Coral International Al Khobar

... wee hours.<br><br>Well, towards early morning I got into a deep sleep, and when I awoke it was way past 7:00AM, and when I rubbed my eyes, thought AM I IN THE MIDDLE OF A FOLKTALE FROM THE ARABIAN NIGHTS! Well, the desert looked superb with the view looking somehow infinite but at the same time very defined ( I dont know how to describe that), and it was basically sand, hillocks and scattered shrubs. At this point, I wondered: exactly how far were we from Jeddah?. I mean, I ...

... to the west and Qatar to the east. We didn't know where it was until we were due to fly home via the island. It's interesting to note the road bridge (King Fahd Causeway) which links the two countries and is 17 miles long. Soon to be surpassed by the Bahrain to Qatar 'Friendship Bridge' currently under construction at 25 miles - it will be the longest bridge in the world.

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>

Apparently the Bahrain-Saudi border is on a little island [not sure if it has an official name], which hosts a rest point on either side of the border, complete with matching observation towers. The whole road, which is 45km long, is called the King Fahad Causeway on the Bahraini side, with a different Saudi name.. Interesting stuff! :) Due to it being Ramadan and us not being ...

... wanting to come into Bahrain and next to nothing going into Saudi - apparently it's easier to access alcohol in Bahrain! :P<br><br>Our last stop was the Bahrain Fort [aka Portuguese Fort]. Nothing particularly new to me, seen plenty of them, but it was weird knowing the whole area it was on was reclaimed land from the sea!<br><br>Today, my mum had a conference so I was left to do as I pleased. I had a walk around the Juffair neighbourhood which was where my hotel was ...

... it to back home.  It was pretty much the same, but the sauce was a little different (and not in a good way for me), and fries were pretty much the same too (though these ones not particularly fresh).<br><br>OK, so time to come clean.  With the family at home really worried about me being in Arabia (especially Pop), I'd been trying to keep from scaring them.  All of my trip was basically safer than being in certain parts of Atlanta, except for Yemen, but tried to keep this on the down ...

... to-a-room and two rooms per apartment. Married expats get a housing allowance (so they can live outside company-provided housing) along with other benefits. Just another incentive created to get people to marry in Saudi. I asked if there were advantages (more freedom) for women to get married. He said, &#8220;No---there&#8217;s no freedom wither way!&#8221; Interestingly, the average man gets married at about 26 and the average girl at ...

... 8217;t planned 9/11, which he agreed was unlikely, but I don&#8217;t he really though they were similar. I did manage to get him onto the less passionate topic of the U.S. foreign policies for a bit---at least slightly less uncomfortable, though I was grouped in with &#8220;you,&#8221; as in &#8220;you and the U.S., a few times.<br><br>We drove around a bit looking for the restaurant, then found it-- called &#8220;Olive Garden&#8221; (not the American kind). I ...

... seemed to have the build and look of a Pakistani, and dressed similar to my Indian friends in college. He was wearing shorts a bit shorter than me, which helped make me more comfortable in my get up. Saw some other guys wearing shorts too, but much longer than knee-length. All courts were taken and only one had a door, so we waited a bit for a pair of guys on that court to finish up (though supposedly they were going to be finished 15 min earlier). Farhad ...

... We even had to jump in for the 21 year old hot female Swedish driver and crowd favourite who we personally witnessed crashing due to a overly large backfire in her hotrod about 3/4 of the way down the track. While we were doing the show we simply hoped she was still alive! It was a unique and uncomfortable feeling. (www.phoenix-productions.net)