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Zabid

There's nothing like a big travel bag to attract anyone in sight who speaks English. This guy was a teacher keen to ask me about Australia. Like most who asked he couldn't believe that Australia only had 20 million people. He bought me a juice, helped me find the taxi stand for Zabid, asked if there was anything else he could do for me and went on his way. The drive to Zabid was another of those 'anywhere to Port Augusta' drives.

The hotel was pretty basic and was the first on this trip to have the cold water only shower directly above the squat toilet.

Zabid is the second UNESCO world heritage site in Yemen but walking around the streets you wouldn't guess it. So this was one those occasions I was glad to have a guides approach me. Again with the 'ask you like' payment. I knew where it would end but atleast it would work in my favour. With a guide you got to see inside some of the court yards and they were truly impressive. You even got to see inside some of the mosques, some as old as Islam itself. This is quite unusual for Yemen but I don't think I've been missing much. They're not as nearly as impressive inside as those in Syria or Turkey. One guy took offense (to me being there) and started laying into my guide. I just quietly walked out, my guide following a few minutes later. Apparently the guy thought I was German (not the first time thats happened) though I'm not sure why that would have made a difference.

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