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Published: March 11th 2007
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Browsing the mini bar
Emma: "I think I'll take a whiskey"
Jean-Claude: "...and I'll have a Dry Martini" Emma: "Uh-oh! Dad's watching us! Quick, grab a coke!" Yeah man - we’ve been in Yemen!
Last Christmas and New Year dad brought us with him to Yemen. “Yemen” sounds like “Yeah man” so we first thought he was joking with us. But there is actually a country called Yemen. We think it’s a strange name for a country. But we are glad they didn’t call it “Shit man”. That would have been even more strange.
To go to Yemen we had to go via Istanbul. We had one day in Istanbul and there we had a look at the central town. It was a very nice place but right then a little too cold. We don't like cold. We have too little clothes/fur on us. We prefer visiting warmer places. But we decided that we will have to go back there some other day. We think that if we just whine and complain enough mum and dad will bring us there.
But not now because next stop for us is Yemen. Yemen is located on the southern tip of the Arabic Peninsula. Long time ago this part of the world used to be crisscrossed by important trade routes thus making it an important and rich country.
Hagia Sophya
Here we are in front of Hagia Sophya in Istanbul. We liked Istanbul. We have to ask mum and dad to take us there again. But lately Yemen has become a bit of a backwater. Trade nowadays goes elsewhere so there is no money to make there. Oil has been discovered in the neighbouring countries and made them very rich. But in Yemen only very little oil has been found so the Yemenies remained poor. This is some of the stuff we found out of this place from browsing the Internet before we left. We tried to find some Yemeni network for cuddly toys or possibly some nice toy shop in Sana'a where we could meet some Yemeni toys. Because we want to find out something about what it is like to be a toy in Yemen now that we are there. But on Internet we found nothing. Well, we had to see if we could find something while being there instead.
First we arrived in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen. It is a nice city with a pretty old town. We walked around there for a day before going to the next place - Wadi Hadramawt. Wadi means river valley or canyon. But we didn’t see a drop of water there so we think that was ironic. It’s all desert!
But in
Old town in Sana'a
Typical houses in the old town in Sana'a look like this. the desert we found a town called Shibam. It is also called Manhattan of the Desert because the houses in Shibam are so high. While travelling we made friends with Mr Hankey. Mr Hankey is a cuddly toy who lives in the USA. In fact he lives on the real Manhattan in New York City. He says the houses in Shibam are not even nearly as high as the houses in New York. We are not sure if we can really believe Mr Hankey because the houses in Shibam are so high that we can hardly imagine houses even higher than that. But Mr Hankey insist that he has seen higher houses in the USA. Well, we guess we have to go and visit him to make sure he isn’t lying.
In Wadi Hadramawt we travelled around a few days seeing old towns, palaces, mosques and a lot of dust and sand. Dad says we didn’t actually go there to see the dust and sand. But we can’t figure out why all the dust and sand is there if you are not supposed to see it. But we are happy to know that the sand was not the purpose
Houses in Sana'a
These are some typical houses in Sana'a's old town to go there because sand itch so b ad and it sticks in Jean-Claude's fur.
We took the bus back to Sana’a and travelled in the north of Yemen for two days. We were supposed to see a gun market. That would have been fun, but it was closed so we couldn’t go there. But we found guns that were not on any market. When we came to the big city in the north, Sa’da, we were welcomed by the local police. They wanted to make sure we had a safe stay while we were there. It is the first time we have experienced that the local police force provide body guards to visiting cuddly toys. We have asked our friends and they say it has never happened to them either. Now we don’t really think it was necessary to bring in Sa’da’s finest to take care of us. Dad is so big and strong so he can do that just as good. But the police had guns and they let us play with them! That was fun! And dad has a lot of interesting and funny things we like to play with. But guns he hasn't got any.
Shibam
In Shibam the houses are so high that the town is called Manhattan of the Desert. But our friend, Mr Hankey, lives on Manhattan and he says the houses there are even higher... In the end of our trip we went on a tour of the south and the west of Yemen. We there found something George Bush has been looking for a long time - Al Qaidah. It’s not so hard to find it, Mr Bush. They even have big signs telling you where to find them. Well you have to read Arabic of course. But we found it just by having a good map and a driver who knew the local language.
Later we went to a town on the coast where there are many boats. The boats are mostly made of wood and very colourful painted. Similar boats have been sailing in the Red Sea for many hundreds of years. A long time ago they were mostly used for bringing in goods from faraway countries. Now they are mainly used as fishing boats. We think the boats were nice. We’d like to buy one or two and take with us home. But dad didn’t let us. He said it is not possible since we don’t speak Arabic and the boats only understand Arabic. Well, that makes sense. We are not going to learn an entire language just for
Yemeni man with cuddly toys
Not only dad carries around cuddly toys. Apparantly so does this Yemeni man. the sake of a boat. We don't want the boat to feel lonely just because it has nobody to talk to. So it is probably better that it stays here where it belongs.
Before returning to Sana’a we passed through a very beautiful mountainous area known as the Haraz Mountains. We first thought the mountains were called Harass Mountains. It sounded funny to us. What, are the mountains unfriendly or something? But then we realised our mistake. It’s Haraz not Harass.
Well, this was pretty much all we had to say about our trip In Yemen. We haven’t had time to post this entry until now in spite that we have been home for two months. We actually had time to make one more journey since then. We will post an entry on that ASAP.
Until then, take care.
Emma and Jean-Claude
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Yemenia
non-member comment
Nice
This is hystericalllllll!!!! I laughed sooo hard! Nice story line and characters. I'm Yemeni by the way and this was seriously the funniest lil' documentary ever.