difficult places. Shihara is such a place, built atop a 2600m (8528ft) mountain, almost inaccessible from below. Previously a base for resistance to the Ottomans during the 16th and 17th centuries, it was the Royalist headquarters during the 1960s civil war.

Although its location is stunning, Shihara's architecture is simple. The town's stone houses rise up to five storeys, but are decorated only with dented friezes and white plastering - they are good examples of a very traditional, archaic form of Yemeni mountain architecture.

Culture

The state religion of Yemen is Islam. The essence of Islam is the belief that there is only one God, and that it is the people's duty to believe in and serve Him in the manner that is laid out in the Quran. In Arabic, islam means submission and a muslim is one who submits to God's will. Yemeni Muslims are mainly divided betwen the Shafia Sunni sect and the Zaydi Shiia sect.

Qat chow-downs are the oil that lubricates Yemen's political wheels, and if you're not in on them you're out in the cold. Qat chews are spontaneous afternoon house parties where Yemeni men gather to chew the leaves of the qat plant and have a bit of a gossip. If you want to join in, you'll have to be invited (this shouldn't be hard if you're a guy - Yemeni men will often stop you and ask 'do you chew?') and you should bring your own leaves - you can pick up a bunch in most markets. Qat is a mild stimulant, chemically unlike any other drug. It will probably make you lively and chatty, although after a while you'll probably become mellow and contemplative. It's non-addictive and has no major side-effects, although long term use can give you chronic constipation.

Yemeni architecture is unique. Buildings in the highlands are particularly striking - multistorey tower houses made from stone, brick or mud which wouldn't look out of place in a northern England housing development. Some of these houses are five or six stories high, with an extended family living in each house. The bottom floor is for animals, the next floor up is the diwan (a reception room for guests), the top floors are bedroooms and a kitchen, and the top floor is the mafraj - the room with a view, where the man of the house holds his qat parties.

Lunch is the main meal of the day in Yemen. Yemenis eat using their fingers or piece of bread - knives and forks are rare. Although you'll find kebabs (skewered, grilled meat) everywhere, the national dish is salta, a fiery stew of lamb or chicken with lentils, beans, chickpeas, coriander and spices served on rice. The mainstay of most Yemeni kitchens is shurba, a cross between a soup and a stew which can have a base of lentils, lamb or fenugreek. The everyday drink is shay, or tea, which is drunk from small glasses and may be served with mint. Coffee is harder to find, but worth it: it's flavoured with ginger or other spices, and served sweet. Because Yemen is a strict Islamic country, alcohol is illegal.

musa allamoth
ya'nee no one likes anything else but qat!!!!