Bahrain - Post 2: Manama Souk and shopping, Tree of Life, and afternoons at the pool

In the mornings we would get out and explore the city, then come home for a family nap, and spend the afternoons swimming. The first morning we went to the Manama Souk. The souk is in the old part of the city. It was a very lively place. The streets were windy, shops were covered, and people were walking, driving, and biking around. In the states we have Walmart and Targets, in the Middle East, people buy everything they need from the souk. 

I love the color of all the spices.

This building was beautiful and completely tiled. My DSLR camera is not working right now, otherwise I would have had a lot of fun photographing the fine detail.

I think the architecture of the mosques are so pretty, especially against the perfectly blue sky.

Walking through a neighborhood downtown.

In the afternoons, we went swimming. The hotel had a private beach area and plenty of space to play. Caleb's last trip to the beach was in Ft. Lauderdale, FL when he was 4.5 months old, and this was Ben's first time.

Caleb liked to run around, dig in the sand, and get his feet wet. 

Ben liked touching the sand, but he didn't realize he was able to get off of the towel. It was funny to watch him reach really far for something. Unlike Caleb, Ben does not like to get very dirty.

How cute is this little burrito?

The next morning we drove into the desert and went to see the Tree of Life, which is a local tourist attraction about 45 minutes outside of Manama. According to wikipedia, the Tree of Life is a 400 year old, 32 ft. high tree, sitting on top of a 25 ft. sand mound that formed around a 500 year old fortress. It claims to be the only  major tree growing in the area, and it has  approximately 50,000 visitors a year. The drive through the desert was interesting. After reading about the tree, we saw a bit more vegetation than we were expecting, and a lot of pipeline.

If you know Nathan and  I well, you know we prefer using a map to a GPS. When we moved to Kuwait, we purchased the Middle Eastern maps, thinking we may need the GPS at times. Well, this trip reinforced why we do not like to use the GPS, on multiple occasions. That day, it drove us through an oil field and some military bases down unpaved roads, to get to this tree.

Here it is, the Tree of Life!

The reason we only got this close is because the direction we came in, there was a barricade blocking to unpaved road to get around the tree. When we got a closer look, it did not look like tourists hanging out under the tree, so we decided to take some pictures, and drive back through the oil field.

Our path to see the Tree of Life :). Thankfully, the GPS directed us back to the main road.

Afterwards, we stopped at a small rug district that Nathan found during a previous trip. The shop was filled with beautiful carpets from around the Middle East, and this man had a story behind every one we looked at. It may seem rude to have the boys running all over these carpets, but this nice man insisted.

When we got to the store, the boys were in strollers. Within 2 minutes, they were crawling and running around all over the place. The man said, I have 14 brothers, don't worry about it at all. And if you want to go out shopping or to eat, leave them here and I'll watch them! We didn't leave the boys, but we did let them explore while we shopped.

This man is from Yemen and has been living in Bahrain for almost 25 years, with his wife and son. He was very sweet with the boys, and genuinely enjoyed letting them run through the store. He, amongst many other people, said Ben looks like an Arab baby!

Afterwards, we went to a schwarma stand that Nathan ate at during his last visit.

It was delicious!

In the afternoon, we hit the pool again. These boys were ready to swim!

The pool was packed all day and until late at night. Kids stay up late in this part of the world, but our kids still crash early.

The pool had a waterfall that Caleb really liked.

The boys attracted a lot of attention from the hotel guests. We were one of only a few westerners at the hotel. Most of the people we met were from Saudi Arabia. These two sweet sisters loved playing with Ben, and they kept trying to take him out of the float. They spoke very little English, but we managed to keep Ben above water :).

We enjoyed the hot tub after going in the big pool. One little girl told us the hot tub was the toilet ...I'm not sure if something was lost in translation, or if she really thought it was a toilet. Maybe it was because this hot tub was packed day and night. Thankfully, so far we have steered clear of any weird ailments after sitting in the hot tub!

Some pictures of the hotel

We had two good days exploring Bahrain, swimming, and playing at the hotel.