Charlie Smith finds empty waves and poor hospitality in Yemen…
It is seven pm on a Friday night and I’m hunkered down at a small café between the grimy partitions of a small alley. Friday night in Yemen ain’t the hoot it is elsewhere. The place is virulently Islamic. Meanly Islamic, and to be demanding about fish and piping hot bread on Friday night is to be playing a bit fast and loose. But I’m hungry, my colleague Josh is hungry, and our cameraman Tony is hungry. So we all sit as menacingly as we can, at least Josh and I do. Shoulders forward like fucken badasses, eyes on the maitre de. The maitre de is staring back, clearly bothered by our presence. It’s stupid to call him a maitre de, because it makes this café sound like it has walls and a ceiling. Head man, maybe. We ask for fish and bread. Stares. By this time a group has circled us. Men with thick beards and unsmiling eyes. We ask for fish and bread again. We’re informed that the cooks are praying. Finally, after 10 minutes the cooks return. I guess they were actually praying. I thought everyone here was just refusing to serve us on the principle that, “You kill millions of our brothers and you DO NOT get a bite.” In a matter of minutes a table-sized sheet of flat bread is laid out. This is the best stuff in the world, and I’ve only ever had it in Yemen. Always finger searingly febrile, a little doughy and crusted with sesame seeds. Soon salt-caked roasted fish, Cokes, and banana mush follow. Then we sit and drink sweetened tea with condensed milk and converse with the “terrorists” around us.
That’s how’d they be defined in any Western country. Full blown send-em-to-Guantanamo-before-they-fucksomething- up terrorists, and I’d be loathe to disagree, not that I think they should get sent to Gitmo. I just know they’d fuck something up.
They talk with us, they are hospitable, but that doesn’t mean their values have suddenly changed. “Gee, I used to think America was running riot all over the world and causing massive problems for Muslims. Then I met a nice young American man. God Bless the USA!” They’re not retarded.
After dinner and conversation we wade through the warm night back to our hotel. Everyone is eyeballing. This is Mukalla. Some tourists make it to Sana’a, Yemen’s capital. Some make it to Soqotra, the island that’s partially UN protected. Barely anyone makes it to Mukalla. It ain’t easy to get here, there’s not much to see and Osama Bin Laden’s family is from the hills right outside the city. We’re staying between two mosques in an area of town known for religiosity, meaning we’re the only white people for miles. Last time we were in this neighborhood our bodyguards hustled us out quickly while fingering their Kalashnikovs and mumbling “irhab, irhab.” Irhab means “terrorist” in Arabic.
There’s a crackle in the air and a group of men across the street staring into our bedroom window as we go to sleep. I enjoy the attention, though. I’m a dirty megalomaniac. The reason we’re here is to film a documentary on the roots of Islamic fundamentalism. I don’t give much a fuck to tell that story. It’s cool and fine and whatever, but a bit pedantic for my taste. So I’m mostly here to ride motorcycles and surf. I’m also a dirty hedonist.
I love surfing in Mukalla. Just south of the city a series of coves fold into the coastline making it the only place in Yemen to look like Maui. Each cove has reefy point breaks or shelves and can break anywhere from head high to double overhead. The water is clean and a bit cold. I think it has something to do with the monsoon.
My favorite wave is a wedgy right that can connect for 300 metres, when it’s working. Yemenis will come to this particular point and sit on the rock cliff to picnic, so there’s almost always a crowd of hooting onlookers. Or expressionless men.
North of the city it gets a little beach-breaky. It’s not that special, but since nobody surfs in Yemen you can pick and choose any section you want. You know when you go to your local beachie and everyone is sitting on the best peak? I hate that and it don’t happen here.
I’ve read many surf adventure travel stories. The glory of finding a wave, and surfing it for the first time in an exotic location etc. etc. I don’t give a fuck. I hate crowds. That’s why surfing Yemen is the best. There’s not even one ratty kid with a castaway broken board.
It’ll never be a package surf destination either. Westernised peoples are scared and they sort of should be. The place ain’t safe. And I’m on the verge of becoming a douche. This whole “danger” issue gets a bit touchy for me. I’ve met too many dildo “world travellers” who tout how much danger they were in while buying spices in Cairo. Gaaaaaay. Going to the fucking Middle East is a cheap, automatic “livin’ on the edge” badge.
Really, and in my professional opinion, places and experiences speak for themselves. There’s no need to say something is dangerous. It either is or it isn’t. The proof will always be in the pudding, which can be a sticky mess. That’s horribly, unintendedly poetic, but in “discovering” what’s dangerous and what isn’t there’s no analytical remove. I’ve had guns pulled on me, been shot at, kidnapped and bombed (bombed on?). Those experiences were out of control and turned so in the blink of an eye. Once it starts to turn, there’s no going back. You’re officially in the muck. I’ve also been in a host of situations where it felt like it was going to turn ugly, but didn’t. I don’t know if those are really dangerous or not.
