03/08/2010, Aden, Yemen
Eating, Yemen style.
Negotiating the new restaurants, food and eating out rules of a new country is always a mixture of fun and uncertainty. It has been no different in Yemen some things the same some things different than other countries. Here roti is not flat bread but French stick type bread and flat bread is called hobbs, that is how it sounds I don't know how its spelt.
The first day we were in Al Mukalla was the first day of eating out in Yemen, no restaurants at Ra's Sharma. On our first day over half of Mukalla town was closed as there seemed to be a national strike on. After traipsing around finding laundries, money changers and functioning ATM machines we were a hungry group with no obvious restaurant in sight. Someone asked a nearby man where was a place we could eat. He took us down any alley through to the next road to a small restaurant. We would have missed it, there were no tell tale tables outside and no signage, not that any of us could read Arabic! He stayed and acted as translator and waiter to make sure we all got what we wanted. There wasn't a big choice, chicken and rice or egg and cheese sandwiches, the locals seemed to know to ask for other things but we got a choice of two. The draw of westerners eating local attracted an increase of customers, I am sure the takings would have been up for the day. As we finished our lunch our kind guide disappeared off down the road to carry on with whatever he did normally.
Cruisers know how to scope out a town quickly and by next morning the VHF was abuzz with instructions about where to find bakeries, internet, functioning ATMs etc. Mahe our agent had a town outskirts tour arranged for the afternoon. So we had the morning to wander around the old town and find lunch. Joanne and Selwyn from Morning Cloud had found the ice cream shop, a bakery full of hot crisp French sticks and talked to the only other tourist in town about the best restaurant in town. He was Italian and they know their food so we took the recommendation seriously. By the time we wandered through the old town it was lunchtime and there was the fish restaurant we were looking for. The place was still shut for midday prayers but we waited a few minutes and it opened. Eleven of us sat down at a long table by the busiest roundabout in town, the waiter covered the table with newspaper. Newspaper is what is used for table cloths here, this particular one was The Straits Times from Singapore, any thought of reading up to date news went by the way when we saw the date, June 2008! The benefit of newspaper table cloths are many, good for wiping hands on without offending anyone, you can tear a bit off to hold your hot glass of tea so it doesn't burn and there is no laundry to do. The menu here was one thing fish and flat bread. The bread and fish are cooked in an oven similar to a tandori oven. Huge round flat breads are slapped on the side of the oven and pieces of fish are lowered down into the oven to cook to perfection. A small side dish of, I think, cucumber, tomato and yogurt dip. Rod Heikell talked of this meal when we met him in Galle, except when he was here over ten years ago they were cooking whole fish on the side of the oven now its just pieces. A moist chunk of fish each and a huge bread shared between two with the dip made a fantastic meal. The bread was so big that there was no room to read the newspaper even if it had been up to date.
After our tour around Mukalla we had dinner in a chicken restaurant. Rotisserie chickens are a popular food in this part of the world and like the fish they know how to cook them so they stay moist and succulent. There was a choice between chicken and rice or chicken and bread. We decided on rice and as were not really hungry after our big lunch, Alan and I shared one meal. One meal was half a chicken and a large plate of rice and a salad. When we saw the size of it we were pleased we had only ordered one. Although those who ordered one meal each had a doggy bag of chicken to take home for lunch the next day.
Eating out is a male thing here ... well most things are male things here. So it always causes a bit of a stir when we arrive in a place to eat, men and woman eating together. A very few places have family rooms where woman eat, I think that is the intention as we haven't seen a woman eating out yet. The ice cream place we stopped at on our tour had a family room and a mens room... no not a toilet, a mens eating room. We could have done with a toilet there as well but no such luck. Finding toilets for women is another story all on its own.
