Onward - Yemen and Aden

We had to delay our trip to Petra, along the ancient King's Highway today in order to sort out the tickets to Yemen and Eritrea with Yemenia Airlines. Wewere disappointed yesterday evening to find out that our travel agent had not managed to arrange everything yesterday, as promised(in fact she had done nothing on Monday, so we lost vital time). Anyway, we were told yesterday that we would need a visa in advance before Yemenia would issue us with tickets. Given that there are Yemeni embassies in both Holland and UK, it seemed as if we might not be able to get them here. These countries seem to work on the idea that if they go to the trouble of having an embassy in your country you should use that embassy to get a visa and not wait until you get to the border.

So, we have delayed everything a day and we spent this morning camped in the travel agent's office until we walked out with tickets. The embassy told us we could get visa's at the border, and bthey managed to convince their national carrier that this was the case as well. We will fly there on the 4th and leave on the 9th. This should give us time to visit Aden. This will be a happy and auspicious event for me because it seems that the first flight I ever took was in 1962, a flight from Hargeisa to Aden (which was then a British ' possession'). One of the very few things I still have from my childhood is the ticket.

I found an article in Yemen Times, talking about Aden having received a million tourists duriung the last Eid vacation. Apart from describing the attractions of the fabulous coastal city, the article worries about the influx of foreigners bringing in alcohol consumption and other unethical acts. So... it looks like alcohol-free beer for Fred. I bet it was different in 1962, wasn't it Dad?