Wrapping Up the Kuwait Experience

Let's learn about this hotel we stayed at.  Rym and her colleagues were more than generous in paying for our room (and lavish breakfast) at the best hotel in the country, the five star Regency.  The hotel is exceptional - located on a private beach with incredibly comfortable rooms and bathrooms to die for.  Every detail is taken care of.  The hotel normally puts a couple of bottles of water in the room each day but the manager told his staff that since we are Americans to give us as much water as we wanted.  (I did not know that Americans are known for their water consumption - maybe only in dry countries such as Kuwait?)  Each day we got about eight bottles of water.

The pool area and beach and sea at the Regency hotel

Another view

Our room is in the center on the second floor which was nice because we had a small balcony

Randy on the beach in front of the hotel

These roses were real in the huge lobby

One more shot of the pool area, off limits to Alice in swimming gear

The lobby

After two days they replaced the roses with amaryllis

This hotel caters to rich Arabs though there are a sprinkling of Europeans (we did not hear any American English there).  It is also a "sharia" hotel which means that women are not allowed in the public rooms in immodest clothes (shorts, tank tops, etc.) and women cannot swim or lounge by the pool unless they are covered from shoulders to knees.  Alice's typical one piece bathing suit did not fit this rule so she swam in the women's pool.  This was located with a large private lounge, garden, sun bathing area and small beach.  Women could take off their head coverings and long gowns and swim in their bikinis or whatever.  Actually the only people there were three teenage Arab girls each afternoon.  The lounge has one way windows where the women can view the activity at the main pool area but cannot be seen.  The women's area is surrounded by walls or high fences, but there was no special security, so apparently they are not worried about trespassers to this female only place.

Our hotel room

The king sized bed was immensely comfortable

The toilet / bidet room

The incredible shower room - Randy loved the full length mirror that somehow did not fog up while showering.  The shower had both a rainforest head and a removable regular shower head

The bathtub (we did not get to use that)

The double sinks

The marble floor - the entire bathroom was marble

And, of course, Kuwait is fully dry.  Alcohol is illegal to sell and to bring into the country.  It is not actually illegal to drink but you would have to have a illegal source to get any.  Anyway, it is a good chance to detox and with all of the excellent food, we hardly missed it (though a cold beer would have hit the spot a few times.)  Also, the locals do not smoke in public that often.  Apparently this is mostly done in private which surprised us as we expected to find everyone smoking.  The main activities are shopping (they have a number of upscale malls) and eating (they are filled with chain restaurants such as Cheesecake Factory, Red Lobster, Chiles as well as the obligatory fast food places).  Wealthy families live together in huge houses with small yards.  The houses are not architecturally pleasing.  Apparently, buying property in Kuwait is even more expensive than London or New York, which is saying something.  Money is on display with the cars and the women's purses.  Jewelery is a popular item to buy (gold only, of course).  All of the menial work and most of the work, in general, are done by foreigners.  Mainly from India, Pakistan, Philippines, and other Asian countries.  Professional work is accomplished by Americans, Europeans and educated others such as the M'hallah's.   It is not a melting pot however as these peoples don't really mix in a meaningful way and Kuwaiti citizenship is reserved for natives who share in the oil wealth and get a variety of perks and preferences.  Most Kuwaitis we met had been in the country during the Iraqi invasion and occupation.  It has rightfully traumatized them.  It was unexpected and most did not have time to escape (although the ruling family fled in time to Saudi Arabia).  Now, all Kuwaiti families have some escape path and plan for any future invasion.  They believe they could also be the target of Iranian missiles should war break out in the region.  This personal uncertainty does not seem to affect their day to day lives but it is always in the background.