Here in Aden the restaurants are a little different and a little the same. Newspaper on the table, hot sweet tea in glasses, egg and cheese sandwiches on fresh rolls and hobbs /flat bread to eat with. Did I mention no spoons or forks, just fingers and remember the right hand only. The first place we ate at here we just went in for tea and an afternoon snack. Well the snack turned into dinner, two things on the menu this time. The choice was between a dish of hot tasty beans and a dish of hot meat and vegetables to be scooped up with bread. The beans or meat were cooked in a flurry of flames and served in the small frying pans they were cooked in. Newspaper also saves the table from being scorched. There was 8 of us so why not try a dish of each, by the time we got to the end of the first 2 dishes we decided to order some more then with all the talking, eating, reordering, talking to the locals on the next table. Day had turned into night and we found we had had dinner. A delicious dinner for two for $NZ3.
At night the towns come to life, the restaurants spill onto the street, vegetable markets provide a splash of colour in the night light, fish glisten under street lights, huge pieces of yellow fin tuna are sliced into chunks to be taken home to cook, the smell of fresh bread wafts out of small bakeries. The quat sellers sit on their iron beds selling the leaf and stuffing their own cheeks with the mind numbing drug that all the men here seem to spend the family money on.
The only thing is I can't find a decent cup of coffee anywhere except on Tuatara.
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03/08/2010, Aden Yemen
8th February 2010
Aden, Yemen.
The high volcanic jagged lava flows of Aden provide a dramatic backdrop to the harbour. The barren hard black hills are a perfect acoustic backboard for the muezzin calls from the many mosques in the anchorage area of Tawahi. Friday morning the call to prayer filled the air for hours, soothing gentle musical voices, almost relaxing until the sermons began. On Friday, the holy day, the sermons from many mosques seem to be broadcast out over the town. These sermons, last Friday, became a harsh cacophony of noise as each one became louder trying to over lay their neighboring sermons. Saturday it was back to just the musical calls to prayer several times a day, thank goodness.
We arrived in Aden last Thursday after a 2 day motor from Al Mukalla , through what is considered to be "pirate alley". 49deg to 47deg is the area considered to be the most dangerous. For our little group this was the area we saw the least boats until the last morning when the fishing boats out of Aden started to appear on the horizon. Seven of us left Salalah we picked up another boat at Ra's Sharma so eight boats finished our 600 mile journey safely. A few mechanical problems had surfaced along the way but we were all in one piece having had a great trip. Once anchored and official duties accomplished we had a party on Tuatara to celebrate our safe arrival and the 70th birthday of Gunn- Britt from the Swedish boat, Stressless.
The party was peppered with the usual ' do you remember' , we have a multitude of wonderful memories of our stops and of the friendly Yemeni people. My enduring memory of Yemen will be the wonderful friendly people.
"Welcome to Yemen, welcome, welcome."
" Where do you come from?"
"ah New Zealander"
" yes, yes we know, by Australie"
This from all ages, men, woman and children, on the street, on beaches, shouted from small fishing boats and over the radio from the Yemen navy and the coast guard, even from the gun toting officials at Khaisat.
We spent part of an afternoon ashore at Ra's Sharma with a group of 4 woman and their children, having fun together with very little English and virtually no Arabic. We had not met any woman at that stage but as we walked up the beach, children of all ages stopped playing in the sand and swimming to come and ask for photos. The kids walked up the hill with us and out of the house/ruin at the top of the hill appeared their mothers. The women were clad in colorful robes, their usual black put aside for the weekend. We woman stayed to talk and the yachtie men wandered off. As the woman relaxed and the kids danced around us, pressing glasses of hot sweet tea in our hands, the veils came down. They even invited the men in because they wanted to see who was married to who. Unfortunately the women drew the line at photos but we could take as many as we wanted of the children. I have many of the children, handsome boys and beautiful girls, long eyelashes, bright smiling black eyes and jet black curly hair. Sharon had them clapping along to some songs then the kids sang us some of their favourite songs. A magical afternoon spent sitting on a mat in a concrete ruin of a house overlooking a beautiful beach. We think that this family was there for the weekend, well we hope so because the house was just a bare concrete shell on the way to complete ruin. The older lady indicated to me that they were all one family perhaps married to the same man, not sure really it's a bit hard with sign language. When it was time to go the kids skipped back down to the beach with us, insisted on a few more photos then helped us launch our dinghies. The colourful ladies waved from the hill, I hope they got as much out of the afternoon as we did.
