Journeying Through the Rub-Al-Khali, December 1992
by Hootoksi Tyabji
It was in December of 1989 when we stepped off the plane and drove through the streets of Sana'a for the first time, and I remember the feeling of excitement and awe as we gazed at the buildings of the Old City bathed in the ethereal light of dawn. Many of these dwellings are half a century old and people still inhabit them! This is a city in which people have lived continuously for 2000 years! I thought to myself that this was a country where travel would yield the excitement of discovery and where it would still possible to find a road that has not been traversed and a culture that has not been touched by the mod-cons of this century.
On the 22nd of May 1990, the Yemen Arab Republic in the north and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen in the south pledged to bury the animosity of 300 years and unite, creating the Republic of Yemen. For travel enthusiasts like the Tyabjis, this opened vistas only dreamt of before. The fabled poetic bandit-infested desert, the Rub Al Khali, was waiting for us to explore, and explore it we would!
When we first threw the idea around, several of our friends politely told us to dream on! Had we heard of so and so being shot and did we not know of the deadly tribal feuds that plagued the region? Did we want to lose our car at gunpoint? Were we crazy to put the lives of our children at risk?
On Boxing Day, 26th Dec 1992, after much soul-searching, procrastination, careful planning, and a whole lot of bravado, we set off with two other families in tow!
Our good friends Stewart and Di McNab from our Somalia days, their daughters Fiona (15) and Kate (13) and their son Mehan (4), joined us. They brought along their trusted driver Abdullah who hails from the north but for whom this trip was as much of an adventure as it was for us. They rode in a brand-new Toyota Land Cruiser and were the first car in our convoy.
Next came the Jurrjens family. They are Dutch and decided to come along with us for the desert part of the trip. Carl is the first Secretary in the Dutch embassy, his wife Pauline, an ex-nurse (not terribly fond of roughing things out), his 79-year-old mum (affectionately christened “Granny”) who was visiting from Holland, and his 12 and 19-year-old sons. They rode in their 1982 Toyota Land Cruiser. Bringing up the rear was the "Winning Team" (we claimed the title as we never got stuck in the sand!) riding proud in our Mitsubishi Pajero. Along with us were Michel, Farhad and Adil, and our 8-year-old Apsoo/Damtsi pooch Chooki, surely the first Bhutanese fur ball to cross The Empty Quarter!
Each car carried the essential gear for desert travel - camping stuff, jerry cans of fuel and water, a spade, towrope and plywood boards for crossing stretches of deep sand.
The first part of the journey from Sana'a to Marib, a distance of 173 Kms., was pleasant and we were all in great spirits. Marib is at the eastern most point in the desert approachable by road, and it is here that we contacted our two armed guards Allawe and son, who were to guide and protect us through our crossing of the Rub-Al Khali and over to the Hadramaut on the other side!
Allawe was a fierce looking Bedouin dressed in a futah, (traditional Yemeni dress), turban, jambiah (traditional curved knife), and Kalashnikov. He cradled the gun in his lap as he sat in the front seat of Stewart’s car scanning the endless vista of sand. His eyes constantly traversed the horizon and his stance conveyed a readiness for action at a moment's notice! He exuded a confidence that was infectious and made us all feel totally "protected" and at ease. His son, a younger version of himself and a quiet travelling companion, sat in the back seat with our boys. Adil, quite into guns at that stage of his life, was in awe of the AK 47 he carried and kept at the ready!
At Marib, Queen Sheba’s now ruined city on the fringe of the desert, we stopped at the Halliburton camp to tag along with a crew on their way to doing a job for a company stationed in the middle of the desert at a place called Al Okhla. This was suggested and organized for us by our dear friend Steve Watson, Halliburton’s manager in Sana’a. We followed the red and grey Toyota Landcruiser driven by Ali (a veteran desert driver who never left without his AK 47), and Mitch, a burly six-foot-four Texan, and Prose, a four-foot-six Filippino technician in the back seat. And so, our convoy entered the desert and there was great excitement in our car!
As far as the eye could see, from horizon to horizon, there was sand and more gleaming, white, soft, sand. On and on it seemed, to go for an eternity. There is quite an art to driving in the desert and Ali was our champion and teacher. He began by letting air out of all our tyres and expertly dug both Carl and Stu out of the sand when they got stuck several times along the way! Robert mastered the skill in no time at all re-enforcing our view that he was the best driver in the group!
We arrived in Al Okhla at the prefab camp of Crest Service Co. at around 5 pm. We were welcomed by the staff who couldn't believe they had visitors and thoroughly enjoyed our company. They talked about their work and told us stories about the desert. Many of them had found arrow heads in dry riverbeds. These were hewn out of stone and probably thousands of years old. They told us of an ostrich egg they found but there have been no ostriches in that region for twenty thousand years! Our enthusiasm prompted them to take us around the camp to show us some amazing heliographic carvings on rocks. Nobody knows where they come from or how long they have been lying in the sand. The sun was fading fast and we had yet to find a place to set up our camp for the night, so we reluctantly bid our new friends farewell. Imagine my joy when one of them presented me with two arrowheads which I have to this day!
