Al Hajjara, the most alien-looking place on earth

New Delhi: This mysterious city in the foggy Yemen's Haraz Mountains can surely fire up imagination of anybody who decides to explore it.Al Hajjarah sometimes spelled Al Hajarah or Al Hajjara, is a village in Yemen. It is located in the Manakhah District of the Sana'a Governorate, in the Haraz Mountains. Al Hajara is built upon a precipice, and is famous for the houses which are built onto the cliff faces.Al Hajara contains the former residence of Imam Yahya Muhammad, a signatory to the Italo-Yemeni Treaty of 1926.The city seems ancient yet modern at the same time: the taller of the brown, flat-roofed houses so precariously balanced on top of the mountain resemble early skyscrapers. Many are decorated with elaborate white friezes and patterns so typical for the region. The town's remoteness and narrow streets suggest a close-knit community that might, in times of invasions, have allowed outsiders to enter yet not necessarily to leave.Dance is what the inhabitants of the Hazar Mountains are especially known for. And, not surprisingly, stone is what the city's all about - hajjar means stone in Arabic - it being built on top of a rock and out of stone.Al Harajah is built in traditional Yemeni vernacular architecture which represents the main style incorporated in houses, buildings and structures. From the “skyscrapers” of UNESCO World Heritage Site, Shibam, nicknamed the “Manhattan of the Desert”, Al Hajarah preserves the heritage and aesthetics of the praiseworthy Yemen, Arabic architecture with multi-storey buildings with Islamic detailing. Al Hajarah is one of the great architectural evidence that the Yemen culture has promoted over generations, a true connection with nature by using the oldest building material on the planet in a creative way. The mixture of mud and bricks for high-rise buildings clustered in wall mass is specific here and it is exceptional that even made of such ephemeral, accessible material; the buildings of the ancient times have survived in time.Al Hajarah is an impressive, unique site, bizarre and mysterious, so far from the modern world. It exposes the Yemeni culture with multi-storey buildings and a combination of mud brick buildings which accentuate the connection with nature.