G'day from Yemen - Eid Al Adha - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

dlish · 12-25-2008, 11:24 PM

G'day From Yemen!

This is my second trip to Yemen this year. The first being about 7 months ago. i loved this place so much that i had do it again! This time i took my brother his wife with me.

From the first trip, i felt like Yemen was relatively untouched from the outside world. i refer to it as a time warp. a country that uses old methods in current times. everything here is old. the cars, the capital city, the souqs, the mentality. its a place where time stands still. a day here feels like 2. it really does. people dont use watches here, they just go about doing whatever they have to do until they do it. their timings is the Athan (the 5 time daily prayer call). everything revolves around the prayer times.

Their wanton use of qat however(the hallucinagenic plant they chew) contributes to the easy going attitudes. here, everyone is in 'inshallah mode' as i call it. [the term inshallah literally means 'god willing', but people use it in everyday sentences - 'inshallah ill be there at 5pm' usually means ill be there at 7:30.

i had 6 days off from work in Dubai because of Eid Al Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice, where according to tradition the prophet Abraham under Gods command was going to sacrifice his son Ishmail (in jewish tradition its Isaac). For his complete faith and trust in God, Abraham was then commanded to sacrifice a ram instead, and thus the islamic tradition of the 'Festival of Sacrifice' came about. it is a time of celebration throughout the muslim world, and a time for sharing with those less fortunate.

it would have been great to see Yemen at this time where everything would be buzzing and everybody would be out on the streets getting ready for Eid. \

we arrived in Sanaa the capital and stayed the night there. we visited the Bab Al Yemen (Doors of Yemen) where everything was a total blur. The last time i visited this place just before summer it was almost busy, but nothing like what we were about to encounter. Now two days before Eid we walked shoulder to shoulder in the 1000 year old souq. we visited shop after shop that ranged from pots and pans to herbs and spices souqs. all well organised into seperate neghbourhoods. it was abuzz with busy yemenis getting ready foe the festivities of Eid where sharing your homes and food with friends and relatives is not just common, but imperative.

It is common tradition in islamic culture to emulate the prophetic biblical traditions. so muslims worldwide sacrifice a goat, ram, camel, sheep, cow, or whetever they can afford to sacrifice. setting aside a small portion of the sacrifice for themselves, and giving the rest in charity to those less needy, like neighbours, friends or even total strangers. This type of communal culture breeds brotherhood within communities and increases the bond between friends, families, and tribes. It is an ancient tradition that works well. The act of giving in the festive season is common amongst all faiths.

we spent the night in Sanaa, enroute to Seiyun. a small town about 10 hrs away by road. Its airport was smaller than the jet that flew us over there.

we visited the burial place of prophet Hud (refered to as prophet Eber in the Bible). a deserted township that houses the burial place of Hud and is a common place of visitation amonst Yemenis and foreignors alike. when we went there, there was no one but us, and it was soothing to sit in the cooling breeze with only the sounds of drums beating in the distance from a local wedding ceremony in the next town.

The next day was a day of fasting. the day before Eid Al Adha, almost all people fast from sunrise to sunset (same as Ramadan), so it was a lazy day and we couldnt do much. we decided to visit Shibam. a two thousand year old city that is referred to as the 'Manhattan of the desert'. the first place to ever use vertical construction and high rise as well as vertical communal living. its urban planning was used as a protection from bedouin invaders. it is a city that is built entirely from mudbricks and has UNESCO heritage protection.

on my previous visit to Yemen i visited Shibam/Kawkaban near Sanaa. This Shibam is in the state of Hadramawt and is south east of the Capital Sanaa(ironically Hadramawt when translated literally means "death has come").

the city is still occupied by a few thousand inhabitants, although the devastation of the recent floods only 2 months ago was still prevalent. these floods affected areas all the way from Mukalla which is a coastal town about 500km away all the way to Seiyun and blocked roads and literally cut Mukalla and Seiyun off from the rest of the country. floods reached 5m high, but sadly news of the floods in Yemen gained little international attention.

