Bahrain
Trip Start
Jul 07, 2008
1
57
215
Trip End
May 27, 2010
Bahrain,
Bahrain
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Bahrain airport
the sun's coming up and it's warm!
Oh the joys of travelling. My laptop says 0334 but it's 0634 in Bahrain and it's getting light outside. My body needs to sleep but everything is conspiring against me to keep me awake. So having cat-napped a while on the flight we arrived in good time. I went straight to the ladies had a wash and brush up (although the travel toothpaste would NOT come out of the tube) and then into duty free. I like using all the really expensive creams as hand lotion and today I just know I look like Liz Hurley, well at least that's what the advertisement would have us believe. Actually I look like sh*t, apart from not getting enough sleep I've got the lurgy, my sinuses are blocked and I have a sore throat. I seem to remember the same thing happening on arrival in Spain, must be something to do with anticipation.
Talking of anticipation - I LOVE airports. All those people from different places on this earth going to other different places, it's amazing. Then we all pile onto a big metal bird and it somehow manages to stay in the air (if your lucky that is) and some time later you end up somewhere where they speak another language, people look different and they live quite different lives. Amazing!
I remember passing through Dubai many years ago and Bahrain, although smaller, feels very similar. You get a lot of sky for your money in this part of the world, it's very flat. We have 4 hours before we set off on the next leg of our trip so it's lucky we bought a more powerful battery for the Asus, so we now have a whopping 4.5 hours of power in our little machine. Dave is pretty sure he ordered a white one, to match the laptop, however, a black one turned up and we didn't have time to do anything about it so it's looks a little odd. It's also a good deal larger than the old one and therefore sticks out quite a bit but I'm sure we'll get used to it.
Checking the bikes in (we are flying with Gulf Air) was as easy as you like. We joined the Frequent Flyer programme (it's free) and that gave us an additional 10kg of luggage but we didn't need it. Even with the bikes our total luggage was 30 kilos. One of the panniers is empty and stashed in the bike bag, we were determined to travel light. We haven't brought the tent or any cooking equipment. We have yet to purchase something that we can use to sleep on top of (in case of nasty mattresses) but that will probably be a cotton sheet that we can treat with P . Dave has brought his sleeping bag liner but I'm going to buy a cotton sheet - I really didn't like the liners we used in Europe, they were mostly polyester and very sweaty. You can buy the Indian cotton, block printed sheets everywhere, so I'll buy one in Mumbai.
We have booked to stay at Bentleys Hotel (www.bentleyshotel.com) in the Colaba district. Originally, the plan was to take the train to Goa and cycle from there. Taking the train in India is interesting to say the least and I had read of problems with baggage cars and bicycles. So I did a bit of digging around on the internet and found that a really easy way to leave Mumbai is through the Gateway of India. If you look at the map of Mumbai it looks like a hooked nose, towards the bottom of the nose (where the nostril would be :) there is the Colaba district and the Gateway to India. You can catch a ferry to Mandwa on the mainland, south of Mumbai, missing out all the horrible traffic in the city. The ride to Goa is supposed to be quite beautiful and I have found a route that a Swedish couple took several years ago. We don't know if we will follow it all the way down to Goa but it's quite nice having some names of places, the distances between them and to know that there are guest houses at the destinations.
I have just spotted approximately 40 Asian men being taken somewhere by an official and they are all wearing white baseball caps with green writing, which I can't read from this distance. I've had my eyes tested and have my new prescriptions which I'll get filled in Mumbai, perhaps then I might be able to read what's on their caps!
Laters
