Explorer Mikael Strandberg

Walking through Maasiland in the year of 2000, not donning local gear as usual, but called Olorogwa whether I liked it or not....

One of the main visions of the Arabian Expedition is to build a bridge of understanding between the West and the Muslim East and within the Arab countries themselves. No matter how one look upon things, this is one of the major problems that the world is facing today. There´s an enormous need for information, education and clear debate on both sides. One of our major hopes regarding this upcoming Expedition, of which 50% is Arab, Salim and Nasr, and the rest made up of me and Pamela, who is Asian-American, is to communicate via the Internet every third day, where debate will be one of the most important issues. We need to communicate. If this is possible, to create a forum for debate just like we wish, we don´t know yet.

The reason I bring this very exiting and important issue up in this report is due to this email that I received yesterday:

Know that the Bani Hasan tribe has been undertaking camel treks out of Yemen across Africa for centuries – guess that’s already been “explored” (without GPS receivers and sat-phones).

I’ve lived in Yemen for a while now and you are like every dick head tourist I’ve seen coming through here, donning local clothes and a jambiya (you know the locals laugh at foreigners doing that, right?), giving yourself a local name (priceless) and blogging about the place like you discovered it.

However, you stand apart in your unfailing ability to aggrandise yourself for doing what is otherwise standard adventure tourism. You’re no more of an explorer than the 1000th Yemeni traveling through Sweden can claim he is exploring stockholm.

Why not explore the mind of the self-important ethnocentric tourist? You’ve got a head start.

amelahodalt (this person did leave his or hers email, but no name)

Me an ethnocentric dick? Possibly....

During my 25 years of exploration, I have never, ever received an email as offensive and full of bitterness, jealousy and hatred as this one. I am sorry to, once again, find out that so many people feel bad in this world of ours and use so much of their joy to live to pour out their hate and bitterness for something they disagree with. I have received tons of letters, emails, phone calls throughout the years and I have been stopped in the street many times by people who disagree with what I do, who I am and how I see life. Of course, I wish everybody would love me, but that is definitely not the case! But I accept all kinds of critique. It is part of any life where you have personal opinions.

However, to be able to have a debate about anything in life, opinions have to be free and many. Within a limit. Offensive emails like this one, based on hatred, jealousy and bitterness, leads nowhere. But there are, after all no smoke without fire, and some of these issues this person highlights comes up a lot in my sphere, what is an explorer and what is true exploration, so I will start a debate by answering this persons accusations. Feel relatively free to come with opinions, but since I moderate everything, because I on and off get these type of emails, I will not allow more emails like this one, which is free of any reason, good research and thought.

About the Beni Hassan tribe, like the more well-known Beni Hilal tribe, and other Arabs who have traveled both ways, to and from Mecca, this is true, but there´s absolutely no written records that a full east to west trip has been done without a prolonged break. Especially not in modern times. However, one of the main ideas with the Expedition, is to highlight the Arabs as great travellers and their amazing journeys. One of them is the well-known Ibn Battuta. And that is why 50% of the members are Arab, so that they can become modern day Ibn Battutas and give the Arab world a voice from the exploration point.

Reality today, in the modern era of exploration,is that this is how most Bedu travel with their camels today...even the famous Al-Mahra tribe.

When it comes to satellite phones and GPS, it shows that you have no idea about my past history of exploration, feel free to read this. I have never, ever used a GPS and never will. However when it comes to satellite phones, I did have it on the Siberian Expedition and will have bring one on the upcoming Expedition. This is due to the need to communicate via Internet. Plus that authorities nowadays won´t let you into the country without one. It is considered another measure of security. But, I will never, ever, use the satellite phone to call for help or assistance. It hasn´t happened and it never will.

