Easter holidays and right after our desert trip with all the other families and their visiting teenagers it's our turn to go on holiday. We've arranged a triangular trip Riyadh-Bahrain-UK-Riyadh, beginning with four days in Bahrain (our first visit to the Kingdom) to chill out, relax by the pool, then six days back in the UK to visit family and friends.
The travel arrangements were a bit mixed, with us booking two of the flights and the accommodation on-line, and with my friendly local travel agent Isam booking the Riyadh-Bahrain flight for us. I like Isam but there are two problems with using him for travel. First, parking outside his agency office is a complete nightmare; the office is at the south end of Olaya St., one of the busiest in the city, and it's not uncommon to find vehicles double or even triple-parked along that stretch, sometimes occupying two-thirds of the road width. I actually double-parked myself once leaving Karen and the children waiting in the car, and almost got rammed by two angry Saudis. The other problem with using Isam is he cocks up a lot - a trait that you don't really want in a travel agent. Karen doesn't want to use him again but I keep giving him another go, partly because I like him and partly because he has local knowledge and language, and can arrange things that would be difficult for us to do on our own.
So, a week or so after booking the Gulf Air flight to Bahrain I get a call from Isam to say the airline has cancelled the flight. He didn't know why. He's going to come back to me with other options, such as flying to Dammam then getting a limo the rest of the way. I wait and wait but no call for days (this was going on while I was in Salt Lake City at BrainShare). Finally I call him and after some discussion I decide the best thing to do is to go to Bahrain by car. The journey is about 500km so about 4 hours by road. It's only a one-hour flight but once you add up the airport travel and waiting at both ends there's not much difference, and Isam arranges a chauffeur-drive company to provide us with a large saloon car and driver for SR1000 (about £150), which is much cheaper than flying and having a driver will allow us all to relax and enjoy the scenery.
The morning of daparture and our car and driver arrive on time - good start! I go out to meet the Indian driver (his English wasn't good and I didn't get his name, but for the story let's call him Sandy, for reasons that will become apparent). As I walk out to the car to say hello I observe Sandy pouring something over the front of the car. On closer inspection it turns out to be washing up liquid, which Sandy tells me is a good way to protect the car's chrome and paintwork from the sandstorm, which we are about to drive through for the next four hours. Great! So much for the relaxing, scenic drive. My initial suspicions about the car's boot being big enough for all the luggage are unfounded and we are shortly all on our way - three large suitcases and all.
"Are we there yet?"
Riyadh to the Eastern Province and Bahrain is the most boring drive I have ever experienced. 500km of dead straight road with nothing but sand to left and right (apart from the odd petrol station: did I tell you the petrol stations here are odd?
So with nothing to look at and four hours to look at it, we rely on our books and assorted electronic gadgets to entertain us; me - PSP, Elliot and Abigail - iPods and Nintendo handhelds, Karen - book, and we all have a bit of a doze along the way. These driving conditions are likely to make anyone drowsy, what with the straight roads and poor visibility - and nothing to look at even with good visibility, and I'm a bit anxious about Sandy nodding off at the wheel so I keep looking at him every few minutes from the passenger seat to make sure he's still awake. Sandy would make a great poker player, as his facial expression never changed the whole way there. I'm pretty sure he didn't even blink and I don't think he moved at all apart from steering and using the pedals.
After just under four hours we arrive at the Saudi-Bahrain causeway: a 25km-long road/bridge linking Khobar in Saudi Arabia with the island Kingdom of Bahrain. The causeway's pretty cool as all you can see on each side as you motor across is water. At about the halfway mark is a small island which is used as the border, and it reminded me a little of a car ferry terminal, with parallel waiting lanes and ten drivethru passport checkpoints side-by-side.
Once through immigration and customs we have a few more minutes on the second half of the causeway before we enter Bahrain's capital, Manama. If you want more details about the Kingdom take a look at this Wikipedia entry.
Sandy takes a while to find our hotel and we have to call them for directions, but eventually we arrive at the Novotel Al Dana Resort. We check in, unpack, then have a walk around to get our bearings and after looking at the pool and the beach we find the bar - Finally we can have a drink in public!
Bahrain is an Islamic state but nowhere near as restrictive as Saudi. Alcohol is allowed, women do not have to wear the abaya and they have cinemas too! The hotel bar has an outdoor terrace overlooking the bay, and we spend an hour or so sitting outside and chatting, with the rummm, rummm, sound of speedboat and jetski engines as they bounce across each other's wakes. One speedboat is particularay noisy and is almost taking off as it bounces on the waves.
We return to our drinks and conversation when a few minutes later we hear, rumm...rumm...rumm...rumm...rumm...................then nothing. Everyone on the terrace gets up and goes to the wall to see what's happened and sure enough, there in the distance is the front end of the speedboat, sticking vertically up in the air, and as we all look on it sinks completely beneath the surface. There are other craft racing to the scene so there's nothing we need to - or indeed can - do, but I still wonder if anyone was hurt in the accident.
Later we decide to go to the cinema - which we haven't done for three months now. I order a taxi and we all jump in to be taken to the Dana Shopping Mall, which has a ten-screen cinema. Our taxi driver is a very nice Arab named Abdul. Abdul is in full Arab dress - as are all the taxi drivers here - and is very chatty, telling us about the city, his friends in Riyadh, and he shows us a photo of his kids on his mobile phone, which he then returns to its storage place: a kind of sock thing stuck to the dashboard with a picture of Tom & Jerry on it.