At Al Mukalla we saw old buildings, rubbish eating goats trotting around the winding streets, men with cheeks stuffed with quat, evening soccer games on the side walk and best of all lots of woman and kids out and about. In Salalah, Oman we saw very few woman and virtually no children. Yemen seems normal, women shopping, taking kids to school, completely covered in black but still out and about doing everyday normal things. Some even running vegetable street stalls. While on the hunt at the post office for an ATM that worked, a woman interviewed some of us using her mobile phone. Her excellent English she had taught herself. Al Mukalla was our first experience of a Yemeni town, looking past the rubbish we liked what we saw. Yemen has many problems including the practice of child brides but there is no way of telling ages with only eyes showing and even then some have veils over those. For our short visit the surface was welcoming and extremely interesting.
The woman may be covered in black, head to toe, fingertip to eyelash, while in public but going by some of the dress shops they wear some saucy clothing at home. Bright, figure hugging dresses, skimpy negligees with fluffy trimming. Our guide here in Aden, Hamza, is newly married. He told me he gave $3000US as a dowry and his wife spent half on sexy clothing and gold. On the street high heels and jeans peep out from under black, and big glittery hand bags adorn silky black arms. The younger women seem to make an effort to try and have some individuality showing. I don't know how they recognize each other in the street, perhaps by their hand bags. Walking through Arab town here in Aden I watched as a mass of black surrounded a clothing stall, some had small children clinging tightly to them. It must be a nightmare for a little child if they loose their grip of mum. How would they find her again in that sea of swirling black. The little girls are dressed in gorgeous frilly frocks or mod jeans and cute little boots. They have a few years of being fashionable in public before getting lost in the anonymity of their mothers black world.
In Al Mukalla the Port Control told us to anchor in the inner harbor which suited us as it got us out of the swell running into the bay. Khalf Harbour or the new harbor as it is referred to in Mukalla is a busy little place.( I think it has been" new" for quite a while) We had been warned not to come to Mukalla because the rumor was that this was where the pirates came to refuel. We don't know if we saw any pirates, especially as we are not sure what they look like. We did see Yemeni flagged fishing boats coming in to the fish market wharf, laden with empty fuel drums, men and dubious looking clothing drying on the rigging. Some of the dhows looked like they could hardly be safe for a few miles let alone hold together out in the Gulf looking for pirate targets. The entrance to the harbor was guarded by a gun boat, which stopped every fishing boat before they could enter. But the dhow anchorage just outside was filled with boats that could have come from anywhere. Yemen does have a problem with Somali refugees flooding in and straining their already poor country. A couple of times on the wharf Yemeni men greeted us with their enthusiastic "welcome, welcome" Asked us how we liked Yemen and then made the point that Yemen people were not like Somalis, and in fact would like them all to go home. A Yemeni fisherman had been killed recently out at sea when a group of Somalis demanded his boat, shooting him when he refused. So we were under no illusions about the need for vigilance and caution when we left Mukalla. But we felt safe in the harbor and town and as it turned out we had a safe trip from Mukalla to Aden as have many yachts in the past and this year. As far as we know about 60 yachts are moving or have moved west nonstop and our group of 8 and 2 other yachts have been the only ones we know of to stop and enjoy the sights. Hopefully we have left a good impression, a little taste of the western world left behind, and somewhere on Yemen TV is a small item, an interview and film about our little group visiting Al Mukalla.
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02/26/2010, Yemen
26th Feb 2010 Ra's Sharma, Yemen. Been trying to learn some basic arabic words but the one we really need to learn is Maafi fooloos... get lost! or something similar for the fishing boats that come up to us. Its not too bad really some offer to trade fish others want a look and some suggest with sign language that we might be a floating food, cigarette and bira (beer)charity shop. I must say though that it was only the fishermen we met out at sea that asked us for alcohol not the ones here in the anchorage. Funny how Muslims dont drink alcohol but even in remote areas they know about bira and one boat even got asked for whisky! For yachts who have come through Indonesia and experienced the fishermen there, this is a very similar experience. The trip west so far with our group of 7 yachts has not been too bad a couple of mechanical issues on two boats but Selwyn from the kiwi yacht Morning Cloud is a great Mr Fixit so we were not held up long. Both things he sorted out while at sea.
