As usually happens , when I was searching some old external hard drives looking for a photo of the team at El Nido Cove, for another blob, I found a folder with some of my 2016 blogs on. Among them was this mini series of blogs on my return to Kuwait in 2016, on vacation. I hope you enjoy reading about it:
Kuwait – day
one - 2016
When I left the UK for Kuwait back in 1999 one of my colleagues came to my leaving party. When someone asked why he had attended so many of my leaving parties Gordon replied with a smile “Because I want to make sure he really goes this time!”
However my trip to Kuwait was short lived. I had done little research; the job was not what was promised at interview, and I did not like the summer heat ( 50 degrees plus).
To make matters worse my mother died a traumatic death just as I was about to leave, delaying my start date. My father had Alzheimer’s and ended up in a rest home where he died a couple of years later.
Just as I was about to leave my previous employer, Business Post, I fell in love with a temporary secretary who came to work for us called Emily. She left her partner of 10 years, Tulsa, I moved in with her when I rented my house out and we fell in love.
When she did not join me in Kuwait as we planned it was the final straw and so I returned to the UK after 7 months to find she had married another guy!
As you can imagine it was a traumatic time and after that I had a couple of jobs for 6 months before setting up my own business. I was even asked if I wanted a job in Dubai for a Training Academy being set up by Jumeira hotels and said
“No thanks, I have had enough of the Middle East!"
How can one person make 3 such huge mistakes in 9 months! It took me the next 15 years to recover fully!
So you might wonder why I decided to return to Kuwait in 2016. Well firstly, it was one of the few GCC countries I had not visited since I came to Bahrain . Secondly, I have a good friend who lives and works here, Jeyboy, who I had not seen for 2 years since he stayed in Bahrain.
So when I was invited to my friend Anis's Wedding in Bahrain on 3 and 4 January 2016 I decided to take the week of work and fly to Kuwait after the wedding. In the end I got flu, missed the wedding, and got my dates mixed up! To make matters worse I nearly did not get my passport back in time after my employer had it to renew my residence permit on 21.1215 when I got back from Thailand.
Looking back it was better that I did not fly until 6th January which allowed me to start getting over the flu and have a quiet week at home doing all the end of year chores.
As usual I flew Gulf Air but unusually the flight boarded and took off early, and was half empty. After my Chicken Sandwich and a glass of Water I settled down to continue a book I started back in the Philippines last March called “Gypsy boy”. However with only a 50 minute flight no sooner had we prepared for takeoff than we were preparing for Landing ( a bit like flying to Doha).
I was curious as to how much Kuwait would have changed in 15 years and the first thing that struck me was the lack of change at the airport! I have become used to flying to such world class new airports at Dubai and Doha that it was strange to have to walk down the steps , get on a bus, and then go through a door that had seen better days and into the old concourse.
I had researched on line and read that I could buy a tourist visa on arrival but unlike Doha where this is paid by credit card at the passport desk the procedure in Kuwait is more complex. First you go upstairs and fill in a form then you take a number and wait. One guy enters the data on the computer then you go to a second who prints the visa ( an A4 sheet of paper which you have to carry everywhere with your passport) then you go back downstairs to join the long queue of Indians at the passport desk.
A patrolling army officer looked at my British Passport and said “go, go” .I thought he meant to a shorter queue which I joined but then he came over again and repeated ““go, go” so I went, straight thorough to collect my bag which had long since been taken off the carousel and out to the concourse where I was met by a smiling Jeyboy. (Please note Chester- he was early!!!) .
We got a taxi to the hotel (Ibis-Kuwait-Salmiya) and they looked very confused as Jeyboy and I checked in saying “Good evening sir, madam” before realising Jeyboy was a guy with long hair. At this point they asked if he was staying at the hotel. As I had read that the hotel does not accept bookings from non-married couples and that all couples must present a valid marriage certificate on check in I explained that he lived in Kuwait and was just my tour guide.
The receptionist then politely informed me that visitors are not allowed in the rooms so poor Jeyboy had to wait in the lobby while I ran upstairs to dump my bag.
We spent the evening doing what I remembered doing all those years ago- and what everyone still does to this day. We walked from Coffee Shop to Coffee Shop and Mall to Mall trying to keep warm ( it was January and it does get cooler in the Middle East then, like 20 degrees which feels very cold when you are used to 50 degrees!) and pass the time.
We had coffee, water, more flu tablets, and Granola with Yogurt at Starbucks and then later we went to Shake Shack for dinner. What do all these places have in common? They are all part of the Alshaya group who Jeyboy works for - at New York Cheesecake Factory where he is one of 20 hosts ( big busy place!) – So we got 30% off everywhere!
