Land of the Sand Part 7
Trip Start
Apr 11, 2006
1
81
90
Trip End
Ongoing
Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
It always seems to be the case that when you have a memorable night or experience in a place a return, or follow up, to the same place tends to be a bit of a fizzer – a disappointment. With this in mind the euphoria of another night in Bahrain was met with a degree of cautious optimism. What was needed was a theme, a spark, something to ignite the night. To the rescue came Bangladeshi fashion. Bangladeshi fashion is soooooooo bad it is great. Bright colours and sad designs conspire to make a terrible shirt absolutely magnificent. The next Bahrain trip would be a bad shirt trip. Jubail fashion shops are just full of really bad shirts – the trendy Indians and Bangladeshi guys wear them to stand on the street corners of Jubail's main street. These cool guys strut their stuff in gangs of 6 -10 guys all with shirts in super cool orange and pink, lime green and red, purple and lavender, …., you name it and these dudes are prepared to wear it.
Attach purple pants and white belts and ABBA would be ashamed to compete with these guys for style. An outfit is not complete without 'flip flops’ (I know in Australia they are called thongs, but foreigners call them ‘flip flops’ and the thong creates funny images for them) and these guys are not into brand name flip flops they want the cheap and nasty to compliment their image of suave sexy playboy. There is however a problem with Saudi Arabia, which these dudes seemed to have overlooked. The term all dressed up with no place to go, kinda fits perfectly here and no one seems to have reminded the groovy lads. There are no discos – harrem (forbidden). Dancing with women, or women dancing (forbidden), chatting to chicks (forbidden) except of course with the baby chicken type, singing (forbidden) except for high pitched off key tributes to Allah, single guys cannot even go the mall to check the talent out. Between certain times when all the single gals will be out and about – the malls are closed to single men. In fact dating and impressing the ladies just is forbidden – so why the hell do they dress up like bloody Gallahs and stand on street corners – who the heck are they impressing – each other? Or perhaps it is Luke they have in their scopes?
So into the shops and boutiques the boys went. Fits of laughter could be heard when shirts were tried on. Like kids in a lolly shop they raced from one outrageous shirt to the next. Unfortunately there was not a camera in sight as items of clothing were considered, discarded and then replaced by something worse – if that was at all possible. The shop owners gazed on in amazement as their fine stock of quality clothing had the piss taken out of it. Items were settled on and purchases made – if ever we made it to the streets of Kabul (okay I know that is Afghanistan – but what the heck is the capital of Bangladesh?), we would be red hot – smoldering!!!!
On the last trip to Bahrain there were five normal people and a twit. The twit was not invited, so the same original five and three newbie’s made the second trip. Stinking hot day for the trip down – we made the mistake of leaving at 10am on the Thursday and went wham bam smack into long long queues of clean living Saudis exiting their pure lifestyle for a night of debauchery in Sin City. Car loads of Arab males all dressed in their white thobes were making the weekly pilgrimage to bars and broads rather than to Mecca for prayer and salvation. Sprinkled amongst all of these vehicles were the vehicles with the sad looking men, their Berka clad wife number three showing off none of her inner or outer beauty and their four or five kids climbing unrestrained all over the interior of the car. These men would look at the other cars with unrestrained envy. I must admit though I am horrified at seeing cars traveling at 140klms plus with kids sitting on knees in the front or climbing about the back seat – after seeing a baby killed in a car accident in my policing days – seeing these kids unrestrained turns the blood cold, icy cold. In the end though it is all Inshalla – if god wills it. He should bloody will them to buckle up their kids.
With the painstaking queuing for customs and immigration passed us it was off to the Bahrain Pearl Hotel. On arrival at the Pearl it was straight to the second floor bar. This bar sells the cheapest beer in Bahrain. It is also strategically placed where the hotels stock of buyable ladies are located. It is intriguing and fascinating for most males to watch working girls move around them. The centre of the bar contains chairs, tables and a pool table. The girl’s rooms are all around you. Normally you ring reception and a girl is summonsed to your room. Sitting where we were you could see the girls move about in their daily boring life. The occasional girl would stick her head out of the door to check out the talent in the bar, often dressed in daggy clothes – see that it was only us she would quickly withdraw into the safety of her ‘home’. Not good for your ego when working girls cannot even be bothered with you. Oh well we were there to drink not be little stud muffins.
I cannot tell you how good a nice cold beer can taste after being deprived of it for a while. We also met a lovely Ethiopian waitress, named Rachel, who over the next few months became an amusing contributor to our conversations. Drinking several beers and wine quickly in the afternoon resulted in an afternoon nanny nap being a must. I was sharing with ‘Last Minute Luke’, this nickname had nothing to do with sexual stamina but more to do with him having to chase the company bus down the street each working morning with his shirt undone, tie draped over his shoulder, unshaven and eating a piece of toast.
After a quick kip we met in the animal room where Mike, Alex and Brian were sharing. Brian had already donned his earmuffs and flowerpot man hat and was lying in bed. The front door was wide open and a mini skirted Chinese lady entered the room and asked if we wanted any female company, her attention was drawn to Brian and after noting the earmuffs, hat and sunnies asked him was he sick – howls of laughter and comments of ‘no, just stupid’ echoed out. A quick trip to a bar, a couple of beers and then out to dinner. After dinner back to the hotel, but attention was drawn to a man selling gloves – bright red and white poofy gloves – Mike bought one red glove, Alex bought one white glove and Luke one pink glove – trust Luke to buy the pink one!! The boys were going all Michael Jackson on us – it was getting scary!