day 3 was Eid Al Adha. it started with Eid prayers in the morning at 7. Common tradition is to wear your best clothes for Eid and attend the Eid prayers. after the sermon, strangers would hug and congratulate each other on the Feast of Sacrifice. i met many many people from all over the muslim world who would approach us to give glad tidings and shake our hands. we were 'strangers' so to speak and attracted attention from yemenis and non yemenis alike.

from here, we decided to find the local butcher who would make our sacrifice and clean our goat. we eventually found him, and after a short motorbike ride away, we got the the picking yard. we chose 2 goats that got carted away to the abbotoir. There our goats were sacrificed. islamic practices have stringent conditions for the slaughtering of any animal. but generally the proclamation that this slaughter is to be in Gods name and a relatively swift death is necesary.

from there our butcher prepared and cut our meat and delivered it to our house. from there we seperated the sacrifice into different bags and went door knocking on doors where we were told that those that were not well to do live. they graciously accepted our offerings.

the night was spent celebrating with small fireworks and food. it was a grande experience.

we were booked in to fly out the next day, but our flights got cancelled around midnight that night, so the next day was spent lazing around trying to sort out how to get out of Seiyun to Sanaa, the capital. the next available flight was in a weeks time, or we could take the 10.5 hr bus trip to Sanaa or 5.5hr bus trip to Mukalla airport and then an hour flight to Sanaa.

our hopes faded when we were told that the bus doesnt take westerners due to the bus route running through kidnap territory and that all papers would be checked at checkpoints. i was booked in to go to work the next day, so i had to inform them of my situation.

up until this point, the trip was ok...the shimozzle in trying to organise anything adhoc in yemen was painful. eventually we decided to chance it and take the 5.5hr private taxi to Mukalla and spend the night there and catch the plane the next afternoon. Mukalla is a pretty seaside city that was devastated by the floods a few months back. we spent a pleasant day there, followed by a night in Sanaa again in a shabby hotel. we caught our re-scheduled flight from Yemen to Dubai the next morning. This transit taking 3 days. it was tiring, but finally we made it through in one piece.

hope you enjoyed my little trip into another dimension and time. feel free to ask me any questions. ive gone into a little bit more detail this time due to a request i got. so feel free to ask me whatever you guys want on anything yemeni or islamic practices that i saw.

despite my bad end to the trip, i still think it is a wonderful place. a place full of poverty, but full of life. pics will follow!

Yemen an ancient land of honey, coffee, and qat!
-----Added 26/12/2008 at 02 : 50 : 12-----
pics of the first night in Yemen. ill upload the rest when i can

Bab Al Yemen (the doors of yemen) 2 days out before eid. it was buzzing like crazy

camel milling weat inside bab Al Yemen

my sister in law. This is how a typical yemeni woman would like like and standard dress. This time around i decided that we would go in 'tradtional clothes'. makes it easier to get around without being spotted as a westerner and slugged in the souqs.

one of my fav pics on the trip. the spices of yemen

a sultana deal

me being a 'lawrence of arabia' as i got called

Ali Abdulla Saleh Mosque

biznatch · 12-27-2008, 01:01 AM

Seems fascinating. I haven't traveled west of France yet, and I hope to do so ASAP.
Please continue giving us accounts of your travels, dlish, I get a bit jealous but it's just more motivation to obtain the ability to travel.

little_tippler · 12-27-2008, 03:45 AM

What a strange place Yemen seems to be. Completely stopped in time.

Lovely photos, always a pleasure to travel through your eyes...

though I must say I find the photo of the camel a little sad.

