Speeding, Bacon, and Playing Count the Camels - A Weekend In Bahrain

The prospect of a 3½ hour drive across the desert is not exciting. The landscape is only endless sand. It stretches to where the horizon meets a sky that is the same shade of yellow.

As we drove away from Riyadh for a weekend in Bahrain someone suggested a game of ‘Count the Camels.’ No one took the offer up. After a long day’s work, I, for one, was keener to sleep.

Our driver, Hasan, was a small man who crouched awkwardly over the Armada’s large steering wheel.  His round face, thick glasses and protruding top teeth reminded me of a childhood picture of the three blind mice.  Blind indeed.  At speeds of 170km he often veered alarmingly across the road.  Three speed cameras caught us as we flashed past. Cars, seeing us approach in rear vision mirrors, rapidly moved lanes.

None of us slept.

Carpet sellers, cosmetics, and the circle of life (minus Simba)

We’ve been to Deira quite a few times before.

But confidently assuming we’d find it easily this time may have been our first mistake. Leaving the map behind? Possibly our second. While it’s not always helpful (or accurate) at least it’s in English, which is more than the motorway and street signs.

Getting lost can be interesting, however. We discovered a whole backwater of colourful streets, including one that was full of toys. There were shop fronts decorated with balloons beside dusty alleyways, where the only modern thing was a random assortment of air conditioning outlets. The line of cars in front ground to a Saudi crawl. Interesting and "tempting" merchandise walked right in front of us. 

Just what any small Saudi lad would love for his birthday? Forget the Lego and the Playmobile.

A long way from Amsterdam

Midday. 

Shutters had just gone down in the Riyadh Gallery Mall and our shopping was over for the moment.  Time to find a place to sit, eat and wait out prayer time.

The Imam’s voice, calling the faithful, resonated into every corner. Impossible to shut out, and no point in even trying to have a conversation. I checked my watch: half an hour to go. Inshallah.

To our left a woman stopped to pray. She was facing away from us, but as she bowed and knelt, I caught a glimpse of lips moving silently. She was obviously facing Mecca, but what got me was how she worked this out with such apparent aplomb – one minute vertical with shopping bags, the next horizontal on the floor. 

Only a week ago I’d been in Amsterdam.

Eastern Misadventures With A GPS (Part 2)

Next stop: Half Moon Bay, some 30km from Khobar.

Our otherwise-totally-out-of-date Lonely Planet guide said that this was a pleasant spot for expatriates, and the beach one of the most beautiful in the area.

Not quite. 

Eastern Misadventures With A GPS (Part 1)

There are very few old things left in Khobar city.  It used to be just a sleepy little port along the Persian Gulf; the end point for frankincense-carrying camels travelling from Yemen across the Saudi desert.

The discovery of oil in the 1930s changed all that. Almost overnight, Khobar became the centre of Saudi’s booming oil industry and the fastest growing city in Arabia.

From camel to Chrysler and from souk to skyscraper, all in one generation…