When it comes to donning local dress, I agree fully with you. This is the first time in my life, that I have put on local dress, and I agree with your assessment. The reason is as follows: I was given it as a gift from Pamela and our two friends Mohammed and Hussein, to wear for one day. From which all photos are taken. I felt very uncomfortable, but realized that there were many in the souk who actually felt honored and liked it that I wore there local Sanaani dress. But that was the only time. But, it could well happen again in the future. Once again, I wish you would have done your home work better. This is the thing with blind hate, jealousy and bitterness, it works over reason and research. Better to do something with your own life in stead. Enjoy it. Do it in a way you think is appropriate. Write about it. Because communication is the most important issue for a stable future for the globe.

Together with Hussein...yes, we are all laughing!

The giving of the name Ahmed Al-Hamdani was the same evening. It was Hussein and Mohammed who gave it to me. As a sign of their respect. For what I don´t know. However, many western tourists, adventure travelers and explorers have been given names whether they like it or not. Two well known ones are Wyman Bury and Wilfried Thesiger. I have been given local names, whether I like it or not, meeting other people, tribes, like the maasai. I was throughout my Expedition there called Olorogwa, which means the fiery one. Local names are always given by local people as a sign of respect and appreciation. Maybe that is why you have never experienced this.

When it comes to my love of writing, well, I will always write as I have just discovered a place! For me, I do discover all the time and for me it is a new discovery. It is about loving life. I really love life! And whether you like it or not, I have a following of readers globally who wants me to write the way I do. And its people. If you don´t like my writing, why bother reading it?

That last paragraph reeks of jealousy. I won´t even comment it.

To sum it all up, I see you love Yemen and the Yemenis, which I do as well and you have come across a lot of tourists and travelers that you don´t like. I am sorry to hear that. Why don´t you start a blog and write about your feelings? Find a solution to your anger?

Communication in minus 45 in Siberia......

Yemen was one of the highlights of my life in many ways. See the slide show from there!

Since Pamela and myself together with Salim and Nasr will face the upcoming debate together, Pamela, who is an academic look upon the email like this and will leave her comment as a comment! Start the debate!

…I guess to a certain extent, since the word is Arabic and means a student, and yes, I am a student of life in Yemen at the present. The following took place yesterday:

Shopping during ramadan in the old city of Sana`a, the ladies souk....

”What is it that you specifically like with Yemen?” the young American journalist asked me, when making an interview at The Coffee Traders yesterday, “What are the positive aspects?”

Like most other foreigners in Yemen right now, like Westerners, Arabs, Asians, I was warned profoundly not to come here. By old friends, Middle East experts, governments, Arab friends in other Arab countries and global media. Basically they all said:

“You will either be kidnapped, hold to ransom or killed. Yemen is the most dangerous country in the world right now! Al Qaeda is running wild in the country! Worse than Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan!”

The tinmarket.....

Let me just tell you readers, not once have I been scared or felt threatened, and on top of that, please do know this important fact, that most of my time I walk the streets of Old Sana’a in darkness, finding my way through the black, winding and narrow alleys, stepping into a world on the brink of fantasy, meeting armed locals, the odd one with Kalashnikovs, most with the big jambiyya strapped on the belt in front of them. Not once have a felt uncomfortable! With a extremely few exceptions, which I will tell you about at the end of this dispatch, I have come across some of the best people I have ever met. Trust me, I have been to 113 countries, during 25 years of exploring, the Yemenis are amongst the friendliest, most generous and hospitable people I have ever met. On pair with the native Siberians, whom I love as a people more than any. I am probably one of few who’d voluntarily would like to get deported to Siberia! Luckily Yemen is still open to foreigners!

The souk at midnight.....

I like Yemen, or I should really say Sana’a, since I haven’t seen too much of the rest of the country, because people here always give you a smile, greet you, ask you how you are, care for your well being and often invite you to their homes for either a kat chew or food. They are very courteous, exiting, funny, full of character and extremely helpful. And we are talking Sana’a, the biggest city of Yemen. Imagine than what it will be like outside the cities, in the countryside, where people always are nicer and better. (Yes, I am born, bred and brought up and have lived most of my 47 years in the countryside….).