We journeyed on and found the perfect spot to set up our camp. It did not matter that our gas stove didn’t work, or that the food we carried was not entirely palatable to our guards, or that some of us were freezing cold. There was a beautiful moon smiling down on us, the sky was clear, and a billion stars shone upon fifteen adventurous souls camped on a dune in the Rub Al Khali. I felt a sense of calm and of peace. I was reminded of lines written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in his book, The Little Prince where he says “I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams…”
Our guards stayed up most of the night watching out for bandits and at first light, after spending a good hour churning a large pot of porridge on a Kerosene stove that did not quite work, one of us remembered a kind invitation from our friends at the oil camp. Showers and breakfast! We drove back for several hours to Al Okhla and what a wonderful feeling it was to have clean water to wash the sand off our bodies. As if that were not treat enough, we were offered a full American breakfast which we heartily devoured!
All tanked up and in great spirits we set off once again for the second half of our journey through the desert.
We did not have Ali and the Halliburton vehicle with us now, but we had been trained well, and were doing just fine. Cars driving in the sand are quite a sight to behold! We would carefully watch the car in front of us strain up a dune and almost fly off when it got to the top and down the other side. Often the wheels spun in the air and there was great excitement as we never knew what was on the other side of the dune! There were old, discarded ammunition boxes, rusted missile launchers and an ex-Soviet ammunition dump still manned by a few old Yemeni men. This gave the children quite a thrill! Once or twice, we spotted camels way up on a dune, but we never saw the Bedouin who were herding them though undoubtedly they were not far away.
All the children in the cars had been told to watch out for bandits and their little faces were filled with anticipation as they surveyed mile after mile of sand, fearfully awaiting that crowning excitement. And then, when we were least expecting it, it came. Way over on the horizon we saw a plume of sand and an old Land Cruiser driving like mad straight at us or so it seemed. There was tension in our car, the gun was poised, all three cars stopped as a wild looking kabeli (desert Bedouin) leaped out and started yelling something at Abdallah the driver of the first car in our convoy. The man seemed agitated but did not appear to be angry or to want to shoot or harm us in any way. Abdallah listened and smiled and told us that the man lived in the desert and saw our convoy from afar. Seeing the condition of the cars he concluded that there were white people in them and on looking more closely saw women and children. Guessing that one of them would be a nurse, he had bundled his wife into the car because she needed an injection, and could one of us give it to her please? It certainly was his lucky day as we had Pauline with us, and she agreed to jab the lady in the bum. We girls stood around to screen the bedu lady who without any ceremony hoisted her skirt, stuck out her bare bum and cheerfully had her injection. She then hopped into the old car with her husband at the wheel tooting his horn in thanks!
With that little excitement behind us we continued on expecting to see Lawrence of Arabia next. The kids begged to stop by a dry riverbed so they could search for arrow heads and you know what? They found some!
All the while that we drove through sand, sand, and more sand, I kept marveling at how Allawe knew exactly where we should be heading! He had no compass or GPS. He would look ahead and point this way or that and we were always right on course. We arrived at an old army post at Qa'udah Dahri where the soldiers were more interested in Chooki the dog than they were in us! That day we had driven 8 hours through the sand! We felt exhilarated! We had crossed the southern part of the Rub Al Khali from west to east without losing our way, running out of fuel, or encountering bandits!
Once out of the desert, we bid Allawe and his son farewell and waved the Jurrjuns Family on their way. Granny had survived the crossing! She set a wonderful example for all of us who were always struck by her stamina and cheerfulness in all temperatures!
We were now beginning the second phase of our exciting trip. We drove through the Wadi Al Ain, a valley of the Wadi Hadramaut, the home of kings who for centuries controlled the frankincense trade in Arabia. This region is in the southern part of Yemen and is famous for its fertile plains, honey and tobacco, and the sister cities of Shibam, Seyoun and Tarim with their spectacular sky-scraper architecture. For our family it was even more exciting as our Tyabji ancestors are supposed to have migrated to India from the Hadramaut, and there is even a village named Bait al Tayeb! Unfortunately, we did not have the time to search for our roots, but we thoroughly enjoyed what we experienced and saw and hope to return one day to investigate Bait al Tayeb.
We spent two nights at the Al-Qubba summer palace hotel on the outskirts of Tarim. Unfortunately, it was less of a palace than we expected! We had one double room and one dorm for seven! The plumbing left a lot to be desired, the shower was icy cold and came spurting out in all directions and the flush leaked every time! But there was a swimming pool used by frogs who afforded the children many pleasurable moments, and us oldies enjoyed the ambience of the place and sipped local beer in the garden among the bougainvillea’s. At one time, Tarim was the spiritual center of the country and there were as many mosques as the number of days in the Islamic year! After seeing the few sights on offer we drove on to Seyoun which is the main town in the Hadramaut valley. Here we visited the museum located in the former sultan's palace which overlooks the town. From Seyoun we drove on to Shibam, famously known as the Chicago of the desert. What a spectacular sight! The settlement dates back to the second century AD and the houses (still inhabited) are over 300 years old! They look like they are reaching for the sky and some are 8 stories high and built of mud and clay. It must have been here that the concept of the high rise was born!
