That your Yemenia plane is so old it has a smoking section. (I haven’t seen this in, what, 30 years?)
That you’re seated in the smoking section. (Fortunately smoking was banned)
That your armrest is falling apart and there is nowhere the plug in the headphones you’ve been handed. (On the plus side, I was spared listening to a Turkish soap opera dubbed into Arabic)
That the notional seating list is deemed irrelevant when a Yemeni man decides he’d rather protect his fully-hijabed wife by sitting in the middle row where you were supposed to be. (On the plus side, this gave me a window seat)
That the window seat provides a great view of the crashed plane beside the runway at the Yemeni airport where you land.
That when you exchange eight 500-Dirham notes, you receive in return an obscene and wallet-busting 216 banknotes of Yemeni Rials, the highest denomination available in the country.
That the sum you’ve put aside for a little over three weeks of holiday is more than most Yemenis earn in a year.
That there are still wrecked cars lying in the streets of Mukalla from the floods late last year.
That the free tourist travel permit to Wadi Hadramaut will cost you YR2000 (NZ$20, US$10, Dh40) in a cash payment to a policeman armed with a Kalashnikov and a manner that would suggest it would be wise not to ask for a receipt.
That you can’t get to pay the baksheesh because you don’t have photocopies of your Yemeni visa.
That you can’t get the photocopies because it’s Friday, the Muslim equivalent of Sunday.
That you’re stuck in the unmitigated sh1thole of Mukalla for another day.
That your hotel shower consists of a pipe sticking out of the wall.
That the next day, when you get the photocopies, you arrive at the share taxi stand to find it’s Where Peugeots Go To Die.
That you can’t take the shared taxi before getting four more photocopies of the travel permit to hand to the police checkpoints.
That you can’t get the photocopies because there’s a power cut.
That when the power comes back on and you get the photocopies, the share taxi you were supposed to be on has left and you have to wait for the next one to find eight ¬– really, eight — passengers so it can leave.
That your pack shares the roof rack with a gearbox and four bags of cloth.
That as a gringo tourist, you’re paying a 50 per cent premium compared to the locals for this pleasure.
That when your taxi does leave, you notice it had done 548,000km before the odometer broke.
That when you arrive in Sayun in Wadi Hadramaut, the hotel has a rule that all firearms have to be left at the reception on arrival. (This is a plus, right?)
But more than anything else, I’ve learnt that Yemen is a fantastic, interesting and authentic country, filled with friendly people and spectacular scenery. My desk at the Abu Dhabi Media Company seems like a million miles away.