We also found a lovely store, with a Magenda ate, selling handmade Italian wooden kids toys and key rings etc. I went back there before I left for some very original pasalubong ( Tagalog for gifts, it is a Filipino tradition to always take Pasalubong home from a trip for friends and family)
We went back to the hotel to eat and found a wonderful balcony overlooking the Arabian Gulf from which we could see the famous Kuwait Towers which we tried to visit later in the trip. However they only served Shisha and as the Hotel Restaurant was deserted and very uninviting we headed back out and dined at the hip busy Shake Shack.
It was interesting to see the groups of guys sitting around drinking coffee, smoking Shisha, or wandering around , hanging around in groups or driving up and down in the Maserati cars. It seemed that not much had changed since I was last there. The road we wandered down and the Malls all had exactly the same outlets as you see in Doha, Muscat, Dubai, Bahrain, or London, Brighton or Manchester! Just like in Doha the outlets are all staffed by Filipinos, Nepalis and Indians, as the Kuwaitis are in a minority in their own country. Few work, and those that do are in Government offices.
I noticed another couple of interesting things as we wandered around and on the taxi ride to the hotel. Firstly that the driving is much worse than Bahrain (if that’s possible- we nearly crashed 3 times on a 15 minute journey ) . Secondly we got ripped off – typical airport taxi. Jeyboy argued hard in Arabic (very impressive) with the driver that it should have been 5 KR not 8, but in the end we just paid and went inside to escape the cold.
Secondly the buses are really old, which made me really appreciate Bahrain’s new luxury fleet of red buses which the plan was to try out for another blog!
Let’s quickly do the Wiki facts before Mr G throws his toys:
“The State of Kuwait is a country in Western Asia. Situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, it shares borders with Iraq and Saudi Arabia. As of 2014, Kuwait has a population of 4.1 million people; 1.2 million are Kuwaitis and 2.8 million are expatriates”
If you want to know more check out: Kuwait facts
As usual, when I am visiting somewhere new I check out the great website, Afar, which Phil introduced me to where Locals tell you the best places to go and here I read more about one of the first stops on our itinerary:
KUWAIT TOWERS - SCANDINAVIAN ARCHITECTURE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
The architecture
award winning Kuwait Towers were designed to resemble traditional Arabian
rosewater sprinklers, and are considered to be the symbol of modern Kuwait.
They are featured on the one Kuwaiti Dinar banknote, and even can be found on
the 500 tenge bill in Kazakhstan.
The towers are in fact part of a water distribution project started in the 70s
because there was a need to locate 9000 cubic meters of water at the northern
part of Kuwait City near the shore. Because of the prominent location, the late
Amir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmed wanted a more appealing design for the water towers.
So the Swedish engineering company VBB presented three different designs to the
Amir, and he chose the present design. The towers were officially inaugurated
on 1st March 1979. The spheres were inspired by Islamic art mosaics, coated
with 55,000 Chinese steel plates painted in eight colors to symbolize the azure
color of the sea and the sky. Inside the towers you can experience a 360 degree
panoramic view of Kuwait City from a revolving observation platform. Kuwait
Towers are located at the shore of the Arabian Gulf across from Dasman’s Palace, the late Amir’s compound.
( for more places to go in Kuwait see www.afar.com- Kuwait)
So after dinner we wandered back to the hotel where we agreed to meet at 730 a.m. the next day-and Jeyboy headed for home and I got some much needed sleep. However at 1.30 am I woke up sneezing, coughing and unable to breathe so unpacked, wrote two blogs, and had a couple of cups of coffee. At 6.30 am I was starving- so I went to get some breakfast.
On our second day we planned to visit the Green Island Park, The Kuwaiti Towers, Marina Mall, The Scientific Centre and after a much needed afternoon nap we planned to visit Liberation Tower and Arabella Restaurant complex.
Jeyboy had
been very busy putting together a great itinerary and my thanks to him for
taking 3 days off work to show me around. I will update you on how we got on
with all our photos in the next Blog
This was the man formerly known as "Blogger Neil from Bahrain" finally back in Kuwait in 2016!
Now I will sign off as the newly created superhero- The British Kabayan- the English man with a heart of gold ( A Chester Delos- Santos Porter creation)
Until the next blog- Ingat Palagi. Mahal Kita and Kita kits
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Hello, I am The British Kabayan! Feel free to read my stories.
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