Diplomat Radisson Sas Manama

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

... 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!]

Bahrain!

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

Firstly we drove through the big banking district, and I was reminded of a less-trafficy, shorter ...

... the others talking to her and trying to get Yemenia to make better arrangements.  One Yemeni guy was talking in Arabic and making gestures, touching his cheek and then flicking his hand and fingers out.  Mike and I didn't know what he was saying, but we sure knew what he meant!  Another African guy with a Frenchish accent to his English also tried bargaining for a non-Yemenia flight.  The Yemenia girl continued to deflect---it was clear that Yemenia just doesn't have customer service and ...

... and where we had to stop so I could get out and be fingerprinted with my picture taken since this was my first time to Saudi---apparently I must be a significant threat. Some men were very helpful and friendly in directing me as I was auto-fingerprinted when the Immigration official left the room (place fingers and then thumbs on scanner, hold while lights are lit up). I stared into the cars to our right and left trying to see the women in the cars (mostly the eye-only abeyas ...

... with a lot of things in Bahrain, the restaurant was not much to look at from the outside. We pulled into the parking lot and I immediately felt like I was doing something sketchy by being there. We stepped into a very pleasant -- almost swank -- interior, however. The food was wonderful -- pesto, sundried tomatoes, and bruschetta to start and then tagliatelle with beef tenderloin and mushrooms. Michael and I have both put it on our list of ...

... As we made our way down narrow streets full of restaurants and traffic accidents (the ambulance actually had to jump the sidewalk to get past the "looky-loos" - traffic going slow to take a look), James got his bearings and took us right to Ric's. It was a big old villa with a non-descript front door. As you walked in, you went through another "front" door into an open area, then through another "front" door and into the restaurant proper. It was pretty deserted ...

... bedroom. Location wise, yes it is away from the city, but we could hire a car and the road to the hotel was quite straight forward. Is it away from city activity...? Not at all, as next door is 2 biggish and new shopping malls. We could just walk over there to see the Bahraini. Best of all, they put us on the top floor, so that we could see the city. Our balcony was facing the see... the gulf straight.

... they identify the age of a skeleton from the amount of fusion between the bones, and that Arab traditions include burying the umbilical cord of males under the mosque and females in the kitchen. The museum was a good introduction, but jeg lag was starting to turn us into the walking dead. So, we headed back to our hotel. Along the way, we decided to stop off at the Al Osra restaurant, which was recommended through various sources. Although we were not hungry, it made sense to eat on ...

My 3 hour stopover in Bahrain on the way to Bangkok was much more unremarkable than I thought it would be. For those of you who (like me) had no idea where Bahrain was on the map, it's an archipelago on the "Arabian Gulf" and the capitol city is connected to Saudi Arabia by a long bridge. Evidently Bahrain is a huge tourist destination, especially within the Middle East, because they are ...