SubscribeThis article, by Arab Media Watch director Judith Brown, was originally published in the British-Arab magazine Sharq.
If you are looking for something quite different for a holiday then you can do no better than travel to Yemen, in the south of the Arabian peninsula. The tourist posters for this ancient land where the Queen of Sheba once reigned proclaim that visitors should "prepare to be amazed". This is good advice.
The capital of Yemen is Sana'a. The old city is a World Heritage site and it is like wandering about in a living museum. The multi-story brick and mud houses have elaborate plaster decorations, with their unique gomerias or half-moon shaped windows. Wander through the city in the evening and it is like fairyland as soft light from the multi-coloured glass illuminates your way. You can visit the ancient souq to haggle for pungent spices, exotic perfumes, vibrant dressmaking materials, silver jewellery or souvenirs, or just to watch life going on around you in much the same way as it has for centuries, untouched by time. Most men still wear the traditional jambiyya or dagger around their waist, whilst the women drape themselves in a blue and red cloth that covers the whole of their head and body as they go about their daily business. In the evening you might even see a wedding dance in the streets.
Outside Sana'a there are many interesting villages, some of which like Mahweet, Kawkaban or Manakha sit on the top of mountains, enjoying the most spectacular views of terraced farmland and other mountain ranges. In many of these villages you can find clean and inexpensive local traditional accommodation, eat delicious home-cooked food, and arrange for a guide to take you on breathtaking country walks. If you go walking early in the morning take your binoculars - there is abundant bird life and you might even see the Yemeni national bird, the hoopoe, with its large black and white crest.
Each part of Yemen has a unique character and in one visit you cannot see it all, but it is worth leaving Sana'a to try to see something of the rest of this glorious country. You can visit Hadramaut, where the ancient town of Shibam has towering mud skyscrapers and ornately carved wooden doors and window frames, and nearby you can see the huge elaborate mud palaces of Seiyoon and Tarim - now unfortunately falling into disrepair. You can buy Hadramaut honey, collected from date trees and said to be the best in the world. You can watch the women working in the fields in intense heat, wearing tall pointed straw hats topping their black clothing.
Or you can go to the Yemeni island of Suqatra off the coast of Somalia, which for centuries was cut off from the rest of the world by ferocious seas and in consequence has developed its own unique flora and fauna - amongst them the huge umbrella shaped Dragon's Blood Tree with its bright red sap, or the wide Bottle Trees with their delicate pink flowers. Suqatra is being gradually opened up for tourism, although at a gentle pace to prevent damage to this very special protected environment. Another island destination is Kamaran in the Red Sea, from where you can snorkel or scuba dive in order to explore the reefs and watch a huge variety of colourful aquatic life.
Yemen has a long coastline, an impressive 1,906 kilometres, a lot of which is fringed with white sands but as yet largely untouched by tourism. The most well known coastal destination is Aden - a popular holiday town for Yemenis. Aden is built on black volcanic rock which rises up from the sea in spectacular cliffs, and embedded in these cliffs you can see the remains of a vast ancient water collection system. You can go to the fish market and choose one of today's catch to be cooked in a local restaurant, and after eating it sit in the warm evening air smoking shesha whilst watching the never-ending line of ships coming in and out of Aden harbour. During the day you can sunbathe and bathe in the warm Gulf of Aden waters.
Yemen has a range of hotels, from luxurious five-star accommodation to simple local hostelry where you sleep in the traditional way on mattresses on the floor. The food is wonderful - you must try the fish restaurants where fish is rapidly baked in very hot tanour ovens and served with freshly baked flaky bread. In Sana'a the local dish is Salta, a stew of meat and vegetables topped with the uniquely flavoured fenugreek, served straight from the oven in a piping hot dish and eaten with bread. In a family-run hotel you might be served Bint Es-sahn, a soft thick pastry dish topped with Yemeni honey. And everywhere you will see fruit and vegetable markets where you can buy locally grown Yemeni fruits. If you are feeling adventurous you can try Qat, leaves with a mildly stimulant effect that are chewed by most Yemeni men in the afternoons. Beware - if this is the first time you have tried it, it takes away the appetite and you might find it difficult to sleep afterwards. For non-Muslims, buying alcohol is difficult outside the five-star hotels, but you are allowed to take alcohol into Yemen in your baggage.
Sana'a has a very efficient bus service and it is very easy and cheap to get about. Between cities there are reliable taxi and coach services. The Yemeni national airline flies - not always a very reliable service - to most cities and Suqatra. Car hire is a new phenomenon in Yemen and with a British driving licence you can now hire a car in Sana'a, but unless you are used to driving in developing countries you could find it a bit daunting.
The Yemeni government has recently removed restrictions on travelling to Yemen, and people with an EU passport can buy a one-month visitors' visa at Sana'a airport for about $60. Costs of staying in Yemen can vary according to what type of holiday you want, but you can live and travel very cheaply in Yemen if you are on a tight budget. The biggest cost is getting to Yemen itself. The only direct flight is on Yemenia from Heathrow to Sana'a or Aden.
I feel very safe in Yemen, the people are most hospitable and friendly and the climate is wonderful. I personally like the winter weather in the mountain areas (this area includes Sana'a), where every day has clear blue skies and the temperature is about 22-28 degrees, although it can get cold - even to freezing point - at night. It doesn't get too hot in summer but there can be heavy rain, especially in July and August. Hadramaut and the costal areas are hot at any time of the year. Yemen has a very conservative culture and I would advise visitors to wear modest loose-fitting clothes - although this is not required by Yemeni law, it stops people staring at you. However in coastal resorts and hotel swimming pools you can bathe in your normal swimming clothes.
Taking travellers cheques to Yemen can be a problem because they incur a high cost to redeem them to riyals. Instead, take British pounds or US dollars and you can change them at one of the many change shops that are found throughout Yemen. Generally these moneychangers are honest and you usually get a significantly better rate than changing money in banks and hotels. There are a few banks now in big cities that offer an ATM service, but these are not open 24 hours and they are not found in smaller towns.
If you want to book your travel arrangements within Yemen before you fly you can contact a local Yemeni travel company; you can find many of them if you search the web. I found FTI Yemen very helpful, reliable and trustworthy and they speak excellent English. When I checked out a number of travel companies recently, they also did the best deals on hotel prices. You can check their website on www.ftiyemen.com.
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