Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
17 756 770;
www.awaligolfclub.com
;
7am-8pm)
17 750 777;
www.royalgolfclub.com
;
7am to 11pm, last
9-hole tee 9pm)
have beautiful greens - not a given in the desert!
Bahrain Riding School
( 39 566 809; twinpalmsridingcentre.com)
offer lessons.
Pearl diving
Al-Dar Islands Resort (
Click here
)
provides the nosepeg - you just bring the
stamina.
Running
For those who prefer to share their pain, contact the
Bahrain Hash House Harriers
(
17 862 620;
www.bahrainhash.com
)
.
Water sports
In addition to Bahrain Yacht Club and Coral Bay, there's
Al Bander Hotel & Re-
17 836 078)
DUBIOUS BUDGET HOTELS
You don't have to be Richard Gere to know that pretty women hanging around a hotel foyer does not bode alto-
gether well for a quiet night's sleep. Indeed, many male visitors have reported being harassed with phone calls in
the middle of the night, and the paper-thin walls of some of the more budget accommodation leave little to the
imagination. Ask the price of a night's sleep in the infamous Hotel Bahrain, for example, and you may well re-
ceive the same reply given to us: 'this hotel no-sleep - sleep cost more'.
Ironically, the Muslim holidays - when a wave of Saudi tourists floods over the causeway - seem to turn even
the midrange hotels into a rendezvous for mostly discreet and unobtrusive liaisons. One word of warning: when a
hotel says it has a floor especially for women, it often means just that, with a variety of women of the night plying
their trade. As such, women travelling on their own are better off avoiding it. Despite Manama's alter ego,
however, solo women are unlikely to feel threatened on the capital's streets, which are so a-throng with people
engaged in 'no-sleep' they seem disinclined to mess with yours.
BOOKS
Bahrain Island Heritage
by Shirley Kay - useful and informative.
Resident in Bahrain
by Parween Abdul Rahman and Charles Walsham - helpful for busi-
nesspeople.
Looking for Dilmun
by Geoffrey Bibby - celebrated book on Bahrain in the 1950s and
'60s.
Bahrain Through the Ages
by Sheikh Haya Ali al-Khalifa and Michael Rice - in-depth
coverage of Bahrain's archaeology.
CUSTOMS REGULATIONS
Importation, purchase and consumption of alcohol is permissible.
Non-Muslim visitors can import 1L of wine or spirits, or six cans of beer duty-free.
