The SCARIEST trip on my journey to 193 countries

visiting every country is hard and it comes with hardship and for me one of the most striking examples of that was my trip in Yemen I don't like talking about the negative experiences that I had because it has so so many more positive ones in every country in the world and so I want to share those positive stories I think we hear way too much about the negative and so you can go find the negative other places that's always been my mentality but I also think that it's important to to talk a little bit about things that have happened in order to avoid them may be happening for others so Yemen I went to Yemen in November 2017 the conflict is still going on and it was very much going on then however at that time the eastern part of the country had recently become relatively safer and so I felt that it would be possible to go if I went with a reputable guide and had like a security apparatus around me so before arriving I had ensured that that the person was vetted that the team I was going with was vetted and the day before I went and I me know that they had they had issued my entry visa and correctly would put me a little bit on heads just cuz anything changing can be scary in a place like that and then when I arrived at the border I met the guide two things instantly put me off one was his extreme focus on money and two was that the entire engine area that had been presented was was like wrong and that we would have to be driving like 16 hours rather than like that they had said in order to get to the city we wanted to go to and one three is that there was no security at all he I asked him like where is the security detail he like laughed and he pointed to the back at the sec old man he's like oh he's the security and like he thought it was funny and it's not funny when you're in a dangerous place to be like if I've been told there's no security that would have been like - part of my decision-making process of whether to go or not but then for there not to be any when I was told there would be it it eliminates any trust that you could possibly have in the person but we end up continuing and as the day progresses against more and more strange he tells me stories some that I know cannot be true some that are like pure conspiracy theories so just a lot of weird stuff and I felt very very uncomfortable very quickly so I called the person who might have ranged the trip for me ended up that I was the first person that they had ever sent there which was a problem but and they took they reacted very well and we agree to basically we drove in through this country but then up and back to another border and we said like we regroup and in the morning we would decide what to do so we spent the night in and if you're driving through desert the entire day and and I'm having to wear the traditional like Yemeni clothing because they wanted me to like not stand out I'm also all like dressed as for safety and stuff I'm also supposed to got sunglasses but it's really hard to see it's so bright and anytime anywhere I was asked not to speak we start being okay in the morning of that ride and then his car breaks down and he starts like freaking out about timing even about money do all these people a couple of people are coming to stop us and to help us and which is nice but I'm not supposed to be and let's go speak to them so when they come you know they'll like they'll start talking me in Arabic and I just like pretend like I'm the mean kind of and you know a lot of people in these parts of giving like are traveling with big guns with them you know it's like buying a motorcycle with a huge gun comes up and like like aggressively as a cannon what's going on like good what and I can't talk and it's just like really worrying and the man that starts asking me he says like you should hitchhike to the to the city which I obviously don't want to do and I said I just want to go back like I just want to get back what ended up happening is a truck came and was gonna like tow us like with ropes we have to hitchhike basically with this truck our car is broken driving a stuck for an hour I really just want to go home something else there's the bed there's two guys that I'm itching with my guide back well you had a hitchhike like sitting in the truck and I said pretend to be mute was told not like show that foreigner so I'm just in the truck all stop this was supposed to be our tow truck but now it is stuck in the sand going into our number four I mean it was just like screaming and blaming me and saying it was my fault that the car broke like strange stuff like that you know like he was just seemed very unstable like it was just scary so I said I want I just want to leave and go back and it was just very very I mean it was there's a lot more to it that's like not entirely relevant basically I said I wanted to leave immediately and he he was saying he was gonna keep me there he like showed me his gun to say maybe were talking about like the security and he's a guy off the gun you know you never know like is it gonna be used to protect me or poor me I don't know it was like there's just so much like going through my head I was like so scary and I liked it you to be there and so I looked after like to like I mean that the end of the second day I was just like I cannot be like I said like we're turning around we're going right now and so we did and it was awful there's like awful I should remember all I wanted was to leave like I wanted to get out and it was dark we were driving just like in the dark in the middle of the desert in Yemen that won't what we were driving and some guy like a soldier waved us over and then they told us didn't they would put a guy in our car in again like and I guess the guy started asking all these questions about who I was interesting feel I couldn't speak so I just being quiet is I mean the whole thing was just incredibly stressful for a few days basically where he ended up like dropping me was like ten kilometers away from the border or something you should've refused to take me and then he pretended that he had a he lied and said that he set up a car to drive me back into in Tomah and into the city and we get to the border and there's there's no car stranded in Yemen the side of the road once