It was back to the animal room for photos – before photos, and then we changed to our Bangladeshi party gear and more after photos. As most of us are highly trained and physically fit TEFL teachers we went through an exhaustive physical fitness routine to ensure our muscles were pumped. We had individual portrait photos (which can be viewed at the bottom), I looked exquisite in a long sleeved lime green shirt with black studs on the sleeves, I topped this off with $10 Rayban sunglasses to add that certain element of class and style. The metamorphosis was complete, we were transformed from hairy arsed TEFL teachers into wicked Hindu party animals and we were ready to party Bangladeshi style – so it was straight to the nearest street corner and stand there. After 5 minutes the lure of alcohol was too great and it was off to the American bar.
The American bar is small but it has a certain style about it, as it is favoured by the occupants of the American Military base stationed at Bahrain. There is military memorabilia plastered around the room, this was a big plus for me as I have a small collection of police memorabilia from throughout the world and it is always interesting to look at stuff like this – I am a buff – yes I know you all want to be buff to! The manager here was certainly worried about us. The place was nearly empty except for us and considering the US military drink here, you would think wild nights were the norm – no this guy watched every move we made and was ready to pounce the minute we stepped out of line – authority always brings the worst out of people.
The walls in this place had been written all over with black markers. Some rotter called Crispen Tucker had actually written that our esteemed leader Simon was a shirtlifter – whatever that is? We played pool to the loudest rock music by a very sexy Filipino lady DJ. We sang badly out of tune, and drank beer and occasionally wrote on the walls – Brian and I ran riot on the pool table and a good time was had by all. The Nazi Hotel manager sighed with relief when we left – I think he thought we were real mean Bangladeshi dudes.
We were on our way to a disco bar, which we knew was Hookerville, I don’t know how it started or exactly what it meant – but a cry of Hommophony went up and we yelled it as we walked down the drunken Arab filled streets. Why you may ask? Because we are male is the answer. I have many traits of a Rock Star – I have hands, arms, legs, toes, etc, yet I have never been treated like a Rock Star, not sure why not really! But this was to be my, well our, night. I led the 8 of us into the Digger Bar (yes an Australian bar – it has the most Hookers, typical) I yelled Hommophony there was silence, I walked in then Alex followed, I yelled Hommophony again and all the lovely ladies screamed in delight – it may have had something to do with Alex but I like to think it was all me. The girls surrounded us, but we pushed through to the empty dance floor and whilst the rest of the guys started to strut their stuff – I being the only Australian amongst them did the sensible thing and sort refuge at the bar and sample some of the delights available – beer!!!
Diggers is a bar frequented by a large local ex-pat community, they were not impressed by this gang of very good looking freaks who had cramped their paying style with the money hungry Chinese Hookers. Hey but that’s life boys. As I was half way through my second beer the Hommophony All Male dancers had finished their routine and were off in search of a better dancing environment. The males in Diggers all cheered when we left – losers!!!
It is funny how one small incident will stick with you, I recall walking down the street and Jake tripped over and simply laid in the middle of the street – luckily the cars stopped which I find amazing for Arabs – it was one of those ‘you had to be there moments’, but we found it hilarious. Jason wanted to walk to the F1 bar – 5 minutes he said, just around the corner he said, 45 minutes later and ten blocks later we staggered to the entrance of the F1. Now Mike Rogerson was a picture of style and good taste, he actually had torn his sleeves from his shirt and was wearing them as knee pads, I don’t know why? When we tried to enter the F1 we were refused as Mike had no sleeves. No worries – in front of the doorman he removed his sleeves from his knees (rhythms) and re-attached them to his shirt with his fingers – the doorman looked bemused and then simply said ‘okay’. And we walked in.
What followed was three hours of exhaustive dancing for them and exhaustive drinking for me. Steve McKenzie, ayyhh Mrs McKenzie’s wee lad (said with a strong badly done Scottish accent) , did his best or worst cardboard cutout impersonation of a 70’s disco dancing John Travolta wanna be. I did battle my way to the boys on a few occasions to show them a few fancy footsteps – but overall I did not want to take away their moment by showing them up. 2am is closing time and the boys looked absolutely exhausted – shattered as it were. The hookers had had a great time dancing with them rather than being mauled by drunken Arabs. All was good.
We caught taxis back to the Gulf Pearl Hotel, Half the guys went straight to bed, as they were knackered from a combination of booze and dance. The sturdy ones went to the level 2 bar. Unfortunately, it was closed and we could not get any grog. A few of the Hookers stuck their heads out of their rooms – once again the ego was knocked about as one look at us sent them scurrying into their rooms. There is just something soul destroying about a hooker not being interested in you, especially in hooker central like Bahrain.
After a few beers in Jason room it was bed and the end of another great Bahrain night. Going out and having fun and laughs with friends – is what life is all about.
After not drinking beer for a few weeks it certainly knocks you around when you wake the next morning. Next was the Mall again. Loads of Starbucks coffee, pizza and a movie followed. Then back to the Gulf Pearl for a few beers with Rachel and then back to the land of misery and sand.
Mrs McKenzie’s wee lad disappeared this morning, to date no satisfactory explanation has been received yet as to his whereabouts during that time!
I promise I will never wear that shirt again!!! It is going to a charity in Bangladesh
Salamu Alaikum
David
