LAND OF NO FRIDGE MAGNETS

"so what is therr in yemen? it's a purr country, no?" asked my indian colleague with his increasingly irritating accent. the ever-sarcastic side of me was already prepared with a vicious response, like "well, tons of people go and visit your country to see how poor it is don't they?" luckily the better, more-civilised part of me took over (and plus i was taking a lift in his car at the time). so i replied "i'm not really sure. but they say yemen has a lot of old cities with unique architectural designs. and i'm just going there because i like to collect fridge magnets"

and he chuckled (see, my jokes are crossing cultural boundaries. how international is that? :P) but i was only half joking. a big motivation factor for me to go travelling to new countries is actually so that i can increase my fridge magnet collection.

and guess what - i couldn't find any. but strangely enough, i did not even resent the country for that. i'm pretty sure that i would have if it was any country. but i just couldn't resent yemen. it's just not right to resent something so charming.

it was just a short trip. 3 nights. i was there with my ARABIC SPEAKING friend zali. (notice the bold, capital letters? that's how important that thing is in yemen). thank god he speaks arabic. actually thank god that his father decided to sent him to sekolah agama (although there were some dire consequences from that decision la kan.. hahaha. jgn marah zali). it would have been considerably more difficult to travel around (and to shop) around yemen if you don't speak the language. well zali should be thanking me too. it's due to my inability to speak arabic that most shopkeepers decided to give him a better discount. his language skills shone through since i have the proficiency of a 2-year old.

"you've been in dubai for 2 years and u don't speak arabic?" ouch.

"and you are muslim?" double ouch. serves me right though.

apart from those uncomfortable moments, i really enjoyed the trip. it was quite an eye opener for me because i've never travelled in a country this economically challenged. (actually the first thing i noticed when i boarded the flight was how skinny the rest of the passengers are (tetiba terus rasa insecured and jealous..heheh). turns out, that was actually a true reflection of how the ountry generally is. life is not so easy over there. beggars and street vendors everywhere. they were street vendors who walked around with about 10 jubah over his shoulder, approaching potential customers, trying to sell the jubah by fitting a jubah in front of a customer, and saying something like "this is your size" or "uols, this jubah really brings out the colour of your eyes!" ok, maybe not the second one. (btw, homosexuality is punishable by death in yemen. just for your info). and there was another street vendor who just sits by the roadside with a weighing scale in fron of him. yeap, he charges people who use it. but nevertheless, the people are really nice. many of them did not even overcharge you although they know you were a tourist. we bought jagung bakar from this boy and he only charged us about seringgit for it. i tell you, if that boy was brought up in dubai, he'd be charging us 10 bucks. and if we were to buy the same jagung bakar from him the next day, it would probably cost 15 bucks already. because that's just how this STUPID country is.

oops. sorry. emotional sket.

anyway, while we were there, we visited a few old cities, each with it's own unique architectural style. and we also visited the museum.i've been going to a lot of museums lately.. which i think is cool. one thing which made me realise from all these visits to these museums is how young our civilisation was in tanah melayu. and how uncreative the prehistoric people who used to occupy our country back in the old ages. it may appear that we are far more advanced than yemen now, but they have a long history of civilisation behind them. they created cities from a few hundred years ago and they are still liveable now. and what do we have? candi lembah bujang? if i remember correctly, i think that place is just a small hut. it's sad to know that my possible ancestors were very far behind than their other counterparts in the old world. i am somehow disturbed by this. is this the reason why i think our society, albeit very economically blessed and techonologically advanced, still lack something? i feel like we lack depth. and wisdom. and jatidiri (betul ke ni?). i think somehow there's got to be a connection somewhere.

oops. digressing again. sorry la dah lama tak blog panjang2 ni. i tend to run astray with my thoughts.. hehe.

so anyway, if there is one advice that i could give those who wish to visit yemen is to buy a lot of pens before you go and visit. weird huh? let me tell you why. on our third day, we went to an old village called shibam. as we were walking around the village (sambil feeling2 macam UN repsresentative), we were appraoched by a group of school kids. and all of them were asking for kalam. kalam, by the way, is the arabic word for pen (i thought it was arabic for book until zali corrected me. see how bad my arabic is? humiliating isn't it). aren't these kids the sweetest? they don't want PS3 or PSP or XBOX. they just want a pen to write and study (or to draw pornographic images. i hope not though). i only had 1 pen with me so i gave it to one of the boys. the moment i gave that pen to the boy, the rest shouted "kalam! kalam!" even louder. alamak, kesiannya. but i couldnt do anything. there were no stationery shops in sight. so all i could say (in my weak arabic) was "mafi kalam. kalam khalass". and then i continued by singing one of nancy ajram's song, hoping to make up for the disappointment. hehehe. no la i did not.
so that's my advice to you. i don't really know how many of you guys plan to go to yemen but if you ever do, contact me. i can give the number of our tour guide. he speaks decent english. decent, but slurred. especially when he was chewing his qat. sometimes i was i was a yemeni. maybe then i wouldn't have to be so uptight. and maybe then i won't have to spend hours on the treadmill trying to lose my love handles. but i guess being malaysian is not so bad. at least we have la q*een. and akademi fantasia. hahaha.

ok la ok la dah mengarut dah. nak tido. anyway, if you guys wanna see photos, kindly check out my facebook ok?

kekekek. gotcha.