International Manama

Out of the widow Bahrain looks like lots of dust with skyscrapers on. Inside it is a strange mix of Christmas decorations lots of tour groups who look like they might be going on pilgramage, 25k rolexes in duty free, mcdonalds,costa and free internet to keep us amused. We've got 2hrs to kill - body clocks already out of sink! Am going to try and learn some nepalese from a podcast.

I must admit that it took them an effort to coax me but the trip I made was eventful. Well, I am based at Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia and my relatives at Jeddah invited me over more than once. I had been putting off my visit simply because of pure laziness, no doubt, but basically my life here is office and back, so I guess I just got used to that. Well, our Ramadan holidays were coming up and I decided to get on the bus to Jeddah (1500 Km away), mailnly because there were no flights ...

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 ...

... being Ramadan pretty much everything was shut! And it was roasting hot, if cooler than Dubai would be, so I grabbed a few provisions from the supermarket and retreated to the hotel room!<br><br>We might go explore the restaurants later tonight [will probably end up in Hard Rock Cafe.. when it comes to Arabic food we're not the most adventurous!] and we'll see what happens tomorrow! Leaving tomorrow night though.. It's a nice little country though. If a bit small and empty :)<br>

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... that little extra boost for our statistics. I'd love to see the looks on people's faces when a mullah starts chanting over the PA. There was a Royal Jordanian flight with a 6 hour maintenance delay. I wonder if they forgot to play the prayer. When I was waiting for my flight to Bahrain it was just starting to become dusk and everyone was called to prayer with the chanting over the airport's PA system. I think it was the fourth one of ...

... we drove right in. Who really knows, anymore? The museum itself was nice enough, I guess. Decent, but not spectacular; it felt like it would have been cooler when it opened, or even just 10 years ago. There were plenty of interesting exhibits, in particular the ones on the burial mounds (Bahrain is 5% burial mound, literally by area), and the preceding Dilmah culture, but there wasn't as much explanation as I would have liked. For example, one hall was a recreation ...

On the morning of first December I took my backpack(which weighed 16 kg, not too bad but could be better) and stepped out of the door. Walking towards the bus stop i tried to implant it to my mind that i am leaving home for a quite long time. No success. The flight to Frankfurt was really uneventful, it wasnt even delayed. In Frankfurt i had four hours to kill before my host through hospitalitycub named Jochen would arrive at home. I ...