Cover up in conservative countries

The dress rules a Western man expects to be about women apply to him too, and the enforcement is at the door rather than in the abstract. Harry has now been refused entry twice for wearing shorts, and both times said the mistake was his.

What the rule usually is: nothing above the knee. He asks the question directly in Yemen — what is the male equivalent of the burka — and the answer is that men may not show anything above the knee, so shorts are forbidden outright, not merely frowned at.

Where it bites is religious sites. At the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore he was turned away in shorts and told trousers or jeans were the requirement. He spent the next twenty minutes trying to buy a pair — with a local salesman who volunteered to negotiate the local price for him and then refused to take anything for his time — and failed to find any, which cost him the visit.

How Harry applies it

• Assume trousers if a mosque is anywhere in the day’s plan. His own account of the Lahore failure is that they hadn’t planned to go, decided on the spot, and he was dressed for a different day. Two days later he goes back to the same city in trousers, gets into the Wazir Khan Mosque without a word said, and states the rule outright: as a tourist, wear trousers, because hunting for a pair outside the door does not work. Shoes also come off at the entrance.
• Ask rather than guess what the men’s rule is. It is rarely written down anywhere a visitor will see it, and the people around him answer it happily when asked.
• Shorts mark you out even where they’re allowed. In Karachi, at about 30°C, he and Mac were the only two people in the street wearing them — nobody objected, and he noticed anyway.

The account this page was missing

Everything above is framed around a Western man discovering that the rules apply to him. The bundle has exactly one first-hand account from a woman, and it belongs here rather than nowhere.

In Aqaba, Sofia — travelling with Harry and Mac — is stared at persistently, enough that Harry raises it on camera as the one place in Jordan where the hospitality felt different. Asked what it was like, she answers in her own words and her advice has two halves:

• Dress appropriately — which is this page’s rule, arrived at independently.
• Hold your ground and be strong in your stance — which is not a dress rule at all, and has no equivalent anywhere else on the page.

The second half is the part a man’s version of this tip cannot supply. Harry’s problem is being turned away at a door; hers is being looked at in the street, and no amount of correct clothing ends it. What she describes managing is the situation, not the wardrobe.

Two things she is careful about, both kept here as she said them: she compares it to time she spent in Egypt, including alone, so she is describing a region rather than one town; and she is emphatic that she would not tell any woman to stay away or skip the trip. She also separates the staring from the people — everyone they actually dealt with that evening was kind.

Demonstrated in

• Inside Yemen: A Country in Freefall 🇾🇪 — the rule stated plainly by a local: nothing above the knee for men.
• $8 Tour of LAHORE, PAKISTAN 🇵🇰 — refused at the mosque door in shorts, for the second time, and unable to buy trousers in time.
• Foreigners Explore Old Town Lahore🇵🇰 — the same city two days later in trousers, straight into the Wazir Khan Mosque, and the rule stated to camera.
• $200 Luxury Jordan Resort 🇯🇴 — the bundle’s only first-hand account by a woman, given by Sofia in Aqaba.
• $180 Boat Scam in AQABA, JORDAN 🇯🇴 — covering up for a local beach, having been warned in advance what to expect there.