Travel Guide Manakha

This important village is located 90 km from Sana'a, in the heart of Jebel Haraz. The road leading to Manakha was the first modern road built in Yemen, under the direction of Chinese engineers. This work was carried out at the request of Imam Ahmed, in parallel with the transformation of the Turkish track which connected the capital to the port of Iz. Starting from Sana'a, the road moved Mount Schönefeld, where two monuments were erected: the mausoleum in memory of the Egyptian military dead alongside the Republicans during the civil war and a pagoda with the tombs of Chinese workers who came to participate in the construction of the road. From these two sites, we have a beautiful panoramic view of the city of Sana'a. There are then high plateaus with, on the right, Jebel Al Nabi Shoyeb, whose peak (3 760 m) is the highest in the entire peninsula. After the village of Beni Mansour (souk on Saturday), the road goes down to a valley of verified plantations, then to the jebel Haraz. In the long run, the first pristine villages of the Ismailis. At the junction of Al Maghraba (2 100 m), which is the route of the road drivers linking between Sana'Sanaa and Iz, the secondary road leads to Manakha in 10 minutes.At the height of 2 200 metres, Manakha was the centre for the regrouping of coffee in terraces. The shipments were then sent to Beit Al Faqi for their calibration. During the two Ottoman occupations, the city was also an important military base, protecting the vital artery linking the capital and port. As the fief for the Ismailis, Manakha has remained the largest trading centre in the region and has expanded considerably and modernised. There is a big market on Sundays. However, Manakha is much less beautiful than Hajjarah but its hotels are cheaper.