Yemen Mukalla 2

At the counter in the lobby of Funduk Mattar

" Salam ! Oda ashan talatah ila bukra subh, be kam ?"

Translation: A room for three people until tomorrow morning, how much ?

The reception clerk said $USD 195!

The mind boggles! Here in Aden , of which we had thus far seen grubby money , men in Yemeni cloth( like pelikat) and shirts , battered cars , bare square stone buildings looking rather antique , actually has hotel rooms that cost like they were in New York!

A bit of play acting is called for under this situation! With the sternest face I had , I questioned the price and discovered that he quoted a price for a suite.
After a lot of arguments back and forth he finally quoted $USD 50.

I still did not quite believe that this shabby hotel cost that much per night !
I asked to see printed rates , which he did not have .
He finally understood what I wanted and pointed to the monitor .
Syifa knew how to read Arabic , so she went behind the counter and read out the available rooms and the rates for each room.
We finally settled for a room with two single beds and an extra mattress for $US 47.
It was still rather steep but we did not have a choice and besides, that was the rate Syifa read out on the monitor screen!

$US47 /day and the bare essentials

The room was reasonably clean and free from dust . My nose is a superb dust detector ,(when dust is present I sneeze nonstop) so I can vouch for that! It was about 9 pm and we were still jet lagged and we planned to sleep early .

Grocery Store across the road from the Airport Hotel in Aden

I went down with Syifa to a grocery store across the road to buy drinks and on the way out , a Yemeni youth asked if we were from Malaysia. He spoke good English and we found out he was studying in Sedaya College in KL !

I adjusted my Sony Ericson P9901 to show Yemeni time and made sure I set the alarm to activate for the Fajr prayers.

One of the blessings of this journey was my ability to fall deeply and soundly asleep at all the strange places we had to sleep in.

In no time at all, Mas was waking me up . She said it is Fajr now , get up and pray! I looked at my mobile phone and it indicated it was only 4.30 am local time . I sleepily told her it is too early but she insisted it was Fajr because she heard the Azan. I reluctantly got up made ablutions and prayed.

15 minutes after praying I heard the Azan and said to Mas , look here , that is the Azan and now is Fajr! So I prayed again. 15 minutes after this , I heard another Azan and this time I was totally confused! I can understand 2 Azans, one to wake people up and another at the onset of Fajr but 3 Azans? I listened carefully and concluded the third Azan was the iqamah .

Mas was insisting that her watch showed it was already 6 am and I insisted it was 5 am .We found out later that there was an hour time difference between Dubai and Aden and Mas had set her watch to Dubai time while I only adjusted my handphone in Aden.

Our breakfast that morning consisted of biscuits and milk that we had bought at the grocery. I drank my Muz Bi Laban which Syifa commented tasted like liquid Banana Cake . I guess it was nostalgia for my student days which made me buy the drink. I used to take fresh Banana Milk Shake at the juice shop in Egypt during my student years.

The journey back to the Airport which started the next morning was uneventful except that it seems I paid only $25 instead of $ 40 , thinking the $5 was a 20 dollar note , US money being of the same color for all denominations! I paid the rest in Yemeni Riyal. I therefore settled the rest of the bill, to the relief of the reception clerk .

The taxi we got this time was a shining new taxi and for that we had to pay Yemeni Riyal 1000 ...for the two minute ride to the airport! This is nearly RM 20!

The one hour plane ride was over in no time and we found ourselves in Mukalla airport , needless to say it was even smaller than the one in Aden.

The bags were out in no time and I was relieved to see my apple green bag . I had a nagging feeling that bags were easily lost by the very lax way baggage was handled. Afterall bags that should have been sent to Mukallah direct were taken out at Aden!

And then it happened.....the conveyor belt had stopped , and the box we were carrying with the buntings was missing!

We had a problem with this box earlier in Aden. Some people , maybe the customs people had torn it open to inspect the contents at which I gave them a hard glare and the same officer who had helped us earlier had said to leave us alone. They had then taped it up with a big cellophane tape that had the words, Resealed and an airport code SAH. Just maybe that made the box go elsewhere for the plane that brought us to Mukalla was going somewhere else after dropping some passengers at Riyan Mukallah airport .


Next : The wait for the bags, VIP treatment , Holiday Inn Mukallah, Banquet fit for Kings and more !