Travel Tips

MP3 soundtrack: 'Maybe Tomorrow' by Stereophonics

It was still early morning when I flew into Say’un airport. Being tight-fisted, I shouldered my pack and ignored the touting taxi drivers and walked the road to town which would be my base for the next five days.

Say’un is set amid the winding Wadi Hadramawt, the largest wadi in Arabia extending 160km from east top west and feels more like a desert canyon.

On entering town I came across a spectacular mud brick palace overlooking the square and sat at a tea shop to watch the town come to life as the sun pushed higher over the horizon.

Again there seemed to be no foreigners around. In one month since leaving Sana’a nI’d only spoken to one other independent traveller and I felt it a shame that so few visited.

As usual it was only a minute or two before a few locals wandered over to join me at my table and welcome me to their town, ask where I was from, did I like Tony Blair, am I alone and was I a Moslem. I didn’t need to know too much Arabic to get by as the questions were always the same.