Yemeni people have been
insulted, and they live without justice. For six years, Yemen has
been stuck in a —— —— —— between the SA-supported government
forces and the Irn-backed ——. - How old are you?
- Thirteen years old. You're 13 years old, and you want to fight? Yemen is in the midst of the
world's worst —— ——. The lack of fuel entering
Yemen impacts everything. Clean water and electricity
are hard to come by. Health facilities run on limited power. If the politicians reach an
agreement, the —— will be over. The Arab world's poorest country. —— and economic ——. Why do you like dancing so much? I like dancing because I feel free. Understandable that people
are scared to come here, I was, let's hope that changes in the future. So, coming to you from the country of Oman. Today we're going to be crossing
the land border into Yemen. Yemen, of course, is a country that's facing
a horrible —— and has been for some time. It's also facing the worst ——
—— in the world, horrors going on there. Of course, we're going to go in with an
open mind, see what people we can meet, talk to them, see what it's like on
the ground from their perspective. Not too sure how it's
going to be like filming there. I know some areas are extremely
——, some a bit more stable, and we've got local people on the ground
that are going to be looking over our backs. I wanted to go there for a very long time,
so today's the time to realize that dream. Hopefully, we can get across the border. Let's see what the day has in store for us. Wish us luck, we have about a
two-hour drive through the desert, and then we will get to the border,
and then we'll see what happens. Okay, so we've successfully
crossed the border. It wasn't easy, tell you about in a second,
but yeah, just look at the landscape here, now this is definitely not what I expected. When you think of Yemen
you think of flat desert, but here we are in the
mountains with mist coming in, and there's camels walking up
the road, it's quite a beautiful scene, and then we have the Gulf of Aden over
here with a nice little settlement here. Definitely a lot more raw
than on the Omani side. Really beautiful so far. This is our first glimpse
of like civilization, but yeah, crossing the
border was super intense. When we got to the border, we
were questioned by the Oman side. He was saying, why are you going
to Yemen, it's really ——. He said he would never go
there. He's never been there. That was the Omani intelligence
officer that took me inside and questioned me for half an hour, maybe. Very nice guy, but he just seemed really
concerned about why I'd be going to Yemen, and he's saying, don't you know
there's —— there and things. Anyway, he ultimately let us through,
and then we met our fixer on this side, you'll meet him through the trip. Then we had to go through the Yemeni
side of the border, and that was, you know, the buildings, the difference between the
buildings of the Omani and the Yemeni side, the Yemeni side was much, much more
run down, I mean, that's to be expected, but then there were two people
trying to block us from getting in, and apparently they almost tried to block
our other permit from at midnight last night and then it had to get changed again to the
third permit that we've already received, so it's very complicated, anyway and
then we, they tried to block us again, but ultimately we got through. So yeah, here we are in Yemen, we're
going to keep driving up the coast. Today's like a bit of driving, but
we'll see what we can see on the way. First impressions are a lot different
look than I expected, you know, you think desert like I
say but so far not like that. Anyway, won't hold
up these guys anymore. This is the van we're traveling in the
background, and we'll get on the road. So, we've been driving
along the coastline. It's absolutely spectacular,
again, not expecting this at all. Absolutely beautiful coastline
with the mountains, huge cliffs, and then this turquoise
blue water, and it's overcast. I can't imagine on a sunny
day what this water looks like. But you can see these
sand mounds here, and there's thousands and thousands
of crabs running from hole to hole. They're making the
piles digging up the holes. We just saw a dead turtle on the beach, a
big turtle, so interesting wildlife so far, you know, spectacular scenes
here, absolutely surreal landscapes and then these sand
mounds, it's beautiful. We've been through a few villages,
very raw, very interesting I think they use a lot of the rocks from
the hillsides to build houses and things. There were shops running, and there were local people building
new houses, quite bustling little places. We're going to continue
along the coast now. We're going to see more villages, hopefully
we're going to stop in some of them, meet some people, possibly if,
you know, we've got to be careful, but so far really captivating
place, naturally beautiful, not a desert at all
so far, you know, so let's continue to see what
we can discover in Yemen it's taken me by
surprise big time so far. Okay, so we've just pulled
off the side of the road here, here with Kais, who's gonna be
looking after me here in Yemen, right. Yes, yes, sure. Cool, and we've bumped
into a local man here. And so you're fishing today? Today they went to the sea. Okay, any luck with the fish? Fifty kilos they have brought. The fishing is enough
to keep life going? Sometimes they bring
fish, sometimes they can't, and the thing that is ——
them it's the black market of oil, it raises the price of
the petrol in Yemen. - Right, so like for the boat motors.
