Getting to Zabid As a final exploration of Yemen, we are headed to the lowlands and surrounding highlands in the west of the country closest to the Red Sea. Kim and I, together with Eelco who speaks better Arabic, headed to the shared taxi stand near Bab Al Yemen around 0800. But we were redirected […]

This morning, Kim realised that he had lost about EUR200 while in Shihara, made up of Japanese Yen and New Zealand dollars.  He suspected that it may have been taken while we had gone for a walk after arrival in Shihara, despite having been given a padlock by our hosts.  [Edit: I realised many years […]

I didn’t sleep very well, waking at 0130 then dozing till 0630.  Breakfast was served in our room and consisted of a sesame flat bread and a honey bread.  You can’t go wrong with sweet stuff! Kim and I hesitantly used the horrible toilet, somewhat in fear of even worse ones on the road.  Eelco braved […]

Setting off Today we’re off on another adventure.  Possibly the biggest adventure we’ll have in Yemen.  We’re going to Shihara, halfway towards the border with Saudi Arabia.  It’s a tribal region that’s considered the Wild West of Yemen.  Yemen has many medieval type cities built high in accessible places.  What makes this one different is […]

Nothing morning We had a sleep in today till 0845 before having breakfast of muesli by the poolside.  I wanted to have a last wander around town before our afternoon flight.  There wasn’t actually anything specifically we could see so it made sense to take another look at the town’s icon, the Sultan’s Palace.  This […]

Re-visiting Shibam To avoid the daytime heat, we woke around 0600 to have an early start.  We walked to town and caught a taxi to revisit Shibam. Damn!  The sun wasn’t right again, with the facade not illuminated by the morning sun. Today, we made a better effort to walk around inside to explore the […]

Flying to Seiyun After only one full day in Sana’a, Kim is now leaving with me to explore further afield in Yemen. Yesterday wouldn’t count as memorable with the National Museum and Military Museum.  Perhaps the simple dinner at Ibrahim’s accompanied by the mini Yemeni baguettes and sweet tea was more memorable. We woke at […]

After the disruption yesterday, Kim arrived from Dubai.  I went to Sana’a airport by taxi to await his arrival at 0840. I had given him good instructions to go to the Exchange first, then buy his visa second, before going to immigration with his visa already purchased.  He obviously followed my instructions as he was […]