Travel Tips

It sounded simple. Walk through the jambiyya (dagger) souq, turn left at the sleeping dog, pass the 17th century hammam, and follow the clucking chickens through a small door. There, I would find Ali and his one-eyed camel.

A friend who had returned from Yemen a year earlier had given me an envelope full of photos, so armed with these and directions not dissimilar to the ones above, Osama and I set off through the souqs of Old Sana'a in search of one-eyed camels.

Of course, a walk in Sana'a's old city is never simple at the best of times, especially if you are looking for something in particular. Within minutes of passing under the Ottoman gate of Bab al-Yemen, we were hopelessly lost in the Suq al-Milh. Literally translated as the "Salt Market", this is the collective term for the maze of streets and alleyways comprising the main market area of Sana'a. Despite the name, you'd be hard pressed to come across someone actually selling salt, but you will find almost anything else...spice stalls overflow with saffron and cinnamon, covered women from the Tihama wave sticks of frankincense for sale at 100 riyals a bundle, old men in robes hammer away at jewellery and jambiyyas in tiny workshops, while young children rifle through piles of second-hand clothes.

A wrong turning took us to a former caravanserai (sort of a hostel for traders), now the site of a suq dedicated to the sale of raisins (Suq az-Zabeeb). Now I have to confess that I always thought a raisin was just a raisin, but I was sadly misled...over one hundred different varieties of raisin are available here, ranging from the ordinary to the extraordinary, a special type bought by bridegrooms to "spice up" their wedding night. But we hadn't come here looking for raisins. We were on a mission, and had to get moving.

Half an hour later we were still disorientated and bewildered in the labrynth of alleyways, but neither of us would admit to being lost! Osama has lived in Sana'a for 15 years, and I spent the previous summer living in the old city, navigating my way through the suqs at least twice a day on the journey between home and school...still we both managed to get lost there on a daily basis! Spotting a familiar building, we took a side street and ended up at the Sa'ila, the dry riverbed which cuts the old city in two and is used as a road for most of the year.

Osama checked his watch, and looked anxiously at the fast-setting sun. We would have to abandon our mission and try again another day. You see, it was Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting, when all good Muslims refrain from all fod, drink, cigarettes and sex during daylight hours. I too was fasting, although I was not required to. But for a foreign visitor during Ramadan in Yemen, it is much easier to follow suit and fast alongside the Yemenis, as no food is available during the day, and munching on a biscuit in front of several hundred hungry faces is not the best way to make friends! Plus it gave me the unique opportunity to sample some of the specialities only consumed at Iftar, the breaking of fast.

We had maybe an hour to get home before the sun disappeared and fast could be broken, so we quickly headed to Maydan at-Tahrir (Liberation Square) to board a dabab (minibus). On a normal day, finding the right dabab is no easy task, but an hour before sundown in Ramadan, it soon becomes chaos of the highest degree. Throngs of people wait around for a minibus heading in their direction, and you can forget any ideas of orderly queues...when one approaches it is strictly an "every man for himself" affair. Men in flowing white robes and sports jackets, a dagger at the waist, throw themselves towards the open door; children crash through legs; old men with walnut faces put their walking sticks to good use; fully veiled women bash a path through the crowd with their shopping bags, scraping their knuckles down the spine of anyone who stands in their way; all this while the dabab is still moving. Eventually, we find ourselves jammed in the second row of a dabab, and throw a few coins at the driver. We're off, with seventeen passengers and two bewildered hens sharing six seats. One minute later, the dabab stops to let off a passenger who didn't want to take a ride but was just swept up in the crowd.

Progress is slow, with the streets packed with people hurrying to buy sambosas from street-side stalls. We buy a bag of the greasy fried parcels filled with meat and spices, and proceeded down a rubble-strewn street to Osama's humble home in the new part of Sana'a. As we entered, shouting "Allah, Allah" to warn the females of my arrival, the muezzin began the call to prayer, signalling the end of the day's fasting. A glass of qishr (a drink made from the husks of coffee beans) was thrust in my hand, and the whole family broke fast in the traditional way, with a single date.

After prayers in the local mosque, it was time for the serious eating to begin. Sambosas were handed round with loaves of freshly-baked flat bread, plates of rice, chicken, vegetables and extra spices appeared. All the standards of Yemeni cooking were there, as well as a few Ramadan specialities such as shfoot. Now shfoot was not my favourite dish of all time, as I'm not a huge fan of dairy products, but as a guest, and a foreign one at that, I was expected to eat more of this than anyone else. Shfoot is made from a crumpet-style dough soaked in sour yoghurt, coloured with green fenugreek and spiced with chilli, served stone cold. First impressions are never great, but this is a dish you can get used to quite quickly if forced to eat copious amounts every day!

Salteh, Yemen's national dish, arrived on a metal plate to keep it boiling. A stew made from an unknown meat (better not to ask exactly what meat!), whatever vegetables are available, and topped with a bizarre thick concoction of fenugreek and hulba, salteh contains enough spice and heat to burn the roof of your mouth off, and is an essential part of any Yemeni meal.

Iftar was completed with a bowl of mahalabiyya (a semolina-type dessert flavoured with rosewater) and a glass of cardamom-spiced tea, then we made straight for Ha'il Street to buy our evening's supply of qat. Qat is a substance widely misunderstood by foreign visitors, many of whom make assumtions and opinions about the leaf without actualy trying it. As a regular chewer of qat while in Yemen, I ought to explain a bit about the stuff.