- For the boat, yes. How is life generally here? Because if I turn on the news in my
country, it paints a bad picture, right, but how is it, at least
in this part of Yemen? Some people they live in a
really rough life, not really good. The only income they
have is from the sea. What would you like to see
change to make life a bit easier? I want to see the change
in the entire Yemen. The —— should be ended, all the ——. And all the politician's sections
should agree on for peace because they don't make any good. It's all about politics, and the people
here has nothing to do with the politics. Shukran It's the first time
he has an interview. All right, you did very well. Welcome home, everyone. - Shukran.
- Have fun. Good morning to another
day here in Yemen. Six in the morning, we're heading off
early because we've got a long day today, lots of driving, lots of checkpoints and
stuff, so that's why I have to set up early because you never know how long
they might question us and things. We arrived at this hotel last night and
had some food, and then went to sleep but you could see the roads
have drastically changed much more like what
you would expect to see, long desert roads and things, and I
think it's going to be more of that today, but we're going to see many more
varied landscapes as the trip goes on and we're going to meet more people. So, without any more talking,
back on the road we go, see what we can come across in this
increasingly fascinating country of Yemen. It is a bit nerve-wracking here. I'm not going to sugarcoat it,
it can be tense at times, so we've got to be on our toes and
just, you know, be ready for whatever. Anyway, let's head down the staircase,
and jump in the car, and get on the road. Shukran. Country? New Zealand. Super long drive, been going
for a few hours now and still a third of the way there or
so, so yeah, we'll keep trucking. It's a big day here. Very mountainous, I must
say there are a lot of flat areas but definitely a lot of mountains
here, it's quite beautiful. Actually, the highest mountain in
Yemen is, I think, 3500 or so meters. I was not expecting to see a
mountain that height in Yemen. How much? All together ten thousand Rials. - Okay, so ten dollars.
- Ten dollars, yeah. There's anything that he
wants to say to the world? Yemeni people have been
insulted, and they live without justice. The government is outside,
and the people are struggling, and the government just
like outside the country. Many products it gets expensive, and one
product could cost a hundred SA Riyal, which is like $20.000 Rial and more. Like what, for example? Rice, wheat. - Basics to live.
- Yeah, exactly. The things for life is really struggling. And what do you think needs to change? He want the government to return back home. - Shukran.
- Shukran. So, we've been driving through the desert
for what like five hours or so, so far? Yeah, almost five hours. Big day across the desert,
but we've come to a fuel station. Can you like roughly just
outline the petrol situation here? Because it's quite interesting. Well, since the ——, which started
on 26th of March 2015 until today and Yemen is getting oil from
inside and mostly from outside especially for the north they
are getting the oil from outside. From the north and south. It comes from Irn? Okay. And the situation
still it's complicated. It's an issue of economy. The —— against Yemen, to be honest, it's
a —— against Yemeni which is in the North. The United Nations
is doing a bad game. Oil is smuggled sometimes
they buy from outside, Sometimes Oman is giving an oil
shipment as a gift to help, which is good. - Humanitarian.
- Yes. And you heard the man, how's
the difference in prices on oil. How come government didn't
even set up the price of oil, which doesn't make sense at all. So basically, when you
pull into a petrol station, you never know what
the price is going to be. - You need to ask first.
