I recently read that a second causeway will be built between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. On weekends, around 40,000 vehicles line up on the current causeway waiting to go through customs and enter Bahrain.
Let us assume there are three people in each vehicle; I’m not including buses, nor am I including the thousands of people who arrive by plane. We can comfortably assume that more than 100,000 travel to Bahrain every weekend.
As an expat living in Saudi Arabia, I found these statistics quite surprising and so I decided to go and see what all the hype was about. Occasionally I ask some of my Saudi colleagues why so many people travel to Bahrain on the weekends, but none of them are able to give me a clear answer.
Others told me that they go to Bahrain to watch movies; really? Three thousand people lining up at the movie theater would be quite a site, let alone a hundred thousand. So, I decided to see for myself. I packed my bags, grabbed my passport and drove all the way to Manama.
The wait at the border was more than two hours. At this point, the trip was far from pleasant. There were old vehicles breaking down due to the constant idling and subsequent overheating, people shouting at each other and honking their horns constantly for no apparent reason. The drive from the border to Manama was fairly boring. I thought if all these people travel here every weekend, there must be something special about this place. I noticed nothing different.
The next three days were a major disappointment. I did not notice any clear, distinct differences between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Sure, Bahrain is nice, but I pretty much saw everything it has to offer in two days. I was expecting some sort of wonderland, something that would warrant such a massive amount of human traffic. I did, however, notice two small things. I will not tell you explicitly what they were. I will leave you with this; a tale of two cities.
Both Anaheim California and Las Vegas Nevada are beautiful cities. Both have great restaurants and wonderful malls.
Hundreds of thousands of people travel to Anaheim from Las Vegas and other parts of the United States to see Disneyland. Synchronously, hundreds of thousands of Californians travel to Las Vegas. “Why?”, you might ask. Because there is something that many Californians really love to do that they cannot do legally in California, but in Las Vegas it is one hundred percent legal and even encouraged. Have a good day. — A reader, Al-Ahsa