Having finished our visit to England, we set off for the overnight flight back to Yemen, hoping that there would be no problems on the journey with Yemenia -aka Yimkinia (Yimkin is Arabic for maybe). We left only an hour late, which is good going for Yemenia
We’re off to see the Kaaba
The passengers on either side of us were very friendly and were telling us that they were on their way to Mecca for a pilgrimage to the Kaaba at the end of Ramadan. Arab passengers are usually much more friendly on planes than Westerners, who usually just sit next to each other in silence. When we were not talking to them, they were reading their Qur’ans
Pilgrims marching around the Kaaba in Mecca
Dodgy plane
Paul usually cannot sleep on planes unless he’s trying to watch an interesting film. They were showing Prince Caspian but all the headphone sockets on the plane were broken. The back of the plane was very smelly because the toilet was blocked. One of the toilets at the front was also blocked but they had managed to stop it being used before it got smelly. Thankfully the plane was only half full, so we managed with two loos between everyone
Breakfast at 4am
After giving us dinner, the air hostesses showed no inclination to switch the lights off- probably due to Ramadan when Yemeni people tend to sleep in the day and are awake all night. Kate asked them to turn the lights off so that Kira could sleep, which they did so but then turned them on again half an hour later for breakfast at 4am- before the start of Ramadan fasting. Kira managed about 4 hours sleep on the 7 hour flight with some, but not too much screaming in between
Not too hot
We landed in Aden and successfully got through immigration & customs and were pleased to find that the weather was not as hot as expected. Apparently, September has been a bit cooler than normal – high-thirties instead of mid-forties. When we got to our house Kira went straight to sleep. We were glad that we had moved all our stuff in and put up curtains just before going to England
Our house in Aden
Competition
Well done to Stuart for winning last month's competition. For this month's competition, you need to find Aden on Google maps, switch to satellite mode and find Aden Airport. Set the scale to 1km (bottom left of map) and then find the name of the area to the north-west of the airport. This is the area where we live. First correct answer emailed to us will win an offroad driving experience in Yemen -flight not included
