Here is a map of Bahrain. This tiny island is its own country. We could drive across the island in 30 minutes, and it would probably only take a little over an hour to drive from top to bottom. A causeway connects Saudi Arabia to Bahrain. Drinking alcohol and other vices are illegal in Saudi Arabia, but not in Bahrain. For this reason there are some Saudis who love to go to Bahrain and party (including some past students I'm guessing). It bothers me that when I tell people here I am going to Bahrain they assume we are going only to drink alcohol and be with women. I think many people think this about Westerners. Little do they know that I don't drink alcohol or do that other stuff.
After a drive through the hot desert we neared the coast and then crossed the causeway to Bahrain. Above we are crossing the Persian Gulf or as the Saudi's say, the "Arabian Gulf." We got some uncharacteristic cloudiness and rain almost the whole time we were there.
Leaving Saudi Arabia. It is nice to get away every now and then.
One of the first things we did when we arrived was go to the movie theater at the City Centre. They don't have theaters in Saudi Arabia so this was very nice (funny that they don't have theaters but you can watch any movie you want on TV, the internet, or just buy them in the stores). When we took this picture of me at the theater (above) some people from Lebanon came up and said "you live in Saudi, don't you?" At this we laughed. Only people who couldn't go to a theater in Saudi would want a picture of actually going to one. They were some very nice Labanese people. In America I never cared to go to the theater that much. But now that I can never go I find myself wishing I could go all the time. We watched two movies over the few days we were there: Source Code, and The Kings Speech. The latter was excellent, Source Code was okay. After the movie we were lucky to find a great hotel.
We began our next morning with breakfast at the hotel and a drive around the city. Here is one sight of the city above.
Here is Jared walking around the Arad fort. This fort was built as protection in the 13th century, but if you dig deeper it is one top of a settlement that dates back to 2300BC. Dating back to a civilization called the Dilmun. That is probably new to everyone reading this, but if any of you are familiar with the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the world's oldest epic stories, it mentions the Dilmun island and compares it to paradise. The epic even mentions a man who lived there who sounds an awful lot like Noah. The man who lived here, says the epic, survived the great flood by building a boat and obtained eternal life. Gilgamesh went on a journey to find this man so he could live forever, but when he finally obtained what he needed, a snake came and stole immortality away from Gilgamesh.
Another pic of the city. I was very impressed by the architecture here. It was a very nice city. Oh yeah, this city is Manama, the capital of the Kingdom of Bahrain. It is weird to talk about it as a separate city from other cities because it is such a small country.
After our little drive we went to the national museum to get some history of the country. We learned a lot about the Dilmun people.
Here is a picture of the souq (outdoor mall)
I liked these. These are bobble head Arabs. I should have bought some but I didn't.
So were crazy protests happening while we were there? No. We didn't see anything out of the ordinary except for a ton of armored vehicles and tanks placed around the area (Pearl Square, which was recently destroyed, or so we heard) where the protests had taken place. However, in the evening traffic was practically non existant. It was strange to drive around a capital city with very little traffic. We had heard there was a curfew and that explained why we saw only a few people out at night.
We took a tour of the Grand Mosque in Manama. Here is Chris and I. This was Chris' birthday.
Here is the Isa cultural center. Isa is the Arabic name for Jesus, who they revere as a great prophet.
Inside the Grand Mosque. We took a tour of the mosque and had a very nice guide from Pakistan.
The man in the white thaube is doing the call to prayer as tourists watch. In the past the prayer callers (called muezzins) used to climb the minarets and yell out the call to prayer. Now, because of technology he can just use a microphone and it will sound out through the city.
The chandelier of the mosque. Our guide told us that it took 25 million dollars to build this mosque.
Looking out the window of the mosque while our guide, Suliman, answers our questions.
Out the window we saw one of the one of the king's palaces (above). One boy in our group asked if the king lives there. Our guide said he only goes there maybe once a year, to which Chris responded rudely, "well that is a waste" which kind of made me laugh because its kind of true.
More city.
Here is a picture of the king on one of the buildings. This is something I've seen in every Middle Eastern country I've been to. Always they have very big pictures of the king everywhere. Also, you can see the KFC colonel below. They love chicken here.
Here is one of the coolest buildings in the city. It has propellers. I was kind of hoping the building would lift of the ground and fly away. Very beautiful.
We wanted to go find the Tree of Life. It was about 45 minutes to the south. We passed Isa Town on the way (Jesus Town).
We got completely lost looking for the tree of life, which is weird because the country is so incredibly tiny. Most of what we saw out here were oil refineries (which is how the country makes a lot of its money.) Why is this tree, known as the tree of life so special? Well, its about 100 years old. But if you look around it is in the middle of the desert with no other trees around. Legends have sprung up about this tree. In the epic of Gilgamesh this island was described as paradise. Some people say this tree is a remnant of Eden. I read that the people can't explain why this tree has lived so long out here.
