Time for another jaunt. This trip landed in my lap. Magnus my mad Swedish mate is an intrepid traveller and targeted Yemen, I was keen to go but also aware of the stories and warnings. I was glad I was going with Magnus. We met a Saudi at the airport, he said where are you going? Yemen we said. He replied, don’t wear any shoes cos they’ll steal off your feet. My colleagues at work were having a sweepstake over who which one of us would get kidnapped.
On the way from the airport we badgered our Hotel driver to score some balckmarket booze and sure enough on the way we picked up some gin and beer for a fraction of the Saudi blackmarket price. While the driver was getting booze I got out of the van for a cigarette, then I noticed someone, it was a soldier with a rifle sitting on a rock a few metres away....it struck me as odd that we were buying booze under the nose of an armed soldier.
We took the hotel guide/driver for a tour of Sanaa old town, expensive but always the best and safest way to go. The entire old town is a Unesco World Heritage site, and you certainly see why. It is like stepping back a century or so. Everyone is dressed in the cultural national gowns and the men are all complete with dagger on their front. The souq’s are out of the world in color and goods. At this stage I was learning about travel photography and although the pics are interesting I would be getting incredible results with my current gear and techniques...I have to go back, it is a photographers dream.
The next day we did a trip north of the Sanaa and have several sites to see, wow, is all I can say. Out of the city and the poverty is in your face. We passed one place where there was hundreds of people living in tiny cardboard huts on the side of the road. But we also visited some really cool villages and historical sites.
On the way back to the Hotel we scored a bottle of vodka and the rest is history.
What an amazing trip.
