Today Cécile and I took Emilie to the airport so she could begin her two week vacation in Yemen. Yes, you read that right…vacation and Yemen in the same sentence. She’s heading there with her father, though the trip was her idea and he (thankfully) agreed to join her after she had already planned it.
My knowledge of Yemen is probably in-line with that of most westerners – i.e., very limited and biased negatively by media reports. Aside from the Yemen-related cnn.com headlines that I’ve seen on occasion (often terrorist-related) and Chandler’s “I guess I’m going to Yemen” quote in a Friends episode, I really haven’t had much exposure to the country.
It turns out that there are many positives to Yemen that unfortunately get obscured by the more highly publicized negatives. For example, the country offers an environment that is relatively untouched by the Western (and in many cases modern) world. There is also the beautiful Socotra island, which is even more untouched than the Yemen mainland and is home to countless animal and plant species that exist nowhere else on the planet.
That said, I’m still having a hard time getting past my apprehensions about the safety of traveling to Yemen. Even if it’s statistically no more dangerous than traveling to many of the world’s most popular cities, something tells me that I’m not going to get much sleep over the next two weeks…
My knowledge of Yemen is probably in-line with that of most westerners – i.e., very limited and biased negatively by media reports. Aside from the Yemen-related cnn.com headlines that I’ve seen on occasion (often terrorist-related) and Chandler’s “I guess I’m going to Yemen” quote in a Friends episode, I really haven’t had much exposure to the country.
It turns out that there are many positives to Yemen that unfortunately get obscured by the more highly publicized negatives. For example, the country offers an environment that is relatively untouched by the Western (and in many cases modern) world. There is also the beautiful Socotra island, which is even more untouched than the Yemen mainland and is home to countless animal and plant species that exist nowhere else on the planet.
That said, I’m still having a hard time getting past my apprehensions about the safety of traveling to Yemen. Even if it’s statistically no more dangerous than traveling to many of the world’s most popular cities, something tells me that I’m not going to get much sleep over the next two weeks…
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