1 October 1972 - later
The second part of the journey here.
On Friday (29th) I didn't do much in the morning, and Hamud asked if I would like to see some of the town. I thought that might be nice, and so he told the guard who was with us to give me a quick tour on foot. The guard set off at enormous speed so that I was mainly rushing to keep up rather than sightseeing.
We were supposed to continue our journey to Hajjah at 4pm, but the car - another Toyota Landcruiser - didn't show up till nearly 5. We stopped by at someone who I think is the governor's representative in Hodeida and gave him my baggage tickets in case my luggage turns up, so that he can send it on to me in Hajjah.
We set off northwards from Hodeida along a pretty good tarmacked road, making me wonder if the road system in Yemen was quite as undeveloped as Professor S had suggested. But after a short distance we came to a roadblock on the road. Straight ahead, along the nicely surfaced roadway, was the port, I was told. We weren't going that way. Our route meant leaving the nice smooth way and turning on to a sort of track in the scrubby desert beside the road which, the guard said, was the way to Hajjah. The first part of the journey was interesting - the villages on the coastal plain (called the Tihamah) are all grass huts, and the people are very black. We stopped at one grass hut village for tea, and later, at another, for supper.
The journey was eventful - we were travelling now in a convoy with a GMC pick-up truck loaded with people and goods and at one point our Toyota seesawed as it was going over an agricultural embankment and got caught on its transmission shaft. This is because the road isn't very distinct, and is about half a mile wide in some places and we were following the tracks of a lorry which obviously had been able to get over this packed earth embankment. We all got out and some of the people scraped away the earth from under the car until the wheels were able to grip again - encountering a scorpions' nest in the process, whcih slowed things down for a short while. Further along, the road got wetter and wetter and we had to manoeuvre around enormous muddy puddles. At this pint we were ahead and we noticed that the GMC had come to a halt. We drove back to discover it bogged up to its back axles in one of the puddles.
People worked away to free it for about half an hour (joined by travellers in other cars coming along the road to and from Hodeida) until someone decided I must be getting tired (I was) and took me to a nearby village about three quarters of a mile away and ordered tea and a bed for me. The tea shops in the grass villages had a kind of beds made of wood and cord where people can sit or sleep in the open. After another half an hour the cars turned up along with the GMC and after a short rest we set off on our way.
At the tea stop earlier I had borrowed someone's radio, and had tuned in to the BBC. They had said that fighting had broken out between northern Yemen and southern Yemen, and I reported this in my Arabic, which isn't very good yet, to the others in our party. They assumed that I had misheard or mistranslated, and told me that wasn't the case. But at the supper stop they listened to one of the Arabic channels and heard the same news and admitted that I had been right.
From here the road was really rough, and I was half asleep, but constantly woken up by jolts and bumps. At some stage we drove along a rocky river bed for a short distance with water running alongside us. Then at 2 or 3am we started to climb into the mountains. We finally arrived here at about 6am. Thankfully I was set down, with the trunk, at Hamud's house and I fell into a deep sleep until early afternoon when I awoke and was brought something to eat - Yemeni lunch. Tasty!
Before I set off for Lebanon and Yemen my brother, Dugald, gave me a set of Arab League booklets which he had got from somewhere. I have the one of Yemen with meand there's a picture in it of Hajjah where I now am, and it shows the former Imam's palace which is apparently where I am going to be put up until they find somewhere else for me to stay!
The second part of the journey here.
On Friday (29th) I didn't do much in the morning, and Hamud asked if I would like to see some of the town. I thought that might be nice, and so he told the guard who was with us to give me a quick tour on foot. The guard set off at enormous speed so that I was mainly rushing to keep up rather than sightseeing.
We were supposed to continue our journey to Hajjah at 4pm, but the car - another Toyota Landcruiser - didn't show up till nearly 5. We stopped by at someone who I think is the governor's representative in Hodeida and gave him my baggage tickets in case my luggage turns up, so that he can send it on to me in Hajjah.
We set off northwards from Hodeida along a pretty good tarmacked road, making me wonder if the road system in Yemen was quite as undeveloped as Professor S had suggested. But after a short distance we came to a roadblock on the road. Straight ahead, along the nicely surfaced roadway, was the port, I was told. We weren't going that way. Our route meant leaving the nice smooth way and turning on to a sort of track in the scrubby desert beside the road which, the guard said, was the way to Hajjah. The first part of the journey was interesting - the villages on the coastal plain (called the Tihamah) are all grass huts, and the people are very black. We stopped at one grass hut village for tea, and later, at another, for supper.
The journey was eventful - we were travelling now in a convoy with a GMC pick-up truck loaded with people and goods and at one point our Toyota seesawed as it was going over an agricultural embankment and got caught on its transmission shaft. This is because the road isn't very distinct, and is about half a mile wide in some places and we were following the tracks of a lorry which obviously had been able to get over this packed earth embankment. We all got out and some of the people scraped away the earth from under the car until the wheels were able to grip again - encountering a scorpions' nest in the process, whcih slowed things down for a short while. Further along, the road got wetter and wetter and we had to manoeuvre around enormous muddy puddles. At this pint we were ahead and we noticed that the GMC had come to a halt. We drove back to discover it bogged up to its back axles in one of the puddles.
People worked away to free it for about half an hour (joined by travellers in other cars coming along the road to and from Hodeida) until someone decided I must be getting tired (I was) and took me to a nearby village about three quarters of a mile away and ordered tea and a bed for me. The tea shops in the grass villages had a kind of beds made of wood and cord where people can sit or sleep in the open. After another half an hour the cars turned up along with the GMC and after a short rest we set off on our way.
At the tea stop earlier I had borrowed someone's radio, and had tuned in to the BBC. They had said that fighting had broken out between northern Yemen and southern Yemen, and I reported this in my Arabic, which isn't very good yet, to the others in our party. They assumed that I had misheard or mistranslated, and told me that wasn't the case. But at the supper stop they listened to one of the Arabic channels and heard the same news and admitted that I had been right.
From here the road was really rough, and I was half asleep, but constantly woken up by jolts and bumps. At some stage we drove along a rocky river bed for a short distance with water running alongside us. Then at 2 or 3am we started to climb into the mountains. We finally arrived here at about 6am. Thankfully I was set down, with the trunk, at Hamud's house and I fell into a deep sleep until early afternoon when I awoke and was brought something to eat - Yemeni lunch. Tasty!
Before I set off for Lebanon and Yemen my brother, Dugald, gave me a set of Arab League booklets which he had got from somewhere. I have the one of Yemen with meand there's a picture in it of Hajjah where I now am, and it shows the former Imam's palace which is apparently where I am going to be put up until they find somewhere else for me to stay!
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