Base yourself in Manama. Nothing on the island is more than about forty minutes away. Day one is Muharraq: the Pearling Path, Bu Maher fort and lunch in the old town. Day two is Qal'at al-Bahrain, the Bahrain National Museum and the Al Fateh mosque. Day three needs a car, south to the Dilmun Burial Mounds, the Tree of Life and the Bahrain International Circuit. Five days add the beaches at Zallaq and a boat out to the oyster beds.
Fun fact
Bahrain's pearl and oil economies changed places within a decade. Japanese cultured pearls crashed the price of natural ones in the 1930s, and in 1932 oil was struck below Jebel Dukhan, the first commercial find on the Arabian side of the Gulf. The pearl money had already built Muharraq.
Stereotypes, sorted out
The realityIt is closer to the opposite. Dubai's appeal is what was built in the last forty years. Bahrain's is what came before: a Bronze Age harbour capital, a Bronze Age burial field and the pearling town of Muharraq, all UNESCO-listed and none with a skyscraper. The Manama towers are the view from dinner.
The realitySmall is not the same as thin. Three unhurried days cover the UNESCO sites, the National Museum, the forts, the souq and a beach without changing hotel. The trip that fails is a single day between flights, spent driving from the old town in the north to the burial mounds in the south.
The realityBahrain is the most socially relaxed Gulf state in practice. Alcohol is licensed in hotels, restaurants and bars, weekend brunch is an institution, and the King Fahd Causeway fills with Saudi traffic on Thursday evenings. Ramadan is the exception: no public eating, drinking or smoking by day.
The realityThe industry is gone. The evidence is not. What UNESCO listed in 2012 is what pearl money built: seventeen buildings in Muharraq, the fort the fleets sailed from and three oyster beds still in the water. Bahrain also bans trading cultured pearls by law, and a state laboratory in Manama tests them.
The realityIt is the best time to come for the race and the worst for the country. Hotel prices multiply, the island fills, and the sites you flew for are unchanged. The circuit at Sakhir can be toured on an ordinary day. Pick one trip or the other.
Cultural notes worth knowing
- Coffee is a greeting before it is a drink. Gahwa arrives in a small handleless cup, lightly roasted and heavy with cardamom, and it is refilled until you shake the cup gently from side to side to say you are finished.
- Bahrain is majority Shia with a Sunni ruling family, and that division has shaped its recent politics, including the protests of 2011 and what followed. It is discussed among friends and rarely with strangers. Visitors are not expected to have a view, and offering one is not welcome.
- Right hand for eating, for handing and for receiving. In a traditional setting the meal is shared from a central platter and eaten seated on the floor.
- The weekend is Friday and Saturday, and the working week runs Sunday to Thursday. Friday midday is the congregational prayer and the quietest few hours of the week anywhere in the country.
- Ramadan reshapes the day without pausing it. Offices shorten, daytime restaurant service stops, and the iftar table after sunset is where most of the month's social life happens. Ask before eating or drinking anywhere public.
- Dress is more relaxed here than elsewhere in the Gulf and it is not Mediterranean. Shoulders and knees covered is the ordinary standard away from a hotel pool, and mosques hand out an abaya at the door.
- Photography has hard limits that are enforced. Police, military sites, government buildings and oil installations are not to be photographed, and people are asked first.
Famous Bahraini faces
Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa
Ali Bahar
Khaled El Sheikh
Hala Al Turk
Mai bint Mohammed Al Khalifa
Ruqaya Al-Ghasra
A'ala Hubail
Abdullah Al Muharraqi
Ebrahim Al-Arrayedh
Ali Al Shargawi
Ebrahim Bashmi
Misha Nonoo
Must-try Bahraini food
Bahraini halwa
Translucent sweet of starch, sugar, saffron and rose water with nuts. Bought as a gift.
Machboos
The national dish. Spiced rice cooked with chicken, lamb or fish and dried lime.
Muhammar
Sweet rice browned with date syrup, served with salted fried fish. Sweet and salt at once.
Qoozi
Whole lamb roasted over rice with eggs, onion and nuts. Ordered for a table.
Balaleet
Sweet saffron vermicelli under a plain omelette. A breakfast that surprises, then sticks.
Samboosa
Fried pastry triangles of spiced meat, cheese or vegetables, everywhere in Ramadan.
Khubz from the tannour
Flatbread slapped onto a clay oven wall, sold hot through village bakery hatches.
Grilled hammour
Gulf grouper, grilled whole or in fillets. The default fish, so check it is fresh.
Rubian machboos
The shrimp machboos, with small Gulf prawns. Lighter, and the better summer order.
Thareed
Stewed meat and vegetables over torn flatbread. A fixture of the Ramadan table.
Jireesh
Crushed wheat slow-cooked with meat, cinnamon and dried lime. Winter and Ramadan food.
Luqaimat
Fried dough balls drenched in date syrup, at every iftar and most weddings.
Rangeena
Dates baked under flour, butter and cardamom, served warm. The island's oldest crop.
Gahwa
Light-roast cardamom coffee, unsweetened, in a small cup with dates. Offered everywhere.
Karak chai
Strong tea boiled with evaporated milk, cardamom and sugar, sold at roadside stands.