I wasn't able to add many photos to my last post about Bahrain, so here are some more pictures I'd like to share. First some from the interior of Al-Fateh Grand Mosque:
The courtyard in early evening, as seen from one of the mosque's stairwells.
Men performing al-maghrib, the prayer that begins as the sun sets. Women pray in a separate, much smaller room. Notice the horizontal stripes on the carpet. They exist to ensure the devout pray in an orderly fashion.
The magnificent chandelier from Austria. In fact, most (if not all) of the materials used for the construction of this mosque were imported: the carpet was woven in Ireland, the marble was extracted in Italy and the doors are made of Indian teak wood.
In the last post, I only mentioned the jewellery stores found in Gold City, but there are also a fair few tourist shops, literally overflowing with unique souvenirs, like shishas, belly dancing outfits, containers for henna body paint, prayer rugs, genie lamps, arabian tea sets, even pricey antiques. The clutter in these stores was unbelievable. I'm still amazed I didn't knock anything down, although one of the shopkeepers actually broke a porcelain camel while skipping around showing us his "happy, happy prices". Take a look:
Lots of great faux-arabian jewellery if you're not prepared to dish it out for the real deal.
Our second day in Bahrain, we decided to check out Muharraq, an island just 7km from Manama, easily accessible by car. It's also where Bahrain's International airport is located. The concierge back at the hotel had mentioned "The Lagoon" as a nice area to walk around and have lunch or a coffee.
As you can see, "The Lagoon" is indeed a nice development, with plenty of trendy coffee shops and eateries, but there isn't much walking around to be done. We walked from one end to the other in about ten minutes, so we decided to head off to Muharraq's souk.
The souk in Muharraq is nothing to write home about, just another flea market. While walking around the area though, we ended up in some neighborhood, where we slightly intruded in the locals' everyday lives. I'm pretty sure camera-bearing westerners aren't a frequent occurence in these parts, but almost everyone had a friendly, albeit confused, smile for us.
Paying a visit as evening settles over Muharraq.
Doodles on a crumbling wall.
Peeking into someone's... home(?)
There was even a fass food joint. We decided to pass, though.
Back in Manama, the city's trademark building, the Bahrain World Trade Centre. It's the first building worldwide to feature power-generating wind turbines suspended between two towers.
And, Manama's skyline....
