Bahrain

Manama, Bahrain skyline from our hotel window.

Bahrain is a small island country famous for oil and pearls, and more recently, for its rapid development and impressive skyline. Bill attended the Project Management Institute Arabian Gulf Chapter's conference in Manama, the capital of Bahrain, and I went along for the sightseeing opportunities. It was a fantastic experience and I have much to report on traveling there, and on what we saw and heard.

World Trade Center towers, Bahrain

First, it's different as a female traveler because you get screened privately and don't have to suffer the worst part of the screening process (removing your shoes--yuck!) Instead of going through the regular scanner, I entered the "ladies screening room" through a set of curtains and was treated to the wand metal detector in lieu of the screening I am more familiar with. Of course my bag went through the conveyor x-ray machine, but I definitely prefer the ladies screening room where you don't have to remove clothing or jewelery.

The lounges in both Jeddah and Riyadh, and on the return flight in Bahrain, had a lot of food choices. Hot eggs, potatoes, beans in the morning, plus small sandwiches, pastries, olives, fruit... all sorts of things. Once in our seats in the plane, the flight attendants poured tiny cups of tea and brought around a tray of pitted dates to enjoy with the tea. It is just a 2 hour flight to Bahrain, and on the way back we went direct but on the way there we had a stop in Riyadh. We exchanged some money at the airport, found our driver and our luggage and were off to the Gulf Hotel. I feel I could give the whole spiel, complete with British accent, on the Gulf Hotel since I heard about their recent multi-million dinar expansion every time I rode the elevator. It truly is a classy place. Nine restaurants, shops, beautiful outdoor pool and grounds. It was the first 5-star hotel built in Bahrain 40 years ago, and it really was a lovely place to stay. I wanted to try more of the restaurants, but we also found a French-style cafe just blocks from the hotel, and it was so busy all of the time that we were compelled to enjoy the people-watching from that spot on 2 occasions.

A lot of familiar brands are featured at the malls.

Once we checked in and took our luggage to our room, we went straight to the wine bar. After several weeks without frequenting any sort of bar, we relished an opportunity to enjoy the bacchanalian-inspired refreshments. We enjoyed ourselves in the dark, Las Vegas-like plush bar. Comfortable, low seats, black lacquer and red accents lent a decadent feeling. Nothing is cheap in Bahrain though, or at least nothing I found. Wine doesn't go on the expense account, and I wanted to understand the conversion rate before ordering the 10.2 dinar per glass wine (that's over $30) so we figured out a good balance between of value in order to avoid that hangover. We enjoyed plenty of time in the several bars at the hotel, but we also bought wine at the liquor store right next to the hotel, as well as a cold 6-pack of Coors Light (yeee-haaw!)

Abaya window-shopping.

The conference dinners were much like conference dinners I have attended in the US except perhaps that the food service is kept waiting longer. At both dinners we attended, we sat down at 7:00 and didn't eat until 9:00. I think that people are accustomed to eating later here, and it's something we are getting used to doing on a regular basis. The speeches at the first dinner focused mainly on the development of Bahrain, with a lot of focus on the entire region (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE and other Gulf States). At least a couple of speakers mentioned the new financial order that no longer consists of the US and Western Europe as the great economic powers and countries where development is widespread. A lot is going on in this region in terms of development.

Crystal-studded abaya

We visited the Seef Mall on one of our leisure days, and mostly window shopped. I tried some perfume and found a beautiful scent. "Very famous," the clerk said. Fatima is the name of this famous perfume, but not being much of an expert on fragrances, I had to take his word for it. We saw a movie, admired the abayas with Swarovski Crystal-studs or with beautiful embroidery. Women aren't required to wear abayas in Bahrain but many do still wear them, and many of the abayas are gorgeous. The headscarf really finishes it off, which I'm afraid is why I haven't really come to wear the abaya well as yet.

We are back at KAUST now, which is nice because it really is very nice here for one thing, and it gets a little constricting to spend a lot of nights in a hotel. I can cook again and am making some soup stock with "baby chickens"! They are just the standard small chickens, but it sounds kind of barbaric, so I enjoy calling them baby chickens. I have some lemongrass and ginger in the stock so I'm sure it will be really good. Tomorrow night is the WEP closing evening, and although they have had still more rain in Jeddah, tomorrow's event planned for the boardwalk should not see that kind of rain. I'm actually going to have a small part in the closing because I was notified that I placed 3rd of all of the women in the WEP Run held here last week! I understand I'll be receiving a medal--wow! 


Bahrain currency is the dinar. 1 dinar = $2.65 USD