they exit yeah but I'm just like happy to be gone from the situation and I'm in no man's land like sitting there and he had lied even to his like team like to this old man who was one of Brahman border so we were just both like they're waiting and like nothing was happening no idea what happening now you're sitting order the old man is sitting guess he's actually have no idea what's happening at all there's all these like illegitimate galleys trying to like give us like $500 will drive you to salalah like will drive you to the city thanks be to God ahum do allah the Omani royal police like at the border who I saw that I'm standing there that all these people were talking to me and like trying to like pull me in different directions they came up and they asked that's what's going on and I said like I'm this man is associated with like a con man essentially but they're supposed to be helping me get to the city and these guys are trying to like make me get to the city but like I don't know who they are and they're asking for lots of money and I don't know what is right like I'm and this is I got to a.m. or 3 a.m. and and I think the guy says to me if you don't mind can we just tell everybody to like go away and like we can take care of you and I was like like of course like thank you so much and he got rid of the M&E guy he got rid of these taxi drivers and they gave me like a little minute and like a blanket like in their office and then I could comfortable like two chairs so I could like sleep a little bit and after like 10 minutes he like brought me like dinner like on the plate and they gave me no money sweets and and when I started to sleep that put it they gave me a pillow and they were like singing song I mean it was just after the two days of being so incredibly stressed they know mommy's just took such good care of me and just wanted me to feel happy and and then every car that would come by which isn't very many they would say in sha-la-la-la-la-la essentially saying we hope that you're going to salalah can you bring this boy it's a few hours later they woke me up and they said hey we found her car and there is three guys Saudi a Yemeni in all money and they had been hunting in Yemen and they had been told to join me and they didn't speak any English but we we were like just connected like music like playing like music for one another like this song and they were like we were dancing and like we were laughing the Royal money police had said you must take this guy to his hotel like that it's a job and my hotel was like 30 minutes actually waiting in the city and when they found that out they said it's okay we'll still take you as of some of the other stuff that happened that I did it explained I had no money like the guy had to stall it at all and but they like didn't care at all but I'd left some in the hotel and so like I it was funny they were like they found this guy me like sleeping in immigration building being told by the military like you have to take this guy to his hotel I'm like he's been conned and robbed and like treated poorly and then they're not bringing me like to one of the nicest hotels in the city and then like I gave them hundreds of dollars they were so confused it was like from beggar to whatever but then at the end of the second awful experience I was like saved by the Royal Mile Police and it shows me that any of the negativity that happened the two days before was off but by how many people were so positive at the end of it it wasn't that I had a bad experience with Yemen that I had a bad experience with the guide that had brought me Yemen is still like problematic recently a lot of other travelers have been entering very few of them went as far in as I did some did like it can be fine I mean everything's like a toss-up I do think if you're with a trusted guide that you can be fine but that wasn't my situation I don't blame that all the country it's one of the few cases where I went to a country that has some kind of like security situation and I didn't go with somebody that I knew like that I didn't go visiting a friend who lives there or with the family or a friend who lives there and I just think I like and I'm so happy that in almost all my other situations have got into countries like these have been able to go with people that I know they're go to visit people that I know and be protected that way Yemen is an incredibly culturally rich country there are some of the most ancient aspects of Arabia Park in Yemen so much of arabian culture has its foundation in yemen it's like a beautiful country with like wonderful people it is going through an incredible conflict right now that is bigger than itself and is incredibly challenging as somebody traveling there with no real purpose like I wasn't there for a professional I wasn't there to visit somebody that I knew I felt a little bit inappropriate going I would love love love to go back and see the capital so not to see Aidan to see the culture the island in the Indian Ocean and I'm sure that when I do that whenever it is I will have an amazing experience unfortunately the one that I did have in my like initial journey to every country was not so positive and I do obviously hope that everybody else has positive experiences going there if they choose to that's most of my story to Yemen I would love to go back Yemen is beautiful there's so much more that I want to learn there God willing like things get better there soon well I left Yemen with a memorable experience but I also got to keep the outfit that I wore actually a very beautiful little this was like my headscarf but so see good things come in weird ways it's very you

Channel: Sal Lavallo

Views: 66,562

Rating: 4.8614073 out of 5

Keywords: adventure tourism, travel to every country, visit yemen, is yemen safe, yemen war, yemen tourism, visiting yemen, how to visit yemen, can you travel to yemen, oman, royal omani police, salalah, hadhramaut, yemen tours, most dangerous countries, least safe countries, scariest countries, worst places to travel, adventure travel, war tourism, war zone, worst places to live, worst places to visit, danger travel, most dangerous places, dark tourism, dark tourist

Id: jsAJ30zgRb8

Length: 18min 0sec (1080 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 30 2019