Korean Job Discussion Forums

bucheon bum · Joined: 16 Jan 2003

according to ethiopian air's website, it no longer flies to Yemen. The only middle eastern cities it flies to are Dubai, Riyadh, Jeddah, Cairo, and Beirut.

I'm guessing ethiopian air did what most airlines did, and stopped service to Yemen due to all the travel warnings issued by various countries.

Tiger Beer · Joined: 07 Feb 2003

So bucheon bum, what ultimately did you decide? What are your timetables?

bucheon bum · Joined: 16 Jan 2003

I went with Tunisia. I decided it would be a good warm-up to Yemen and from what I've heard and read, supposed to a pretty cool country; good mix of arab and french culture.

Also better for my budget as well Smile

. Leaving the states in a month, and will be in Yemen by January 10th. Working out my student visa for Yemen right now.

J.B. Clamence · Joined: 15 Jan 2003

I spent a hectic 4-day vacation in Tunisia with a couple of friends in May of last year. It was pretty cool. We rented a car and drove all over. We flew into Tunis and checked out the ruins of ancient Carthage (not much is left), then headed to north Tunis to check out a pretty posh neighborhood (Sidi Bou Said) with nice restaurants and cafes and amazing coastal views.

Then we headed south to Tatouine, where they filmed the planet Tatoueen scenes in Star Wars. There are a bunch of little stone villages where the houses are holes in the walls on several different floors, which I assume was the inspiration for the scenes in the movie. Checked out a few of those villages, like Chenini. We took some drives through the desert in between and climbed a couple desert hills to take pictures.

Heading back north, we stopped in El Jem to check out the Roman Colosseum, which is almost as impressive as the one in Rome. Then we went to Monastir on the coast. Really pretty scenery and an amazing castle, which is the castle that was used as the "Jerusalem" backdrop in Monty Python's "Life of Brian". Then we went to Sousse which has a great old city district, and walked around there for a while before heading back to Tunis. Tunis is also a great modern city, but we didn't spend much time there.

It was a pretty nice trip. How long do you have there? If we had had more time, we would have liked to check out the island of Jerba in the south (which is supposed to be the place where Odysseus met the lotus-eaters in the Odyssey), the oasis in the southwest (which is supposed to be pretty amazing with lots of drinink birds and camels), the Roman ruins at Dougga, and the Islamic city of Kairouan. There's tons to do there. Unfortunately, we only had 4 days.

People were pretty friendly there. Not much English, but pretty much everyone there knows French, so if you have enough French to get by, you're totally set. The police seem to like westerners, too. They waved at us many times.

Sounds like you'll have a great trip. Have fun!

bucheon bum · Joined: 16 Jan 2003

I'm going to be there around 10 days. I got a guidebook last week; didn't realize there was so much to see in the country. Definitly will go to El Jem (Amazing Race site, woo hoo), the posh suburb you mentioned, and Sousse. Hopefully can get down to Jerba as well. Star wars location would be an extra bonus, but not high on the priority list.