Welcome to the middle-east!

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We arrived in Bahrain (small island country off the coast of Saudi Arabia) at 2am one night after a 7 hour flight (delayed again!). Flying over India, Dubai and Myanmar was great, although take off was intense amidst a thunderstorm with lightning strikes every 10 seconds for at least an hour. At 2am, walking off the plane all dazed and tired, we realized it was kinda hot. 43C in fact. Waking up the next day in our cheap hotel we looked out the window into the nearby buildings and realized: we are in the desert! White houses, flat, sandy landscape and mosques were very different sights to Asia. We hired a car our first day (spending half the time learning to drive on the right) and circum-navigated the island. Very intense! At one stage the temperature gauge went to 47C and the air-conditioning basically didn’t work (well it was, but was only cooling down to about 35C).

The driving tour took us past kilometers of gas lines and oil rigs (hundreds of them) which we assume is the reason for 30c a litre petrol (!). We also went past deep blue oceans, desert sand and a random tree called the ‘tree of life’ which somehow grows in the middle of the desert (their main tourist attraction) and various old forts. Bahrain was a very busy town a few thousand years ago, being one of the main trading ports in the Arabic sea. Therefore ancient ruins that are dated to 2300BC are found at one of the forts; pretty cool and different from NZ’s middens and other 'archaeological finds'.

The culture is very different from anything we have experienced. Asia wasn’t too different for us after experiencing Asian culture in Auckland, whereas Middle-Eastern cultures, food, music, etc is very different for us. We spent one afternoon making bets about how long it would take us to see a woman (5 hours). And because of this the men just keep staring…..everywhere. This gets really annoying, and makes us question how it would be in the rest of the Middle-East (seeing as Bahrain is the most western/liberal). Some of the kids were very interesting too. We arrived at a little village and drove past a little Arab boy who wouldn’t move for the car. After stopping he ran over to the car and shouted ‘Heil Hitler’ at us! What the? I guess he thought we were German (maybe Matt) or maybe he had decided to become a Nazi at 6 years of age….strange!

So after a few days in Bahrain we are very excited to be flying to Greece!

PS Tried to take the big camera outside but lens fogged up and we thought it was going to break in the heat so these photos are with the point and shoot, hence worse quality!

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Comments

[Kaumosi]

:)
Hey you two. Nice update on your trip to Bahrain. :) Photos looked great! Have fun in Greece and look forward to seeing more photos of your trip. Love, K

[Marg]

Two days enough!
Just to survive this heat is feat enough. I started the inequalities topic with my 12 geo class today so showed them some of the Asia photos. They kept saying "Did she just download those photos? Did she take those? She is an amazing photographer!" Poor Matt - one day he is a monkey and the next he is a Nazi!

[Ngaire]

Middle-East Heat
Well you've always hated being cold Janey, now you know how the other extreme feels! Wasn't sure if it was you in the 'Fort Climbing' photo Matt, so I enlarged it. Is that an instant Bahrain tan? Glad your back-up camera worked in the hot conditions, the photos are so good I can almost feel the heat! With love from, Ngaire.

[Chatelle]

very tempted....
heya I haven't read your blog in ages and have enjoyed catching up on all your travels during horribly stormy weather here in aucks! Great photos and stories of all the places; especially Cambodia - A friend of mine went to Cambodia last year and reported back how much she loved it too. I'm so very tempted to just get on the next flight outta here! Hope you're both well, looking forward to the next installment. Chatelle