Isfahan, Central IRAN

A six hour train ride brought me today to the city of Isfahan, about 340 km south of Tehran. Isfahan was once one of the largest cities in the world. It flourished from 1050 to 1722, particularly in the 16th century under the Safavid dynasty, when it became the capital of Persia for the second time in its history. Today, Isfahan is the third largest city in Iran and famous for its production of fine carpets, textiles, steel, and handicrafts.

Isfahan also has nuclear experimental reactors as well as facilities for producing nuclear fuel. It is famous for its Islamic architecture with many beautiful tree lined boulevards, covered bridges, palaces, mosques, and minarets.

Had some light snow on the way, and this evening Isfahan is a chilly 2 degrees Celsius. This will be my base for the next few days as I explore the city and areas around it.

Met great people on the train from Tehran who kept offering nuts, sweets and sandwiches - and eventually offered me to stay at their home. I declined their homestay as I prefer to stay in a hotel close to the attractions. People in the train invited me into their cabins. Everybody wants to know where I'm from, why I'm visiting Iran, and curious to know my impressions of Iran and its people. They sure are proud of their country. Had dinner in a lovely traditional restaurant in a stately building. I'm off to bed now - dead tired.

Tehran, IRAN

I am safely in Iran. The next 16 days is going to be amazing...I'm sure! I'll write more later. My mobile phone does not work here, so no more SMS's for a while.

UPDATED
After spending four days here, I am amazed with Tehran. Iran is NOT Afghanistan, neither is it Iraq - its a whole different world. Tehran makes me rather think of an Eastern European city -certainly not an Arab city, as its NOT an Arab city.

People are very attractive, fashionable, friendly and helpful. Tehran is quite developed and a city worth exploring. Certainly not a world class city, but has enough to offer for two or three days. I went to a couple of museums including the carpet museum - what an experience. No better place than Iran to see the world's best and most famous Persian carpets.

The former USA Embassy is referred to as the "US den of spying" and the high walls surrounding the compound is spray painted with graffiti - including that of the Statue of Liberty with a skull as head, and slogans such as "We will make America face a severe death - Imam Komeini" and "America the Great Satan". People are always curious where you're from and if I was an American, I would certainly not feel safe in Iran. However, the Iranians apparently hate the Israelis and Arabs more than the Americans. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not popular here - so please don't judge the Iranian people by their president's arrogance.

I'm not a shopper at all, but I did get carried away today with the beautiful fashionable and cheap leather shoes.

Its tough taking pictures here as many buildings are off-limits for photography. However, my recent experience in New York is that photography of buildings is much less restricted in Tehran. I must admit that the guards and soldiers here in Iran are a lot friendlier than those who recently recently restricted my photography in New York. I have only praises for the people of all walks of life I have met so far in Tehran. Very warm hearted people, clean city, and must be one of the safest cities I have ever walked.

By the way - there's lots of snow on the nearby mountains and its quite cool and rainy in town.

And NO...I have not yet met with the captured British soldiers - but I think I know where they are kept....but don't ask me!

Tomorrow I'm taking the train down to Esfahan (a 7-hour trip). I'll be shown around Esfahan by an 18 year old woman I recently met on an Internet travel forum. I'm sure Esfahan is going to be an interesting experience.

Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Dubai, UAE, is an amazing city! Well.....a city in the making. This place is probably the world's fastest growing city. With lots of expats, in particular from Pakistan, India, and the Philippines, its easy to find someone nice to talk with.

I was lucky enough to meet up with a good old friend who took me on an amazing desert drive trip around the nearby desert. I mean...the desert is everywhere to be found in this part of the world. Its such a fun ride speeding over the dunes with a Land Cruiser 4X4. We had a traditional dinner in a desert tent camp, smoked sisha, and ate lots of dried dates. A belly dancer entertained us as we watched the stars under the desert skies.

Dubai has such beautiful buildings! Its just nice driving and taking in the amazing architecture.

Off to Iran now!

