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Wednesday 2007-04-04 - Istanbul, Turkey
Plain sailing now
Not much to tell about the second lap of the trip: we have several hours to kill at the airport (but need to set our watches one hour forward), and spend the time shopping (a little), chatting to get to know each other (especially the “new” group members, and (some of us) having our “last” beer — no such thing in Yemen! No trouble checking in without a Yemeni visa in our passports (Sander had given us all a letter just in case they’d make trouble over that, which happens sometimes). Taking off from the airport we have a spectacular view over Istanbul by night. On the plane a nice dinner, with “really the last beer” - Efes, a very good Turkish pilsener.
We arrive in Sana’a on time. Then we just have to be a little patient, waiting in line for our visas, but people are friendly and there’s no trouble at all. Meanwhile Marie Josee is awaiting us, and already collecting our luggage. It’s great to see her again!
Outside we meet our team, three drivers, one each from a different tribe. They seem very nice. But, all in all, it’s 2:30 when we arrive in our hotel (in the old city, just west of the Zailer wadi which crosses it) where Mohamed is awaiting us with a cup of tea. It’s 3:00 when we finally tumble into bed: it’s been a long day, but we’re here!
Thursday 2007-04-05 - Sana’a, Yemen
First impressions of Sana’a
The old city of Sana’a is easy to get lost in: there are no right angles to be found in the street pattern. To give us our first feeling for the city, Marie Josee, our tour companion, takes us on a small walking tour, and shows us a good (Palestinian) restaurant, two money changers where we immediately get our first Yemeni Rials (YR) at a much better rate than at the airport of course, the post office, next door to the Internet cafe; in the old city she points out where the different suqs are (sorted by trade), and we make a reservation for dinner at a nice restaurant, Marie Josee skillfully haggling to get us a good price.
Then we walk on the Bab al Yaman, the old gate into the old city, where we all sit down at a little sidewalk cafe for a cup of tea and to watch the crowd. The metal tables and benches are under a tarpaulin — good thinking, because the clouds that had been gathering for an hour or so choose this moment to release their load. We sit dry, sip our tea, and watch how the locals deal with the downpour: a little girl with an enormous umbrella is skipping around, little boys playing in the puddles; men gathering their robes and hooking them over their jambiya (the traditional Yemeni knife), showing a good deal of leg (often skinny leg), and some of their shorts; some men taking of their sandals and continuing on their bare feet; women gathering their skirts and showing a bit of their long underpants. One woman stops next to us to wait a bit under our tarpaulin and chat with us, her little boy observing us wide-eyed; then she throws her cloak over him, scoops him up in her arms, and walks away: a two-headed figure in black.
Neither Carla nor me brought along anything for the rain, not expecting any in the morning, normally it rains mid to late afternoon in the rainy season. When the rain lets up a little we get up and walk to our hotel, without a map but I trust my sense of direction will get us there. I want to take a short cut in the direction of the wadi which crosses the street, but first end up in a dead-end street — no problem, we’ll try the next one. When we turn, a man gets out of a car and asks where we want to go; then he asks where we come from — Oh, Dutch? — he continues in German and indicates we should take “eine kleine Strasse links” to get to the edge of the Sa’ila wadi. We thank him politely. When we get to a small alley, I want to turn in but Carla thinks it’s too small. When we turn again, we hear “no, no!” behind us: two boys point to the alley: that’s where we should go. Sure enough, the alley curves a little but takes us otherwise straight to where we want to go.
We have a nice view of the Sa’ila here: it used to be just a river bed, full of water when heavy rains fall, but the clever Sana’ites have paved the river bed, made ramps, and now it’s a through street — as long as it isn’t needed for the water that is. It’s in-between now, with some water flowing along one side but the cars brave it, making some waves. But in the next rainy season in July-August, with much heavier rains, the water can get to 30 centimeters below the top of the wall!
The wedding
When we arrived at our Sana’a hotel last night, we noted a big tent on a field across from the hotel; it’s for a wedding, they told us: men and women celebrate separately, and it lasts three days. A big wedding like this one also costs a lot of money.
Today is the third day of the wedding, and Marie Josee heard the men would do the special Jambiya dance. After a copious dinner with lots of local dishes, all delicious, we head to the big tent — which turns out to be completely empty! A man nearby spots our intention and points us into a street, at the end of which we see a crowd, and white stuff curving through the air (rice?); there’s music coming from that direction, too, we can’t miss it. When we get close, we see men and boys dancing to music coming from loudspeakers, a big crowd around then watching, boys even sitting on walls to get the best view; unless it’s the women we note on one of the roofs looking over the parapet who have an even better view from above. In the middle is a man with a video camera, and lots of people are also taking pictures with compact cameras and with their mobile phones.
