Bab Al Yemen
While I go out walking around the old city often enough, I hadn’t made a concerted effort of bringing my camera with me to take pictures. Well, today I addressed that by going to Bab Al Yemen, the city’s main gate for photos. Enjoy these pictures!
Text continues after this gallery.
-
- Old city of Sana’a.
-
- I love the old buildings of old Sana’a.
-
- The inside of Bab Al Yemen.
-
- Decorations for sale.
-
- The outside of Bab Al Yemen with the old city inside.
-
- The outside of Bab Al Yemen with the old city inside.
-
- Spice vendors on the road.
-
- I love the old buildings of old Sana’a.
-
- I love the old buildings of old Sana’a.
-
- It is normal for people to hold hands on the street.
-
- Hats for sale.
-
- Date vendors.
-
- Janbiyah; the Yemeni dagger.
-
- Spice vendors.
-
- School transport.
Hope you enjoyed those photos. On that note, I’ll leave you with some ramblings about my life in Yemen.
Eating
Eating has been good but somewhat repetitive. The main meal here is lunch and dinner is quite light … it can be hard to get substantial food for dinner. Most of us feed up over lunch. The rule here is not to touch rotisserie chicken for dinner as it may be left over from lunch.
For a bread-hater, I find the breads here amazing. So many different kinds, with different names I cannot remember yet. Usually fresh out of the oven around the corner from school and you get only what you need.
Eating here is quite expensive. Eating local dishes without meat in very basic surroundings will cost about USD0.50 With meat about USD1, or if a bigger meal, about USD1.50. This is more than the prices in Malaysia and close to that in Singapore (both in airconditioned foodhalls in the malls). Yemen is one of the least developed countries in the world, and eating simply is costing me the price in a developed country? Not right is it?
For something different, we tried Ethiopian one night. Very tasty cuisine … many spicy dishes called wat (meat, egg or vege) served on a one metre wide brass tray lined with a thin bread pancake called injera. It is accompanied by further servings of the same bread but in a thicker fluffier format … the bread has a sour taste similar to dosai.
Ethiopian food is usually served on injera bread and delicious.
Looking after a sick friend
I helped out a sick neighbour over the last few days, getting his medication and lunches. Yemen is a hypochondriac’s paradise. You can get any medication without prescription, including codeine-based drugs, anti-depressants …
Yesterday I succeeded in ordering my lunch in Arabic as eat-in, and my friend’s as take-away. The fun came after I delivered the meals to my bed-ridden friend who was dressed in only a little sarong … something prompted me to throw / sprinkle the change (coins and small notes) at him lying in bed. Oooh, what a thrill … it felt so naughty. Do try it sometime but don’t make a habit of it.
Dress
I’ve now adapted local dress, wearing the sarong (know locally as mawa or futa). Certainly had to learn how to sit all over again and remember to wear dark underwear (preferably new too). Its very comfortable and I think it makes me more welcome amongst locals. I haven’t started wearing a dagger yet.
On the rooftop in my mawa or futa.