Not much to say really. Frankly, I’m just too tired to type. I’ll let the photo captions do the talking. My boss resigned and will be moving on to a new job in Geneva early next year, so everything has become quite busy for me all of a sudden.
The last couple of days have been very emotionally draining. It’s the feeling of life moving on that has hit me quite hard. I feel like shit. That aside, everything’s great. Enjoy the photos.
My flight back to BAH was quite bizarre. On board I bumped into Sarah Geronimo, Mark Bautista, and entourage (pls refer to your local Filipino) who were to perform at a CX-sponsored concert in Bahrain, so I had a quick chat with the two of them during the trip. I also knew the inflight service manager (Jang Jang) and first officer (Steve) personally. Met Steve once in Bahrain when I showed him this place for really good and dirt-cheap local food, and he had been thankful ever since. He invited me to the cockpit for takeoff and landing, allowed me to listen in on air traffic control, and explained the entire processes to me. All the fun without the pain of applying for and enduring a jumpseat for 8 hours! The view from the cockpit of the stars scattered in the cloudless night sky with flames from gas wells across the Arabian Sea below you is TO DIE FOR.
Got back to the office and the first thing my personnel manager said to me was that we had a situation - a senior purser passed out during check-out the previous night and was ambulanced to the hospital. Paid her a visit at her hotel room and she was visibly in bad shape. She was freaking out before because she was afraid of falling ill out in the Middle East where not only would there be no one to help, you’d wake up in a desert cave and be subjected to a brainwashing session called ‘Literal Quran 101′ followed by ‘Suicide Belt Fundamentals’. She was therefore quite surprised but relieved to see an Asian face. Managed to take her to a private hospital to get a second opinion. She was certified fit to travel the next day, so I updated HQ of her status, made sure she got a comfy business class seat home and that she had enough cash for her extended stay.
We had extra sponsor VIP tickets to the Sarah/Mark concert, so I went over to the crew hotel and invited Abby, the lone Filipina flight attendant on her flight, to the concert and a private photo session at the CX office that afternoon. She was shocked throughout her entire stay in Bahrain, but who could blame her? Definitely not your typical crew outport experience. Had to leave the concert early for the airport to make sure everything was ok with our sick crew member’s flight home.
Went diving over the weekend and explored more of Bahrain’s sea urchin-infested waters. We bought compact knives with us to kill/break them open and feed the fishies - doing our part to revive the Bahraini corals. All-you-can-eat raw sea urchin, anyone?
CXBAH said goodbye to Mercy, our senior res officer who retired this week. A sad occasion but got a chance to hang with most of the CXBAH team.
Daytripped to the one place outside of Bahrain immediately reachable by car. This city known for its heavy industry, particularly in oil drilling (surprise?) and construction, and is connected to our little island by the King Fahd Causeway. Made good use of my spanking new Saudi visa to visit one of the most conservative Muslim states in the world, where the King recently declared his belief in women’s rights by saying that "one day" women would be allowed to DRIVE. Good stuff. I’m sure a woman’s right to wear a t-shirt is right around the corner as well, say, within the next two decades?
Younas, our messenger from CX Saudi Arabia was kind enough to come over to pick me up. He did some serious speeding, which combined with his connections with Saudi immigration got me from one office to the other in one-and-a-half hours when it would have taken anyone else three.
I had to cut back on photography for fear of getting my camera confiscated - a woman’s consent is required if she is included in a photo in any way, and 9 out of 10 usually say no. The causeway was where most of the shots were taken, though I did sneak in a shot of that Chinese restaurant. Dhahran was quite a dead city due to Ramadan, so I’ll definitely return soon now that everything’s back to normal.
Survived Ramadan with a final score of -5lbs. Went back to HKG for a few meetings with the head office and saw a few friends. It was quite disorganized due to the last-minute nature of this trip. Sorry guys and girls.
Oh yes, one more thing - While cruising through several Dhahrani streets on my way home Younas casually mentioned (with a straight face) that before 9-11, the area I was passing through used to love the US, but that today no American or British person ever gets through without getting shot at. Thing is, Younas doesn’t have the best English around, so our communication was limited to the point where we couldn’t really joke with each other. And you wonder why they sent me to this region.
I’ll keep that American passport of mine safely tucked away in my bedroom and bring out the Canto-English, fank yoo felly mutchu.