We conclude it’s OK to take pictures then, and try to find a place on some piles of stone against a wall. Soon one man spots us, takes Thom by the hand, and thus leads us through the crowd until we have a place at the front! In one corner of the dancing floor the groom is sitting, behind a little decorative tree with candles; he’s only watching the proceedings, in beautiful clothes, a flower garland around his neck, holding a big sword in a golden sheath. I think he looks a little stoned, maybe he had a lot of qat, or maybe he’s just tired after three days of celebrations — or both. One by one, some of us are invited to sit down next to him, and get photographed and videoed together with the groom as if we are special guests — me included. That gives me occasion to take a close-up portrait of him, which he likes very much. Someone offers to take a picture of us both with my camera, which after some fiddling and advice from bystanders he manages to do: a nice memento of a special first evening in Yemen.
Friday 2007-04-06 - Marib, Yemen
Under escort
It seems there has been some unrest in the Marib area for years (not that there was anything in the news about that). In spite of the (supposed) situation, we got a permit to go there — in a long row of jeeps with tourists, under police escort. We all gather at the checkpost on the edge of the city at 9:00 and soon find out it all sounds a little more serious than it is (at least for now): there seems to be only one police car at the head of the row, no one behind. We soon spread out a little. Still, we’re not allowed to stop and take photographs, or even take photographs of the road (as if it has military value) except at a few (apparently designated) photo stops. There are also lots of checkposts along the way.
One thing we note immediately is that they are building a power line: at first, still near Sana’a, we see only the lower halves of pylons, further on they have heads and arms, and close to Marib they have actually started drawing cables. There is an oil field near Marib, so it looks like this will be used to supply power to the capital. In fact, oil has been found at several places, but there is not a whole lot of it: just about enough to cover the country’s own energy needs for several decades, certainly not enough for export. However, natural gas has also been found, which they plan to export in the form of LNG: a pipeline is being built, a well as liquefaction plant near the coast.
The landscape is beautiful, with at first rough mountains of a loose sedimentary structure, quite bare except where there is irrigation and it’s suddenly green. But as we travel it changes around us constantly; the loose sedimentary mountains make place for enormous exactly horizontal slabs of stone, in several layers, all of equal thickness: it looks as if they are huge paving stones. Later, we see sand dunes of warm golden sands, set off by black hills and here and there a layer of little black pebbles, a beautiful contrast. Then the gold-and-black is behind us again, and we’re suddenly in a valley with a lot of greenery.
We stop for tea at a junction. There are two places next to each other, one where the tourists go, one for the locals. Of course we go to the latter (we don’t need plastic chairs, we can do as the locals do and sit on the floor on a mat). The tea is delicious, made with some cardamom for a nice aroma; it’s always drunk with sugar here. The men here are very photogenic, beautiful faces, elegantly clothed in robes with matching head scarves, their weapons (jambiya, rifles) proudly on display. They are also willing subjects, so we end up making a lot of portraits.
Just inside Marib we (just our group) stop at a local restaurant for lunch: rice, flat bread, vegetable stew, a quarter chicken; mineral water on the side, and tea afterwards. Then, still under police escort, we go to our hotel, inside a walled garden, with guards at the gate. Now our drivers get a little well-earned rest — and qat. Once inside our room, I try to call my parents, but although the signal is good, I never get an international line. Strange…
At three we leave for a tour of the local sites. All tourist cars in a row under police escort again (more police now), and strictly regulated with groups distributed so there are never “too many” tourists at the same site at the same time. Is this really for our benefit or are they just nervous when so many strangers are on the same spot? Our group goes to the new dam first. Two big raptors circle overhead — a kind of buzzards (Buteo) probably. Our police escorts happily pose for us on their car with a biggish gun in the back of the pickup truck; along the mountain on a little ridge a row of men is sitting, chewing their qat: this is Yemen!
On the way to the old dam, an unauthorized photo stop for a view of the south building of the dam gets us a reprimand from the police. We go to the north building, from where we also have a nice view of the south building, but of the actual dam in-between nothing is left; both buildings were a kind of sluice, this one lovingly restored. We do see remnants of one of the canals leading from the north sluice. It’s all quite impressive, all this water engineering at such an early time.
