Known to the Romans as Arabia Felix-Happy Arabia-Yemen remains the most untouched corner of Arabia. Lt’s here amid the bustling souks, the desert oases, the traditional Arabian architecture and the remote mountain eyries that you feel you might meet Alanddin or Sinbad or any of the characters of the Arabian Nights. And while much of Yemen seems untouched by modern events, life continues to unfurl for the locals at a languid peace.

October to March (when the daytime temperatures are pleasant and the rain infrequent) -or 950 BC when the Queen still held sway

Exploring the old quarter of San’a-one of the largest preserved medinas in the Arab world, and home to mud-brick skyscrapers built to a 1000-year-old design Visiting Al-Makha, the first important coffee port on the Sea Meandering through the covered alleys of the Friday market at Bayt al-Faqih Marvelling at the ruins of the great dam at Ma’rib a feat of engineering that watered the desert for 1000 years Following in the footsteps of Rimbaud in Aden Enjoying the hospitality of the historic cities of Shibam, Sayun and Tarim in the fertile Wadi Hadramawt

Read Tim Mackintosh-Smith’s Yemen, Travels in Dictionary Land-wry observations of Yemeni life from a long-time San’a resident

Listen to Yemenite Songs by Ofra Haza-rhythmic fusion by the well-known laraeli of Yemeni origin

Watch Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Arabian Nights, a racy adaptation of the age-old tale, which includes scenes shot in Yemen

Eat lentil or lamb shurba (soup),or salta (a fiery stew of lamb, beans, peppers and coriander)

Drink tea scented with cardamom, or coffee (always sweet) with ginger

Mumkin ithayn shai (two teas pleae)

Frankincense; silver jewellery; date palms; stony villages precariously perched on lofty mountaintops; broadly smiling Bedouin tribesmen bandoliers and jambiyas (curved daggers); dhown bobbing on the Red Sea; daily sessions of chewing mildly intoxicating qat-a national obsession

Figs and peaches; deliciously spontaneous approach to life; Yemenis are renowned in the Middle East for their senses of humour

Private gardens [in San’a] hide behind mud walls. There are hectares of them, with entries only from the backyards of the houses or mosques Travellers can best enjoy these improbable oases from the manzars of palace hotels or by looking over walls. The city used to be self-sufficient in vegetables and fruit; the gardens are activelycultivated to this day. On the southeastern tip of the walled city, the old citadel stands on an elevation, surrounded by massive walls.