There’s a town in Yemen called Marib. It’s sort of like the wild west. Lawless and lots of guns. After surfing (fun) and interviewing scholars on Islam (dull) Josh and I rode our motorcycles back toward Sana’a (fun). Our bikes were little 125cc numbers. Big bikes are rare in Yemen and these were the biggest we could find. We had already ridden from Sana’a to Aden to Mukalla to Al Ghaida to Saiun. That’s the entire length of the country on the coast then cutting through the desert to get back. Well over 2000 kilometers on 125ccs of power. It must be some sort of record. We had a driver to take our surfboards and the cameraman, Tony. Our driver had been dreading the prospect of Marib for the past week. “When we get to Marib, please don’t say anything. Let me do all the talking.” Marib is a regular hangout for purported Al-Qaeders.
As soon as we swung into the outskirts of the city Josh’s sparkplug went bad. We stopped to swap it out and a lil mob descended. “Where are you from? Where are you from?” Our driver said, “Lebanon.” They weren’t buying it, so they marched over to me and started asking, “Where are you from?” All this was happening in Arabic, btw. I didn’t want to dick our driver so I said, “Lebanon.” “Where in Lebanon?” “Beirut.” This seemed to pacify them for the moment, so they started to help with the sparkplug. Meanwhile, I was worried about another potential time bomb. Josh and I had rigged my bike with a lipstick camera near the headlight in order to capture “natural” footage. Yemenis are notoriously wary of cameras, and in a town like Marib, they have reason to be. The US had recently used photo surveillance to hellfire missile a car carrying what where called “members of al-Qaeda.” What’s more, this camera looked like a bomb because it fed into a hard drive and a detonator button was used to turn it on. A thick stack of dynamite-shaped batteries hidden under my seat was the power source. It, literally, couldn’t look more like a bomb. This is a game we call, “fucked either way.” If they see it and figure out it’s a camera? Fucked. If they see it and think it’s a bomb? Fucked and killed.
I made small talk about the wonders of Lebanese music videos until the bike started running again. Back on the road.
Out of nowhere, a truck was suddenly on top of me. The passenger was yelling out the window: “Where are you from?” (All this “Where are you from? ” business is an attempt to suss out if you’re American. In Marib that’s a one-way ticket to kidnappsville.) I gave him an ugly look and he raced forward to try to bash Josh off the road. We were going about 120 at the time. Josh somehow controlled a slide on the dusty shoulder and pulled behind the truck. The guy slammed on his breaks to try and smash our faces to his tailgate then sped up again. I don’t know how this would have ended if we hadn’t run into the checkpoint for Marib proper. The truck backed off and turned down a side road. There are always checkpoints in and out of Yemeni towns. This particular one looked like a Mad Max barracks, all built up with gunship trucks, homemade corrugated armour (I don’t know what that would do except create deadly shrapnel) and a bare bones military detachment. The city of Marib and the Yemeni government are not on good terms, so they don’t stick too many soldiers here.
One time, the government kidnapped 10 sheiks from Marib and held them hostage. Another time government troops entered the town looking for senior al-Qaeda members and the townspeople opened fire on them. Every car gets a good search going in and out, for weapons caches and whatnot. When Josh and I rode up the soldiers froze. They didn’t know what the hell we were doing but could see that ugly attention was around the corner. There were six of them vs a couple thousand trigger-happy Maribites in a very small square city block. The cars get searched well here so there is a logjam of angry, put upon smashed together people. Josh and I would get killed because we were having a bit of adventure. These soldiers would get killed because Josh and I were having a bit of adventure. Uncool for them.
Then my bike ran out of fuel.
Fuck.
Things escalated quickly after that as more people came out of the corrugated woodwork and encroached upon the scene. Mobs always exacerbate delicate situations. The soldiers began screaming at everyone to back away, but nobody moved. Their eyes had the dull angry glaze of dog who’s fought too many battles. A group of men in the back of a truck busted out a brand new HD movie cam and started filming us. They didn’t have smiles on their bearded faces, so I’m assuming the film wasn’t supposed to be used in “Visit Beautiful Yemen” tourist propaganda. The soldiers kept screaming and the people kept not moving. A setting sun cast a bloody glow on the scene while the weather had turned weirdly hot, or maybe I had just noticed it.
Rob Thomas was wrong. This is how a heart breaks: A town with a history of firing on government troops, supporting al- Qaeda, and tasting the sharp end of American missiles plus an unnaturally warm evening and an increasingly menacing crowd. On top of everything, word had trickled in from the outskirts that we may not actually be Lebanese. A kid was shouting, “They’re American” across the street. The mob grew.
In my experience, if there is one man holding a gun to your head, reason is still in play. If there is a whole town going fucking nuts, see you later. All someone has to do is pop their gum too loudly and BAM! Good fucking night. Josh and I tried to look cool on our motorbikes, making Arabic small talk with those brave enough to get in the future line of fire. It probably didn’t look cool that I was sweating like a fat Armenian.
The last time we were in an agitated Islamic crowd we’d almost had our limbs ripped off and I still have a few claw mark scars.
After what seemed an eternity someone brought up a canister of gas and we left. That was it. Drove quietly through town as everyone stopped what they were doing and ogled. I half expected to get shot off my bike somewhere in the middle of this and realised, when we made it through, how exhausting it had been. My muscles were sore from flexing in an unconscious attempt to deflect potential bullets. I don’t think it would have worked.
So was that situation dangerous? I don’t know. Is any situation dangerous if you don’t die? I don’t know. I’m still trying to find out.
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Reply #6 on : Fri April 10, 2009, 10:46:08