The Bab al-Yaman was built by the occupying Ottoman forces in 1870 and now provides a focal point for the trading activity of the old town. Just inside the gate is a courtyard where a hundred or so young men fight through the crowds to try to sell you bolts of cloth which they carry over their arms like walking fabric shops. Outside the gate, on the left of this picture is a very basic 'no-sheet' hotel where one can sit on a worryingly unstable balcony and drink hot, black, sweet mint tea for a few pence a glass, while watching the chaos below.