Yemen, Kat and Kidnapping - Travel Ideas
By Tom Thumb, Posted Dec 11, 2006
Sections: Intro Albania Cuba Central Asia The Pacific Bluefields, Nicaragua Colombia The Guyanas Unknown India Iran Yemen More Travel Ideas
 |
Yemen is a peninsula on the other side of the landmass that includes the oil-rich U.A.E and Saudi Arabia. God seemed to have overlooked Yemen, however, when he gave out the black gold and so it continues to exist as a rather poor country in the shadow of its rich cousins.
Yemen maintains in parts an old Arabic feel, not a million miles away from 1001 Nights and is probably one of the friendliest places to hang out in the Arabic world. If you learn some Arabic, you can have a merry time here drinking coffee in the suq, walking along the coast and developing a healthy qat habit, the herb which makes you content with doing absolutely nothing.
Tourism to Yemen dropped off dramatically with kidnappings in the 90’s although hostages were apparently treated with great deference. As one Yemeni diplomat put it:
“I don’t see what all the fuss is about — didn’t the tourists come here to experience real Yemeni life and culture? And here they are getting it for free…”
Tom Thumb’s personal website
and you can find him on Facebook, too.
Hand to Mouth to India 
Hand to Mouth to India is the tale of when I hitchhiked from England to India at the age of 20 with no money at all.
Passing through England, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and finally arriving in Goa where I slept on the beach all season and wrote the book.
Buy it on the Kindle or on the Nook
Tales of a Road Junky 
Tales of a Road Junky covers the last 12 years of my journeys around the world. telling the tale of coming of age in the Goa trance scene, rescuing foreign prisoners in Delhi, selling fake Rolex watches in the street in Tokyo, getting into trouble with the medicine mafia in Brazil and delving deep into the heart of Israelity in the Promised Land.
Buy it on the Kindle or on the Nook
Bozo and the Storyteller
Imagine you, the room you’re in, the planet and everyone in it were all just a Story, figments of imagination in the mind of a Storyteller. But with Hoomanity set on self-destruction, the Storyteller’s health begins to fail and if he should die, what would become of the Story that he tells?
All hope for our world lies in the hands of a 9 year old boy and a foolish Bloon…
Read More
Towering Monuments to Human Folly
Travel can be a reminder of the aspirant genius of humans all over the world. Wherever people can be found, the drive to surpass and to exceed can also be ...
A Caribbean Scam
Mr Lombardi was first introduced to me by my partner, Mike. At that time, our office consisted of a ship’s container with one end hacked off and a large ...
Overland Through the Ex-Soviet Republics in an Old Army Truck?
Neither had we. Then we bumped into the guys at Soviet Truck and they got us thinking about this vast tract of land which for most travelers is an unknown ...
