1 post tagged “bahrain”

I am awake now. I just heard the call to prayer outside and the cool morning air of the Persian Gulf is coming through the open window. Now I can hear the prayers and a rooster crowing someplace in the distance.

I've been resting for about five hours now. I flew from LAX to Dulles on my first leg of of my journey. I was starving when

Hog

I got on the plane, having refused to pay for Ruby's at LAX. On the United flight I bought a horrible wrap sandwich with turkey and ham. I've been trying to not eat pork, but somehow it always creeps back onto my plate.  I got a whole soda, so that kept me happy.  Ah the simple pleasures of life ... always better with Coca-Cola.

It was my first time in Washington, but all I did was pass through the airport. Shauna said, "Oh you'll love the building." Except I never saw it except through the corner of my eye. I was stuck in some remote terminal. I got a Starbucks americano and sat down. Who knew that you couldn't buy any food (at least any food worth eating) in Dulles after 9 PM. Tacos at Tequileria weren't going to cut it.

Anyway, my Qatar Airways to Doha flight boarded around 10:30 PM and I sat in for a long flight to Doha. It was a brand new 777 that had only entered service at the beginning of 2008.  The in-flight map said "Time to destination 13 hours."  Oh god...  Then I discovered the magic of on-demand video.  You don't have to wait for movies to start -- you pick what you want to watch and when you want to watch it.  So during the flight I watched five episodes of Doctor Who, two episodes of Cities of the Underground, two episodes of Digging for the Truth, two episodes of The Simpsons, and onr episode of Two and a Half Men. I tried to watch an episode of Flight of the Conchords but I got too annoyed with it. I think that was more TV than I've watched at home in two months (really).   The weird thing was that Qatar Airways only did its flight announcements in English and most of the flight staff was Asian (and I mean Asian Asian, not Indian).  I didn't hear Arabic once.

Qatar_airways

I should mention the food. It was awful. The first meal was dinner -- an odd meal because I figure we were being served at midnight (or 9 PM Pacific time). I took the chicken option which sounded nice. It had a tomato sauce that was a bit heavy on the bell pepper, roasted potatoes, and some really rubbery carrots. There was a salad of apples (ick) and turkey ham, cake, and a lumpen roll. Later on after my restless napping and TV watching came a second meal, described as "brunch." I got the chicken option again, which turned out to be a really bad idea. It was typical rubber chicken, with some truly dreadful basmati rice and broccoli. Even my yogurt was nasty. I got another lumpen roll to boot.  At least the coffee was decent.  Try this out: Airline Meals .  Search for Qatar Airways and see what I am talking about.  That being said, I've had much worse food on airplanes, but this was no Cathay Pacific. CP gives you cup noodles on your flight -- that would have been preferable.

So the plane landed in Doha at 7:02 PM. I glanced at my ticket and noticed that my boarding time for my next flight was 7:15. Oh shit, I thought, I am doomed. I got into the terminal and cleared security. I should say one thing -- "security" in the Middle East is really lacking. You have some dude pointing you to a line, you pass the bags through a machine, and the people behind the machine don't pay attention. But I didn't have time to do any kind of geopolitical analysis because I had a plane to catch. I cleared security and found gate 6 -- the first one. I walked straight onto a waiting bus and in 5 minutes I was on a plane for Manama.  It was a 25 minute flight.  For the first time announcements were in Arabic. I got a dreadful mini tuna sandwich.

A half-hour later I was in Manama. I leaped off of the plane and got through immigration quickly -- that five-year multiple entry visa came in handy.  I found out that those visas are supposedly hard to get, which is why the immigration guys look bewhildered when they see them.

I was hungry so we stopped in Adliya, an upscale neighborhood near central Manama. We went to Al-Abraaj, a restaurant that uses the Kuwait Towers as its logo. It bills itself as serving Iranian, Indian, and Chinese food. I ordered a pile of food -- grilled lamb, chicken, beef and chicken koobideh, filet mignon. Hummos came with fresh bread. I could live on the bread. I washed it all down with a lemonade mixed with pulverized mint. For the first time I could relax ...

Bahrain 042