travelling

i had my last class of arabic today. i thought i'd study for a month but i actually studied for a total of 2 weeks. that's cause i'm gonna be travelling soon, insha'Allah.

there were 2 cities i was dying to visit. one...ma'rib...was where queen sheba lived. i wanted to visit that place so badly. muhammad the majnoon was willing to take me and others there. however, alia (my yemeni roommate) absolutely would not allow it. she said it was too dangerous to go there because of bombings, kidnappings and killing of tourists in the past. she convinced me not to go.

the second place...shahara...is an amazing city where the famous bridge is...over a huge gorge between two mountains. it is extremely difficult to get there...the roads are extremely narrow and not built well. it's a bit dangerous to get there. when i was at the tourist police station, i said i wanted to go there but the police officer said it was not permitted for foreigners to go there. remember, to go anywhere, we need a permit. no permits were given to that city. however, muhammad the majnoon said he could get us there. he has connections everywhere and anywhere. he said that we would have to dress up like a yemeni...meaning we would have to wear niqab. the police officers at the checkpoints would not ask for identification or permits from a yemeni women. he said it'd be easy for us to go but we could not tell anyone about this trip. alia, kyla and i went to the souq to purchase niqabs. unfortunately, the day before we were supposed to leave for the trip, muhammad the majnoon said there was some difficulty in going there so the trip was cancelled for now. he did go on his own just to check out the condition of the place and when he came back, he said it was too dangerous for us to go. the police were asking yemeni women for identification and there was some fighting going on there as well.

alia and i bought tickets to socotra island. the island has unique species of plants and animals. it's also known for it's 'dragon blood'. we're leaving friday morning, returning monday. then we plus kyla are leaving the next day to hadramawt and we'll be travelling for about 3 weeks around yemen, insha'Allah.

more later...