Yemen

I have been to Yemen for a business trip for 11 days.I visited the capital city Sana'a and the port city Aden.I looked to me a poor arabic country. In Sana'a there are houses with yemeni style.There is a old city and it is surrounded with walla and it is now uınder protection of UNESCO.

When the driver picked me from the airport, I asked the driver (as the all Turks do when they go to an old ottoman land) if there was any mosques, casstles, graveyard etc left from the Turks. He said a short NO. When we come to the old city ,he pointed a mosque and said "this is a turkish mosque"

In Sana'a the people are carriying big  knife called" Jambia" on their bellies.And you will be surprised to see almost everone has fat right cheek. They are chewing a plant called gut. As I was told the country is developing rapidly as new petr'oil resources has been started to process. You can see that change at Goverment buildings, and with the big mosque goverment is being built. And the police cars are brand new jeeps.But ordinary cars and the taxis are trash, mostly older than 30 years old mercedec and japanese cars. As I guess they are the cars rich saudis sold them. It is very difficult to find a taxi whose driver is not chewing gut. And there is a big tgraffic jam.The horns will give you a big headache. But dont worry, they dont drive fast.You must be lucky if the taxi is not broken even.

You can find some good restaurants in Sana'a where you can eat delicious ocean fishes. I can say the big fish I ate at an restaurant was the best in my life.

Althought there are rich people, most of the people are poor.When you want to load or unload your trailer, it is difficult to refuse someone coming to you and help you. I was putting my bgs to X-Ray machine from machine and 3 men started to help me as if I was disable. And then opening their hands saying "bahsis". Even when putting my 2 bags to checin in counter, I had to shout at one of them.I was fed up giving out tips.

The adventure seekers can be impressed with the mountains of Yemen.In the Arab peninsula, Yemen is the only place where you can find mountains. I met many turkish businessmen in the hotel. All they said was"Yemen has started exporting petrol recently and in the next a few years it will develope. But I saw the goverment started to build a big and poshy mosque first,instead of schools, universites..

The old city

Entrance of the old city

The beach in front of the Sheraton Aden. It was good to be swiming in december.