Al Gosaibi Al Khobar

... br><br>I got myself reserved on the 07:30 PM bus, well organized, and reached the SAPTCO Bus Station early only to be told that the bus was cancelled. I coudnt figure out what the attendant was trying to tell me but I was relieved to know that there was a bus at 10:00 PM so I waited, and got on that one.<br><br>The bus started making its slow cruise out of the city and I started getting images (although night) of the desert. Well, I have been on the outskirts of ...

17/10<br>Time to be honest. We're heading home.<br>The last country is a stop-over in Bahrain (for 2 hours) as we fly through the night back to England<br>We wanted to surprise a few folks so have sneaked home quietly.<br><br>Never the less, Bahrain International Airport looked very nice at midnight, all lit up. This small island state lies in the Persion Gulf alongside saudi ...

Not much - just waiting at the airport for the flight! Bahrain was both nicer and more boring than I thought, the weather is a lot more forgiving but it's not worth more than about 3 days exploration tops.. Unless you like to get really nittygritty :P<br>

... and also not having any male family members with us [women are not allowed to cross solo, nor are they allowed to drive in Saudi!], we didn't even bother to attempt to cross the real border to go into Damman [although I wanted to..], so Saudi exploration will have to wait until I'm married :P [I have no brothers and my dad would much rather go anywhere else but a hot desert!]<br>

Bahrain!<br><br>Got here yesterday, the flight in was only an hour and you got a really good view of all of Qatar from the air! [stupid wing blocked photo ops though]. No problems so far, immigration was a breeze, found the hotel OK and after relaxing some more [yes, we're lazy!] my mum and I hunted down a taxi to see the few sights in the built up north of the island<br><br>Firstly we drove through the big banking district, and I was reminded of a less-trafficy, shorter ...

The ride to Bahrain was about the same before---about 2.5 hours, but a little less painful than the other direction due to the more relaxed Bahrain border policies (and since I took a bit of a nap to catch up some sleep). I got to the airport with plenty of time.  Before checking in, my bags had to go through an x-ray machine and they wrapped checked baggage with plastic ties, which ended up crushing my large roller. I checked into Yemenia airlines for my flight to Yemen---Sana'a and onto ...

... caused some issues with productions that forced us to make workarounds.<br> <br>Saad offered another night of squash, but since I wanted to see more of Saudi (rather than a squash court), I politely declined and hoped I didn&#8217;t offend (I think I was only mostly successful). Edwin wanted to take me out again to see the sights---though I felt like I was imposing somewhat by mentioning the things I was going to do (when asked), I think ...

... a lot of control over employees (for ex-pats, very difficult, if not impossible to change companies, and you have to turn in your passport to the gov&#8217;t while in Saudi), and how difficult it is to improve you wealth as pretty much all laws and business arrangements are set up to favor Saudis. He had tried coming to the U.S. like many Philippinos (the 3 major places they emigrate to being the U.S., Hong Kong, and Saudi Arabia), but ended up finding work in ...

... again in the lobby in an hour. <br><br>I didn&#8217;t really bring my squash-playing clothes with me, so all I really had were a pair of basketball shorts used for sleeping, a t-shirt, low-cut white socks for hiking, and some low-cut brown hiking shoes (no tennis shoes!). I had warned Saad about the shoes and the shorts (since hiking shoes aren&#8217;t made for running and shorts aren&#8217;t very modest), but he seemed to think it would be OK. I picked out a ...

... crisp. Hans, the German who picked me up, was laughing by the time we go there. On the flight back, it was a repeat of the heaving mass at the counter. There was only one thing to do - join in the fun. And, after an hour of yelling and screaming and pushing and STANDING MY GROUND, I had a ticket and was on my way to the shuttle. Here is where one of my fondest memories lies - I passed by a couple of British fellow, bowler hats and all, looking at the ...