Mum decided to book three tickets and we were packed and off. Destination Yemen or The Wild West of Arabia as the media call it. The first plane took us to Dubai where we had to wait till early morning to board the second plane to Yemen. It was early evening and Mum rang her childhood friend but he was out of the country, so she rang my cousin Mo who picked us up and took us to diner.

The restaurant he took us to was a typical Yemeni restaurant, very different to any I had been to. Women and men are segregated so we were taken to a private room upstairs. There was only a carpet on the floor that was very distinctive with red and white stitching. So we sat down and Mo, my cousin, ordered the food. A large plastic mat was put on the carpet and masses of different dishes were put on the mat. I ate calamari till I nearly burst. As I walked into the restaurant, the scent in the air was a sour smell of petrol and I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. Mo took us for a drive around town as my sister and I had never been to Dubai. It was all very modern and impressive, but all I wanted was to see the desert.

It was dawn, as I was on the plane en route to Yemen as I saw the sun rising it made me very tired as I was watching it. About fifteen minutes into the flight, Mum told me we were over the Empty Quarter. The sands were like an ocean, rippled with dunes. The sunlight and the shadows of the dune made the desert sands look like they were of every shade of yellow, orange and red. I could not turn away from the window, the sights were magical.

In about four hours, we landed in Sana’a airport. There were armed soldiers everywhere carrying machine guns. We walked from the plane to the terminal and the first I heard was a buzzing on the window panes as well as there were thousands of dead flies on the floor and it looked like sweets that was scattered. The taxi that took us to the hotel was a small mini bus, and the driver had a big lump of something he was chewing in his cheek. Mum said it was a plant called Gat and they chewed as a stimulant. The hotel was luxurious, with marble floors, coffee and cake shop, air conditioning and no flies. Actually I did not see many flies for the rest of the trip so maybe the flies at the terminal was the gathering point for Yemen’s flies. Our room was on the fourteenth floor and the view of the city was amazing. Sanaa is the capital of Yemen and it is built-in a massive crater.

We met with an uncle who showed us around the newer parts of town and them we met with his wives and their children. Two days later, we went to stay with an aunt in a town called Radha. The road to Rad-ah was through some very high mountains and they had no barriers on the edges of the roads, it felt unsafe because it felt like as soon as the car drove round the corner it felt like I was going to tip-off the mountain. My sister was absolutely petrified, and spent nearly the whole drive there, with her head down and her eyes firmly shut. Aden is has a big harbour and is the second biggest town in Yemen, and that was our next place to visit. We stayed in a hotel that had a private beach and all the rooms were chalets. It was wonderful. I made friends with the workers and they would take me out on their jet skis and their boats with the tourists. In the evening we would play football, volleyball and I taught them cricket. One of the guys, went snorkelling every morning and he took me with him. I caught a squid one time and he took it home and got his wife to make it into calamari and brought it back to me still hot at lunch time. My sisters, flip-flop kept falling of her foot and she kept complaining and it gave me a headache. She thought there were sharks waiting to eat her, and every time we went into the sea, she would get to about mid-thigh deep and then climb onto Mum’s shoulders.

 

I really enjoyed this holiday, met tons of family, saw many new and different things and except for the chicken business, would love to go again. I enjoyed the journey but at first I wasn’t really sure about the holiday but after I tried a few stuff it turned out to be my favourite holiday I have ever had.