Thulle, Shibam, Kowkabam, Wadi Dhah - YEMEN

Traveling through the mountains of northern Yemen for the past two days (with my new found French friend) has been one of my greatest adventures! I stayed well south of the Saudi Arabia border as there are constant tribal / clan fighting in that area. We passed several army checkpoints but I had my police permits to travel in that area - so smooth sailing.

The journey started in Sanaa with a shared taxi - with loud Arab rock music. A 1960's Land Rover packed with 11 people in a vehicle which only should accommodate seven. While the roads are in good condition, the driver (cheek stuffed with qat) drove like a maniac. A few times we stopped to check for the best bargain qat sales as my fellow riders are stocking up. Fortunately, the spectacular views of mountains and ancient stone built villages easily wiped the fears of an accident. The landscape is dotted with fortresses and look-out points which historically have been used to spot the enemy. Now is used to spot the qat crop thieves.

More than two and a half hours of scenery, we eventually arrived at our destination, Al-Mawheet. My taxi driver asked a few hundred more riyals than agreed upon. He wont get away with this - I smiled and walked away. This ancient village is build around (and halfway up) a huge rock. What a sight! We even attended two weddings in one night. Everywhere had a warm welcome from the locals. Slept in a converted palace with a clear view of the big rock!

Next came the villages of Shibam and the very high lookout point of the stone village of Kowkabam. Next was Wadi Dhar and then back to Sanaa.

1. The men of Yemen just love to have qat orgies. They sit in small rooms, each with a plastic bag filled with qat (leaves from a local tree) and keep stuffing their faces with these leave until their cheeks bulge like that of a sax player. They suck/roll/nibble and keep replenish that ball of green sludge all day long. Qat markets - a market atmosphere like you have never seen before!

2. Most built-up areas are suffocating in garbage. Garbage everywhere! In some (not all) villages, people live in their garbage like pigs! I must say that outside the villages, and in most of the ancient stone villages, it is quite clean. It is not hard to find unspoilt nature without garbage.

3. The rice and qat terraces in some areas are spread out as far as the eye can see - high up along the hills. These terraces must be hundreds of years old. Really makes me think of Nepal and The Philippines.

4. The architecture here in Yemen is awe inspiring. Ancient buildings are built with nothing but carved rocks - no clay used - up to six floor high. Their favourite property - high up the hills, and on top of the rocks!

5. While most women in Sanaa wear the black abaya (dress), in the north they mostly wear very colourful dresses - with only the eyeballs visible - if you're lucky to see that!

6. Cars in Yemen - some cars have their steering wheel on the left, some on the right. They most of the time drive in the right lane.

This concludes my current trip to Yemen. Its a fascinating country with fascinating people. Tourists are hard to find, and easy to find places with no tourists at all. Yemen totally fulfilled my expectations and another dream has come true for me. Since childhood I wanted to visit Yemen. I WILL BE BACK!!!

Today I'm flying east (Air Arabia) to Dubai for two days and on Monday up to Tehran, Iran.

Shibam, Hadhramaut Valley, CENTRAL YEMEN

Surrounded by a fortified wall, the 16th-century city of Shibam is one of the oldest examples of urban planning based on the principle of vertical construction. Its impressive tower-like structures have given the city the nickname of 'the Manhattan of the desert'. I climbed very high up the nearby mountain cliffs and had an awesome view of this "little tall city". What an amazing place. As the blinding sand storms rolled across the surrounding valley, I captured a few great pictures of women fully dressed in their black abaya forging against the strong sand filled winds. Quite an amazing sight(I think National Geo will love my pictures!). Today is my 5th day in Yemen (3 more days to go) and I must admit that the Yemeni people are much friendlier than my first impressions. I'm getting a very warm "Welcome to Yemen" from many people, and as my Arabic improves, people are even friendlier to me. If you ever thought that Yemen was too dangerous to visit, or "what's there to see"...let me assure you: It's perfectly safe and the people and scenery makes this one of my most memorable experiences ever. Tourists are scarce (which is why I'm here) and most tourists travel in organized groups. I have found hardly any solo independent travelers like myself.

