A couple more days in Bahrain

I was very fortunate that my friends A' and S' were happy to take me in and that their fully furnished apartment was huge with 4 bedrooms. I was slighly less fortunate with the actual city as to be honest there is very little here either for a tourist or even for locals.

The kingdom of Bahrain is a small island, around 60 km long by 30 wide, and was originally just a huge sand spit off the coast of Saudi Arabia.

The whole place is full of construction sites, with at least six new tower blocks being worked on within view no matter where you are on the island, yet meaning no disrespect to the locals or authorities it is being managed by people more detached from reality than even a British politician.

Bahrains population is very small and so there is absolutely no need for all these multitudes of tower blocks to be built and so close to each other that unless you are on the top floors you have no view except of other blocks around you. You cannot even feel safe if you are on a side that is overlooking the sea or ocean, as with each year they are reclaiming more and more land by dumping tons of sand and rubble into the sea and so what was the sea front three years ago is already one tower block away now, with even more being planned in the near future.

There are no buses or trains that take you around the city, but then again there is precious little to visit. A handful of museums that are mainly just to show off their past rulers, with only a couple of rooms full of actual artifacts and even the souveneir shops are lacking both substance and quantity. There are no guide books or guides for the museum and when I went even the cafeteria was closed due to lack of interest, on whose behalf I am not sure, but it just meant that you wander around for an hour and then regret telling your taxi driver that he should return to collect you in two!

The malls are surprisingly affordable, and almost all of the apartment blocks have their own mini gymnasium and swiming pool, but these luxuries only beguile for a few weeks before you realise that you are trapped in a place where you will spend almost all of your time in either your office or your apartment.

The wage might be one of the highest in the world, but their immigration rules are a fiasco and stories abound of workers having to return home or send their families away for months at a time while waiting for the sluggish beauocracy to get off their buts and do something are enough to put off all but the most determined of workers.

Despite having my own laptop, the internet security policies of Bahrain, much like Dubai, are such that pretty soon I realised that the whole network was under thier nanny state scrutiny, meaning that unless I am a hard core hacker my ability to surf the net and dig up any dirt or good information is heavily hampered.

Apparently there are a few cinemas and even a water park also on the island, but none of the people I spoke to knew about them and if it wasnt for seing the movie listings in the local newspaper I would have sworn it was all in my head.

Finally stories of Saudi's crossing over the bridge border to bed local women on the bonets of their humvees before honking loudy at 3am in the morning announcing their triumph as they return back over the bridge, if proven to be true, show a distinct difference between the clean and pure image that the modern day Muslims portrays during the day and the more sleazy reality that are many Muslims at night.

The worst story I heard was of a reputable hotel bieng closed down after it was discovered that some of the locals, maybe staff / maybe guests, were seen herding groups of teenage and young women into the hotel late at night for either a sex gangbang or maybe longer term prostitution, keeping them locked in a room five at a time and forced to service several men a day in order to pay for their 'accomodation and food'.

Having spent a few days here with my friends, despite their very generous and friendly company I was under the distinct impression that Bahrain was a most perverse warping of capitalism, where the locals were using their money to lure the best of the talent from around the world but offering them nothing in return except cold hard cash, and always keeping and treating them as a second rate immigrant one step away from deportation, never as a valued employee or equal.

A day in Bahrain, United Arab Emirates ( U.A.E. )

I woke up early, too early for some unknown reason, and checked my cellphone for the time only to find that it had eeriely drained itself of charge overnight and needed to be recharged. Once I did this I then found my watch and realised it was not even 5am and so certainly worth going back to sleep for another couple of hours.

My second attempt for waking up was a much more personally acceptably time of around 8am, which was perfect as it meant that I could have breakfast and then plan the day ahead, which with local friends, a map and the internet should have been quite easy but it would seem that Bahrain is suffering that all too familiar 'not really set up for tourists' problem.

There are a few forts and museums that might appeal, but only if you sign up for one of those all day tours as they are spread out quite far and wide apart, and the kingdoms water park is about as south as you can go and on the map there is nothing else lower down that is labelled so I am guessing it is all just dessert, roads and occasional industrial or housing projects.

I am a bit curious to find out how many people currently live here as everywhere I look they are building huge multi story apartment and office blocks, yet on the street I have yet to pass a crowd or even a large group of people to make them seem necessary.

Together A' and I worked out a vague plan that we would visit the National Museum first and then after that possibly go to a fort, or to a mall before heading back for lunch, it would have been a bit more exciting but of course we would be taking along her young daughter which limits things a bit, plus I dont drive, there is no public transport system ( there are only a very few people here and those who are here all seem to drive ! ) and getting a taxi everywhere is not my idea of value for money, especially in a country that has as stronger currency that England.

Yes, for the first time here I dont have to try and divide the currency by any number or fraction to try and get back to English money for an equivalent value, here you simply double it.

Around 11am we made our way over to the museum which was very well laid out but the first few rooms seemed to be more about paying homage and respect to their kings, with info boards and photos everywhere, and not so much about the actual place itself. Thankfully later rooms did go into detail about the history and culture of the land and had relics and articacts dating back about five thousand years, with mention of its legends written down in Mesopotamia 2000 BC.

As always, I am never 100% certain of the accuracy of facts but if the info boards are true then it would appear that Noah had a rival in the Arc building department by a fellow of the name of Ziusudra who also happened to be the only person left alive and was the preserver of plants and animals alike.

