Mercure Grand 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!]

... 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]!

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 ...

... I doubt a direct Yemenia would have been any more successful), so I dropped the issue, somewhat relieved to be avoiding the heighted vigilance I would've needed in Yemen.  Dina helped me get new baggage tags for Dubai and needed to talk to Mike.  I told her he was up at the bar and she asked if I was coming with-actually I was already supposed to have met him up there.

The bar was nearly empty and Mike was sitting alone when we got up there.  Apparently no one had joined him and ...

... less than 3)---everything was on paper and the guy was placing copies all over the place, adding things, and stapling. It was now past 9 and the taxi still wasn't here. While checking out, the admin from the local company called and said they were sending someone to pick me up. We cancelled the taxi, but this meant that I would probably get to the plant even later. Had to wait another 15-20 ...

... There are so many nice cars in Abu Dhabi (Ferraris, Rolls-Royces, etc) and owners of said cars couldn't possibly place a standard-issue plate on such luxury. So, they put up big bucks to get a number like "1" (which went for $14 million, the current record high) or "5" ($9 million). You might be wondering where this money goes. The article says, "the government plans to use the money to build a new trauma hospital for traffic-accident ...

... if you can endure this you can endure anything?), and then found the beach. Dawn and James went shell collecting while Colin and I paced along beside them. It was humid and hot, but the nice breeze off the ocean made up for it. On the way back to Manama (the main and capital city), we came across the Al Areen Wildlife Park, which was one of the things Dawn was interested in. We took the road in and saw the symbols for the Lost Temple of Dilmun, a waterpark which had just ...

The Itiniraries: Even though this is only as long weekend, instead of a proper holiday, I planed well this time. This is the itineraries: Day 1: ·   ; Go to the airport straight away after office on Thursday; take the mid afternoon flight to Bahrain ·   ; Have an easy and lazy afternoon in the Hotel ·   ; Look around of the surrounding area of the hotel Day 2: ·   ; Hired a car, and drive ...

... soap nor shampoo. The tourist information shop is barely that; it's a bunch of Indians (like most of the businesses we're seeing) with a tchotchke shop that somehow got the designation. From them we got a map and a suggestion for a vegetarian Indian restaurant where the proprietor eats dinner. With new maps in hand, we wandered up to Anand Bhavan (Shop 207, Road 343) for a lunch for which we were not too hungry. They asked us to go upstairs to the "family" section (there was a woman ...

... asking a little too much. And further, I think my mom raised me alright. Ok, fine, I award two points for my mom. Anywho, back to the topic at hand...BaHrain (in which the "H" is actually pronounced...none of this Ba Rain stuff.). BaHrain is quite a small island. It takes roughly 45 minutes to travel from one side to the other and I found out while I was there that BaHrain is actually a cluster of thirty something islands all connected by ...