Looking forward to seeing more!

roachboy · 12-27-2008, 05:03 AM

wow.
what a cool souq. what cool architecture.

i know very little about yemen except that there is a tradition of drumming that sounds on recording like it's closely linked to qat intake--fascinating stuff, very intricate, very tranced out. you get no sense from the recordings of whether this is a concert music, a ceremonial music, or just an extension of everyday life. but it's very cool...did you pick up any music while you were there?

what's yemeni pop music like?

dlish · 12-27-2008, 05:58 AM

Thanks for the comments so far.

tippler - i asked about the camel. it works 4 hours on the mill and then it gets 4 hours off then 4 on again, and so on. so it works 12hrs a day basically. but it does look malnourished to me. sometimes i worked longer than that with no food!

roachboy- i was supposed to spend an extra dayand a half in Sanaa on the way back but with the whole mess-up with the flights and the additional day in Mukalla we didnt get a chance to go back to the souq again before it closed. the only shop i managed to get to sold yemeni jewellery. big chunky jewellery. i could get my hands on some yemeni music if i need to though or if you are interested.

yemeni pop is very conservative and usually consists of an instrument called the 'duff'. almost like a tambourine except without the metal thingmibobs on the edges. could this be what you are talking about?

our arrival in Seiyun

dont mind the sillouette

goat feed

mud brick houses devastated by the floods

this is where i got my laurence of arabia tag from

the burial place of prophet Hud (Eber)

more flood devastation

the owners of this house had to move into the tent pictured due to the mudbrick house not being safe enough to live. this place is about 10km out from the nearest town and is in the middle of no where.

roachboy · 12-27-2008, 06:23 AM

dlish--i have only 2 cds--one is performed called "the yemen tihama" and is mostly dance and/or trance music, which i have linked in my pellet brain to moroccan gnawa in the sense that it comes out of a locally specific mixing of traditions. the other is a collection of singers from sanaa. both are great---but they came out as ethnomusicology objects, which tend to make museum pieces of what is recorded, hedging the sound round with interpretations about timelessness or "authenticity" that make it difficult to connect what you're hearing to much of anything in contemporary realities--and the images that one gets of yemen from the liner notes emphasize this museum piece quality.

which isn't in itself either good or bad.
i find it annoying personally because i don't think that the euro-conception of tradition makes much sense when it comes to music--i see music as far more open-ended and adaptive rather than being a word used to describe a set of practices or pieces that are repeated in the same way every time, such that tradition in the end refers to itself and to it's self-enclosedness.

but hell yeah, i'd be interested in yemeni music.

dlish · 12-27-2008, 11:11 PM

RB - ill send a request out for you when i get back to the UAE. i should be able to get my hands on some. there is a place on yemens coast called Tihama, so im assuming that the music comes from there? ill check it out for you

The deserted township surrounding the burial place of prophet Hud.

remnants of the flood

2000 year old city of shibam

a weaver doing his trace by hand using archaic methods. it takes two to three days to make a shawl. we bought it for $17 USD without bargaining.

a wall supported by a date palm trunk!

repainting after the floods

walking through the streets of shibam

shibam at sunset

Petrol Politics

we were low on fuel so our driver had to negotiate to the front of the line telling the unruly and disgruntled yemenis that we were on the way to board a plane. Diesel is scarce in Yemen and some drivers line up for 2 days to fill up.

biznatch · 12-28-2008, 01:13 AM

Those panoramic pictures are nice, dlish.
Also, the construction style is so unlike anything I've ever seen in real life, seems like some Indiana Jones movie.

dlish · 12-29-2008, 05:50 AM

biznatch..speaking of indiana jones movie sets - check out my G'day from Jordan thread a few months back for pics of Petra where one of the IJ moves were made. Temple of Doom maybe?

one thing i'd love to show but cant are the children of Yemen. they are so oblivious and innocent to anything around them. they make up the void that the women cannot fill in public life.. usually yemen women do not fulfill any public role, and it usually the children and males that are distinguishable in public. their smiles makes up for the poverty in whih they live

ill be posting some more pics tomorrow on the rest of the trip

BadNick · 12-29-2008, 08:25 AM

Great pictures, dlish. Thanks a lot for posting them for us. It looks so exotic it really makes me want to explore that part of the world...though I suspect looking too "american" may not be so good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlish

...one thing i'd love to show but cant are the children of Yemen. they are so oblivious and innocent to anything around them. they make up the void that the women cannot fill in public life.. usually yemen women do not fulfill any public role, and it usually the children and males that are distinguishable in public. their smiles makes up for the poverty in whih they live

ill be posting some more pics tomorrow on the rest of the trip

Why not just post links to the pics instead of the pics directly? I see you're using photobucket so you can do that...I believe we are allowed to post links, just not the pics. Is that right?

grumpyolddude · 12-29-2008, 07:59 PM

Your travelogue continues to fascinate, D. Thanks for sharing.
First impression, Shibam is an elaborate sand castle waiting for wind and rain to wash it away. That it stands after two millenia is incredible. Our pitiful attempts at architecture are a shambles in a few decades.
Keep traveling and snapping those photos!

dlish · 12-30-2008, 06:23 AM

Village of Tarim

the sacrificial goat

the abottoir - ill spare you all the gory details. but this is how the sacrifice is done. a small prayer is recited before. It was surprisingly quick how long it took to make the sacrifice. id estimate about 5 secs was the average time to sacrifice the goat, with an additional 20mins to skin and clean and chop up.

a homeless man wandering the streets

our arrival in Mukalla

im sitting with one of the highest Qadi's in Yemen. an equivelant of a QC in western legal terms. we met earlier that morning and he invited us on the special boat cruise organised by the hotel specifically for him. you may notice that his headwrap is different to normal everyday yemenis