I would love to upload some pictures but with Windows (and browsers) all in Arabic, its a very tough task to navigate. Funny enough, the Arabic version of Internet Explorer is a mirror image of the English version! Why...Arabians read/write from right to left, so everything is in reverse.

This afternoon I fly back west to Sana'a from where I will explore the area north of Sana'a.

Seiyun and Tarim, Hadhramaut Valley, CENTRAL YEMEN

I arrived on Yemenia (Yemen Airways) in the town of Seiyun at 7am this morning from Sanaa (woke up at 3:30am!) Locally referred to as Wadi Hadhramaut, this is the Grand Canyon of Yemen which stretches from the far east of Yemen to the west. Flanked by a huge wall of mud-rocky mountains (quite amazing rock formations), I bet this entire Wadi (Valley) must have been a river - a few hundred years ago. Now its a rather dry valley with a couple of villages.I spent the morning climbing the nearest mountain (with tens of curious onlookers cheering - at first I was afraid I may be climbing a holy mountain which would get me in serious trouble). From close to the top of the mountain I had a spectacular view of the town. Built mainly from mud, hundreds of years ago, this is like stepping back into time...big time! However, the architecture here is very different from Sanaa. Men's clothing also differs from that in Sanaa. Men wear sarongs and no Jambiya (daggers worn in front of the body). The population skews more towards a mix of Indian, Arab and Ethiopians. Women wear the same...black abaya with only their eye balls visible.

Seiyun is also the place where the Queen of Sheba had a ...fling with King Solomon and soon after they became proud parents of a baby boy.

Honey seems to be the local currency. Rows of small shops sell "fresh" honey by the gallons! I came across a Tourist Police office which was firmly locked all day. I guess with so few tourists here, even the Tourist Police got bored! As I'm sure I'll witness across the Arab world, men walking hand-in-hand is very common, while those same men holding their wife's hand in public would be highly immoral! Go figure!I HAVE TO STOP WRITING NOW AS THE INTERNET CAFE IS CLOSING SO EVERYBODY CAN GO FOR THEIR SUNSET PRAYERS.

Ok, prayers done...now life can go on again. The Internet is extremely slow here. This is the 5th computer I am trying out at both Internet cafe's in this town of Seiyun.

East of Seiyun (30 min by taxi) I spent about 3 hours this afternoon exploring the village of Tarim. Climbed again the nearby mountain for a spectacular view of the town. These places are so ancient....its almost scary. Tarim is known for its Al Muhdhar Mosque sporting a 53m high minaret - apparently one of the tallest earth structures in the world. Tarim also has the impressive and huge Al-Kaff Palace.

Anyhow, I need to go now as I am really tired...and tired of struggling to just get into my blog account. I will write again tomorrow (at least I'll try to). Tomorrow early morning I am off the ancient town of Shibam - another UNESCO World Heritage site.

Sana'a, YEMEN

SEE UPDATE IN RED BELOW
As I arrived in Sanaa this afternoon, it was reminiscent of Bangladesh, or maybe more chaotic. Yemen is the second poorest Arabic country in the world. Only Mauritania has a lower per capita GDP.

First impressions of Sanaa were not too good..... It is a chaotic, dirty, and obviously a very poor city. As my taxi arrived from the airport into the old town we passed some heavily armed military personnel and their Land Rovers. On the streets many people are screaming at each others and happy faces are hard to find. The first restaurant where I had lunch with the locals (Restaurant Al-Dubai) over-charged me big time! On the streets, most people don't seem to notice me even though I have not yet seen any other Caucasians on the streets. But hey, these are only first impressions and I'm sure they won't last very long. As I dig deeper into these people's culture, habits and mind sets, I'm sure to get an entirely new perspective of life in the desert. After all, since childhood, Yemen was one of the five countries I most fantasized about visiting (other four were Russia, Mexico, Egypt and Iran). Our plane from Dubai (Air Arabia) flew for almost 2.5 hours over the desert - an area aptly referred to as "the empty quarter" (of Oman, Saudi Arabia and Yemen).

