The other side of Yemen

Spectator

4 days ago

In the western imagination, Yemen exists as a byword for terrorism and death. Its appearances in international headlines are flattened into a trilogy of suffering: Houthis, hunger, hopelessness. The civil war has dragged on for over a decade, leaving much of the nation in ruins. Life is punishing for the millions who navigate daily existence amid chronic instability. The Houthis – entrenched in the capital, Sana'a – continue to tighten their grip on power in the northwest. Their attacks on Red Sea shipping have drawn international reprisals and fuelled regional tensions. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office still advises British nationals against travelling to the country.
Yemen is not therefore your conventional holiday destination. But Yemen is more than the Houthis. On the edge of the Empty Quarter, in the nation's northeast, lies the Hadhramaut. It is here that I came to glimpse a different Yemen, far from the front lines and well beyond the reach of Houthi control. It has been spared the war's daily tumult, and so – eager for an adventure and travelling as a tourist, despite the warnings – I boarded an ageing Yemenia Airbus to the city of Seiyun, a gateway to the region's hinterland.
The Hadhramaut stretches across desiccated wadis carved deep into the desert floor. Escarpments that trap the harsh Hadhrami heat surround it, and architectural marvels rising in dreamlike defiance punctuate its landscape. The city of Shibam is the most magnificent of these relics of mud and time. It was once the capital of a bygone kingdom and a crucial caravan stop on the incense route across southern Arabia. Today, Shibam – a Unesco world heritage site – is renowned for the jagged mudbrick skyscrapers that dominate its skyline, built on the ruins of its own foundations.
Often cited as the world's first example of vertical urban planning, Shibam is a testament to Yemeni imagination. Freya Stark, who travelled through the region in the 1930s, dubbed it the 'Manhattan of the desert'. Many of the 444 towers, which can reach 11 storeys high, date back to the 16th century. Trapezoidal in form, they are baked from the wadi's mud and capped with pale limestone plaster, their surfaces a patchwork of ochres and whites. Ornate woodwork frames the doors. The city, which sits atop a hillock, is ringed by a fortified wall, once a bulwark against marauding Bedouin raiders.
I spent a blistering summer day wandering its alleyways, shepherded closely by a Kalashnikov-wielding military escort. In the early afternoon, a labyrinthine interior – suspended in time and devoid of life – unfurled within. The air was thick with the scent of sun-baked mud, and the 3,000 Shibamites had sought silent refuge in the shade and shadows. Any signs of modernity blended seamlessly with the ancient geometry of the city's towers. Now and then, a building stood derelict, as the mud crumbled back into the earth, its former occupants long since departed for Saudi Arabia or further abroad. Only the bleats of goats echoed from darkened recesses. Yet the silence of the city did not mean solitude. Behind latticed windows, a hushed audience kept watch over the outsiders.
[Marcus Ray]
But as the sun began to set, Shibam began to stir. Children emerged to play in the alleyways, clustering in giggling groups. Old men lumbered to the square clutching bushels of khat – the psychotropic leaf that softens speech and stretches time – ready to commence their evening chew. Games of dominoes clacked on wooden crates outside cafes in the main square. Shibam's rhythm returned in quiet pulses. The city moved to its own elegiac choreography, momentarily disrupted by the foreign footfall.
The Hadhramaut is home to many other places of storybook grandeur. There is the religious city of Tarim, the village of Haid al-Jazil and the grand Bugshan Palace, whose mesmeric colours contrast with its lunar surroundings. Beyond this region too, there is richness – no less storied than in Sana'a – though much of it remains at risk of destruction and is, for now, out of reach.
[Marcus Ray]
Striking as they were, the Hadhramaut's marvels almost felt too cinematic to capture the dynamism of modern Yemen. Life proceeded instead at full tilt – and in all its colour – in Seiyun, where motorbikes weaved between honey stalls and minarets carried the call to prayer. The scent of cardamom and diesel hung thick in the air while gentle recitation drifted from a nearby madrasa. Children trained on sandy football fields, and mechanics crouched beneath battered cars, cigarette smoke curling above the chassis. A girl roared into a fan, thrilled by the staccato rasp of her voice, then toppled over laughing. A man tuned his old oud beneath a date palm. This sort of ordinary does not make the news. But in a country so often seen through the lens of collapse, normalcy itself can feel revelatory.
The Hadhramaut's daily rhythms and architectural wonders resist the easy narratives imposed from afar. Not everything here conforms to the image of a beleaguered nation. Yemen is more than the headlines that define it. It is a country where history lives alongside hardship and people persist without spectacle.