The Big Read: Choking in the desert air

The worst flight I've ever taken was in Yemen, crossing from the far wadis of the Hadramawt above the yellow southern sands of the Empty Quarter back to Sana'a.

Wilfred Thesiger was the first European to explore the Empty Quarter, some 60 years ago, crossing it on foot and camel through life-evaporating heat, nearly starving to death on the shadeless lee of a dune while his Bedu companions rode for help.

He suffered gritty, scurvy hell and during my 90-minute Yemen Airways flight I thought of him down there and me up here and thought: "Oh, you lucky man."

I had reached the Hadramawt after two weeks through the sandstone cliffs and Biblical canyons of Yemen, chewing qat and sighing for a cold beer, and on one occasion exchanging rifle fire with a village. My guide, Sa'if, had been teaching me to shoot an AK-47 and we realised we'd been raining bullets into the valley below only when the villagers started shooting at us.

"Sorry!" I yelled, but I'm a middle-class South African, too soft for the Arabian sands. Sa'if knew we mustn't lose face, so he returned fire.

I was happy to be on my way home. For two weeks I'd eaten nothing but camel and goat and chicken that tasted of foot. If you imagine the Road Runner, chased all his life through the canyons and arroyos by Wile E Coyote, only to die of disappointed and desiccated old age in a home for bunioned prey, that Road Runner would taste like Yemeni chicken.

I'd travelled with a soldier and his machine gun, because the Yemeni government were convinced I'd be kidnapped otherwise. The soldier waved goodbye in the airport parking lot, on the assumption, I suppose, that Yemeni kidnappers are all afraid of airport terminals.

They hardly bothered with metal detectors: every single Yemeni man carries a weapon, a great curved dagger called a jambiyya. At the airport they serve food with little plastic cutlery to men packing scimitars.

I didn't realise till they opened the gate and 200 heavily armed men went belting along the tarmac that seats on the plane weren't reserved. I was undaunted. Am I not South African? How many of these Sa'ifs and bin-Ahmeds played rugby at school? I leapt into the fray like a cheery TE Lawrence and made it to the third step before an elbow caught me in the throat and I sagged to my knees to be trampled like a human right.

Once inside, I received wary looks. I was the only Westerner; I wondered if I was being racially profiled. Perhaps they thought I'd mug them, or gay-marry someone, or teach someone's wife to drive. I dropped into a free seat and the two chaps beside me growled something in Arabic. I gave them that endearing liberal foreigner look: "Sorry, I don't understand, but I do respect your culture and if I did understand I'm sure I'd find it very interesting!"

They jabbed their fingers at the pouch in the seat in front of me, where I discovered a can of Coke. Oh, how friendly, I thought. Complimentary soda to wash away the desert dust. The old traditions are still alive! I opened the can and took a ceremonial sip. "Mmmm!" I said in theatrical appreciation.

Only when a young chap came running up the aisle and tried to snatch it from my hands did I realise the Coke was there to keep his seat. This created a dilemma. If I handed it over, I'd look like a shrugging Uncle Sam imperialist who'd done it on purpose. I let ignorance be my shield. "Mmmm!" I glugged some more and smacked my lips appreciatively. "Good! Thank you!"

The plane taking off was everyone's cue to light up. Yemenis don't fully believe in heavier-than-air flight. They seem to feel the aircraft won't stay aloft without being constantlyre-inflated with gusts of exhaled cigarette smoke, like some deathly metal balloon. The cabin filled with grey. Rather than be parted from his pals, the man whose seat I'd stolen sat on their laps, and they all smoked and fingered their daggers and eyeballed me. Their solidarity was actually quite touching. For friends like that, you need Yemenis.

At a certain point the oxygen masks dropped, but no one seemed to care. I never saw any cabin staff. Perhaps they had been kidnapped. One of the men beside me trimmed his moustache and the one on his lap sneezed, scattering me with whiskers. Somewhere in the plane was some specimen of incontinent livestock.

In Sana'a I connected to the SAA flight back to Johannesburg. The woman beside me inspected her complimentary earphones. One of the little foam pads was missing. She waved it at me in indignation. "Hey?" she said. "Typical!"