Your next vacation spot? NOT!

What a wonderfully scenic photo, right?  Doesn't it make you want to pack your suitcase, dust off that passport, and head to the airport right away?

Don't.

This, says the NY Times, is a photo of
The village of Rihab in Wadi Dawan, a valley that is the ancestral home of Bin Laden.

I have blogged quite a few times about Yemen.  (editor: do you know if anyone actually reads them though?!!!)
Anyway, back to Yemen, which is where that bin Laden village is located.  I loved this description of the country in that NY Times piece:

Beneath the familiar Arab iconography, like pictures of the president that hang in every shop, there is a wildness about the place, a feeling that things might come apart at any moment. A narcotic haze descends on Yemen every afternoon, as men stuff their mouths with glossy khat leaves until their cheeks bulge and their eyes glaze over. Police officers sit down and ignore their posts, a green dribble running down their chins. Taxi drivers get lost and drive in circles, babbling into their cellphones. But if not for the opiate of khat, some say, all of Yemen - not just those areas of the south and north already smoldering with discontent - would explode into rebellion.

If not for the fact that this is one messed-up country, this paragraph would qualify as one of the best travel-writings ...
Oh, BTW, the title of the NY Times piece?  "Is Yemen the Next Afghanistan?"
The answer is a no-brainer!