Here I am getting some of the fruit.....except it didn't really have any.
The last thing we did was head to one of the ancient cities located in Bahrain. The above picture is the Qal'at Al-Bahrain. This city has been rebuilt a number of times throughout history. This fortress isn't as old, but the city itself goes back to the times of the Dilmun making it somewhere around 4,000 years old.
Inside the Qal'at Al-Bahrain.
More excavations have uncovered more of the ancient city. They have found a great number of very interesting artifacts that date far back including silver coins from the time of Alexander the Great, Greek statues, and snake bowls (snake skeletons found in bowls that were offered as sacrifices to their gods). The island itself has numerous burial mounds and ancient temples as well - some temples they believe are dedicated to the old Sumerian god Enki, the god of sweet water (also mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh).
Here I am in the fortress, one of the rooms.
More foundations excavated from the ancient city.
Outside the fortress.
I like this pic. It is Chris standing on top of the ancient fortress overlooking the modern city of Manama. Bahrain is a very interesting place. We spent 2 days and a night in the country. It was very interesting to visit one of the countries experiencing the protests going on. I watch the news and hear about some pretty tense situations in this country, but we didn't come across any problems here. Many of the people we did see in the malls and other places seemed very happy. I feel like we got to see more culture here. We even went to a Catholic Mass here, just because we could. The people there were very nice as well as the people in the Grand Mosque. After this, it was back to the deserts of Saudi Arabia.
We took a tour of the Grand Mosque in Manama. Here is Chris and I. This was Chris' birthday.
Here is the Isa cultural center. Isa is the Arabic name for Jesus, who they revere as a great prophet.
Inside the Grand Mosque. We took a tour of the mosque and had a very nice guide from Pakistan.
The man in the white thaube is doing the call to prayer as tourists watch. In the past the prayer callers (called muezzins) used to climb the minarets and yell out the call to prayer. Now, because of technology he can just use a microphone and it will sound out through the city.
The chandelier of the mosque. Our guide told us that it took 25 million dollars to build this mosque.
Looking out the window of the mosque while our guide, Suliman, answers our questions.
Out the window we saw one of the one of the king's palaces (above). One boy in our group asked if the king lives there. Our guide said he only goes there maybe once a year, to which Chris responded rudely, "well that is a waste" which kind of made me laugh because its kind of true.
More city.
Here is a picture of the king on one of the buildings. This is something I've seen in every Middle Eastern country I've been to. Always they have very big pictures of the king everywhere. Also, you can see the KFC colonel below. They love chicken here.
Here is one of the coolest buildings in the city. It has propellers. I was kind of hoping the building would lift of the ground and fly away. Very beautiful.
We wanted to go find the Tree of Life. It was about 45 minutes to the south. We passed Isa Town on the way (Jesus Town).
We got completely lost looking for the tree of life, which is weird because the country is so incredibly tiny. Most of what we saw out here were oil refineries (which is how the country makes a lot of its money.) Why is this tree, known as the tree of life so special? Well, its about 100 years old. But if you look around it is in the middle of the desert with no other trees around. Legends have sprung up about this tree. In the epic of Gilgamesh this island was described as paradise. Some people say this tree is a remnant of Eden. I read that the people can't explain why this tree has lived so long out here.
Here I am getting some of the fruit.....except it didn't really have any.
The last thing we did was head to one of the ancient cities located in Bahrain. The above picture is the Qal'at Al-Bahrain. This city has been rebuilt a number of times throughout history. This fortress isn't as old, but the city itself goes back to the times of the Dilmun making it somewhere around 4,000 years old.
Inside the Qal'at Al-Bahrain.
More excavations have uncovered more of the ancient city. They have found a great number of very interesting artifacts that date far back including silver coins from the time of Alexander the Great, Greek statues, and snake bowls (snake skeletons found in bowls that were offered as sacrifices to their gods). The island itself has numerous burial mounds and ancient temples as well - some temples they believe are dedicated to the old Sumerian god Enki, the god of sweet water (also mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh).
Here I am in the fortress, one of the rooms.
More foundations excavated from the ancient city.
Outside the fortress.
I like this pic. It is Chris standing on top of the ancient fortress overlooking the modern city of Manama. Bahrain is a very interesting place. We spent 2 days and a night in the country. It was very interesting to visit one of the countries experiencing the protests going on. I watch the news and hear about some pretty tense situations in this country, but we didn't come across any problems here. Many of the people we did see in the malls and other places seemed very happy. I feel like we got to see more culture here. We even went to a Catholic Mass here, just because we could. The people there were very nice as well as the people in the Grand Mosque. After this, it was back to the deserts of Saudi Arabia.
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