12-25-2008, 11:24 PM	#1 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	G'day from Yemen - Eid Al Adha G'day From Yemen! This is my second trip to Yemen this year. The first being about 7 months ago. i loved this place so much that i had do it again! This time i took my brother his wife with me. From the first trip, i felt like Yemen was relatively untouched from the outside world. i refer to it as a time warp. a country that uses old methods in current times. everything here is old. the cars, the capital city, the souqs, the mentality. its a place where time stands still. a day here feels like 2. it really does. people dont use watches here, they just go about doing whatever they have to do until they do it. their timings is the Athan (the 5 time daily prayer call). everything revolves around the prayer times. Their wanton use of qat however(the hallucinagenic plant they chew) contributes to the easy going attitudes. here, everyone is in 'inshallah mode' as i call it. [the term inshallah literally means 'god willing', but people use it in everyday sentences - 'inshallah ill be there at 5pm' usually means ill be there at 7:30. i had 6 days off from work in Dubai because of Eid Al Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice, where according to tradition the prophet Abraham under Gods command was going to sacrifice his son Ishmail (in jewish tradition its Isaac). For his complete faith and trust in God, Abraham was then commanded to sacrifice a ram instead, and thus the islamic tradition of the 'Festival of Sacrifice' came about. it is a time of celebration throughout the muslim world, and a time for sharing with those less fortunate. it would have been great to see Yemen at this time where everything would be buzzing and everybody would be out on the streets getting ready for Eid. \ we arrived in Sanaa the capital and stayed the night there. we visited the Bab Al Yemen (Doors of Yemen) where everything was a total blur. The last time i visited this place just before summer it was almost busy, but nothing like what we were about to encounter. Now two days before Eid we walked shoulder to shoulder in the 1000 year old souq. we visited shop after shop that ranged from pots and pans to herbs and spices souqs. all well organised into seperate neghbourhoods. it was abuzz with busy yemenis getting ready foe the festivities of Eid where sharing your homes and food with friends and relatives is not just common, but imperative. It is common tradition in islamic culture to emulate the prophetic biblical traditions. so muslims worldwide sacrifice a goat, ram, camel, sheep, cow, or whetever they can afford to sacrifice. setting aside a small portion of the sacrifice for themselves, and giving the rest in charity to those less needy, like neighbours, friends or even total strangers. This type of communal culture breeds brotherhood within communities and increases the bond between friends, families, and tribes. It is an ancient tradition that works well. The act of giving in the festive season is common amongst all faiths. we spent the night in Sanaa, enroute to Seiyun. a small town about 10 hrs away by road. Its airport was smaller than the jet that flew us over there. we visited the burial place of prophet Hud (refered to as prophet Eber in the Bible). a deserted township that houses the burial place of Hud and is a common place of visitation amonst Yemenis and foreignors alike. when we went there, there was no one but us, and it was soothing to sit in the cooling breeze with only the sounds of drums beating in the distance from a local wedding ceremony in the next town. The next day was a day of fasting. the day before Eid Al Adha, almost all people fast from sunrise to sunset (same as Ramadan), so it was a lazy day and we couldnt do much. we decided to visit Shibam. a two thousand year old city that is referred to as the 'Manhattan of the desert'. the first place to ever use vertical construction and high rise as well as vertical communal living. its urban planning was used as a protection from bedouin invaders. it is a city that is built entirely from mudbricks and has UNESCO heritage protection. on my previous visit to Yemen i visited Shibam/Kawkaban near Sanaa. This Shibam is in the state of Hadramawt and is south east of the Capital Sanaa(ironically Hadramawt when translated literally means "death has come"). the city is still occupied by a few thousand inhabitants, although the devastation of the recent floods only 2 months ago was still prevalent. these floods affected areas all the way from Mukalla which is a coastal town about 500km away all the way to Seiyun and blocked roads and literally cut Mukalla and Seiyun off from the rest of the country. floods reached 5m high, but sadly news of the floods in Yemen gained little international attention. day 3 was Eid Al Adha. it started with Eid prayers in the morning at 7. Common tradition is to wear your best clothes for Eid and attend the Eid prayers. after the sermon, strangers would hug and congratulate each other on the Feast of Sacrifice. i met many many people from all over the muslim world who would approach us to give glad tidings and shake our hands. we were 'strangers' so to speak and attracted attention from yemenis and non yemenis alike. from here, we decided to find the local butcher who would make our sacrifice and clean our goat. we eventually found him, and after a short motorbike ride away, we got the the picking yard. we chose 2 goats that got carted away to the abbotoir. There our goats were sacrificed. islamic practices have stringent conditions for the slaughtering of any animal. but generally the proclamation that this slaughter is to be in Gods name and a relatively swift death is necesary. from there our butcher prepared and cut our meat and delivered it to our house. from there we seperated the sacrifice into different bags and went door knocking on doors where we were told that those that were not well to do live. they graciously accepted our offerings. the night was spent celebrating with small fireworks and food. it was a grande experience. we were booked in to fly out the next day, but our flights got cancelled around midnight that night, so the next day was spent lazing around trying to sort out how to get out of Seiyun to Sanaa, the capital. the next available flight was in a weeks time, or we could take the 10.5 hr bus trip to Sanaa or 5.5hr bus trip to Mukalla airport and then an hour flight to Sanaa. our hopes faded when we were told that the bus doesnt take westerners due to the bus route running through kidnap territory and that all papers would be checked at checkpoints. i was booked in to go to work the next day, so i had to inform them of my situation. up until this point, the trip was ok...the shimozzle in trying to organise anything adhoc in yemen was painful. eventually we decided to chance it and take the 5.5hr private taxi to Mukalla and spend the night there and catch the plane the next afternoon. Mukalla is a pretty seaside city that was devastated by the floods a few months back. we spent a pleasant day there, followed by a night in Sanaa again in a shabby hotel. we caught our re-scheduled flight from Yemen to Dubai the next morning. This transit taking 3 days. it was tiring, but finally we made it through in one piece. hope you enjoyed my little trip into another dimension and time. feel free to ask me any questions. ive gone into a little bit more detail this time due to a request i got. so feel free to ask me whatever you guys want on anything yemeni or islamic practices that i saw. despite my bad end to the trip, i still think it is a wonderful place. a place full of poverty, but full of life. pics will follow! Yemen an ancient land of honey, coffee, and qat! -----Added 26/12/2008 at 02 : 50 : 12----- pics of the first night in Yemen. ill upload the rest when i can Bab Al Yemen (the doors of yemen) 2 days out before eid. it was buzzing like crazy camel milling weat inside bab Al Yemen my sister in law. This is how a typical yemeni woman would like like and standard dress. This time around i decided that we would go in 'tradtional clothes'. makes it easier to get around without being spotted as a westerner and slugged in the souqs. one of my fav pics on the trip. the spices of yemen a sultana deal me being a 'lawrence of arabia' as i got called Ali Abdulla Saleh Mosque __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy Last edited by dlish; 12-25-2008 at 11:50 PM.. Reason: Automerged Doublepost