Often compared to coffee and amphetamines, qat is classed in many countries as a class C drug, legal in Yemen and Britain, but highly illegal in the US and the rest of the Middle East. It contains similar ingredients to amphetamines (cathinone), but has similar effects to drinking a bit too much coffee. Qat is a national institution (some go as far as labelling it Yemen's national narcotic!), with the majority of Yemenis chewing qat at least once a week, if not every day. The effects of qat are not immediate (one reason why it has not become a popular drug outside Yemen), and take second place to the company and conversation which accompanies every qat session. Qat makes you talk, qat makes you think...so the main reason for chewing is social.

In the first hour or so, it can be a real struggle to feed the bitter-tasting leaves into your cheek. The trick is not to chew too fast, and not to swallow the leaves themselves, but just the juices. There is an art to qat chewing, a science almost, and any chewer will be only too happy to explain all this to a beginner. (I wrote my dissertation on the science of qat chewing, so if anyone is interested in finding out more, let me know!).

After a while, conversation comes easily, and the atmosphere becomes much livelier. It isn't unusual for heated debates to spontaneously occur...I once found myself arguing over the finer points of Spanish history with someone equally as clueless about the subject...we almost came to blows over it!! Then follows the Hour of Solomon, when the chewers gradually sink into their own thoughts, the silence broken only by the occasional slurp of water, or utterance of "alhamdulillah" to excuse a random burp.

As the light began to fade, silent figures with bulging cheeks slip off into the darkness, bringing the qat chew to a close. In Ramadan, qat chewing takes place at night, not in the afternoon, so when I left Osama's house, it was well past midnight. But the streets were not empty, the city not sleeping just yet. In fact, after dark, Sana'a becomes alive with whole families out parading the streets and shopping in the suqs until just before dawn. With insomnia-inducing qat in my cheeks, I decided to join them and spent a couple of hours strolling through the suqs, which, due to power shortages, are lit by candles, something which makes Sana'a all the more enchanting at this time of year.

My lodgings were in the old city too, in an ancient mud-brick "gingerbread" house, the type which Sana'a is famous for, now converted into a hotel, the Taj Telha. My room, on the fourth floor, was basic...stone floor, wooden bed, minimal furnishings and a very basic bathroom. It cost me US$14 per night, which is expensive by Yemeni standards, but you are paying for the experience of staying in an ancient house.

I was the only guest at the Taj Telha, and many other hotels were empty. My visit was in December 2001, and world events had made sure that Yemen had been firmly struck off people's holiday itineraries. The Yemeni government also brought in new visa restrictions which made it almost impossible for any foreign visitor to gain entry to the country, so at that time, I was one of only a handful of Westerners remaining in Yemen. I saw one other Westerner, a diplomat who hurriedly got in his bullet-proof car surrounded by armed guards. But was it dangerous? No way! OK, I was stared at by everyone, and had one or two uncomfortable conversations about politics, but I never felt threatened, even though an Al-Qa'eeda base was known to be situated just 50km from Sana'a. Everyone I met was just happy to see a foreign tourist at last, as the tourism industry in Yemen has been shattered by 9/11...hotels and souvenir stalls have gone out of business, travel agencies struggling to stay open, hundreds of people put out of work. At first I was concerned that it would be too dangerous for this visit, but after the first day it became clear that Yemen was no more dangerous than it had ever been...and I still felt safer there than walking the streets of Birmingham.

Just before dawn, I was woken by drums beating. This is the traditional way to wake people so that they can enjoy breakfast before fasting begins at dawn. I took a couple of loaves of bread to the rooftop, and watched the sunrise. It was an amazing experience, watching the city wake up, muezzins striking up simultaneously from the hundreds of minarets which pierce the skyline. Down below in the streets, the faithful made their way to mosques for prayers, but soon after, the city returned to silence. Daytime in Ramadan is subdued, and many choose to sleep in the mornings. I too decided this was the best strategy, as qat had ensured I took particular interest in the ceiling that night.

With the end of midday prayers, Osama returned so we could complete our mission from the previous day. This time, there would be absolutely no dawdling in the suqs, and we joked about the silliness of getting lost in a city we both knew extremely well. So, after three hours of wrong turnings, a visit to an art gallery in a restored samsarat (where the suqs' money was stored overnight), and a brief peek at a hammam, we eventually tracked down the elusive Ali at his mill in the heart of Old Sana'a. I handed him the envelope of photos, and his face broke into an enormous grin! Foreign visitors are rare enough to be remembered for a long time, and not many Yemenis possess cameras, so a photo arriving from abroad is a memorable occasion.

I too wanted to take a couple of pictures of Ali and his famed one-eyed camel, but I was out of luck on this particular day. Ali's mill is a traditional one in which a grinder is pulled by an animal to pound the grain, and usually the animal is blindfolded in one eye to make it walk round in circles. Ali was lucky to own a one-eyed camel who walked in circles naturally, and it was him that I had come to see. But the camel had been taken to a bustaan (one of the many picturesque gardens to be found in Old Sana'a) to get some air...poor thing was too dizzy to work!