shibam
While I was in Kuwait, Dida mailed me an image of Shibam she'd scanned from the Impressions of Yemen book. An astonishing bird's eye view of the Manhattan of the Desert, a cluster of mud towers in a large empty canyon. On the picture, the road is clearly visible, passing Shibam and fading in the distance.
Approaching Shibam on that same road a couple of months later, the fairy tale image settles into a more realistic scene. The canyon isn't empty at all, the Manhattan of the Desert is - logically - surrounded by the New Jersey and the Long Island of the Desert. Wadi Hadramawt is filled with lots of sprawling towns, bustling businesses along the main road, light industries and farms - all of it under constant deconstruction reconstruction, almost up to the edge of Shibam.
Shibam dates back to the second century AD, while most of its current 500 tower houses were built in the 16th and 17th centuries, of course continually restored and maintained.
We arrive to Shibam in the afternoon, and check in to the only hotel of the city, a colonial style building just outside of the city walls, for the most expensive night of our trip. Sadly there's not one mud tower hotel inside the old city, the hotel manager confirms. He also tells us he's been expecting us, a Belgian and an American on bikes, after a phonecall from the police... interesting.
After a peak past the main gate of the city and a short walk around the cool and dusty canyon-like streets, we head up to a rock outside of the city, famous for its evening views over the city and the wadi. We are joined by an 85-year-old Japanese visitor, part of a talkative tour group, among others. The sun is low, and casts a fabulous light on the mud of the city and on the rock of the canyon walls.
From here, most tourists board a tour bus and drive off to spend the night in Seyyun or Tarim. We decide to take a walk around the city.
Tim Mackintosh-Smith also visited Shibam, some years ago. He compares it with his adopted hometown Sana'a.
Shibam and Sana’a have much in common. They became prominent at about the same time, both developed the idea of the towerhouse, both are situated at central points on trade routes. Today the similarity ends there. Sana’a is lively, colourful, chaotic; Shibam is hushed. There is little movement in the principal public space just past the main gate. Beyond this on the town’s narrow streets, the outsider feels like an intruder. Eyes watch your every movement – the eyes of goats peering down from first floor windows, of chickens in hutches hung across the street to keep them safe from predators, other eyes behind lattices. A few children wander around, but otherwise there is little human activity... I feared, entering the city for the first time, that the hush of Shibam was that of a museum. (tMS)
We end up discovering the tension Tim talks about in a slightly more brutal way. On our walk around the city wall – it is almost dark now – suddenly a rock thumps into the dust, right next to our feet. A couple of silhouettes run off high on the city walls. We are perplexed, then shout out, and return immediately, but even on our way back rocks keep bouncing in the dark, some big ones, and really close.
When we get back to the road, slightly in shock but unharmed, we explain what happened to a couple of elderly Shibami, but all we get as response is a grin and slightly mocking eyes.
Tim attributes the hush of Shibam to 'Marxist conditioning' (the Hadramawt was part of communist South Yemen in the 70s and 80s), 'innate Hadrami reserve', and to the depopulation by emigration. And matters didn’t get any more relaxed since he passed through apparently. Even though there is something to say for a local community that refuses to sell its city to tourism, still conservative stronghold Shibam leaves an unwelcoming memory, in general and in almost every single contact.
On our escape, we meet Yahya, who takes us around for the rest of the night, and puts the coward attack a little more into perspective - basically by shrugging his shoulders, and by telling us it took hím two years to get accepted... Yahya is one of the many Germans working on UNESCO projects to restore and preserve the town's astonishing but crumbling mud houses. But unlike most of his foreign collegues, Yahya lives inside the city, among the Shibamis, inside the architecture he’s helping to preserve. He adopted a Yemeni name and recently even islam (“it’s just easier than having to decline going to prayer five times a day”). He has an entire mud tower house to himself, where he takes us later on, and introduces us to the wonders Shibam and its architecture.
Nonetheless the next morning we are happy to leave Shibam, the mysterious city from the picture book, and bike further west.
Approaching Shibam on that same road a couple of months later, the fairy tale image settles into a more realistic scene. The canyon isn't empty at all, the Manhattan of the Desert is - logically - surrounded by the New Jersey and the Long Island of the Desert. Wadi Hadramawt is filled with lots of sprawling towns, bustling businesses along the main road, light industries and farms - all of it under constant deconstruction reconstruction, almost up to the edge of Shibam.
Shibam dates back to the second century AD, while most of its current 500 tower houses were built in the 16th and 17th centuries, of course continually restored and maintained.
We arrive to Shibam in the afternoon, and check in to the only hotel of the city, a colonial style building just outside of the city walls, for the most expensive night of our trip. Sadly there's not one mud tower hotel inside the old city, the hotel manager confirms. He also tells us he's been expecting us, a Belgian and an American on bikes, after a phonecall from the police... interesting.
After a peak past the main gate of the city and a short walk around the cool and dusty canyon-like streets, we head up to a rock outside of the city, famous for its evening views over the city and the wadi. We are joined by an 85-year-old Japanese visitor, part of a talkative tour group, among others. The sun is low, and casts a fabulous light on the mud of the city and on the rock of the canyon walls.
From here, most tourists board a tour bus and drive off to spend the night in Seyyun or Tarim. We decide to take a walk around the city.
Tim Mackintosh-Smith also visited Shibam, some years ago. He compares it with his adopted hometown Sana'a.
Shibam and Sana’a have much in common. They became prominent at about the same time, both developed the idea of the towerhouse, both are situated at central points on trade routes. Today the similarity ends there. Sana’a is lively, colourful, chaotic; Shibam is hushed. There is little movement in the principal public space just past the main gate. Beyond this on the town’s narrow streets, the outsider feels like an intruder. Eyes watch your every movement – the eyes of goats peering down from first floor windows, of chickens in hutches hung across the street to keep them safe from predators, other eyes behind lattices. A few children wander around, but otherwise there is little human activity... I feared, entering the city for the first time, that the hush of Shibam was that of a museum. (tMS)
We end up discovering the tension Tim talks about in a slightly more brutal way. On our walk around the city wall – it is almost dark now – suddenly a rock thumps into the dust, right next to our feet. A couple of silhouettes run off high on the city walls. We are perplexed, then shout out, and return immediately, but even on our way back rocks keep bouncing in the dark, some big ones, and really close.
When we get back to the road, slightly in shock but unharmed, we explain what happened to a couple of elderly Shibami, but all we get as response is a grin and slightly mocking eyes.
Tim attributes the hush of Shibam to 'Marxist conditioning' (the Hadramawt was part of communist South Yemen in the 70s and 80s), 'innate Hadrami reserve', and to the depopulation by emigration. And matters didn’t get any more relaxed since he passed through apparently. Even though there is something to say for a local community that refuses to sell its city to tourism, still conservative stronghold Shibam leaves an unwelcoming memory, in general and in almost every single contact.
On our escape, we meet Yahya, who takes us around for the rest of the night, and puts the coward attack a little more into perspective - basically by shrugging his shoulders, and by telling us it took hím two years to get accepted... Yahya is one of the many Germans working on UNESCO projects to restore and preserve the town's astonishing but crumbling mud houses. But unlike most of his foreign collegues, Yahya lives inside the city, among the Shibamis, inside the architecture he’s helping to preserve. He adopted a Yemeni name and recently even islam (“it’s just easier than having to decline going to prayer five times a day”). He has an entire mud tower house to himself, where he takes us later on, and introduces us to the wonders Shibam and its architecture.
Nonetheless the next morning we are happy to leave Shibam, the mysterious city from the picture book, and bike further west.
posted by Jan at 1:04 PM
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brave heart
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