The sights and smells of Bahrain

Posted by Sara on

نحن تتمتع البحرين. واليوم نحن نذهب إلى قطر.

= We are enjoying Bahrain. Today we go to Qatar.

We had a great day in Bahrain yesterday. We ended up walking quite a bit. 7728 steps before lunch, which is not bad in 32C and 95% humidity. Admittedly we mostly walked inside air-conditioned shopping  centres. The centre attached to this hotel is a full block – nearly one kilometre long. Who knew shopping so was good for your health 😉

We started the day by catching a taxi to the Bab el-Bahrain Souk which was just a short ten minute drive away. Taxis are quite reasonable and the trip was four dinars, about $14.

First stop, eating of course! We had a traditional Bahraini breakfast at a café called Saffron. Dave choose it because Saffron is the name of his favourite restaurant in Canberra. For eight dinars  we had a shared traditional breakfast and it was amazing. Quite different from our usual cereal or typical bacon and eggs. Five little dishes with a variety of tastes. Warm freshly-cooked flat bread, and little individual rolls with small lentil patties on them. All delicious! (bar the chicken liver – couldn’t do that at 11am)

Then we walked around the souk. This very traditional middle-eastern market had thousands of little stores covering many blocks of the city centre. There was lots of jewelry stores, textiles, traditional and western clothing and a whole area just for spices, herbs and pulses. The smells and sights were incredible. While it was hot, the streets were all shaded and we walked and watched  and admired for a good couple of hours. We picked up some saffron as gifts and a bottle of the specific aftershave requested by Will.

Can you smell the souk through this blog post? I hope so, it was so good – fantastically aromatic!
A few pictures taken on the taxi drive… (yes it was a tiny bit scary – very fast and no use of the indicator or lane lines).
We spent the middle of the day in the local shopping centre, the Seef Mall.  We went separate ways (Dave tends to like different shops from me). I picked up a couple of small gifts and loved watching people and what they were doing, and wearing. Some women wear the full hijab, without even a slit for their eyes. Others the standard black dress and head-dress. Some only wore scarves and I even saw quite a few wearing short skirts and singlet tops.
Dave and I went to a Johnny Rockets hamburger place in Dubai a few years ago. Dave loved it – it’s a traditional 50s-style American diner/burger place.  Since then he has been to one in Los Angeles and in Qatar. His favourite thing there – strawberry milkshakes. We actually chose this hotel because it was close to the local Bahrain branch 🙂 After shopping – a quick lunch at JR’s.

And for dinner – Iranian. We both loved the fresh bread cooked in the tandoor in front of us and then meat was so tender and tasty. An excellent meal to end an excellent day.  Total steps for the day – 18 500.

Today – a little more wandering, then we fly to Doha, capital of Qatar.

Ciao!

 

 

 

 

 

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