Adventures in old Arabia

John Zada

• Last Updated: May 07. 2008 7:21PM UAE / May 7. 2008 3:21PM GMT

The perfectly preserved city of Sana’a, a Unesco World Heritage Site in the capital of Yemen, is ideal for travellers seeking the less harried side of the country. John Zada / The National

“So, this is your first time with us!” exclaimed Abdulrahman al Anesi with a dose of feigned surprise. “May Allah bring you back to us again and again!”

Anesi, my airport pickup, whose jewel-bedecked jambaya dagger sat at his midsection like a monstrous scimitar waiting to be unsheathed, was teeming with mirth and colourful teeth. Nothing, it seemed, could trouble him that morning. Neither the frenzied traffic, nor my questions about the political demonstration that we passed outside the heavily guarded Ministry of Interior building; concerns which he brushed aside in his characteristic, guttural laugh. “What? This? No, no. This is nothing,” he blurted with a smile. “Out-of-towners here to make their usual complaints.”

But as we coasted further along the dusty streets of Yemen’s sprawling capital, Sana’a, past a bus depot brimming with every manner of character, I could not help but feel a slight bit of trepidation. After all, wasn’t Yemen supposed to be the seedy underbelly of the Middle East? An up-and-coming member of the league of failed states? A place whose chaotic tribalism and medieval disposition make it utterly uncontrollable?

Stories about Yemen’s kidnapped tourists, whisked away to an impenetrable alpine hinterland and fed a mixed fare of chivalrous hospitality and snake meat, have by now become the stuff of legend. Yet, beneath the veneer of sensationalism and the vilifying epithets of a nation caught perpetually in the headlines, lies a gem of a country waiting to reward the intrepid traveller.

Containing natural splendours, jaw-dropping architecture, and an intact traditional culture, Yemen is without a doubt one of the last great frontiers of adventure travel in the world.

The jewel in Yemen’s cultural crown and a Unesco World Heritage Site, the perfectly preserved old city of Sana’a, is a veritable time machine that transports visitors into the past. Its fairy-tale metropolis teems with ancient high-rise buildings made of stone and brick, many of which date back several hundred years.

There is truth that travellers must exercise both caution and common sense when planning a trip to Yemen. A largely unreported conflict in the Sada region in the north of the country continues to rage unabated, while random attacks against foreigners – as rare as they remain – have and still do occur. Yemen’s growingly restive and tribally politicised population has caused the Yemeni government to institute measures to protect tourists. Overland travel through and to the more dicey areas of the country requires official permits from the Ministry of Tourism. In many cases, accompaniment by registered tour guides and sometimes an armed retinue of Kalashnikov-wielding Bedouin have become mandatory.

All of this has affected tourism in the country. As a result of the bad press and negative stereotypes, Yemen sees only a handful of travellers every year. These are mostly Europeans looking for exoticism and adventure, or westerners enrolled in the country’s well-known Arabic-language programs centred in Sana’a. In other areas of the country, including the Africanised Red Sea Coast and the Bedouin-populated rural east, the absence of travellers can be shockingly conspicuous.

For people who want to see Yemen but who lack the requisite appetite for risk-taking and the harried logistics of movement between this unknown and that the capital, Sana’a, especially its old city, remains the easiest and most accessible option.

Although comprising only a part of the sprawl that is becoming greater Sana’a, the old city is a universe unto itself. Enclosed within the old city walls, sections of which remain standing, is a dizzying maze of pedestrian thoroughfares and narrow alleyways. Here one finds Sana’a’s ornately decorated high-rise homes, souqs selling anything and everything imaginable, and expansive gardens once used as communal growing areas, flanking large mosques.

One can get lost for days exploring the endless matrix of streets, byways and cul-de-sacs that snake through the various districts of the old town. During the day, old Sana’a’s wider thoroughfares bustle with life as residents of this open-air museum flock in droves to shop, go to the mosque, socialise, and to conduct their daily business.

At the epicentre of the old town is the Souq al-Milh, the city’s spice market. Women arrive in the morning to fill-up on grains, seasonings, and sticky dates. Directly behind and within earshot of the souq, scenes of pandemonium unfold as groups of men, wearing the popular northern Yemeni attire of a Western suit jacket over a jalabiya, throng a series of tea stalls, kebab vendors, and cooking kitchens. By noontime, the area is awash with what looks like every male in the old city coming to eat at one of Sana’a’s two lunchtime institutions: Houmayda Salta and al-Farran. Both restaurants, which stand opposite each other and are fierce competitors, specialise in the Yemeni national dish, salta – a bubbling meat and vegetable stew seasoned with fenugreek and cooked over blazing gas fires stoked with industrial air-blowers.

Walk a few steps around the corner and the scene transforms again as you enter the narrow and dingy alleyway which is the Souq al-Khat. Men and boys line the floor of the alleyway on both sides, selling bushels of the Yemeni plant khat, which is chewed as a stimulant. In the mornings and early afternoons Sana’a’s men come to barter with the sellers, who receive a daily shipment of khat leaves from different parts of Yemen. The strength and price of the khat varies depending on the soil conditions of the region it is grown in, and the care given to growing it. Prices start from 400-500 Yemeni riyals (around Dh7) for the weakest variety, typically grown around Sana’a, to a few thousand riyals (upward of Dh37 or more) for the stronger variety coming from as far afield as Hajja, Ibb and Taiz.

“You never know what types of khat you will find here from day-to-day,” says Abdul Wadud al-Abbasi, manager of the Hotel Dawood and a frequent visitor to the souq. “There has been no rain in the last few months and so the quality of the khat has now gone down. This is not a problem for the tourists who don’t know the difference. But for us Yemenis, it is another story,” Abassi says.

Wandering away from the hubbub of the central souq into the narrower alleyways of the old city, one finds a somewhat different Sana’a. In the late afternoons the mood is quieter, the light softer. Adult traffic has begun to taper off, giving way to children who are out spinning wooden tops, playing marbles, or kicking around footballs made of cellophane wrap.

Seven stories above, on the roof of the Burj al-Salam Hotel, a four-star lodging renovated from a distinguished apartment building, the mood is much the same. One can imbibe the vistas and medieval ambience of old Sana’a at the apex of its charm – by sunset. At this time of day the city’s apartment blocks come into robust view, forming a skyline that subsumes the whole of Sana’a, their white plaster motifs virtually glowing in the warm light. As the sun dips behind the Haraz Mountains and the wind kicks up, the evening call to prayer rings out, reverberating from a hundred different points across the city.

If asked, one would be hard-pressed to find a more entrancing and unforgettable scene in this corner of the world – one which unfolds repeatedly, but which sadly takes a back seat to the other associations of Yemen that keep this magical country well off the beaten path.