Post written by Caleb.

Chaz, Peterson, and Hallman at the Tree of Life

Jess told me about two world heritage sites that she found in Bahrain and I wanted to go see them. Working late and having to go in on my days off had prevented me from going for so long. I mentioned to my roommate Chaz that I wanted to go and he thought it was a great idea to see more of Bahrain than just the inside of a bar.

flies in front of Qal’ at al-Bahrain Museum

We decided to go on Friday. I got off duty and left for my flat. Chaz was getting ready so I started packing the essentials – a bottle of water and my wallet. I found out that we would have to wait on two other people that we work with that Chaz had invited – Peterson and Hallman. They got to our room and we headed out to the lobby to wait on the duty van to take us to American Alley where a person at work had recommended we go to Avenue Car Rentals. We paid 10 BD (Bahraini Dinar) for the rental car and were on our way.

information about the site

We first headed up to the Capital of Dilmun World Heritage Site. There is a giant archeological dig that you can walk around in and a museum with lots of cool exhibits. We walked around the entire place in the scorching 120 degree heat. After about two hours we were ready for something cold to drink so we headed back to the car. We drove east towards the airport because we had seen a boat by a bridge that we wanted to check out. We stopped at a store to get some water before visiting what turned out to be a children’s park. The boat turned out to be a large dhow (a big wooden boat – like a Viking ship – this one without the sail) sitting on blocks.

a dhow

After that we headed south to the Tree of Life. A 400 year old tree in the middle of the desert with no water supply. We started south and drove through the industrial side of Bahrain. Lots of factories, trucks, and sand. We missed our turn as you can’t make the turn from the side of the road that we were on. For most of the way we just saw signs saying truck route and were worried that we were going to the wrong place. About 20 minutes later we were there, and it was awesome – a giant tree surrounded by desolation and an oil refinery.

ruins and the city

As we walked up to the tree we heard voices and were greeted by three locals that were selling ice cream out of a little truck. They only knew how to say ‘ice cream boss?’ and ‘very good’ in English, the rest was all in Arabic.

even the license plates are bilingual

As we were leaving, there was a train of cars coming down the road, 15 cars headed for the Tree of Life. We headed further south to check out the man-made islands at the Durrat Al Bahrain Resort. We were turned away at the gate as it’s a private facility. We decided to head back north and get something to eat – Shwarma. Where does one go for Shwarma? Shwarma Alley of course! We ate at a little place with no name or sign that was making them fresh. We ordered our food and sat there enjoying it in the hot sun. We decided to call it a day at about 5:00pm and headed back to drop off the car and go to our rooms.

Chaz, Peterson, and Hallman inside Qal’ at al-Bahrain Museum