Chris Saul's Blog

Monday June 01, 2009

Single visa for GCC travel?

This would make life a lot easier.

Although you can get a visa on arrival in Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait, the process can sometimes be time consuming and involves yet another stamp. Saudi visas always seem to be for three months only, take three or four days to be issued and take up two passport pages.

My passport's just over a year and a half old and has only one double page left, shortly to be used for an Algerian visa. Anything that can help me get through immigration more quickly and which keeps my passport pages as empty as possible is most welcome!

Business lunch, Yemen style

When I was Sana'a the other month, we had lunch at the 'Hospitableness Salon'. It's a slightly different experience to lunch with a customer in Dubai or the UK, for example.

Before lunch is served...

Goat, fish and random soft drinks are ready.

English man too stupid too eat goat with one hand.

Schoolboy error - eating goat with left hand.

Give it a go with the right - Brits just aren't used to ripping food apart with one hand.

Two hands, I can manage.

Lunch over in twenty minutes.

Bananas and honey with bread and sticky stuff on a separate table. Pud's ready.

I was quite glad that the working day was over after this.

My verdict on goat - quite fatty, but tasty when fried up in the stir fry side dish we were given. I was happy to give ripping bits of goat to pieces a try, but I am a pathetic Westerner and would prefer my meat not to resemble too much the animal it clearly came from.