Sanaa is apparently one of the oldest cities in the world and even referred to in the Old Testament of the Bible. The old quarter of Sanaa is on the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites and the houses look like those you see in kid's Bible story books! Life has really been standing still here, well, since biblical times!

Most people wear traditional clothing -the men wearing their Ma'awiis (long white dresses..which are mostly quite dirty) and women mostly wear their black abaya with faces totally covered - only the eyes are visible. Most men also wear their BIG clan dagger knife (Jambiya) in the front of their bodies, tucked behind their broad leather belts.

I'll spend the next seven days around Yemen. After collecting my police issued travel permit later today, I'll travel by public transport around several villages north of Sanaa and will fly (Air Yemania) to Sayun in the desert which will be my base to explore the nearby mountains and Shibam (another UNESCO World Heritage site).

The next seven days here in Yemen is going to be very challenging and I'm sure....very exciting. Wish me luck.

UPDATED: LATER AFTERNOON OF DAY TWO - SANAA, YEMEN
Ok, as expected, my first impressions have changed in less than twelve hours! Since early this morning I spent exploring the old part of Sanaa, as well as some area of the new Sanaa. Here's my observations:

1. Time sure has been standing still in the old part of Sanaa. I bet it looked just the same 200 hundred years ago! Since shortly after sunrise, the town has been a bee nest of activity as people do their buying and selling, and just hanging around in the Souq al-Mihl (central market)
2. Most men are chewing away on their bags of qat (the green leaves they chew into HUGE bulging balls in their cheeks). Apparently many people spend a considerable amount of their income on this habit - even young boys have this....bad habit!
3. Saddam Hussain is revered by many!
4. There seems to be an uncomfortable vibe in the air and I've seen some aggressive behaviour among the men.
5. Women are 99% covered in their black outfit except for their eyeballs. As they do their shopping in small groups, it seems that they are largely ignored by the men.
6. Am I in Afghanistan? I often feel like this could just as well be Kabul from what I have seen on TV.
7. Generally people are very friendly (much less so than Bangladesh...if I had to compare) and many allow me to take their picture. Photographing women is forbidden (or rather deemed rude) but I often sneak in a snapshot in a very diplomatic way. So far I have not landed into trouble. Some women have actually asked me to take another picture (but only in places where no other men are around).
8. I peeked into one of the famous Hammams (public bath houses) as I heard it is a "don't miss experience". Well, peeking in was enough. I opted to shower in my own hotel room, which by the way, is an old palace in the old part of Sanaa...a surreal experience indeed!

Tomorrow morning at 6am I am flying east, into the desert of the Wadi Hadramawt area to the town of Sayun from where I will explore the ancient towns of Shibam and Tarim. I return to Sanaa on Thursday night.

Nizwa, OMAN

The oasis city of Nizwa (2.5 hours south of Muscat), was the capital of Oman in the 6th and 7th centuries. The huge fort which is Nizwa's most famous attraction was built in the mid 17th century by Imam Sultan Bin Saif Al Ya'ribi. Second best attraction is the ancient souq (market) where very old men with long beards guard their merchandise - mostly silverware. The town's immense palm oasis stretches for eight kilometers along the course of two wadis (dry riverbeds). A lot of ancient mud buildings are still scattered around the town - most all of them poorly maintained.

My visit to Nizwa and same day return to Muscat concludes my 4 day trip to Oman. I am highly impressed with the Omani people, their architecture, high standard of living, good food, and cleanliness of the surroundings. The people are very well maintained - men in their spotless bright white dishdashas and colourful traditional Kashmiri head wear, and women in their black abaya.

I must return to Oman - sooner rather than later. Next time I'll rent a 4X4 and conquer the deserts and rugged coastline. This is certainly a place to explore in all directions.

