A Weekend Away

Just back from a long weekend away from Asmara when, with a one hour hop across the Red Sea, we were transported from Africa to the Middle Eastern country of Yemen.

Yemen has the title of the poorest Arab country and, to some extent, a reputation of not being the safest place to visit but knowledge of this sometimes obscures the fact that it also has a rich history, both pre-Islamic and Islamic. We were aware that that Sana'a is steeped in that history from our research beforehand but we were still not prepared for the amazing reality of the city's tall stone houses, narrow streets and busy souks.

We spent 4 nights at the Sana'a Nights Hotel (heartily recommended as a budget option) and took a one day trip out of the city in order to see a few surrounding villages and the high mountains beyond Sana'a.

Comparisons with life in Asmara were inevitable so I'll list a few differences and save you some (boring) details:
. Bread was in abundance, was being cooked in small bakeries all the time and was on sale everywhere.
. Yemen is a strict Muslim country and one of the consequences is that Yemeni women are always veiled in public - this doesn't, apparently, stop them from getting on their mobiles and pursuing the man of their dreams when necessary (as witnessed by the several phonecalls to our young driver during our day trip).
. Sana'a is a very busy place with a lot of traffic; particularly noticable are its motorcyclists for whom slowing down seems to be regarded as a sign of weakness, it makes Asmara seem very quiet.
. A large amount of the time and energy of the average Yemeni male is spent growing, trading and chewing qat.

What we also found was that, in common with Eritrea, the people were very friendly and quite anxious that foreigners take away a good impression of their country, I lost count of the number of times "Welcome in Yemen" was shouted at us.

All in all a wonderful four days and that despite Yemenia (easily) taking first prize in the worst airline food competition.

P