12-27-2008, 01:01 AM	#2 (permalink)
biznatch Junkie Location: France	Seems fascinating. I haven't traveled west of France yet, and I hope to do so ASAP. Please continue giving us accounts of your travels, dlish, I get a bit jealous but it's just more motivation to obtain the ability to travel. __________________ Check it out: The Open Source/Freeware/Gratis Software Thread Last edited by biznatch; 12-27-2008 at 01:03 AM..

12-27-2008, 03:45 AM	#3 (permalink)
little_tippler Leaning against the -Sun- Super Moderator Location: on the other side	What a strange place Yemen seems to be. Completely stopped in time. Lovely photos, always a pleasure to travel through your eyes... though I must say I find the photo of the camel a little sad. Looking forward to seeing more! __________________ Whether we write or speak or do but look We are ever unapparent. What we are Cannot be transfused into word or book. Our soul from us is infinitely far. However much we give our thoughts the will To be our soul and gesture it abroad, Our hearts are incommunicable still. In what we show ourselves we are ignored. The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged By any skill of thought or trick of seeming. Unto our very selves we are abridged When we would utter to our thought our being. We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams, And each to each other dreams of others' dreams. Fernando Pessoa, 1918

12-27-2008, 05:03 AM	#4 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	wow. what a cool souq. what cool architecture. i know very little about yemen except that there is a tradition of drumming that sounds on recording like it's closely linked to qat intake--fascinating stuff, very intricate, very tranced out. you get no sense from the recordings of whether this is a concert music, a ceremonial music, or just an extension of everyday life. but it's very cool...did you pick up any music while you were there? what's yemeni pop music like? __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

12-27-2008, 05:58 AM	#5 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	Thanks for the comments so far. tippler - i asked about the camel. it works 4 hours on the mill and then it gets 4 hours off then 4 on again, and so on. so it works 12hrs a day basically. but it does look malnourished to me. sometimes i worked longer than that with no food! roachboy- i was supposed to spend an extra dayand a half in Sanaa on the way back but with the whole mess-up with the flights and the additional day in Mukalla we didnt get a chance to go back to the souq again before it closed. the only shop i managed to get to sold yemeni jewellery. big chunky jewellery. i could get my hands on some yemeni music if i need to though or if you are interested. yemeni pop is very conservative and usually consists of an instrument called the 'duff'. almost like a tambourine except without the metal thingmibobs on the edges. could this be what you are talking about? our arrival in Seiyun dont mind the sillouette goat feed mud brick houses devastated by the floods this is where i got my laurence of arabia tag from the burial place of prophet Hud (Eber) more flood devastation the owners of this house had to move into the tent pictured due to the mudbrick house not being safe enough to live. this place is about 10km out from the nearest town and is in the middle of no where. __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy Last edited by dlish; 12-27-2008 at 10:40 PM.. Reason: double pic

