Bahrain for the Day

On the way back to Dubai from Shanghai, we stopped in Bahrain for the day. The entire country is about 3.5 times the size of Washington, DC so we were able to see most of it in a few hours.

We stopped for breakfast at a Bahraini restaurant in the souk in Manama. After to walked around the traditional souk and occationally inquired about items. One shop keeper we bargained with did not like the fact that we had gained hard barganining skills in China.Given that it was Friday, the pace of life in Bahrain seemed to be much slower there than in Shanghai or Dubai so it was nice to be able to chill for a while.

We drove to a newly opened mall- City Centre and did more shopping but with the AC to keep us cool. Americans should visit the GCC countries of the Arabian Gulf, like Bahrain, the UAE and Qatar because they would be shocked at how modern they are. In many cases like in Dubai and Manama, things are more modern and the people have more money than the average place in US. The building to the right is a financial center that that windmills connected to it. There is a huge mall at the base of the builiding.

Next we went to the center of the island. We toured an interesting oil and gas museum. (Most of the oil in Bahrain is gone so they now focus on banking and retail.) That is a picture of Jamie next to the first oil rig (dike) in Bahrain.

We spend quite a bit of time trying to find the tree of life a big tree that grows in the middle of the desert, but we didn't find it until it was nearly too late to go.

We will have to go back and explore more of the country in another visit.