And I love the Old City of Sana’a, Sana’a Kadiima, which must be the most interesting place on earth right now. It has to be seen and experienced before things develop and it becomes a living museum, which will sooner or later happen, since Yemen will develop like the rest of the Gulf. It is after all a very rich country with great natural resources and an amazing, so far untapped, potential for tourism and development, it is just stuck in a well known limbo at the moment of mismanagement. Hence the continuing war against the north, the troubles with the south and more. War planes continue to leave and return to Sana’a in big numbers, some of them heavier airplanes filled with bodies of the many dead soldiers. Still, life goes on, as it always have in this mesmerizing country!

These two boys, of which one is the son of a sheikh, came into the souk in a new car, and wanted to sell a jambiyya to Abdullah for 200 000 rials.....about 1000 dollars

The souks of the Old City are teeming with people from nine in the evening to three in the morning. It is Ramadan time and people are shopping more than ever and many shop owners say that, even though it is a global economic recession right now and a war in the north, people still seem to shop in great amounts. And a lot of them are women which speed in numbers through the narrow, dark and winding alleys, looking at you with smiling eyes and lots of curiosity, heading for a sale somewhere in the darkness. It is a great time to be here. Since electricity is erratic, half of a 5 hour visit, which is a minimum to get some feel of the life in the souk, is in darkness, which makes it much easier to appreciate the sense of being in a movie, which is set in the Middle Ages. Old Sana’a has to be seen! Yemen has to be visited! The other day I saw a movie at a friends place, a film was called The Bucket List and the storyline was about two old men (Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman) who had cancer and made a list of things they wanted to do before they died. I would put a visit to Old Sana’a and Yemen first on that list!

Never a boring moment in the souk!

I also love Sana’a and Yemen because there isn’t one boring moment here. It is so full of characters, impressions, noises, smells, movement, and chaos that I, after 5 hours in the souk, am more tired than ever, after having experienced the most amazing impressions, that I only thought belonged to a far bygone era. The best of all, nevertheless, is the Yemenis themselves, educated or non-educated, city or countryside people. Such friendliness! The positive aspects of this great country easily outweigh the negative ones, which are so well-known to the world.

Ladies cruising the souk

Nonetheless, I know, I am a trained rational European, so I will have to ask myself, have I, on top of the well-known problems which are always highlighted in the international press, come across any nasty things or people? I have had people who read my blog asking me if all Yemenis are good….since people are my main drive in life, I will tell you this:

Visiting friends in the souk.....

At times I have met locals who have stared at me with blankness in their eyes, always people with either a reddish beard, a sign of them being hajjis (men who have done the pilgrimage to Mecca) or bearded men with a turban indicating them being imams or religious on the brink of fanatism. No matter if I have been dressed as Ahmed Al-Hamdani or my normal self. They just don’t like or trust foreigners. Or anyone being different to them. Maybe some of them have belonged to this loosely knitted network called Al Qaeda, these fanatics which it is said there are plenty off in Yemen and Sana’a, who interpret the Quran wrongly to justify there own regretful means. But these uneducated and indoctrinated lunatics I can count on the fingers on both my hands, no more. It should be said, however, that the overwhelming number of hajjis and imams I have met in the capital greet me like all other Yemenis and Sanaanis (people from Sana’a), with a smile, a Salaam Aleikum (Peace be Upon You) followed by Kheif Halikum? (How are things with you?), and lots of curiosity. However, going back to these people who are destroying the image of Muslims and Islam not only in the West, but also in the rest of the non-Muslim world, they get far too much attention in the global media, when they’re in reality are very few in number and the worst of representatives for the Moslem world. They and their kindred the Afghani Taliban’s are mostly a bunch of spiteful, bitter, misled, uneducated men who can’t read and write, some might be able to recite a few verses from the Quran, that’s all, but still not understanding what they’re reciting, who want to keep the Moslems on the globe in the Dark Ages, isolated, scared, ignorant and spiteful of the rest of the world. I have met very few in Yemen who have anything good to say about this sad lot of people.

