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I
had not been in Damascus very long when France Soir reprinted the controversial
Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. Muslims in Syria rallied in anger
as they did all over the Islamic world. It was February 1, 2006, and here
I was, fair-skinned and blonde, among the crowds watching them torch their
Scandinavian embassies. I had always wanted to travel through the Middle
East-but perhaps now was not the best time to be a direct descendent of
King Christian IX of Denmark.
Queen Elizabeth II of England is my father's first cousin-a detail of
my identity that made my particular journeys from Damascus to Tehran somewhat
different. Few of my relatives had travelled within the region. There
was the very real risk of being kidnapped. Still, the foreign office let
me go on condition that I keep them informed of my progress.
I had been inspired to travel to the area after reading Dame Freya Stark's
memoir of her explorations in the thirties. The Southern Gates of Arabia
is one of the greatest travel journals ever published. Stark crossed the
Hadhramaut region of Yemen chaperoned by tribal guides in loincloths and
indigo dye. She traveled on foot, horse, and donkey, often during wartime,
always as feminine and stylish as conditions would allow. She wore hats,
head scarves, and a sheepskin cloak lent to her by a colonel. When the
occasion demanded, she put on locally bought gowns and once, for a Yemeni
wedding, a yellow satin dress with black spots. In the end, ill with dysentery,
she had to be rescued by the Royal Air Force.
By contrast, the only real challenge for me was my identity-and timing.
Through Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, and
Iran, my boyfriend and I slept in houses, hotels, unheated apartments,
tents, and village huts, traveling overland by train, jeep, and sometimes
even camels. I met cooks, teachers, shepherds, princes, ambassadors and
sultans.
3
FEBRUARY 2006
In Damascus, I watch protesters from the balcony of a friend's house.
We hear them ranting in Arabic, fists pitched in rhythm to the words.
Men lead the bulk of the march, but there are many women trailing behind.
Two angry girls catch my eye. They are wrapped in black right up to the
thick sunshades covering their eyes. Suddenly they look back up at me,
shouting and circling their faces with black-gloved fingers. Cover up!
scream their gestures. I try to show some expression of sympathy, but
it is no use. I am a Westerner and right now, unwelcome.
In truth, non-Muslim women need not cover up in Syria, especially in Damascus.
During my two months in the country I choose not to cover up at all, apart
from the day I go to the mosque. There I wear a long black coat and a
dark paisley head scarf to hide my hair. In the women's section I am surrounded
by large friendly faces. Arms are linked through mine, little sweets in
colored wrappers tossed into my lap.
We rent an old-fashioned apartment in Jisr al-Abyad, the most religious
part of Damascus, at the foot of the mountain. It has high ceilings, a
kerosene heater that we refill by hand almost daily as well as a cook,
our only regular female visitor, with whom I bond over cardamom coffee.
Dressed in black trousers, black turtleneck, and black woolly hat, she
fries us minced lamb in bread crumbs.
I spend my days taking Arabic lessons, visiting the mosque, and painting
watercolors of castles near Aleppo to take home as gifts for my elder
cousins. Then the Danish cartoons are published and the city erupts. As
the tension builds in Damascus I decide to leave.
5
FEBRUARY 2006
From Damascus I cross the mountains at sunset, by jeep, to visit a friend
in Beirut. It is a two-hour drive into Lebanon. There the world feels
safe and I can relax again. On my first night we dine at Element, the
most glamorous restaurant in town. As dessert is cleared away, we join
a human sea of joy rising up onto the tables to dance the night away.
6
FEBRUARY 2006
The Lebanese, too, react to the cartoons. Young men run yelling through
the streets stoning shop windows and smashing cars. My head still pounding
from the drink and music of the night before, I rub my eyes before the
blackened concrete walls of the smoking Danish embassy. I glue myself
to the sides my Lebanese friends for safety. The fury subsides once the
building is in flames. No casualties, just the gesture.
20
FEBRUARY 2006
We are safe in Jordan in the hands of Prince Hassan bin Talal, who has
fortunately received a letter of introduction from my father and acts
as a Middle Eastern father figure to me during my stay.
His family gives us lunch and advice and arranges for a Bedouin guide
and shelter for a night in the desert. The tent is extravagantly luxurious,
long, and plumped full with duvets. We befriend the Bedouin's son who
brings us platters of chicken cooked by his mother. She stays completely
out of sight.
When Prince Hassan hears we are going on to Saudi Arabia and Yemen, he
leans in close to me at the table and whispers, "If ever you feel
uncomfortable, please know you can always come back here."
24
FEBRUARY 2006
Our next leg is through the desert. Before leaving Amman, I buy my first
veil and an art magazine showing the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca,
the hajj. It's a 12-hour jeep ride in the blazing midday sun with my veil,
a swath of thick black silk.
I am frightened by the prospect of visiting Saudi Arabia. Syria was not
easy and I know Saudi Arabia will be stricter still. Even my Saudi Arabian
friends advise me not to go. There is nothing to see outside Mecca, they
say, but the Holy City is off-limits to non-Muslims. Still, how often
does one get the chance to travel here? As it transpires, everyone we
meet in Jeddah is utterly charming and the architecture of the Old City
is some of my favorite on the whole trip. What's more, with my visa, veil,
and wedding band (a strategic accessory), I am made to feel entirely welcome.
