Arrival in Yemen

Yesterday I arrived at my language school in Yemen with minimal hiccups. My first problem was that I was to leave on Wednesday but on Tuesday night my ticket still had not yet arrived via Fedex. They claimed they tried to deliver it to my house but no one was home on Monday and then they told me they didn't deliver it on Tuesday because I had requested them to keep it at the depot for me to pick up?? No matter after a few phone calls they organised for the courier to meet me in the morning at 7am at the airport. He was there and then I flew to Sydney at 8am.

A word of caution that I guess is quite obvious. Don't pack too heavy, even though you might be leaving for 1 year certain airlines (MALAYSIAN!!) don't have a sympathetic side. I had 32 kgs and I realise that's considerably over my 20kg limit but Singapore Airlines has always allowed me 10kgs over the limit without a comment in my past travels to Egypt. Like so many people do I was anticipating moving weight into my hand luggage and into my jacket pockets etc. but the lady at Malaysian Airlines treated me like I was baby seal killer. Seriously it was so lame. I wish I had of taken note of her name so I could write a letter of complaint to the airline. So to make things easier I posted some non-essential books via Australia Post back to Brisbane for a measely $27, measely compared to the $600 excess baggage allowance this lady insisted she must charge me. I returned later weighing only 26kg. This did not please her however because she suspected I had just moved my weight to carry on and she spoke to me as though I was a 6 year old and said I'm putting a note on your boarding pass that you are only allowed two carry on items. By a sad triple twist of fate I met the dragon lady once more as I boarded the plane. Again she spoke to me the same way. Perhaps she had a dose of racism because my passport is full of stamps for Egypt and Lebanon and my destination was Yemen.

I really looked terrible that day. I had only got 30mins sleep on the previous night and only had a few hours on the previous two nights with all the packing/moving out I needed to do. I'd also been crying pretty much non-stop for 2 hours because I was leaving my girlfriend for a whole year. Before I boarded I sat opposite a young lady destined for Amsterdam (something I overheard while queuing for check-in) and she was looking at me, perhaps because I looked like a druggie or because I looked incredibly sad. I was totally tired so I dozed almost instantly and then I awoke and everyone seemed to have boared but me and the Amsterdam lady was now sitting next to me. That was strange, like I had blinked and 50 people had left the room and one person was now sitting beside me. Anyway that was it I was on the plane. When I sat down I read a beautifully written letter my girlfriend gave to open and a card. Again I had a big teary and then slept. Malaysian airlines has awesome in flight entertainment. Movies, music are both on demand and there's stacks of them. I ran out of time and my eyes were too sore to watch more than the Sentinel. I fell asleep listening to James Blunt. I landed in KL no worries, got my luggage and got through customs without a disturbance. KL customs/immigration are really nice actually. They don't sit their enjoying their position of authority like in other airports and they say hello and are friendly. One guy even said cheers mate to me :)

Once into the arrival hall I was bombarded by guys trying to get me to take their hotel reservation. The cheapest I saw was 100 Malaysia ringget which is about $35 I think. However I had no idea if that was a good price and didn't yet know the exchange rate or know how far the hotel was from sites I'd want to check out. So instead I hopped on the KLIA Ekspress to which cost 35R which is $12.50AU.
BTW unless I state otherwise from now on a dollar is an Aussie dollar.
That train was very modern and great. I travels something crazy like 50km into KL with no stops in only 28 minutes. The train leaves every 15. Gotta love that frequency and efficiency (yeah Queensland Rail if you're reading this no one catches trains in Brisbane cuz they come to infrequently!). After that I caught an easy and cheap taxi ride into China Town to the beckpekkers. I like how in Malaysia you can hear how they pronouce words by the spelling they have eg. tren for train, ekspress for express and there were stacks of other examples which escape my mind for now. The backpackers cost a mere 25R for the night and then only 12.50R for a late 6pm check out the next day. I think it was called the Green Grocer backpackers and for a place to sleep it was perfect. However there was no internet access or hot water but it was that hot and humid that hot water is unnecessary and I was able to use the internet cafe down the road at a more expensive backpackers which charged 35R a night. The next day I walked right into an ellaborate Malaysian black jack 21 scam which was so embarrasing I won't repeat it now. Luckily I avoided getting ripped off and I learnt a lesson... don't be stupid in a foreign country!

I had some tasty pork jerky in China town and loaded my hand luggage to the brim with cheap dvds. I repacked my luggage and tidied everything up and then arrived 30 minutes after the KLCC / twin-towers / Petronas towers had closed their observation level for the day. Again the train system was surperbly efficient and cheap. I had Nandos and it was a huge serving and possibly even tastier than Aussie Nandos. No signs of bird-flu so far ;p The towers were worth the trip just to look up at. They are 82 stories and 420 metres. I literally felt like I was falling over when I looked all the way to the top.

I was the lone whitey on the flight to Sana'a on Yemenia. Not so surprisingly I had some strange looks. The flight with Yemenia was quite unpleasant due to turbulence and rough piloting. We had long periods of turbulence which woke me to say my prayers. Yeah it could have just been bad weather but it's more likely that other pilots would climb to a different altitude or do something else to avoid turbulence as a courtesy to their passengers. My other complaint was that following take-offs the pilot climbed quite savagely and then he banked too hard which caused the plane to dip slightly. I'm quite sure none of this was a real danger to us as passengers but it was unpleasant none-the-less. The plane itself seemed very modern. Although there was no personal in-flight entertainment and 2 English communal movies the lights and the colouring of the interior plastic lead me to believe the plane was only a year or two old. The food was ok, it did the job. On the flight there were several women that were fully veiled except for a gap for their eyes. I won't comment on whether it's repressive for women to be dressed like this but I have to say the women look very beautiful in this dress. The younger, tinier wives seemed to be the one who were fully vieled except for their eyes and the older wives had their whole face showing. It had me wondering how young the young ones were and I guess as young as 14. One who sat next to me with another wife and her husband actually breast fed a child in public. Not that I oppose that but it seemed ironic considering that even her forehead was covered.

Arrival at Sana'a was smooth. The pilot seemed better at landing than take-off. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the rude pushing that goes on in Egypt does not happen in Yemen. People are courteous and respectful. At the visa counter I had difficulty explaining to the attendant that I did not need to buy a $55US visa because YLC already had one waiting for me there. He did not understand me and my Arabic was probably not even as good as his poor English comprehension. Eventually a knight in a police type uniform walked into his booth and handed him the YLC organised visa as promised. At customs there was some complaints that I did not know the YLC address but they let me through anyway. I was immediately met by Ahmed from YLC as I left with my luggage and he recognised me immediately by my passport photo which he'd seen. Probably not all that surprising considering I was the only whitey on the flight. He was a good driver and the roads in Sana'a were much more smooth the roads in Cairo back from the airport. The streets although poor looking are not covered with garbage as in Cairo. I arrived at YLC in my room at 4am and slept until 10:30am. My room is small and basic, a little like a prison cell in size but it's fine for what I need. Everyone who I met greeted me with Arabic and continued to use Arabic even after my Arabic was poor. In Egypt we would have been speaking English after the initial greetings.

So in a lot of ways Sana'a is exactly what I hoped it would be. The lack of English speaking is even better than I had hoped for. The salta I had for lunch yesterday was incredibly delicious and the bread light and tasty too. I'll write more later but for now I'm off to enjoy this experience.