There was also plenty about their customs of births, marriages and death which were a little foreign to me, like your cousin being the first logical choice for your husband or wife, but again they were all displayed very neatly and made some sense when I stopped to think about it.

The only downfall of the museum was that it was a little empty, like they were expecting to have many more exhibits to show and so built it bigger than it realy needs to be, but then here space is not at such a premium as in other countries so I guess they can build it as large as they want.

As the sun had come out again and chaced the mornings dark clouds away we decided it would be a good opportunity to visit one of the kingdoms few archaeological sites, Arad Fort, which seemed to be quite important when I was researching it but upon arrival I couldnt understand how as it was so very small, looking more like a fortified watch post than anything more than anything else.

However, despite its small stature, in the sun it did look great and I had plenty of fun taking pictures from various angles. The place was free to visit which was nice, but as it was empty except two security guards around there was no place to buy drinks, souveneirs, postcards or even to guide you around and so it felt like this place was far more remote and hidden away than it actually is.

Ten minutes later we were back in the taxi where we headed off to the local mini mall where we enjoyed a coffee and donut before heading back and relaxing the rest of the day eating pizza, chatting and wondering if it is worth me trying to venture out on my own with one of the few tour companies for a tour of the city and then meet back at my friends apartment later on.

One Arab state to another, next stop the Kingdom of Bahrain

I woke up to my alarm and not feeling any real rush got myself packed and ready to check out in a little less than an hour, which is far from my fastest but I did not want to miss anything or leave anything behind.

Once I got downstairts to the reception I could see the heavy rain coming down from above and I instantly regretted not booking a taxi last night and ensuring I could get to the airport in plenty of time. I also regretted not getting any change or of checking out which terminal I was meant to leave from.

This regret was doubled when the hotel was unable to find either a public or a private taxi for me for ages and when in the end they did manage to find a guy who was willing to take me, I had to sit in the front, not in the rear where my rucksack was and when we finally arrived at the airport he suddenly fleeced me big time by the fare.

First he claimed that because of the heavy traffic he wanted a bigger commission and then finally that he only had 20 dhs on him, which meant that as I had only two 10's myself or a few 100's left and he was asking for at least 50, I ended up being blackmailed into giving him a 100 and taking his 20 as change, thus a net cost of 80 almost triple what I paid only 36 ours ago to do the same journey only in reverse.

I would have haggled more but I was in a rush to beat the 90 minute deadline for overseas flights checkin and he knew it, playing on it and that he could either drive away or lock me out and apart form my rucksack if I tried to pull a fast one.

After cursing him plenty of times under my breath, I left and checked in and then cursed even louder when I found out that I had plenty of time as their check in deadline was 60 minutes, not the 90 or more as standard for most other airlines times for overseas flights.

HoweverI barely had enough time to have breakfast adn go through security which was a bit tighter than I expected before I was boarding the plane and ready to fly across to Bahrain to meet my friends there.

The flight as smooth and barely more than an hour and then I had a mix of luck as for the first time I won my game of luggage, being the very first piece of luggage send out on the carosel but then having my handluggage torn and ripped by the hand luggage metal detector belt.

Once through customs that was easy thanks to having prepaid and organised my entry visa online, and then jsust as luckily was that my friend A', along with her daughter, was there waiting for me in arrivals. It was with a lot of emotion that we greeted each other, not having seen each other for at least six years, and then we headed on back to her apartment where I was once again reunited with her son M' the one whom I had travelled to Ireland and rescued only the other year.

After a bite to eat in a nearby Nandos restaurant it was back to their apartment for a nice long catch up natter and then also reunite with her husband S' when he got back from work.

It was great to share a meal and drink with my friends once more, especially as we had somehow narrowly missed each other in Fiji and then again in Australia, so finally catching up with them before the end was such a nice touch.

I had thought that the night would end with us just sitting down chatting but S' wanted to show me a few of the local watering holes that were close to their apartment, and here it was nice as a nearby hotel complex had three bars side by side on its ground floor leve, all catering to a different crowd. A sports bar, a more western lounge bar and a Arabian bar were the three themes, and all with plenty of pretty female hostesses and waitresses all eagre to push the slightly overpriced drinks but in a very friendly and casual way.

The hostesses were from a variety of countries, with surprisingly many of them being from the Philippines, but they made a real effort to get to know you and engage you in conversation while they were wearing modest clothing, instead of similar places in other cities where they just rely on push up bras and short skirts, and the fact that none of them asked me to buy them a drink and together S' and I were out for a couple of hours equaly spoke volumes.

The final stop was the Arab bar where a trio of Morrocan female dancers were on the stage ready to dance for our enjoyment, but being a Sunday it was a very quiet night and we were the only patrons, so they didnt quite put their full energy into it and for myself the music was far too loud considering it was otherwise empty, so we just stayed for the one before heading back.

If I had ever doubted my rain making abilities then tonight completely quashed then as by the time we were leaving the nights sky was lit up with the flashes of lightening and the thunder was not far behind it, which by my count is now 31 countries in a row ( or 32 if you include the day I left England ), though admittedly it has not been raining every day, not in every city and not always enough to cause much of a fuss over.

S' said that the rain was very unseasonal, but then added that the climate had been changing in recent years, and I jokingly told him to place a bet that it would be raining in Cairo within a week as I was only due to remain here another few days.