The exiting souk....

Another group of war planes just passed over my flat in Old Sana’a, it is almost midnight and kids are playing football on the street below my window. I can hear illegal fire crackers followed by screaming kids and there’s a row between two men regarding which one of them should reverse their car and let the other one pass in a narrow alley. I am sitting in my mafraj, reading Tahar Ben Jelloun, a French-Moroccan Muslim intellectual who wants to modernize Islam, referring to sura 13:11 in the Quran which states that Allah will not change the possibilities of humans, until they change themselves. I can hear Hussein shouting for a taxi and maybe I should go down to the souk al jambiyya, (the knife market) one of the 40 souks in the old city, and sit down at Abdullah’s store, the jambiyya maker and have a cup of tea and chat a bit about nothing really. Yeah, why not?

By the way, lately I have been thinking about my life, always breaking up, always travelling, good or bad? I just read this passage from a guy called Muhammed Asad, very much a traveller himslef, upon meeting a Beduin who said:

“If water stands motionless in pools, it becomes stale, muddy and foul, only when it moves and flows does it remain clear.”

by the way, have you seen my old blog at http://preparingforthenextexpedition.blogspot.com/

”My father and his father and so on, they all travelled to Mecca by camel” , the old man explained whilst touching the top of his jambiyya , “It took my father four months to get there and the same amount of time back. In those days you only made the pilgrimage once. It was too difficult and to expensive.”

The old hajji....

“Isn’t it still expensive to do a pilgrimage to Mecca? My teacher told me yesterday it is still very expensive and for most people, if it is possible at all, that once in a life time is an achievement, a dream.” I said, remembering Rashad telling me that he hoped to do a pilgrimage, but that it would take him many years to save the money needed, “He said it would cost him at least half a million rials (approximately 2500 dollars) to do a proper pilgrimage, since he had to go through a travel agent here in Sana’a specialising in pilgrimage tours to Mecca. About 25 days including hotels, transport, air tickets, a visit to the prophet’s grave in Medina and so on. And he said that the Saudis only allowed a certain amount of pilgrims per country a year.”

The giant mosque built by the president Abdullah Saleh

“The Saudis….” , the old hajji said with a grim face, “…charge you for everything including breathing.”

A very good friend of mine, one of few Muslim explorers on earth, a true Ibn Batutta of today, said that he flew from Afghanistan to Mecca to do his first pilgrimage and was treated like shit until he showed his American passport. He wasn’t too fond of the Saudis in Mecca either. I have to say, they don’t seem to have the best reputation in the world, neither among ex pats or other gulf Arabs. Than again I have heard a lot of opposing views. That the Saudis are amongst the friendliest and best people on earth. The idea seems to be to avoid Jeddah, Riyadh and Mecca/Medina. The reason I bring Saudi Arabia up is that it is a country everyone continuously talks about in these parts of the world. In Yemen every day. The Saudis are in many ways very influential and powerful players in the global economy of not only the Gulf, but in the rest of the world as well. I look forward to travelling through Saudi-Arabia a lot!

Inside the mosque which seats 20000 devotees....

“So you are contemplating to travel by camel?” the old man said more as a statement than a question and than added: “It is the best way to travel! Just treat them well and they will be your best friends forever!”

It was Mohammed, Hussein’s employee and best friend, who had set me up meeting this old man, who’s first name was Abdullah and came from the same village as Mohammed. They had the same second name, Al Mawari. Many people’s second names in the Arab World also tell a visitor the geographical background of a person. And ever since I was given a great gift from my great best friend Pamela, see last report, a zannah (ankle long white robe), a silver belt with an expensive jambiyyah with a Bedu background and a turban or head cloth, sharh,  with a colour and pattern which makes locals sometimes call me Palestinian, I have honorary been given the name Ahmed Al-Hamdani. Basically due to the way Hussein made up my turban, just like a Bedu from the Hamdani region. Even Abdullah called me a Hamdani, even though Mohammed had to translate. I have to say I still somewhat surprised how honoured and happy the locals are when you are dressed like them. This I have never seen anywhere else, well, maybe Oman.

