The view of coastline with bright lights was breathtaking as my flight descended on Bahrain. It was 6:30 PM local time and my next flight was about 16 hours later (it was further delayed by 2 more hours). We were to be taken to a hotel and brought back the next day for our flight. The Gulf Air agent wrote a receipt for us which we needed to handover to the immigration authorities so that they could stamp our passport for temporary entry to Bahrain. In the same flight, besides other Nepalese, there were some German tourists heading to Nepal. One among them had already been to Nepal thrice; I quickly became friend with him.
A micro bus carried us all to the hotel. Pragya had used the same route when she traveled to Nepal a month ago and she didn’t like the hotel where they placed her. I was eager to see where they would place us, to my surprise we were allocated in a better hotel than what she had described. Gulf Air appeared to be making lot of grounds, but due to time zones and flight availability there was bound to be long transit hours. So they seemed to have randomly contracted these hotels for accommodation and pick ups. I was fortunate to have landed to better hotel. I checked in, but I had to leave my passport in the reception counter like everybody else, they kept it as a security. The first thing I did was take a hot shower and change my smelly cloths.
I came downstairs to the lobby with my camera, my German friend and his group asked me if I would go out with them to have beer, I was too tired to roam around (remember I had already taken two more flights than them). Besides, I needed to find a calling card to call home. As I started taking picture of that beautiful hotel (it had some ancient Arabic artifacts), an Arabic guard came up to me and said “who gave you permission to take pictures?” I was taken back; I didn’t know what to say. Wow, I thought, you can litter and smoke inside the hotel but you can’t take pictures. Well, when in Rome be a Roman I thought, and replied politely “I’m sorry, I didn’t knew if there were any restrictions as there aren’t any signs posted, anyways I will delete them all”. I deleted them all. By this time the Germans came back and so did other Nepalese (from their rooms).
Germans were complaining they didn’t find any stores with beer, and Nepalese were complaining about their tiredness. As we were mingling around, the same guard walked up and said I can take pictures, the hotel boss had earlier spotted us debating and had enquired the reason with the guard. Screw you I thought, he was giving me permission as if he was doing me a favor. I don’t know if it was because of the language barrier or cultural differences, I found Arabs to be very rude (though their South Asian employee were courteous). I never took out my camera again.
Finally our dinner was ready, I don’t know if it was hunger or the food itself, the dinner was delicious. We were told during the dinner that there would be some dance program in the bar. Germans were naturally excited when they heard bar, don’t know if they cared much for cultural dance. I was first to exit the dinner table, go to my room and pass out.
Next morning, our breakfast was at 7 AM, we all sat in the lobby waiting. I heard yesterday they had belly dancing in the bar, and the Germans finally could sip beer. In many Arabic countries liquor is prohibited (even for tourist, like in Saudi Arabia, according to one of the German who had visited there before), while in some liquor are only for tourists available in designated areas only. In Bahrain, the liquor was available to tourist in hotels, though the locals were said to be sipping there clandestinely. Also the German’s had to pay $9.00 for a bottle of Heineken; I guess 100 liters of oil would be cheaper there 
.
After breakfast we checked out and our passport was returned to us. A micro bus dropped us back to the airport. Besides handful Arabians; the airport had lots of South Asian employee, no wonder you could hear Hindi/Urdu everywhere. Finding our gate was very easy, just locate where the Nepalese are crowded. After locating our gate, we started window shopping in duty free shops. I had to confess they have pretty impressive duty free collections. Wherever we stand, there would be a group of Nepalese standing beside in expectation of us leading to their gates. Some airport employee had their “extracurricular” business going: selling calling cards out of their pockets for little extra. Scenes of a leader looking guy accompanying group of South Asian laborers (some dressed similar, or have similar caps, or similar vest) to different boarding areas was very common sight. Frankly, those sights reminded me of someone herding sheep’s, and the sheep’s blindly following the Shepard.
Finally I heard our boarding call; I had done my homework so I waited for all other people to board first, I saw my German friend waiting with his group too, he gave me a big smile, I am sure he must have traveled from this route before. Nepalese labor’s from Gulf were all crowding in the counter, pushing and shoving. I don’t know why they want to be first inside the plane; their seats are secured no matter when they enter. Finally I entered only to find that there was someone else in my seat, I showed him my boarding pass with my seat number and then he moved from my window seat to the adjacent seat. Then came a guy with strong English accent claiming that the seat adjacent to me was his. The air hostess checked both their boarding passes, the seat adjacent to me belonged to the Englishmen while the other guy had his seat at the back of the plane. The Englishmen took his seat and said “there is always confusion in this particular flight”. So, I thought, this Englishmen is no stranger to Nepal either, the flight already promises to be intriguing.
To be continued………………
