Seef Mall

Being between shifts I had time to get down to one of the massive malls in Manama, called City Centre it is about 5 times as big as West Quay in Southampton. As if they did not have enough shops already - and most of them are empty - there was a story in the news today that there will be a Waitrose store opening up in Bahrain soon.

Anyway have a look at a short vid I put together to give you some idea what it is like. Despite the vast number of shops I only found the Carrefour to have anything that I wanted and that happened to be a French loaf!

Running

It is probably more to do with the temperature than anything else but you don't tend to see many runners in Manama! The only times to go running outdoors are really dawn or dusk, some fools are jogging around the HQ at midday but they are few and far between. The only people you see out running are are not local and i suspect that most of them are military types who work on the base.

The other issue is that the scenery isn't particularly stunning for running. There is no greenery, a bit of sand and so the only options are to run along quite wide pavements beside major roads. Having had the embarassment of falling off a kerb with disasterous effects on my foot I am now considerably more careful when crossing roads and more frequently when pavements just disintegrate to a stop.

The response from locals that you meet when out is varied to say the least. Often locals are somewhat wary but most are bemused and will give a smile, if going past the local Indian tourist shops you get a cheery Hello without the usual hardsell and invitations to enter their shops. I have seen small children openly gawping out of the window of passing cars that there is someone so foolish as to be outside taking exercise. Its not as though no one takes exercise as the open sandy areas are frequently the scene of enthusiastic football and indeed cricket matches first thing in the morning or in the evening.

The thing is that that rich Bahrainis exercise in gyms and health clubs and the poorer ones and the ubiquitous Indian and Pakistani labourers get plenty of exercise in their jobs and if they don't they have no time for the luxury of exercise.

The weather will soon be getting to hot and humid to permit much to happen outside so I had better make the most of the weather while I can.

Badges and uniforms

We always accuse all the Army and indeed RN aircrew of being a bit Boy Scoutish in their approach to collecting badges but I do feel as though I have now arrived as I am now in possession of not only my HQ and RN badges but also my name badge with rather natty Arabic script translation above - at least I presume it is a translation of my name, it could be saying 'Kick Me!' for all I know.

The real problem with desert camouflage is that it is so damn camouflagy that it is virtually impossible to identify someone else's rank, particularly if from a foreign country, at greater than about 6" from them. The US Forces insist on having Officer rank badges that are almost identical to their ratings badges and since you can get about 6 different varieties of Chief Petty Officer (we just have the one!) its hardly surprising no one gets saluted, at least they don't tend tomake too much of a fuss! Almost everyone has very smart desert gear apart from the US Marines who have the latest digitised pattern which is all pixellated greys - it looks very much like they have been standing under a very large seagull colony, which never ceases to amuse me.

Food

Food varies from the sublime to the ridiculous. During the day I work on a US Navy base and so to all intents and purposes we are living in America. This means that all drinks must be at least 30% sugar, vast amounts of sugar and salt just must be added to anything and meat and cheese (cheese must go in everything as well!) must of course\be as processed as possible. So beefburgers, 'Taco Bell', chips with everything type meals with pints of coke are the order of the day. This contrasts rather spectacularly with the 5 star food available from eight different restaurants within th ehotel complex. The truth is that you cannot live indefinitely on either - normal food is definitely required even though finding time to cook it is not trivial.
At work I have at least now found the 'Deli' counter within the NEX (a sort of worldwide US Forces supermarket) and though they need some encouragement to not throw all sorts of rubbish into their rolls they can produce a straight-forward common or garden beef, lettuce and tomato roll - you are of course looked upon as some sort of backward species for not wanting BBQ sauce, mayonaise, processed cheese and extra bacon but that is a small price to pay for preserving one's heart. Off base we have now started cooking and the saviour here is the fantastically normal (well, up to a point) Al Jazeera supermarket within walking distance of the hotel. The food options are a little strange but on the whole the things you can recognise are good quality and indeed good value - looks like my culinary skills will be sharpened up over the next few months!

Motorbiking in Bahrain

First of all, you would certainly not get me on two wheels of any form on the roads out here - driving on 4 is definitely exciting enough. It is the lack of signals, awareness or ability combined with an Arab view of any disasters being 'obviously' unavoidable as 'the will of Allah' that make driving such a high intensity task.
Nonetheless you do see a few bikes on the road and these vary between the classic pizza delivery boys through to the most powerful and flashy machines you can find. These of course have to be ridden at maximum speed. It is again a particularly Arab thing to be ostentatious in all possible ways to display your wealth, power or strength - hence ridiculous buildings, bright yellow MASSIVE Humvee cars with huge chrome wheels and watches which must have copious amounts on diamonds on display.
The video below shows a particularly good example of the sort of bling I'm talking about as well as a rather extraordinary 'sand bike' which looks lethal to ride on and two kids chopper style bikes all found in the one bike shop I have identified in Bahrain which is just around the back of the hotel.

Time Flies ....Not!

Being essentially chained to a desk for 12hrs a day definitely gives a warpped sense of time. It is already slightly odd to kick off at 7pm being completely wide awake - a process which requires a considered sleep pattern, a run of about 2 miles despite the heat which prevails at dusk and hot shower. That all done staying alert all night is not much of a problem despite the best efforts of BFBS broadcasting to send one to sleep. I also have the, shall we say - varied, conversational subjects of my fellow watchkeepers to keep me going. Both Leading Hands, one does communications and signals stuff while the other monitors the intelligence picture. Needless to say not a lot changes on the whole and unless we have a major drama which unfortunately (?) rarely happens we have quite a bit of time on our hands. This innevitably means that tasks that could be done in about 30mins get done slowly and then revisited several times just because you can. I also suspect that having more time to do stuff does not necessarily improve the accuracy to which it is done. As I have my first briefing to do this morning we shall probably find out as I'm sure there will be plenty of advice from various folk about how to do it better. I have already begun to suspect initiative is rather frowned upon around here despite protestations that the opposite is true.
I'm also sure there will soon be many keen (panicking?) staff officers descending on the office unnecessarily early to sort out their briefs and I am fairly confident that their problems will rapidly become my problems - oh, well, gives us something to do to accelerate time a little!

The Gulf Hotel

Although I am not seeing that much of it at the moment, other than the inside of my room and more particularly, my bed, the hotel I am staying in is one of the best in Bahrain. It has about 8 excellent restaurants, and I have tried one so far - not the slightest idea what I was eating but all very good indeed, there are also great sports facilities (untried so far) and a great pool and gardens - probably the only green bit of Bahrain.
Have a look at the video below and see what you think - I know I will get no sympathy at all now but trust me, compensation for this job is desperately needed and deserved!!