Yemen

Wow! What a place!
Very interesting to visit and feel the true arabic spirit.

why not?

The Tihamah (“hot lands”) form a very arid and flat coastal plain. Despite the aridity, the presence of many lagoons makes this region very marshy and a suitable breeding ground for malarial mosquitoes. There are also extensive crescent-shaped sand dunes. The evaporation in the Tihama is so great that streams from the highlands never reach the sea, but they do contribute to extensive groundwater reserves; today these are heavily exploited for agricultural use.

The Tihamah ends abruptly at the escarpment of the western highlands. This area, now heavily terraced to meet the demand for food, receives the highest rainfall in Arabia, rapidly increasing from 100 mm (4 inches) per year to about 760 mm (30 inches) in Ta’izz and over 1,000 mm (40 inches) in Ibb. Agriculture here is very diverse, with such crops as sorghum dominating, but cotton and many fruit trees are also grown, with mangoes being the most valuable. Temperatures are hot in the day but fall dramatically at night. There are perennial streams in the highlands but these never reach the sea because of high evaporation in the Tihama.        

Unlike most other people of the Arabian Peninsula who have historically been nomads or semi-nomads, Yemenis are almost entirely sedentary and live in small villages and towns scattered throughout the highlands and coastal regions.

Yemenis are divided into two principal Islamic religious groups: 42-48% Shi’a and 49-55% Sunni. This is broken up as: 30-40% of the Zaidi order of Shi’a Islam, 8-15% of the Ja’fari and Isma’ili orders of Shi’a Islam, and 55% of the Shafi’i order of Sunni Islam.                

I’M GoNnA Give U a Proverb
(( Don’t Judge a Book By It’s Cover ))
U should Discover It by Ur Self …

I’ve been to 25 countries so far, some of them several times, and YEMEN was unique. I highly recommend the place. It’s not highly developped urban so some back packing might be involved.

I lived here for two years when I was a kid way back in the 1980s. It was beautiful, and all the people were quite friendly, even those with automatic weapons (seriously!). All I can say is that I hope it will someday become a place that people are able to visit again.

I AM A SEAMAN. I HAVE BEEN HERE

I’ve been to several countries in the Middle East, but none of the Gulf states yet. I wanted to visit Yemen after I saw 2000’s “Rules of Engagement”, though I found out later that the Yemen sequences were actually shot in Morocco!

December 2004. Went to visit dear friends for 17 days over Christmas break. Amazing! So many good memories. The food and the people were fantastic. Only 1 anti-American experience. MOst folks were very kind and hospitable. I’d go back again.