This part of Yemen is pretty barren high dry rocky hills and sand along the coast from what we have seen. We stayed one night at Nisthun and are now having our second day at Ra's Sharma. We took a little longer than we thought to get here with the break downs and with very little wind it was a bit slow going. We also travel at the speed of the slowest boat which is slow for us but better we stay together. Our group arrived here at 10pm and as the anchorage is easy to get into we were anchored by 10.30pm with assistance from a bright moon. The big 25 yacht convoy got to Aden without any problems although I think there may have been some issues within the group. 25 boats would be hard to keep together, 7 is bad enough it's a bit like a school outing ...have to keep counting the heads. Now we are 8 another yacht, Dutch, has joined us here at Ra's Sharma.
In the morning we stuck our heads out to see where we were and saw desolate but beautiful beaches and hills. The 4 square buildings on the hill above the beach looked like a scene out of a French Foreign Legion film. ( It is a pity I can't send photos with sailmail)I keep expecting turban clad desert men to appear over the hill waving swords and rifles. What we do get is friendly fishermen arriving in long fibre glass skiffs with 60 hp outboard motors offering us fish as a gift or for a small trade. The fishermen here in the anchorage seem slightly more gentlemanly than those we met out at sea and yet these guys obviously are out at sea fishing also. I guess we are visiting in their home patch, a bit different than just passing by at sea. We generally have a conversation with limited Ingleezee, Ahrabee and mostly sign language. They want to know where we come from ( the atlas gets well used), if we want fish and one lot wanted to know if it got rough so there was a lot of hand waving with that question! Yesterday we said no we already had a fish but these guys still threw a couple of small lunch sized fish on the deck as a gift. One fish each, with salad for lunch, better than any restaurant.
Only a couple of us have caught fish, not us tho. We traded some fish just after we left Nishtun, outside a place called Khaisat and here at Ra's Sharma. At Khaisat we checked out the anchorage while Selwyn did his mechanical magic. There the officials came for a visit along with their guns. A quite friendly visit, they only came to Tuatara, being the biggest boat in the group we were the obvious target for the officials. When the gentleman with the large gun took off his shoes before he got up on the boat, we figured it was a polite visit. He just wanted to sit on our aft seat in the shade while his boss got our passport copies. We knew he was the boss because he had a pistol on his hip and a mobile phone. The boss rang his boss on the phone. Alan had a short conversation with him about where we were going and why we were waiting. With everyone satisfied we were soon on our way again but not before he asked for a drink so we gave him a bottle of water and of course he wanted bira which we replied with a slight indignant tone, "Of course not, no bira on our boat!!" So he left the bottle of water behind and they went on their way quite happily. We then decided it was time to move further off the coast!! Largo Star reports our position via Sat Ph in to the Coalition forces and they have said that there is no activity in our area so all's well. It is interesting listening to Channel 16 there are a lot of different warships out here which is reassuring. A cargo ship reported in suspicious boats and within a couple of hours a helicopter had checked them out and reported back to the ship that they were fishing boats. We have just seen two similar boats come past us to the local village. They are 15 metre boats towing 3 or 4 skiffs. The big boat is basically an open boat with two decks. The top deck had about 10 or so fishermen looking at us looking at them looking at us. Lots of cheery waves, they are just seamen interested in fellow sea travelers. I can understand the merchant vessels being wary of these guys, they can be a rough looking bunch that is until they smile and wave out. The mother ship/skiff set up is certainly the same as pirates are known to use, so the ships understandably report them in to be checked out by the coalition helicopters.
Alan has just come back from snorkeling, no coral but lots of fish among them a blue spotted ray and some fish the snorkelers all say they have never seen before. This afternoon we plan to dinghy over to the village, not sure if we will go ashore as it is Friday. I will be happy with some closer photos, from here it is hard to see the village as the houses and hills are the same colours. Lasse and Lisbeth visited there yesterday and reported a market that sold lobsters, now that's a good reason for a visit.
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