Bahrain

Many years ago, in 1969, my friend and I travelled from London to Khatmandu - by bus.  A ten thousand mile journey that took a couple of months. We travelled across Europe, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Nepal.  From Khatmandu we flew to Singapore via Calcutta. We then went by train up to Bangkok, and train to Chieng Mai., flew to Cambodia - Phnom Pen, and Siem Reap, then to Hong Kong. I ran out of money there and came on back to NZ. 

Since that trip overseas where I was away for a total of just over two years, we have made brief forays to the UK, Europe, Australia, and apart from a 12 week stay in America with a very ill daughter, our trips have been of the travelling kind rather than staying put for any length of time.

And so I returned to the Middle East, this time to stay put for a month, which was then extended another two weeks, we arrived back home last weekend.

Our daughter and son in law live in Bahrain and their first child was due to be born there. We rented a small one bedroomed villa just a few hundred yards up the road from them which was just ideal. Staying with them, with a new born baby to manage as first time parents, was not an option! So we became residents of the floating city, at Amwaj.

Bahrain is a large cigar shaped island adjacent to Saudi Arabia, in the Persian Gulf, and joined to Saudi by a causeway. Amwaj is right at the tip of the island and is a group of small islands, joined by causeways and bridges and much of it is land reclaimed from the sea. Part of Amwaj consists of an area called the floating city, there are several canals with villas built alongside them. Most people have their boat moored at the bottom of their front garden.

The first two photos are taken from the balcony of our apartment, the third is the walk down to our daughters place with the skyline of Manama silhouetted, and the last photo is the back of our apartment - we were upstairs.                                            ......to be contd.