12-27-2008, 06:23 AM	#6 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	dlish--i have only 2 cds--one is performed called "the yemen tihama" and is mostly dance and/or trance music, which i have linked in my pellet brain to moroccan gnawa in the sense that it comes out of a locally specific mixing of traditions. the other is a collection of singers from sanaa. both are great---but they came out as ethnomusicology objects, which tend to make museum pieces of what is recorded, hedging the sound round with interpretations about timelessness or "authenticity" that make it difficult to connect what you're hearing to much of anything in contemporary realities--and the images that one gets of yemen from the liner notes emphasize this museum piece quality. which isn't in itself either good or bad. i find it annoying personally because i don't think that the euro-conception of tradition makes much sense when it comes to music--i see music as far more open-ended and adaptive rather than being a word used to describe a set of practices or pieces that are repeated in the same way every time, such that tradition in the end refers to itself and to it's self-enclosedness. but hell yeah, i'd be interested in yemeni music. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

12-27-2008, 11:11 PM	#7 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	RB - ill send a request out for you when i get back to the UAE. i should be able to get my hands on some. there is a place on yemens coast called Tihama, so im assuming that the music comes from there? ill check it out for you The deserted township surrounding the burial place of prophet Hud. remnants of the flood 2000 year old city of shibam a weaver doing his trace by hand using archaic methods. it takes two to three days to make a shawl. we bought it for $17 USD without bargaining. a wall supported by a date palm trunk! repainting after the floods walking through the streets of shibam shibam at sunset Petrol Politics we were low on fuel so our driver had to negotiate to the front of the line telling the unruly and disgruntled yemenis that we were on the way to board a plane. Diesel is scarce in Yemen and some drivers line up for 2 days to fill up. __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy

12-28-2008, 01:13 AM	#8 (permalink)
biznatch Junkie Location: France	Those panoramic pictures are nice, dlish. Also, the construction style is so unlike anything I've ever seen in real life, seems like some Indiana Jones movie. __________________ Check it out: The Open Source/Freeware/Gratis Software Thread

12-29-2008, 05:50 AM	#9 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	biznatch..speaking of indiana jones movie sets - check out my G'day from Jordan thread a few months back for pics of Petra where one of the IJ moves were made. Temple of Doom maybe? one thing i'd love to show but cant are the children of Yemen. they are so oblivious and innocent to anything around them. they make up the void that the women cannot fill in public life.. usually yemen women do not fulfill any public role, and it usually the children and males that are distinguishable in public. their smiles makes up for the poverty in whih they live ill be posting some more pics tomorrow on the rest of the trip __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy

12-29-2008, 07:59 PM	#11 (permalink)
grumpyolddude Deliberately unfocused Location: Amazon.com and CDBaby	Your travelogue continues to fascinate, D. Thanks for sharing. First impression, Shibam is an elaborate sand castle waiting for wind and rain to wash it away. That it stands after two millenia is incredible. Our pitiful attempts at architecture are a shambles in a few decades. Keep traveling and snapping those photos! __________________ "Regret can be a harder pill to swallow than failure .With failure you at least know you gave it a chance..." David Howard

12-30-2008, 06:23 AM	#12 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	Village of Tarim the sacrificial goat the abottoir - ill spare you all the gory details. but this is how the sacrifice is done. a small prayer is recited before. It was surprisingly quick how long it took to make the sacrifice. id estimate about 5 secs was the average time to sacrifice the goat, with an additional 20mins to skin and clean and chop up. a homeless man wandering the streets our arrival in Mukalla im sitting with one of the highest Qadi's in Yemen. an equivelant of a QC in western legal terms. we met earlier that morning and he invited us on the special boat cruise organised by the hotel specifically for him. you may notice that his headwrap is different to normal everyday yemenis __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy Last edited by dlish; 12-30-2008 at 05:30 PM..