- Right. And like, what's can it get
like, really high sometimes? It goes to they call
it the black market, it's a place where we need
to get it from another place, it's on bottles, like 20
liters will cost $20 dollars. Right, so obviously, the further
they bring it from, the more expensive. We see the income of the average
people, they can not afford it. That's why you see a lot of
destroyed cars like the one behind you, but barely they
could afford oil. And what's like the
cheapest the petrol gets here? The cheapest it's from the country,
but still, the government is raising it, and the exchange
rate is —— people. The exchange rate in the
north, one dollar is 600 Rial. - And here is 1000.
- Yeah, exactly, 1100 now. Yesterday it went up 30 Rial or more,
which doesn't make sense at all. And what was it like at the start of
the ——, what was the exchange rate? - Before the ——?
- Yeah. It was one dollar two
hundred Rials, north or south. Mass inflation. If the politicians would reach to
an agreement, the —— will be over. So we just arrived at this hotel. I'll show you around in a second. It's a really nice hotel, actually. But to get here, we had
to go through a really, really strict —— presence,
so many checkpoints. Apparently, we were lucky there was
only one checkpoint where we were. I had our paperwork
checked for about half an hour, but the rest of them only took
like five minutes maximum. Apparently, it takes hours longer normally,
so we're really lucky to have arrived early. Pretty surreal, super strong
—— presence and —— bases, lookout towers, ——, and
heavy —— vehicles and things. I couldn't film for
so much of the road, and I had to keep putting the camera
down and getting it out of sight. So it is, you know,
it's quite tense at times but, you know, here we
are in this beautiful hotel, and I'll give you a tour and then
we're gonna go grab some dinner. Quite the drive today and yesterday,
you know, that's two days driving majority of it through the desert, but the start
was, you know, in the mountains by the coast, and then some desert
mountains and then a lot of flat, roads aren't the best but we made it. Okay, so here we are in the hotel room. Here's Jordan. Jordan's like a huge part of why I'm here. We've been trying to come since like 2019,
right, so it's good to be finally here. How're your first impressions of Yemen? So far I'm enjoying it, but yeah, it's
a lot of things I didn't expect as well, and I think yeah, we have a few more days to
explore and just see the other sides of Yemen. To get into this hotel,
it's super strict security. They go around the
car with a, you know, a pole with a mirror on it, so they can see
if there's any —— underneath the car. And you also have to come through like
a security area, like a scanner in the bag, an x-ray machine and everything, so yeah, definitely somewhat tense atmosphere but it's nice as well, you
know, very nice people. Okay, well, I think I'm
stuck in an elevator. Oh, it says out of service. Five minutes later. That was quite scary. Here's the lobby area. Big chandelier, reception. Nice guys here and this is where
we're having dinner very soon. So look at this view. I mean, of course, let's
not forget where we are, we're in Yemen, a country, you know, facing
the world's worst —— ——, but I think it is interesting to see
both sides of the country, you know. So, here's the swimming
pool and the dining tables and a beautiful view
right there of the sea. There's a private beach. Two? Two? No, no, I think just one is fine. No, come on.
No, I'm serious. Here's down on the
private beach of the hotel, and they've got barbed
wire along the perimeter and a wall that goes actually
quite far out into the sea. So we just finished up with a
nice dinner here in these windows, and again it's quite surreal to be in
Yemen in a very nice place like this, and obviously, we can't forget where we
are, but you know, we also have to be safe. So that's the first two days in Yemen,
you know, we'll see in the next video more exploring, we've got
some really cool things planned. We had to drive so much to
get to this part of the country we're more in like central
south Yemen at the moment because we were supposed
to fly into this region but we got denied, permits got wiped, so we had to get new permits
and enter from the Oman border, so that's why it worked out that way, but you know, still cool to
cross the land border actually it's definitely mind-expanding trip, I've
wanted to come here for three years now. Huge thanks to Jordan from America. He's really helped me out big time
getting here, so big thanks to him, and Kais is a great local guy so. We'll see you in the next video. Thank you so much for watching,
and in case I don't see you, good afternoon, good
evening, and good night from a swimming pool in Yemen. If the politicians will reach to an
agreement, the —— will be over. Oman is doing very good work trying to
put all the politicians to sit on one table and make peace talk
in reality not in speeches to make the people feel
peace and live peace not just sign it and next
day turn against it.
