Shibam

Shibam \| Saiyun \| Mashad Ali \| Hadramawt images
Shibam, "Manhattan of the Desert" just has to be an anticlimax. You see the pictures and cannot believe that anywhere quite so extraordinary can actually exist...must be Photoshop! But after a few days in Yemen you start to realise that all those amazing images are actually photographs of real places, not some surrealist fantasy construct. However, even after those few days in the country, Shibam is still fairly awe-inspiring. We arrived in the sleepy afternoon of Ramadan, watched the sunset from the mountainside across the wadi, then spent the evening wandering the streets in sodium-lit, eerie half light. The town was buzzing with the life of the Ramadan post-fast, kids pleading for their photos to be taken, old ladies pleading for their photos not to be taken, all the men chewing khat in a stupefied haze...

Shibam night	Cityscapes	Street scenes	Buildings

Shibam toilets		Street scene 2	Windows+doors