West Asia

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Our new home and killing a sheep

Marie had sent her feelers out for possible accommodation.  This morning we got a phone call from a Yemeni friend of hers (and her French husband) who had a place available.  Instead of settling into the nitty-gritty of the rental issue, we went out for lunch … then went to the house where we settled […]

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Happy Birthday Kitty

Above:  Hello Kitty’s birthday! Today, being the first of November, is Hello Kitty’s Birthday.  Not that I’m a fan of that Japanese cartoon cat.  But I came across a picture of it in Hong Kong saying that it was born in London on 1 November!  Why London?!?! It is only my second night back in […]

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Homeless

Above:  YER40000 or USD200. Makes my bum look fat when it is in my wallet. It was an early start for me in Dubai to catch the 0710 Emirates flight to Sana’a.  Upon landing at 0900 Marie met me at the airport and took me to her new school where she had a room for […]

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Short night-stop

I had booked a night into a relatively cheap Panorama Deira Hotel in Dubai for my overnight.  With the scheduled flights arriving from JFK at 1945 and departing for Sana’a at 0710, it would have been a little cruel to oneself to spend the night at the airport after a sleepless night flight.  But it […]

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Homeward bound

After breakfast at the Ras Hotel, we taxied to the airport.  I was homeward bound.  Back to Sana’a, my home-away-from-home, for an overnight.  Then Dubai overnight, Hong Kong and hopefully Auckland thereafter on standby. The Ethiopian Airlines B737 was chocka to Djibouti but nearly empty for the second leg to Sana’a.  The transit in Djibouti […]

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Disrupted travel plans

Today I detected a schedule change in our Ethiopian Airlines flights.  We’re due to fly out to Addis Ababa tomorrow.  But the change affected our final flight from Addis back to Sana’a.  We would now be returning to Sana’a two days earlier on 25 Jan rather than 27 Jan. I had been worried about being […]

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Christmas Day

Merry Christmas!  And Alhamdulillah, the street are finally clean … the street cleaners seem to have had 7 days off for Eid.  But the bakery is still closed  🙁 Being Christmas, I decided to cook rendang for dinner and inviting some friends.  Rendang is of course the dry beef curry popular in Malaysia-Indonesia.  Mmmmm.  Out of necessity […]

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On the fifth day of Eid

Many shops are still closed.  We can’t get a good choice of fruits or vegetables, we have to go further for water, drinks or yoghurt.  And our next-door bakery is closed; fresh Yemeni bread is good enough to get out of bed for.  Many restaurants, eateries and internet places are closed too. To make matters […]

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Eid Mubarak, your doctor is here

Today, being Eid, we got invited to our teacher’s (Adnan) house.  We were treated to a Yemeni lunch … Marie even ate her friend the goat!  Life is still very traditional in Yemen … his wife did not join us for lunch because of my presence as a non-related male … if it had been […]

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The goats have got our origami

It is the day before Eid … the streets are busy.  And the rubbish truck didn’t appear to make it last night. We put our bags of rubbish (in shopping bags, not the large sacks) on the street corner for clearance last night … yes including a bag of used toilet paper (as I call it […]

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