We have some good friends in Bahrain and Dubai so from the UK we headed to the middle east to do some visiting. We had organized our flights so that we could have Saturday and Sunday with our friends Ari and Linda, in Bahrain. Unfortunately, their weekend is Thursday and Friday in that part of the world. Luckily Ari was able to get time off just for us.
They showed us a good time, taking us out for a middle eastern feast to welcome us, including finishing the meal with some shisha. Good food always makes us happy, so it was a good introduction to Bahrain.
The next day we did a bit more sight seeing including visiting the local mosque. I got to wear the jilbaab and head scarf to make me respectable for the mosque and we got a personal guide to explain a very one sided view about the mosque and Islam for us. It was very informative, though, and they were very hospitable; they even gave us a free juice box.
Ari and Linda also showed us the Bahrain fort. Bahrain was definitely the least touristy place we went to, it felt weird not seeing many other foreigners around. When we at the airport the staff were even surprised to see us traveling there.
Saturday night was our big night in, where we had cocktails around Ari and Linda's beautiful pool. It was probably a good thing that I had a few drinks to relax me as there was a riot not far from their compound; our eyes even started burning a little from the tear gas in the air. Despite this, I never felt In danger. We had a great night; trying to swim underwater, testing our waterproof cameras, trying to solve world problems and making up cocktails.
Needless to say that our Sunday was a bit slow. We still managed to go out for some French Middle Eastern fusion food and visit the local Souq (market). It was sad that our final night came so quickly - we miss you Ari and Linda - but, although it was a short visit, it was a memorable one.
When we arrived back in Dubai the next day we were lucky to be met by our friend Tim who took us back to his apartment. It is such a strange city, there's nothing organic about it, it hasn't developed over time in a natural way, it has been built in a very short period with an absurd amount of money available to developers. There is no real culture here but if you like spending money, well, I think you could enjoy yourself here.
Tim took us to a lovely Thai restaurant for dinner overlooking a pretty amazing fountain show - have you ever seen water dance to Whitney Houston? On our second day we went up the Burj Khalifa - the tallest building in the world. An amazing piece of engineering and really quite spectacular, we only got to go up 450 metres though even though it is over 800 meters tall.
We also checked out some of the malls and the beach. The malls really are crazy. We saw the ski slope, a massive aquarium and an ice skating rink.
On our last night of our trip we went out with Tim for a lovely dinner at the Yacht club and cocktails at a hotel bar on the 50th level overlooking the palm. We had come a long way in our 213 days away but it was finally time to come home; we were sad and excited at the same time and I have to say the first few days back in Melbourne were a bit surreal.
We hope that you have enjoyed our blog and hopefully we will have cause to add to it in the not too distant future.
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