Oil Wells, Camels and a Tree

Greetings from the tiny little state of Bahrain, which is our stop today. I was going to post a picture of, yes, oil wells, camels and a tree, but I decided not to risk the computer going bonkers on me again. So the pic will have to wait for later.

Bahrain City is quite an interesting place. The old part of the city is much more run-down -- reminds me of some of the 2nd world countries that I have been to, actually -- and also, for the first time since we have been in the Gulf, we saw beggars on the street, which was a shocker. They were ladies, too -- or at least, they were wearing a full-length burka and veil. I suppose that Bahrain City (or Manama, the old part of town) isn't quite as completely planned as some of the other cities such as Abu Dhabi. The economy in pre-oil days was built upon pearling, and they had a natural resource in abundant potable water, which made it possible for a settlement of some kind, unlike the other cities, which I suppose didn't quite exist before the discovery of oil made it feasible to even have a settled area at all.

Outside Manama, however, you see a dramatically different state. New construction is everywhere, and there are multitudes of new and in-construction residential areas. And those houses are HUGE -- they're practically villas. Our maid in Hong Kong, who has a brother working in this area, told us that it's not uncommon for one family to hire a ton of help: one person for the baking, another for the laundry, another for driving one car, yet another for gardening, etc etc.

We passed by several interesting sites in Bahrain: the old fort, which is both a tourist attraction and an archaeological site. You could wander all over the place for free, but the weird thing is that there are no signposts, nothing to tell you what's what. There were some side rooms that I wandered into, and there were random displays in cases, but no signs whatsoever. Whether they really seriously intend for this to be a tourist site is debatable: they certainly keep it very well restored, but then, why not go the extra mile and put in some information for the tourists?

The second place that we went to were burial mounds. Apparently 5% of the entire island is covered with these mounds. The biggest of these are taller than a tall man and wider than they are tall. Again, it's an archaeological site, but you can wander freely around the mounds (and for some of them, which are opened, into them), which is weird. The weirder thing was that only about 100 feet away was a new residential building. The inhabitants would get the view of the mounds every time they walk out of their front door. Maybe they don't have the superstitions that the Chinese have, or maybe the mounds are so old that they don't count as graveyards anymore.

The last place is the one that gives the title to this post. In the middle of the Bahraini desert is a tree called the "Tree of Life". No, it's probably not the Tree of Life, but it's a spreading mesquite tree which must have survived for a while, in the middle of the desert, all on its own.

The Bahraini desert -- or at least the part that we went to -- is covered with oil wells and oil pipes. Apparently we're also coming up to a festival for the locals, so there are many tents in the desert where families were vacationing. And every now and then, you'd see this dune buggy go roaring past the sand dunes.

The coolest thing was running into a shepherd with his flock of -- not sheep or goats, but camels! The shepherd, whom we think is paid to look after the flock, had herded them close to the Tree of Life for tourists to take pictures, and I suppose, also earn a few extra dollars for himself. There were about 40 camels in the entire flock, and he had hobbled some of the tamer ones. It was really cool to be able to walk right into the midst of so many camels. That was the highlight of my trip :-).