Abdul drops us off at the Mall and I take his mobile number and agree to call him when we come out. We go to see The Pink Panther, the new version starring Steve Martin. I like Steve Martin and the movie is pretty funny but it can never compare with the Peter Sellers originals. The Bahrainians love it though, the cinema rocks with guffaws of laughter throughout the film. Afterwards we look around a few shops then I call Abdul to take us back to the hotel. He says he'll be where he dropped us off in 10 mins, and sure enough as we walk about a few minutes later there he is. I catch his eye and wave, and he waves back, we all jump in and off we go. It's only as we're pulling out of the Mall car park that I notice the absence of the Tom & Jerry phone sock on the dash - this isn't Abdul! I have to call Abdul and tell him we got in another taxi by mistake - embarrassing, but I promise we'll call him next time we need to go somewhere. He accepts it in good humour. I guess it must happen to him a lot.
The next day (Saturday) we visit another Mall - Seef - to buy some clothes and have lunch. I let the hotel call us a taxi as I'm not sure about the logistics of my calling Abdul to pick us up from the hotel, plus I might not recognize him again. We have a nice morning's shopping and decide to have lunch at Chili's, an American Tex-Mex restaurant that I'm familiar with from my U.S. trips. Lunch is nice but way too big and alcohol-free as they don't have a licence; a fact that we only discovered after we'd settled into the booth and got comfortable. As I'm paying the bill I call Abdul and this time we get into the right cab and go back to the hotel. We spend the afternoon at the pool and true to form, Abigail spends the entire time in the water.
At one point I remark that I'm putting on a little weight, and Abigail tries to console me by saying, "Don't worry Daddy. There must be at least 20 people in Bahrain fatter than you." ONLY 20!!! I explain to her that in a place with a population of a million people, that's little comfort. How the others laughed. We spend the rest of the weekend pointing out fat people and saying, "Look, there's number 19!"
In the evening we have dinner at The Blue Elephant; one of a chain of very good Thai restaurants. There's one in Fulham (London) that Karen and I went to a few years ago and it was excellent. This one doesn't disappoint either.
It's beautifully decorated with plants and lanterns, there's a wooden bridge over a pond containing hundreds of fish and a fountain, and the waitresses are al l beautifully dressed in Thai silk dresses.
After a lovely meal I call Abdul to take us back to the hotel, and he says he'll be there in 10 minutes. 20 minutes later a taxi pulls up outside the restaurant but it's not Abdul, it's his brother whom Abdul must pass work on to when he's swamped. We're in Abdul's brother's taxi and on the way home when I get a call from Abdul to make sure we got picked up and that his brother is looking after us - that's what I call service! Something else that'sa little disconcerting about not only Abdul but all the taxi drivers here is that there is no fare structure. When you reach your destination, your, "How much?" will get the response, "Whatever you want, 5, 6, 7 is OK, it's your car". I found that quite hard to deal with because you never know if what you decide to give is short-changing them or if you're paying over the going rate. Still it added to the amusement of the weekend.
On Sunday we went to the old market shopping area.
A loud, bustling place full of narrow streets, large cars, fake watches and extremely keen salespeople who almost drag you phyisically in to look at their Breitlings, Omegas and Rolexes, all £10 each. We find an abaya shop that sells girl's sizes, so we buy Abigail a new one, as her old one is too short.
She picks out a snazzy number with white piping round the sleeves and down the front - very fetching. You know you've been in Saudi too long when you're looking at black cloaks and saying, "Ooh, that's a nice one!"
Next stop is the gold souq; an indoor and (thankfully) air-conditioned collection of small jewellers shops in a market-style setting.
Karen buys a ring and a couple of gifts, while Abigail fends off the advances of the Indian jeweller's young assistant, who keeps asking for her email address. She says, "I can't remember it" ... good girl!
Monday - our last day - is spent by the pool before going to the airport late at night for the overnight flight to Heathrow.
We had a nice but tiring six days in the UK visiting family and friends. We saw Karen's mum, my parents, Laura & Lucas, my brother Jes, with Sian and their daughter Isabelle.
We also did more shopping and went to the cinema again: Alien Autopsy - don't bother. We attended Easter Day mass at Holy Family Catholic Church in Langley and spent some time catching up with Father Kevin before the service.
Wanting to avoid Travel Lodge-style motels like the plague, we ended up staying at a large B&B called Upton Park Hotel in Slough. I found it on the internet and it had the three main qualities I look for in a hotel that I'm paying for myself: It had a room available, it was cheap, and they had wireless internet access. I was sold immediately on looking at the website but Karen remained skeptical. When we arrived we found that our "family room" was actually a two-floor flat at the top of a large terraced house which made up one third of the hotel. We had plenty of space but the floors were all bare boards and very creaky, there was even a kitchen (that we didn't use), and the bathroom was tiny and had one of those showers that you have to hold while you use it. Not great, but comfortable enough, really fast internet access compared with what I'm used to, and smashing fried breakfasts every morning BACON! SAUSAGES! We got our pork fix that week I can tell you.