That afternoon we walked around the buildings in the old part of town. The architecture harks back to pre-Islamic times, and the structure of homes is that of a square, tall tower. Narrow windows are slit in stone walls for ventilation and there were some exquisite specimens of carved, wooden box-like structures that jut out of the building from where women watch the comings and goings without being seen by the outside world! Women and children occupy the lower levels; higher up is the men's domain. Uppermost is the mafraj with large windows set beneath qamariyas, half-moon shaped stained glass windows which cast an ethereal light on the men as they chew qat and draw on the hookah (hubbly bubbly). Several of the houses had original alabaster windows! Some of the facades were ornately decorated and all of them had some form of carving or painting. As we walked along, dodging goats, and collecting a gaggle of curious children, it was as if we had entered another age!
All of us wanted to get the perfect photograph of this amazing town and we drove around it for quite a while before Rob directed us to the right spot! The timing is important too, and we waited till we had the background of a setting sun! While we waited, we walked along a water channel and I decided to chat with some of the ladies in the fields. They were harvesting alfalfa dressed in their black habayas and completely veiled. They wear these incredible wide-brimmed straw hats that are about 18" tall to keep the head cool! With my two words of Arabic our conversation never got beyond the giggling stage. I did however clearly understand that the ladies were very interested in my four gold bangles and the bolder one of the group, got hold of my wrist and proceeded to try and wrench them off while I twisted this way and that to the delight of the others who howled with laughter! We haven't had our slides developed yet, but I think it is almost impossible to capture on film what we saw. That time was awesome enough to be etched in our memories for a long time.
After a satisfying meal at our "palace" in Tarim where on the second night we had a lovely room with five beds and a private balcony for Chooki, we had a long and restful sleep.
The next morning, we drove directly to the beach along the coastal road. It was a long and picturesque drive and we were quite amazed by the large, beautiful old homes we saw on the way.
At this stage of our journey, Chooki developed diarrhea so we had to stop every so often to let her out. She never once messed the car but assaulted our noses and brought out the most paternal instincts in our boys! She was fussed over and given ORS and smothered with love so, happily, she soon recovered.
We stopped for lunch at 5.30 in Mukalla which at one time was the largest port in Yemen. What little we saw of the town was most un-attractive and the "best hotel" where we ate was filthy and run-down. We decided to eat and run and drove on to Bir Ali where we planned to camp for the night. This was the last point, the old port of Qana, from where the incense of the Hadramout used to be shipped to other parts of Arabia.
Arriving at the beach long past dark, we couldn’t see the ocean but could hear it! The sand was a long way off the road, and we began driving through huge rocks looking for a good camping spot. We soon realized the futility of the exercise as we could not see very much, and we unanimously voted to camp where we were and look for the beach in the morning. Abdulla had never been camping before and was quite bewildered by it all! He had never encountered people who drove miles to find a spot to be uncomfortable, in the middle of nowhere! We had great difficulty pitching our tents in the sand, but we managed somehow and all of us rested very well despite the rocks!
We struck camp after a sandy and hasty breakfast and went in search of Husn Al-Ghurab which is a huge out-crop of rock. To the right of it we found the most wonderful beach where we set up camp. Abdulla decided this was a good opportunity for him to find some decent food and company and he took off for the better part of the day, while we swam, lazed around, and snorkeled. The children saw some fish but nothing remarkably interesting. They introduced Abdulla to the delights of rugby (Adil's latest passion, his ball goes where he goes!) and we older folks went for long walks and collected coral and shells. What a gorgeous spot! Totally isolated and completely un-spoiled!
That night as we sat around a camp-fire grilling fish (bought not caught!) both Rob and I felt so blessed and privileged to have had this wonderful experience with our boys. No education we could buy them can ever equal what they get from travelling and exploring the world with us.
In the morning as we struck camp there was this feeling of sadness, nobody was talking and there was a silence and just the sound of the sea. The past week seemed to have flown by!
Suddenly the silence was broken by a cry from Michel. "Look, dolphins!" he yelled. He had spotted a whole school of over 15, snorting, gurgling, and frolicking in the sea close enough for us to clearly see them. They seemed to be saying goodbye as they flapped their fins and dived in and out of the water! What a wonderful ending to a perfect holiday!
The drive back to Sana'a was long and hard. 14 hours, and the scenery seemed dull and un-interesting after the awesome terrain of the past few days! It was endless beach, low hills and barren scrub land covered with black lava rocks. Most of the area we drove through must once have been ocean. Yemen is a geologist’s dream and I am sure if we knew more about it, we would have found the rock formations exciting!
We brought in the New Year in Sana’a resolving to go on many more exciting trips and adventures though this one would be hard to top!'