it smells different 

Friday, March 25, 2011

Back to Bab Al-Yemen

Hello All,

I have quite a bit of catching up to do so let's start with my third visit to Yemen. The trip was for only a few days but I did manage to go on a lovely day trip to Mahweet and also visit some of my favourite places, like Bab Al-Yemen and Dar Al Hajar. I also got to see an old mountain top village in Sana'a that used to be inhabited by Yemeni Jews.. as well as a few other places. I will try to upload as much as I can in the next few days.

Here we are entering Old Sana'a from a side street

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This is how they make sesame oil in Old Sana'a. The camel just goes around and around crushing the sesame seeds.

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This is just inside Bab Al Yemen.. things are always busy here

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I think these guys were selling raisins.

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The sisters

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There are almost too many jewelry shops..

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Here are some Jambiyas

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I think we're in the fabric section here..

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I think I tried one of these dates

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Here's a little kid selling tobacco leaves. He put on this serious pose just for me :)

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And here we are going up on to the roof of one of the art galleries. I went up this same roof when I was there in 2006.

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It's a really nice spot to catch the sunset.

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Here we have a Yemeni woman building a stone wall

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Some dudes having a chat.. Yeah I know my descriptions are all stating the obvious in this post.

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You can see the giant mosque that Ali Abdallah Saleh built out there in the distance. It seems every Arab ruler has to build a gigantic mosque these days.

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More jewelry!

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We were quite peckish after all the the jewelry haggling and sunset watching so we ventured off to find some food.. Next time I'd like to try the Karot juice

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We ended up in this little square. There were some guys baking bread.. a guy constantly pumping out glasses of hot tea and another guy bbqing some kababs. What more could you ask for?!

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Kabab dude

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Yum yum

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These kids approved and gave us a thumbs up

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Yemenis love to decorate their motorcycles.. Actually they love to decorate all forms of transport and throw sheep skin in or on everything. It must be comfortable.

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These guys were really friendly. Apparently they make the best bread in Sana'a.

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With our bellies full we wandered back to the van.. here's an old house that used to belong to a Jewish Yemeni family (you can still make out the star of David). Yemeni Jews are all but extinct in Yemen now but you still see a lot of old Jewish houses.

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Stay tuned.. tomorrow I'll try and add some more.