Prince Saleh bin Ghalib al-Qu'aiti, son of the former Sultan of Hadhramaut,
meets our jeep as soon as we cross the border. He takes us to the Jeddah
beach house of another friend, Fady Jameel, whose family recently unveiled
the Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The al-Qu'aiti's are based in Jeddah. However, they are Hadhrami. The
Hadhramaut is one of the most important regions in Yemen. In fact, my
friends would still be ruling the Hadhramaut had the British Protectorate
not fallen in 1967 and the sultan been sent into exile. Since the unification
of North and South Yemen they have been allowed to return as visitors,
but they tell me it is still a sensitive matter and difficult to do. Ten
years ago in London, I met Sultan Ghalib's daughter Princess Fatima, and
now, she and her family are my most valuable protectors as I travel through
the region.
27
FEBRUARY 2006
In Jeddah, the Sultana, the wife of Sultan Ghalib, includes me in her
ladies' lunches. It's like no other female gathering I have ever experienced,
and as far from a gossipy Notting Hill affair as imaginable. The talk
is serious and every lady is impressive, from Sultana's daughter, a teacher,
and her London-raised daughter-in-law, who's pregnant and adjusting to
life in Jeddah, to a lady running a center for disabled children.
Most memorable of all is Princess Reem al-Faisal, a royal Saudi photographer.
For a woman, let alone a princess, a career here is already uncommon.
But a princess photographer is even more controversial in Saudi Arabia,
the seat of Wahhabism, a brand of Islam that does not encourage visual
depictions of the human form. She has photographed the holiest Muslim
city, Mecca, repeatedly, during the hajj. I am surprised to encounter
such strong women here in Saudi Arabia, where I had expected to witness
extreme female subservience.
From afar, my al-Qu'aiti friends guide me to the Hadhramaut. I am following
in the footsteps of Dame Freya, who wrote in The Southern Gates about
how her own passage through Yemen had been facilitated by the al-Qu'aiti
tribe.
The real danger in Yemen, it seems to me, comes from its desperate poverty.
Since its president sided with Saddam Hussein in 1991, the country has
been neglected by its oil-rich neighbors. In some areas taking a hostage
for ransom might be the only way to get attention from the government
for the most basic needs. This is why you'll find everyone in the ancient
city of Marib, where the Queen of Sheba is believed to have ruled over
an empire of frankincense and myrrh, carrying Kalashnikovs-even the kids.
From its palaces to its shacks Yemen strikes me as extremely romantic.
The women wear every shade of the rainbow, and the men tuck their daggers
into futas wound about their waists. The markets flow with silver trinkets
and the best-tasting honey in the world.
2
MARCH 2006
The sultan and sultana put us in touch with the British ambassador to
Yemen, Mike Gifford, who in turn hands us over to two jeeps of heavily
armed escorts who will lead us safely out of the most dangerous part of
the country.
Not that I want to leave. I have fallen in love with the place. I find
myself secretly wishing to be kidnapped, and I have heard reports that
some tourist hostages are fed and treated so well, they don't even realize
what has happened and think they have been taken in as guests.
In Yemen I feel free and wear my hair uncovered, my skirts below the knee,
my coloured cardigans loaded with strings of Yemeni beads that I bought
in the market. The only time I sense any danger is in the shark market.
Shark meat is a specialty, sold in tiny dried specimens on platters under
canvas canopies. Spotted taking pictures of the treasure, I am publicly
admonished by a short fat gray-haired man who forces me to apologize to
the entire yard. I remind myself that Dame Freya, too, had encountered
mixed reactions to her camera.
16
APRIL 2006
My trip ends in Iran. We spend Easter at the German Embassy in Tehran.
Searching for traditional Easter eggs, boiled and painted yellow, we pick
up on local attitudes. The people here are no happier to see English-speaking
Westerners than in other parts of the Mideast.
Iran has just publicized its first uranium enrichment program. Since there
has been no American embassy in Tehran for 27 years, the British embassy
is fielding most of the recent grenades. Iranians everywhere want to talk
with us about their concerns, in spite of the risk of being caught saying
the wrong thing.
Unsure of the local dress code I wear my black floor-length veil again
but the lipstick-painted Iranian women warmly clear their throats. I need
wardrobe advice. Apparently the only uniform for women here is a manteau
(a three-quarter-length coat) and a head scarf (both in any colour). Long
black veils are strictly optional. A foreigner in a veil is ludicrous.
I buy myself a manteau. The first girls I see show their ankles in pedal-pusher
jeans and stilettos, their fitted coats riding halfway up their buttocks,
long hair billowing from bows. They rouge their cheeks and dust their
eyelids with violet powder.
20
APRIL 2006
I am flying home to England. A case of extremes! Tomorrow I will be swapping
my Tehrani headscarf for a Philip Treacy hat. My father's cousin, the
queen, is celebrating her 80th birthday.
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