Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
violence in the city, and, by the height of the chaos in 2011, Aden was a divided city with
neighbourhood militias setting up road blocks and numerous gun and bomb attacks taking
place. Fighting between government forces, tribal groups, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Penin-
sula and secessionists throughout the south and east of the country created tens of thou-
sands of homeless people; with around 100,000 internally displaced people descending on
Aden. Many of these people have moved into schools and other public buildings and
brought many public services in the city to a near stand still. By late 2012 there was the
first glimmer of hope that things were finally starting to calm down again, as the govern-
ment pushed back the Islamic militants who had taken control of large parts of south Ye-
men.
Sights & Activities
We have been unable to confirm opening hours, prices etc for either of the following. De-
scriptions are based on research conducted in 2010.
National Museum for Antiquities
MUSEUM
(off Al-Aidrus St; Sat-Thu)
The excellent National Museum for Antiquities has wonderful
exhibits from the ancient Kingdoms of Yemen including marble and gypsum statues of
humans that look like zombies brought back from the dead. Other highlights include ex-
hibits from the early Islamic period.
Upstairs on the 1st floor is the
Ethnographical Museum
, which has a musty and poorly dis-
played collection of traditional dress from across the country. Another highlight is the mu-
seum building itself.
Aden Tanks
RUINS
(end of Sayla St)
Believed to date from the 1st century, Aden Tanks were designed not just to
collect precious water for the city, but also to remove water in times of flash flooding. A
series of ingenious steps, arches and conduits channels the rainwater into a set of beauti-
fully built cisterns. The 13 cisterns (all that remain of the original 53 tanks) have a total
capacity of 20 million gallons. Developed by successive dynasties, the tanks eventually
fell into disuse, until uncovered in the mid-19th century by the British, who, despite their
best efforts and modern technology, never did manage to get them to work again.
Sleeping
