Foggy,
That was Ashok Tamhane - the failed hostage!
His problem was that his passengers were Somali labourers rather than the Westerners that George Hawkins had with him when he was kidnapped a couple of months previously. After a couple of days of the "hostages" eating them out of house and home and nobody bothering to reply to their demands, they told Ashok to just F off - we were very surprised when he just reappeared in Sanaa!
George has a wonderful story which cut very short was that his captors were whiling away their time in the normal Yemeni way - shooting at target rocks. George whilst tied up (he is coincidentally a wizard with most weapons) was guffawing and taking the piss out of them.
Upshot was that they untied him - passed him an AK with a full clip and told him to do better! He says he contemplated trying to take them out but realised that he may get a couple only before he became full of lead and Jambias! He proceeded to show them what he could do.
They declared him an honorary villager on the spot and invited several neighbouring villages to a shooting competition which they won outright thanks to their new member.
They proceeded to untie the rest of the hostages and treated them as "honoured guests" for the few days till the ransom was paid!
Dear Dreg,
Look at the Gulf Helis website (which incidentally hasn't really been updated since Jennifer Gomez left for Kiwi Land in 2000 - that is a bit worrying!) for pictures and plans of the housing etc.
You can't compare anywhere that I know to what you guys put up with in the way of isolation at Darrels - but reality is that nothing will happen till a bunch of you vote with your feet at the same time.
I am certainly not advocating Gulf Helis as the place to be - my point was ask people who are there now rather than relying on old hearsay! Also note the comments about the cost of living in Doha these days. Friends still in the area reckon it is worse than Dubai!
BUT - it is safe and you don't need an armed convoy to go to work!