Tony Walsh – author & tours through Arabia
is hit by Cyclone Chapala
In 2006 I had a memorable trip to Yemen, travelling independently through the desert and into the Hadramaout. Spectacular towns and scenery with polite people made the journey full of interest.
Finally I arrived in Mukalla which, like Continue reading “Mukalla Yemen”
close neighbours
The Saudi lead attacks on Yemen seem to have become more aggressive and widespread following the death of 50 Bahraini and UAE troops who are engaged in military action in Marib Yemen. Inexplicably the damage includes the home of Oman’s Ambassador to Yemen.
Oman, which is not involved the attacks lead by the other five members of the GCC, Continue reading “Oman and Yemen”
a journey
Making the most of Oman’s coast Ernest Meili took a journey down the 1700kms or so of Oman’s coastline. He talked about his experience, in one of the best talks held by the ESO.
I really look forward to doing the same journey with Nobel Caledonia on their Oman Cruise and hope my talks will be as interesting.
and gaining the letter ‘Y’
A client who had travelled with us previously was in a ‘competition’ to visit a country starting with each letter of the alphabet. There is only one with the letter ‘Y’, Yemen, and we organised a Yemen Visit. Continue reading “Picnic in Yemen”
A week ago, there was a strong likelihood that a ‘tropical depression’ would create heavy rain in Salalah. Fortunately for Salalah, but tragically for Yemen , it veered away and the last few days was over southern Yemen. The video clip http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7689795.stm from Yemen shows a river pouring through “Al Ghar Al Amar” in the centre of Mukalla . The water catchment area in Mukalla is far smaller than that of Wadi Hadhramaut http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7690463.stm or even I suspect Wadi Du’an; there the flooding might be horrific. Wadi Hadhramaut and its tributaries have extraordinarily sheer cliffs, carved by previous floods, which funnel the water in its restricted course . The article I wrote about Yemen finished …. ‘I was now left with one problem before I left, how to tackle the ascent out of the valley’ hopefully the inhabitants wont find they need an escape route.
I uploaded some Oman and Yemen inspired magazine articles I wrote
The Arabian Leopard was the subject of an article in the new daily paper from the UAE http://www.thenational.ae/article/20081009/NATIONAL/76935597. The piece highlights how few of the animals there are – the writer covered the possibility that there might be, or might not be one Arabian Leopard in the UAE mountains. That prompted me to scan in the piece I did about the Leopard for ‘Oman Today’ along with 3 other ones .
The visit I made into Wadi Hadhramaut which Oman Today (again) published in 2007 was a wonderful journey . Seeing ‘hand made’ houses rather than ones made from mass produced material was very stimulating. Each one individual and yet harmonious . To get some nice photos I wandered around just after dawn – in Seyoun waking up a pack of several dozen ‘wadi dogs’ on a mountain slope which made me back away very carefully and in Mukalla enjoying watching the men of the old town take up their places in the tea houses . Along the coast, the scenes of fishermen chasing gulls away from drying sardines spoke volumes of their need to preserve ‘wealth’ .
Bank Muscat asks me to produce brief articles which cover towns where they have branches . I am waiting in hope that they will ask me to do one for their Egyptian branch – and of course pay my travel expenses.
A very slow 6 hour drive through a wadi at an average speed of 10km an hour brought me into Thumrait in southern Oman where I met Daisuke Nakanishi.
He had just cycled into Thumrait from Yemen Continue reading “Salalah visitors”