The Middle East: The Gulf States

OK, time to catch up...





Kuwait

Not as bad as I have bitched about before. Yes, it is still dry. However, on this visit we stayed at an much, much better location than previous trips. Before, the group was out by the airport. Sucked. This time, on the waterfront where everything is going on. Check out the hotel...

We were located right next to a marina ringed with restaurants, so good eating for three days. Also, across the street and attached by skybridge was a very large mall. It seemed that every teenager in Kuwait was hanging out there Thursday night (beginning of the weekend in these parts). I already mentioned the term "Americanistic" in my previous entry. I thought of it here.

Mike and I had quite a scheme going for a little while. We were trying to figure out if it would be possible to pay a taxi driver to take us to the border of Iraq, so we could step over, just to say we'd done it. I'd like to say that better thinking persuaded us to abondoned this idea, but no, we found out that a lot of paperwork is required to cross the border, so we gave it up. Would have been cheating to include Iraq on the official country list though, even if we were successful.

I went for a long run along the corniche one day. About five miles from the hotel to the point and back. It was some sort of national holiday and people were everywhere. A military parade had taken place earlier in the day, and now it was time for the navy to show off, so I had an escort of gunships as I ran.

Before leaving I bought a couple comic books. One is in English, but features Muslim superhereos. I have not read it yet - will give a review once I do. The other was an issue of the Hulk in Arabic. I actually know the guy that wrote the issue. He'll get a kick out of it.

See this.

Bahrain

Finally got a chance to go and see the World Heritage Site here. Yes, another Portugese fortress! My, how those little fellas used to get around.

Other than that, nothing much exciting happened. Had a few beers in the hotel bar and watched the singing Filipinas. Everyone likes them. Check out the evidence: Saudis and brothers from Detroit. When worlds collide...

UAE (Dubai)

Indoor snowboarding, baby...