Le Meridien Gulf Al Khobar

... I am sad to say that my mobile camera could'nt even catch one - they were much too elusive for me ( and maybe the bus went too fast at the wrong time!) A couple of times I even caught sight of a cute camel cum goat farm, but wasnt able to get them on celluloid. <br><br>Now I must tell you that after my desert ride I have my own definition for the word 'Mirage'. It is not just an illusion. It is an illusion of something you have seen earlier on in your journey. You may have ...

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>

... of Dubai. There were two interesting buildings - the World Trading Centre, which has 3 wind turbines in the middle of it that produce its power, and a pair of buildings I dont remember the name of that's shaped like two quarter-pikes [skate ramps]!<br><br>Our driver then took us to some random palace grounds thingy - basically, it's where the king keeps all of his camels. And there were LOADS of the buggers! We got to go in and stroke one of the baby camels, who at 3 ...

... in Yemen and was also using it as hiding places for members coming back from fighting in Iraq, etc.  They were probably more responsible for the increase violence and executions against Westerners.<br><br>So this had worried me quite a bit, and everyone I had talked to advised against going to Yemen, but I had gathered enough information through research and talking to people to be able to make a semi-informed decision.  Basically the deal was this:  my odds were still good of ...

... gold (that&#8217;s less valuable, right?---question for Nan I guess). I wasn&#8217;t really interested in the first place, so we walked out and back to the mall/car. No way were we getting any decent deals with me there (blue eyes, Western business clothes, and little Arabic). <br> <br>Rode home and dropped off around 9PM. Watched TV, unpacked the laundry I had had done during the day, and worked on the last 2 days&#8217; entries until about 4AM.

... from Lebanon, buthad come to Saudi for the life and job security. Lebanon was unstable, with Hezbollah, and random bombings (one of which nearly hit his dad). He talked about his interest in humanitarianism rather than war and told a story of meeting some Jewish girls who asked, &#8220;Don&#8217;t you hate us?,&#8221; to which he replied, &#8220;Yes, but that doesn&#8217;t mean we can&#8217;t hang out.&#8221; Anyway, good to have faith in peace reinforced again. Then off to bed.

... much smaller than tennis and a small rubber ball. I won&#8217;t get into all the rules (there aren&#8217;t too many), but it involves serving from a set box into the opposite (left/right) side of the court (similar to tennis) keeping the ball within certain lines, letting the ball bounce off the ground once or less, and not obstructing the other player&#8217;s shot (which I found can be quite difficult given the speed of the ball and the size of the court ...

Hoi hoi! een eerste korte stukje uit kathmandu mdat hetinternetcafe zo sluit. Na een heeeeele lange reis via Bahrrain (zie kaart) zijn we gister eindelijk aangekomen. Het is zoals verwacht: mooi weer, s avonds kouder en heeeel druk in de straten. We hebben vandaag alleen ...