Motoring with Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea
by Eric Hansen
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In 1978 Eric Hansen found himself shipwrecked on a desert island in the Red Sea. When goat smugglers offered him safe passage to Yemen, he buried seven years' worth of travel journals deep in the sand and took his place alongside the animals on a leaky boat bound for a country that he'd never planned to visit. As he tells of the turbulent seas that stranded him on the island and of his efforts to retrieve his buried journals when he returned to Yemen ten years later, Hansen enthralls us with show more a portrait -- uncannily sympathetic and wildly offbeat -- of this forgotten corner of the Middle East. With a host of extraordinary characters from his guide, Mohammed, ever on the lookout for one more sheep to squeeze into the back seat of his car, to madcap expatriates and Eritrean gun runners- and with landscapes that include cities of dreamlike architectural splendor, endless sand dunes, and terrifying mountain passes, Hansen reveals the indelible allure of a land steeped in custom, conflicts old and new, and uncommon beauty. show lessTags
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Eric Hansen, the intrepid, foolhardy author of Stranger in the Forest: On Foot Across Borneo, is back with adventures from a beguiling corner of the Middle East. Back in 1978, after a yacht-wreck in the Red Sea, he was stranded for two weeks on an uninhabited island off the coast of North Yemen. Rescued after two weeks by a boatload of amiable Eritrean arms smugglers, he left behind buried on the island a pile of notebooks that he had compiled during seven years of bumming around Greater Asia.
Most of Motoring with Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea takes place a decade later when Hansen returns with the hope of recovering his notebooks. His plans to revisit the island are thwarted, however, by bureaucracy, military security show more zones, and rumors of the presence of Yasser Arafat. Fortunately, Hansen rapidly loses his sense of mission as he falls into the rhythms of the Yemeni male lifestyle. This demands spending a large part of each day chewing the hallucinogenic leaf qat.
Hansen wanders in a medieval landscape where tribesmen proffer spontaneous poems, but also tend to resolve minor disputes with the aid of AK-47s and a few hostages. Over several months, he meets missionaries, refugees and Western Arabists while happening upon ceremonies marking life and death. Here at last is a Muslim country where tradition is synonymous with generosity and tolerance, even of Jews and Nazaranis.
For one episode alone, this book will be cherished by anyone who—suffering from the temporary insanity induced by a civil war or a stolen passport—has ever sought the counsel of a U.S. diplomatic mission. With characteristic restraint, Hansen recalls: “I was given the impression that several dozen American citizens were shipwrecked each week in Yemen and the overworked staff was just going to have to draw the line somewhere. We were not offered as much as a glass of water, and assistance was limited to showing us the door and pointing vaguely in the direction of the only international-class hotel.” Ω
{ I hope I don’t give the impression that one has to go all the way to Yemen to experience Muslim hospitality. I meant that it doesn’t turn up often in travelogues of Muslim lands.} show less
Most of Motoring with Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea takes place a decade later when Hansen returns with the hope of recovering his notebooks. His plans to revisit the island are thwarted, however, by bureaucracy, military security show more zones, and rumors of the presence of Yasser Arafat. Fortunately, Hansen rapidly loses his sense of mission as he falls into the rhythms of the Yemeni male lifestyle. This demands spending a large part of each day chewing the hallucinogenic leaf qat.
Hansen wanders in a medieval landscape where tribesmen proffer spontaneous poems, but also tend to resolve minor disputes with the aid of AK-47s and a few hostages. Over several months, he meets missionaries, refugees and Western Arabists while happening upon ceremonies marking life and death. Here at last is a Muslim country where tradition is synonymous with generosity and tolerance, even of Jews and Nazaranis.
For one episode alone, this book will be cherished by anyone who—suffering from the temporary insanity induced by a civil war or a stolen passport—has ever sought the counsel of a U.S. diplomatic mission. With characteristic restraint, Hansen recalls: “I was given the impression that several dozen American citizens were shipwrecked each week in Yemen and the overworked staff was just going to have to draw the line somewhere. We were not offered as much as a glass of water, and assistance was limited to showing us the door and pointing vaguely in the direction of the only international-class hotel.” Ω
{ I hope I don’t give the impression that one has to go all the way to Yemen to experience Muslim hospitality. I meant that it doesn’t turn up often in travelogues of Muslim lands.} show less
Entertaining account of travels in Yemen, with the added dimension of a quest to recover some journals, buried when the author was shipwrecked, some years earlier. Eric Hansen has an eye for the telling detail as he describes his journeys and the people he meets.....a delightful armchair travel experience (as is his previous book "Stranger in the Forest - on foot across Borneo".
Surprisingly gripping and beautiful.
Surprisingly gripping and beautiful.
Splendido resoconto di viaggio in una delle terre più affascinanti della penisola araba. Eric Hansen ci narra i suoi due itinerari nello Yemen: il primo nel 1978 del tutto casuale, poiché mentre viaggiava con quattro amici nel mar Rosso su una grande barca a vela – la Clea – per raggiungere Atene, una forte bufera lo ha letteralmente trascinato nell’isola deserta di Uqban. il secondo viaggio viene effettuato dieci anni dopo quando decide di recuperare i suoi taccuini di viaggio insabbiati sulla spiaggia nel momento di lasciare l’isola. Lo Yemen in queste pagine ci appare in tutta la sua bellezza: il mar Rosso, i luoghi incontaminati dove la natura domina sovrana, e naturalmente le splendide immagini dell’affascinante show more San’a, capitale dello Yemen. show less
Apr 8, 2012Italian
Yemen 1996...rimane tutt'ora il più bel paese che io abbia mai visitato
Aug 24, 2017Italian
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I love travel narratives, and since this is a recommendation for holiday reading, I’d like to call attention to one of my favorite Middle East travel narratives: Eric Hansen’s Motoring with Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea. Yemen is frequently in the news, and the news from there never seems to be good. Yet as visitors to Yemen (including myself) have discovered, there is much show more that is friendly and attractive about this country that is little known not only to Westerners, but also to other Arabs.
In this book, Hansen conveys a strong sense of the country’s rugged beauty and individualism. Though many outside Yemen fear the rise of radical Islam there, Hansen’s descriptions of two widespread Yemeni customs—chewing qat (a mildly narcotic leaf) and carrying arms—suggest that this is not a country that Al Qaeda or other puritanical Islamist movements will find easy to dominate. Hansen, though, also discusses Yemen’s many problems—which have largely grown worse since his book was published. More than anything else, Motoring with Mohammed provides a clear, understandable introduction to a country whose politics so often appear to be neither clear nor understandable. show less
In this book, Hansen conveys a strong sense of the country’s rugged beauty and individualism. Though many outside Yemen fear the rise of radical Islam there, Hansen’s descriptions of two widespread Yemeni customs—chewing qat (a mildly narcotic leaf) and carrying arms—suggest that this is not a country that Al Qaeda or other puritanical Islamist movements will find easy to dominate. Hansen, though, also discusses Yemen’s many problems—which have largely grown worse since his book was published. More than anything else, Motoring with Mohammed provides a clear, understandable introduction to a country whose politics so often appear to be neither clear nor understandable. show less
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- 915.33204 — History & geography Geography & travel Geography of and travel in Asia Arabian Peninsula and adjacent areas Yemen Northern Yemen
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- DS247 .Y42 .H34 — History of Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania Asia History of Asia Arabian Peninsula. Saudi Arabia Local history and description
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