Next we visit two temples from the Saba era (the queen of Sheba!): the “moon temple”, named the Almaqah temple of Bar’en or Baran temple, is nicely restored, and you get a good overview of the whole complex. Of the original six square pillars at the center, five are standing, of the sixth only about a third is left. There are also some stones with inscriptions in the original Yemeni script. We need to pay an entrance fee of 200 YR, but it’s worth it, and you can freely roam around. The next site is called “Bilqis Palace” or “throne room of queen Bilqis” (of Sheba), but it’s actually another temple, still in the process of being uncovered from the sands which seem to have preserved it beautifully. But you cannot visit the actual site (yet), and have to pay 100 YR just to get a somewhat closer view. That’s not worth it, and I take some pictures through the gate.
We want to be in time to see the old city of Marib in the light of the setting sun, but can’t leave — we have to wait for another group taking their time at the last temple; the police won’t let us go alone. When we can finally go, our drivers pull a nice stunt: they take a shortcut along a trail, and we arrive ahead of the crowd that left before us. Old Marib is a ghost town now, but still impressive with its huge buildings built of clay, a lot still standing. We can freely roam around (provided we stay on the paths — and we are being watched), but the evening light is disappointing: the sun quickly sinks behind a thick bank of clouds, leaving only gray twilight.
There is “curfew” in Marib, for tourists at least: we’re not allowed outside the hotel after 7:00. Unfortunately, only quick look at the hotel menu convinced everyone that we didn’t fancy eating there: western food at western prices. But our drivers have a solution: they manage to persuade (hmmm…) them to let us go out to eat at a local restaurant! They escort us, of course, so we invite them to have dinner with us. They also happily agree to have their pictures taken, sharing a table with our drivers. After an excellent dinner we head back to the hotel (escorted) but we still need to buy water for tomorrow’s trip through the desert. The shop is on the left side of the road, so our drivers smoothly switch to the “wrong” side of the road, heading in the wrong direction, to stop at the shop and buy water — under police escort, of course.
We never quite understand what the “curfew” is for, but have a suspicion it might be just to keep the tourists at the hotel so they send more of their dollars there.
Sunday 2007-04-08 - Shibam, Yemen
Manhattan of the desert
This afternoon we go with the whole group for a visit to old Shibam, which we passed yesterday on the way to Sey’un — I find it unbelievable that a visit to this city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1982, was not part of the original planning.
Unlike most cities in Wadi Hadramawt which are built nestling at the foot of a mountain or little way up, the walled city of Shibam is built on a free-standing hill in the valley. Just one square kilometer within the walls, it’s not surprising that the large family houses here are narrow and with even more floors than usual, built closely together. The buildings are even higher than the mosque’s minaret. Indeed, the skyline reminds one somewhat of a city with skyscrapers, earning it its epithet - but there the comparison with Manhattan stops.
Through the single whitewashed city gate one comes onto a square, and from there on it’s a labyrinth of winding narrow streets and alleys and an occasional courtyard, between the high-rising houses. The predominant color is that of the clay tiles the houses are built from and plastered with, but sometimes the upper part of a house is whitewashed, and there are surprising splashes of color: here dark-red window frames, there window niches painted bright blue; bright red or blue curtains (often on the outside of the window frames) flapping in the breeze, the lower part of a wall facing a courtyard painted a very bright green. In between all this troops of goats roam around, women go their own way in there elegant flowing black robes (often covering them completely, including a face veil, and often even black gloves), children are cheerful, and sometimes eager to be photographed (but not all). One can roam around here for hours and never be bored: it’s feast for the eyes.
Suddenly we hear music and follow our ears — we’d spread out as usual, but now we all arrive where the music is. There’s a growing crowd in the street, a little procession with musicians in front walks up and down — what’s happening? After a while it becomes clear: another wedding is taking place, the first day of it here. I don’t manage to catch a glimpse of the groom (or bride) but after walking up and down several times the musicians sit down at the edge of a big carpet spread out for them in the middle of the street. This becomes the dancing floor where the men dance, in small parties, taking turns. Unlike in Sana’a though, we’re not treated as special guests, and have to find our own (polite) ways of catching some glimpses. Still, most of us hang around for quite a while until it’s nearly time to go. The music and dancing made our visit to Shibam extra-memorable.
