And so it begins...

Bahrain is a surprisingly tame country; the people are pleasant, its surrounded by water, and the roads aren't so bad. People are actually courteous when driving - they stop at red lights and stay in their lanes, but God forbid if you are .1 of a second slow to move forward when the light turns green. Honking is very annoying. Also, stop signs - Bahrainians don't actually know what they are for.

When I arrived, I was expecting it to be like a middle eastern crazy land, but it's an architectural marvel instead. The buildings are state of the art with beautiful greens, blues, and brown glass windows reaching 50+ stories high in curved or spiral or beautifully shaped designs. Between all the high rises, there are dozens of dirt lots, just waiting for something to be built on top, but in the interm, they are used as Cricket fields. The island is surrounded by the greenest water that is filled with pearls and yummy seafood.

For my short five days in Bahrain, Robby managed to take me to all the tourist sites. We dragged a friend of hers to the Bahrain Fort - a small fort that built itself on the ruins of the Dalman society and was eventually destroyed in the 1800's. We also visited the Grand mosque, which is still used today and completely packed on Fridays - the Muslim Holy Day.

For New Years, I spent the day walking around Robby's work place and then I enjoyed a pleasant BBQ on the roof of her apartment complex in the evening. It was a mix between Robby's co-workers, Filipinos, and a group of British contractors who came over from Saudi Arabia. Apparently Saudi is a dry country, so the Brits were smashed by 7pm. At least they decided to man the grill while we took over the corn haul, pool, and ping pong games.

Since Robby rented a car, I was able to visit the Bahrain Wildlife park - mostly consisting of gazelles, birds, and ostriches; the tree of life - a tree that grows alone in the desert and which no archeologist has yet to discover how it receieves water; Mahurrak houses - a group of ten houses that used to belong to famous bahrainians, but have now been converted into modern buildings that house a museum, a library, a coffee house, a restaurants, etc.; the souq - stores upon stores selling everything you can imagine and all grouped in sections (jewelry, watches, jackets, shoes, etc.); and a grand hotel that had a Brunch. Bahrainian brunches are no small affairs; you dress nicely and come starving. You have about six hours to eat as much as you like from 6-7 rooms of different yummy and tantalizing options. It's a buffet to win all buffets. Fresh made crepes, a cheese room, sushi, stir-fry, ice cream, sandwich meats, etc. All accompanied with unlimited mojitos, mamosas, Irish coffees, beer, wine, and of course fresh juices. Yum!

 

All too soon Robby was saying goodbye to her co-workers and we were boarding a red eye to India. Bahrain is actually a neat place to visit. You don't need much more than 3-4 days to experience most of the sites and to get a feel for the people, the culture, and the history.

India, on the otherhand, is a crazy place, or rather, Dehli is a crazy place. I've been here 32 hours and I feel almost like a local. I know that if you want to go anywhere, just push your way through the crowd. Most of the time you will be a salmon swimming up stream, but in place of boulders, there are ruckshaws, tuk-tuks, buses, motorbikes, and people. Somehow they all manage to get where they need to be and avoid any major, or minor, accidents by a hairs breath. I feel like all the drivers should get honorary memberships to drive in the Grand Prix, because their version of driving is to honk their horn when they are passing through an inch gap between two cars or u-turning as a bus bares down on them. 

Our taxi Driver from the airport picked us up and although there are lines on the roads, they were merely for decoration according to her. It's a free for all and the most aggressive driver wins. If you thought NY taxi drivers were forceful- cutting across 8 lanes to make a left, you'd be wrong; they have nothing on Dehli drivers. I kind of believe that the license process consist of passing anyone who can drive through the market place during business hours while drinking a chai and not hitting another car or person as they change gears. Walking seems almost safer, but you still have to weave through the traffic to get anywhere. Oh, and they drive and walk ons the left side.

So, since we landed after only two hours of sleep, but at 8:30 in the morning in India, Robby and I decided to explore a bit of Delhi instead of taking a nap. Our hotel told us that we should order a personal driver for half the day, but since were independents (I.e. idiots), we decided to take the metro. We walked towards the station and were harassed by not less than ten rickshaw drivers asking to show us the sites of New Dehli, Old Dehli, the spice market, a temple, etc. Me, being the friendly person that I am, ended up talking to a guy who turned out to be a tour guide ( go figure). He told us a little about what we should see while in Dehli and helped us to get a rickshaw for a decent price. 

The rickshaw driver was nice, but he drove us past a temple we wanted to go into, through the town, and then to a shopping emporium. Of course we needed to go into the store (with a little encouragement from our driver), but we were adamant that we didn't want to buy anything. It is extremely hard to say "No" when you have all these people taking time to pull out ten different styles of rugs or expain the history of their statues while giving you puppy dog eyes. Once we escaped, our driver, who was suppose to drive us to the metro station, directed us on how to walk to there instead. So we wasted a little bit of money and ended up almost where we started, but it was nice to drive around and see parts of the city by road. Get our bearings, so to speak.

The metro is an interesting experience. You must wait in a super long line, where everyone cuts and pushes through, to purchase a token to enter the turnstiles. Once inside, it's like a normal NY or SF city station during New Years Eve rush hour. Swarms of people push their way through the corridors to their trains. Once you've found your platform, you wait for the train to arrive and then basically allow the crowd to shove you on to the train and stuff you against 100's of other people. it's the getting off the train that is difficult. Robby and I had to grip our hands and bags together while swaying against other bodies when the train stopped or started because we weren't getting a chance at holding a pole. Luckily there were so many people that you sort of just landed back in your original spot. When we reached our stop, we pushed against all the people staying on the train and the new people trying to enter the train. Luckily no one got handsy or picket pocked us.

Our stop was the Red Fort of Delhi. It apparently is a copy of the original Red Fort in Agra (but we didnt find that out until after we visited.) The fort is enormous - a 300 foot tall wall surrounds an area of roughly 3/4th mile squared. Inside there are various small temples, a palace for the king, and surrounding buildings for the wives, soldiers, and priests of the king. A city used to thrive inside these walls and they we protected by their King. 

Once my camera (pictures to come) snapped for two hours, we decided to head to another temple. We only made it back to the main road because a bike rickshaw man convinced us to tour New Dehli with him. Since we had time to kill and his price wasn't too bad, we complied. It was kind of awkward to ride in a two seat chair while a skinny man petaled us through car and human traffic chaos and over pot holes, but then I saw a couple hundred more ruckshaws landen down with even more people in them and realized that this is just how life goes in India. Plus, we had no idea where we where going and our rickshaw driver was excellent at transversing the narrow streets of the bazaar.

He took us to the spice market, onto the roof so we could look down at the crowds, and to a pretty temple hidden in the bazaar. He was suppose to drive us back to the metro station, but instead we were conned into giving the driver a lot of money so he would walk us back to the main road instead of ditching us in the labrythn of the bazaar. So much for Robby and I being firm and not submitting to what locals charge foreigners. Oh well, it was the first day and that is usually the learning day.

We took the metro back to the hotel, but ended up getting off at the wrong stop, the stop that the hotel told us to get off at, and therefore we ended up in another bazaar that was very confusing to get out of. We had a map, but when you can't communicate with people and there are no street signs, it's very unhelpful. By some weird faith, the tour guide from the morning found us wandering and got us a tuk-tuk driver to take us back to the hotel. We were quite a ways away and kind of late for our orientation meeting with our India guide and all the people that would be enjoying this adventure with us. Opps. At least they decided to have the meeting on the roof of the hotel and not at a restaurant down the street, so we were introduced and everyone was happy.

More to come next time.