Hamba Travel Magazine
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From a detour close to home to a long road through East Africa. Pick a part of the world, or read them in order.
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Stories about Middle East
12 stories from our editors. Filter by part of the world, or page back in time.
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The 10 Cities Best Understood from the Water
A fine skyline is not enough. In these ten cities, a ferry or small boat reveals how trade, terrain, buildings and daily travel grew around a river, canal or bay.
Murgia · Altamura · Tbilisi
Ten places where local bread is still made by hand
Bread shows the daily work behind a neighbourhood meal: a household’s marked dough at a Marrakesh communal oven, dark rye beside sourdough in Copenhagen, and bolillos from brick ovens in Mexico City. These ten working addresses and market settings sell local bread made through distinct local practices.
Europe · Plaça Reial · Piazza Santo Spirito
Ten Squares That Change After Dark
At sunset, restaurant stalls fill Jemaa el-Fna and listeners close around storytellers who adjust each performance to the crowd. Elsewhere, evening brings aperitivo tables, commuter tides, street food, ceremonies and concert audiences to public ground.
South America · Europe · Middle East
Eight mineral landscapes shaped by salt, iron and hot water
On Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, a hard white crust runs towards an empty horizon. Elsewhere, iron colours whole mountains red, hot springs build terraces, and Roman miners have left cliffs behind.
Wadi Rum · La Palma · Atacama
Ten dark-sky landscapes, ranked from moorland to mountain basin
Pink sand runs below Wadi Rum’s sandstone walls, while telescope domes stand on La Palma’s volcanic crest. This ranking places New Zealand’s glacial Mackenzie Basin first, where a wide alpine floor gives the night sky a large, uncluttered frame.
Asia · Europe · Middle East
Eight cities where cultures still share the street
A Hindu temple and a mosque stand among the shophouses of Singapore’s Chinatown. In Sarajevo, a short walk runs from an Ottoman bazaar to Habsburg-era façades. In these eight cities, history still shapes worship, trade, food and ordinary street life.
Asia · Thar Desert · Gobi, Mongolia
The world’s 10 most remarkable deserts, ranked
In Egypt’s White Desert, wind-blown sand has carved snow-white chalk into mushrooms, cones and solitary towers. This deliberately subjective ranking weighs access alongside landscape and distinctive character, so a spectacular place can fall when reaching it requires a serious expedition.
Middle East · Asia · Oman
The Carved Doors of Mombasa Old Town
In Mombasa Old Town, carved timber marks the boundary between the street and the rooms beyond. Teak, brass, floral carving and geometric grids show how a Swahili port absorbed ideas and materials from across the Indian Ocean.
Middle East · Syria · Lebanon
Sesame Bread and Knafeh in Downtown Amman
At the northern edge of downtown Amman, customers at Salaheddine Bakery take sesame-coated *ka’ak* from a wooden bin, cut it open and fill it at the counter. That brief stop puts bread between work, shopping, traffic and the steep routes home from the hills.
Asia · Middle East · Europe
Inside George Town’s Working Kopitiams
At lunchtime, Kek Seng on Jalan Penang fills with office workers, returning regulars and visitors under ceiling fans, among old tiles and booth seats. The room shows why George Town’s kopitiams still matter: they give small food traders, workers and longtime customers the same practical place to eat.
Middle East · Iran · Yazd
Flour, Clay and First Light in a Yazd Bakery
Morning bread work in a Yazd neighbourhood bakery moves from soft dough to a hot clay wall. Outside, high mud-plastered walls keep the narrow lane shaded while broken light gathers at the doorway.
Middle East · Turkey · Kadıköy
Twenty-Five Minutes to Karaköy
At Kadıköy’s tiled ferry pier, the humid air still softens the water and the far bank. Commuters tap through the gates with laptop bags, phones and İstanbulkarts, then step aboard for Karaköy before the day has properly gathered speed.