Mud-elling etc..

BUILD ME A MUD PALACE
Like the one in Seyoun, entirely made of mud and rising to 5 stories overlooking the town. It was built in the 1800ish and used as a garrison. It is now a museum with some interesting facts about the wadi area, such as how the local money, the real, was coined during the austrian influence. Or to see the old alphabet used before the arabic alphabet...



And it also has a magnificent view of the whole town of Seyoun, with its minarets that are all different. Locals who emigrated to Saudi Arabia, Indonesia or other for oil or business return successfully and erect those minarets to thank God and give to the community. One could argue schools and hospitals could be useful too, but faith is a good thing here.

Another mud palace is in Tarim, where a prominent business family who worked in Indonesia came back and built a whole structure inspired by Indonesian craft and architecture. Unfortunately we could not visit inside as there was a funeral and the whole town went.




BUILD ME A MUD CITY

This is Shibam, a site which is on the World heritage list of UNESCO
The place was nicknamed Manhattan of the desert, as 9 stories high buildings were built entirely in mud. There is only one gate to this city overlooking the river bed. It is used to monitor any entrance and exit. Like in the traditional houses in the area, women and men each have their floor level. Cattle and storage rooms is on the ground floor. The top roof terrace is used for tea or coffee break. And it is always quite breezy inside due to the various internal open court and windows. The river bed itself serves as playground to the kids and goat and camel herds.

A CITY ON THE ROCK
Tired of mud constructions? Try the rock high rises of Al Hajarain, a city built on a bald rock overlooking the wadi.

This is unique in the region because the houses are actually made of rock as well, not mud. It's pretty scary to climb up the roads that swivel around the bald mountain. But it has a nice view up there and there are long staircase down the mountain for those who are not afraid of staring into the void while climbing down.

Speaking of rock, the driver was playing the backstreet boyz at some point and I missed Bambi dearly. Please, no stone throwing! Speaking of another rock, here is Haed Aljazail, another mud city perched on some unreasonable stone...the humans were unreasonable, the stone just happened to be there, half hanging out of the mountain...

This is a view from the desert plateau across from it, where some ricj guy, probably from the Al Kaaf family is building a huge resort. He even finished building the fence, using local materials: rocks. He also built a hospital and a place where he can have shows done on that plateau...seems that whole piece of flat big rock is entirely his...

Anyway, down the plateau we had lunch at this cute restaurant.

No need to add this was also made of mud....it was

The face of the desert

Forget the cliche of the sand dunes. I did not see those. After all, the trip was to be in a valley, where an intermittent river would form after rainfall. Instead, picture a long sinuous valley bordered by very high plateaux that are similar to Cape Town's Table Mountain. And you get the region of Hadramout.





It rained a couple of days ago and the river bed is blessed with some water, and some crops are an eerie green along the road.

Along the straight new roads, water station sparsely sprout out of the beige ground, celebrating and nurturing the idea of water to the thirsty and drained travelers. Truly a life saving station.

We also came across many goats herds, escorted by their lovely shepherdess, kinda dressed for Halloween.

Minarets towers in all shape and colors signal human civilization. Minaret also travels by truck on the long desert road.

On the plateaux, the immense flat dry surface stretches to the horizon, hiding the abrupt cliffs onto the valley.

The sunset can be viewed in higher grounds to get a view of the palms trees in the wadi and the sand storm raised by the breeze.

And finally hidden charming oasis of rest and peace cater to tired travelers.

On Weekend

I should have had a graduation ceremony, because I can now read...supposedly, in Arabic, when they bother to put the vowels on the words. Instead walked home through the souk one more time, taking some pictures like some vulgar tourist:

Observe the man walking up the hill, like any yemeni, he is wearing the traditional jambia, a mighty knife he keeps in a decorated belt near his ....belly, to protect his....belly:)

And here is one of the many shops selling the accessories for men: jambia belts.

And to finish, a nice picture of the old city, seen behind its big wall:

Since my classes finished (yes, short but intensive) I am not sure when I will be back in the old city. On the other hand I need a REAL vacation...days of doing nothing...and not waking up with an alarm clock.....

High...

Game: Not that i have tried qat or any popular local hallucinogens. Just that having a glimpse out of the window of the laundry room, here what I saw:


Spirits: And from the bedroom, I can see the muezzin that wakes us up at 03:00am for prayers...they are pretty hard core on prayers.

Voltage: Finally,I barely completed my homework when the electricity went off. So we had a candlelit dinner and a game of spiderweb, and sudoku.

Starting school

This morning was nerve wrecking as I was supposed to go to class by myself, like a big girl (not fat, just big). Took a cab which had plastic covered seats in case i vomit inside because of car sickness. Given how they drive over here, it is expected. Then I was dropped off at the entrance of the Old City (Baab el Yemen) and had to go through the souk by myself, following a map my Mommy drew. I managed to get to the school 15min in advance, so they put me in the kitchen to wait for 10:00.

I must stress that the city is in altitude so climbing regular stairs leaves me breathless. The school kitchen was on the second floor, after climbing old style stairs made for giants. I waited 30min, then at 10:10 I called the director of the school asking where my teacher was after seeing all the other students being picked up by their teacher. He told me to go upstairs, on the 3rd floor where my teacher was waiting for me. He basically forgot he sent me to the kitchen.

Anyway that was enough exercise for my poor legs, lungs and brain...tomorrow, class is at 08:00..........

Yeah Man !*

*coined by Hobbes

Finally landed safely on the second try! We almost landed the first time but at the last minute, ie after the tires were out, the pilot decided to turn on the engines again and take off...mainly because a violent wind was shaking the plane, and lifted all the dust around so ze could not see anything, the sky and everything we stared at was red yellowish fog.

But the trip was comfortable enough, except that in the new fleet of Emirates, the seats are higher than usual, meaning the height challenged like me could not touch the floor with my feet, and the footrest could not be used during take offs and landings. Quite painful then. I also cursed for 6 hours after a party of 3 guys in front of me who kept drinking and got really drunk and really loud. May they be sterile.

So far I am getting lost finding the rooms I want in the house. Imagine when I have to walk through the souk in the old city to go to my Arabic classes tomorrow...