Hussein, Ahmed Al-Hamdani and Mohammed outside the presidents mosque...

“So you stopped using and working with camels as long back as 30 years ago, what do you miss the most regarding these fantastic animals and do you have any advice to me to bring on my journey?” I asked him, because I had earlier asked Hussein if he could find a Yemeni who had travelled to Mecca by camel and could tell me which route they had taken, since I would like to stick to the traditional pilgrimage route from Sana’a to Mecca.

“I used to travel from Sana’a to Al Hudaydah (link to Yemeni map) on the west coast, and back, bringing food for people and animal, it used to take eight days and we travelled 16 hours per day”, he recounted with passion, “And what do I miss? I miss the freedom and the evenings in front of the fire. And I miss the camels. If you treat them with love, you will always have a loyal friend.”

Praying at the mosque....

“Which route did your dad take to Mecca?” I asked again, because our conversation was on and off disturbed by other locals in the room teasing and laughing at the old man, just because he used to work camels and right now was a quite hard line Muslim belonging to the Shia arm of Islam. All others Yemenis in the room were Sunni. The war in the north, between the government and the Al Houthi could in some ways be called a religious one. A war between Sunni (government) and Shia (al Houthi).

The "birthday" cake from my friends....the inscription reads Mikael - the sheikh of the Bedu

“Quiet!” he hissed at his teasers, who laughed back and teased him a bit more, but he continued: “Well, the pilgrims and hajjis to be, always set out from Saada and from there travelled to Mecca via Baqim, Zahran, Haraja, Khamis Mushayt, Abha and down to the Saudi coast and from there on to Jeddah and Mecca.”

Amazingly enough exactly the route I had planned just by looking at the map geographically 3 months back and searching for the existence of valleys, plains, paths and roads. However, my Expedition is still far off in time, in shallah, if all goes well, we will set off in January next year, but, this fact apart, yesterday I was also given an especially made cake by Pamela, Hussein and Mohammed, thick and tasty and its chocolate decorated with a white camel and the words:

“Mikael – the sheikh of the Bedu”.

After the party we went to the souk after midnight to eat some kebabs at this place....

People here in Yemen, my friends, are the best of the best. Warm, generous, funny, smart and they all love life. I still don’t know what we were celebrating, but it filled me with great joy! On top of that I was given a full Sanaani outfit including the most macho of all male symbols in Sanaa, a jambiyya, and together with Pamela, Hussein and Mohammed we took a taxi –this was another “birthday” surprise organised by Pamela for me- and we ended up at the spectacular Presidents Mosque. Its main hall is so big so that it can seat 20 000 devotees facing Mecca in prayer! We weren’t the only foreigners there, me, Ahmed Al Hamdani, and Pam dressed as a Sanaani woman, then named Pamela Al-Sanaani to make it easier to get in during prayer. There were many Indonesians and Malaysians amongst the devotees. Security was hard, but Hussein got us through everywhere with his kindness, humour, baton and peculiar ideas. It beats the Sultan Qaboos Mosque in Muscat. It is grander.

“The cost to build this mosque equalled ten hospitals”, Mohammed commented with his down-to-earth wisdom:” I think most people wanted hospitals, but the president wanted to be remembered.”

Hussein, Pamela and Mohammed outside the Presidents Mosque.

I have also realised that most local people don’t really appreciate the war against the Houthis, which many see as their brethren and fellow Moslems. The war planes are still leaving Sana’a in great numbers. It is still a very unnerving feeling. Thank God for friends like Mohammed, Hussein and Pamela!