I'm heading back to Dubai now and will fly down to Sana'a, Yemen, tomorrow (Saturday March 17th).

M'asselema (go in peace)

Muscat, OMAN, Arabian Peninsula, Middle East

I made it safely to Muscat, Oman. The flight from Hong Kong to Dubai was uneventful, stayed over in Dubai for one night, and this morning took a 6-hour bus across the desert to this beautiful oasis-like city surrounded by desert, mountains, and the sea. Muscat is very reminiscent of Palm Springs in California. A very modern town, totally Arabian architecture, clean, safe, really nice people - mostly all people dressed in traditional clothes - dishdasha for men (bright white ankle-length, collarless gown with long sleeves) and abaya (long and thin black dress) for women. However, I was told that the abaya is not traditional dress but it is the current style. About half of the women wear a burqa or hijab (woman’s mask).

Muscat with a population of just over 600,000 people is the largest city in the Sultanate of Oman. Surrounded by desert and mountains, Muscat is remarkably green, with tree-lined streets and several sizeable public parks with green grass (some fake!), shrubs, and flowers decorating many traffic circles (called round-abouts) and other public areas. Quite a pleasant town and everything seems to in place and perfect! Food is good - shawarma and falafel along the corniche (waterfront along the harbour) is just $0.50 each and really great. Many stands sell fresh fruit juices which are 100% fresh, real, and darn good!

Hong Kong - Preparing for the 2007 Escapades!

2007 will unquestionably the most exciting year of my life! After weeks of planning I can finally confirm my routing. Starting on March 12th, I'm flying from Hong Kong to Dubai (United Arab Emirates). Based in Dubai, I'll do side trips to Yemen, Oman and Iran. I am fortunate enough to have received approval of my Iran visa which was a long and expensive ordeal with the Iranian Consulate (Hong Kong) and my agent in Tehran (Iran) as well as the MFA in Tehran. Next comes Jordan (Petra, Wadi Rum, Dead Sea), Syria (Palmyra), Lebanon, and Turkey (Goreme and Istanbul). From Istanbul I'll fly over to Albania and then up along the Adriatic sea through Montenegro, Croatia (Dovrovnik to Split by boat), Bosnia & Hercegovina (Mostar and Sarajevo), Serbia (Belgrade) and again Croatia (Zagreb). From here to Slovenia (Ljubljana), Hungary (Budapest), Ukraine (Lviv and Kiev), Moldova (Chisinau), Poland (Krakow, Warsaw), Lithuania (Vilnius), Belarus (Minsk, Brest), Latvia (Riga). From here I fly down to near the Caspian Sea to Georgia (Tblisi), Azerbaijan (Baku) and Armenia (Yerevan). AirArabia takes me from here back to Dubai and Thai Airways will then, God-willing, deliver me safely back to home base in Hong Kong

Wow, will I be exhausted and filled with tons of images and memories! I look forward most to Iran (16 days), Yemen (7 days), Jordan (11 days) and Syria (14 days). Oh...and Belarus (7 days) and Moldova (7) both which apparently have not changed a bit since Lenin was still alive! I think one of my most amazing experiences will be spending a few days in the desert around Wadi Rum (Jordan) doing camel riding and sleeping with the bedouin (truly nomadic people of the desert) in their beit ash-shaar (black goat-hair tents). Near Göreme in the south west of Turkey I'll explore the underground cities dating from the 9th century - complete with monasteries, churches, living quarters, stables - all deep underground.

Wish me luck! This is going to be the most challenging trip of my life. I should be safe everywhere. I'm a savvy traveler (at least I survived 40 countries over the past 2 years) and will walk cat-foot where necessary. Iran is as safe as it gets - as long as George Bush does not invade all will be fine.

None of the 24 countries I'll cover will have many English speakers. Eight countries have Russian as a major language - so right now I am brushing up on my Russian.

I'll report back on the road, starting March 12th, 2007.
Добрый День (goodbye in Russian)