Tony Horwitz's 1991 Baghdad Without A Map is not just about Iraq.* It covers his travels to Egypt, Yemen, Libya, etc. It's amazing how miserable those places were when he was there and how the people there continued to live miserably for another two decades until, poof, their despots were almost simultaneously ousted.
The second chapter is about Yemen. There, every man carries a dagger and chews qat. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of video footage of the country, pre-Arab Spring, on Youtube. I did find this piece, which was produced last year. The residential towers are really cool.
*I just started Baghdad and it's engrossing. I also enjoyed his One for the Road (hitchhiking in Australia) and Blue Latitudes (tracing voyages of Captain Cook).
Sunday, October 02, 2011
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2 comments:
Thanks for the video. Since I was a little kid I was amazed that a place like Sanaa existed.
Skyscrappers!, so old, so tall and so many. And made of what, mud? in such a little known corner of the world. The pictures of those richly detailed tall buildings appeared as something almost unbelievable to me.
@Viva: I was looking for qat today...until I found that it is illegal here. Never mind.
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