Inside one of the malls

The mixture of people at a mall

Starbucks at The Avenues, their biggest and best mall

The Avenues' high end section with a patron

Cool ceiling of the high end part of The Avenues

Randy was happy to see a bit of Texas at The Avenues

Another mall

The interesting clock at this other mall

Ladies shopping at Carrefours

A Bentley in the hotel parking lot

Symbol of a car we will never even ride in

Lamborghini leaving the parking lot of the boat area just ahead of us

Our last day in Kuwait was a mostly working one for Alice with another seminar and meetings with students and faculty members.  Rym and Alice had a short break and visited the weaving center, recommended by Suja (who seems to know everything good in Kuwait).  This newer museum was excellent.  Located in a traditional style large home built in the 1930's the setting was perfect.  Examples of the traditional Bedouin weaving and the methods used to gather the wool (sheep and camel), spin it, dye it and then weave it were on display and explained.  There was a video showing women weaving (it is a woman's work) and there is a large room where the local Bedouin women still come to weave.  Sadly the women were not there the day we visited.  But the small shop sells hand woven goods and Alice choose a colorful hallway rug and a few smaller pieces.  Hardly anything is made in Kuwait so this was very special as it was locally made and done in traditional designs on traditional looms.

Part of Kuwait University's campus

Another view

Rym in her large but windowless office

One of the government buildings in Kuwait City

The incredible weaving museum

The historic home near the water in which the weaving museum is housed

Rym in the traditional doorway

The layout of the house with its central courtyard.  Needless to say the walls are exceptionally thick and the whole thing is designed for coolness as it was built before air conditioning

The inner courtyard

Another smaller courtyard in the house

One of the woven items - perhaps a camel adornment

The traditional wools before spinning

Loom

Another view - they used animal bones with the looms too

A traditional spinning wheel

Some of the pieces wove in small sea shells

The weaving room where Bedouin ladies come and weave.  We bought several items from the shop but the weavers were not present on that Monday

Later that afternoon, Rym, Alice and Randy returned to the weaving museum and then went with Sadok to the National Museum.  This was a sorry museum.  While some of the exhibits were interesting, the buildings were ugly and ill suited to a museum, the layout confusing and contorted and lighting unbelievably bad.  One can only think that museums are not a high priority among the rulers of Kuwait.  The most interesting exhibit consisted of artifacts from Failaka Island, which we had seen the day before.  This rounded out our knowledge of this strange outpost of the Greek classical world.

Sadok and Randy at the National Museum - it was free which is about all it is worth

A detail from Failaka Island - note the same scallop design as the ones still resident on the island

Cute dolphin from Failaka Island

The museum mostly consisted of recreated rooms and professions from historic Kuwait and here is the weaver

Some of the weaver's output

Speaking of the Kuwaiti rulers, the main guy is the Amir who is in his mid-70's.  His crown prince is his younger brother.  This is apparently unusual as the Amir usually chooses someone from the "other branch" of the royal family as his heir.  All over the country are smiling pictures of these two gentlemen.  Either they have great dentists or false teeth as their mouths are filled with unbelievably white teeth.  They look quite jolly and seem to cast a benign influence.  However, their method of rule is both traditional and slow.  Change is difficult and takes place on a glacier time frame.  Bureaucracy abounds and family ties are everything.

The cheerful Amir and his heir, his younger brother.  These friendly looking fellows adorn pretty much everywhere in Kuwait.  We are used to ruler photos as in Turkey Ataturk is ubiquitous but he is generally stern and authoritative whereas these gentlemen are attempting a happier, gentler image

The evening was a special treat as Rym had a feast of home cooked Kuwaiti specialties, many of which are unavailable at restaurants.  We enjoyed the company of our Kuwaiti hosts and hearing about their country - past, present and future.  They are all open minded and honest, and while their lifestyles and heritages are quite dissimilar from ours, we found much in common and learned a lot. 

Sadok at home

Randy pours from the assortment of drinks

These included avocado (but sweetened), a yoghurt based cousin of the Turkish ayran, kiwi juice (!) and a few other juices

The ladies at Casa M'hallah - Rym, Intesar and Suja

Lakdere and Talal. who cuts a dashing figure in his traditional dress

The thin bread (hand made) which seems related to similar bread from India

Lamb and saffron rice

Samosas (again, related to India) and a kind of kofte

Sarma (stuffed grape leaves) with roasted potatoes

Chicken and rice

This dish is very traditional and is flour formed into a paste and cooked down with lamb.  An acquired taste, apparently

Spicy peppers and tomatos

Dolma - stuffed vegetables - in Kuwait they do an excellent version stuffed in onions

The entire trip certainly gave us new perspectives.  We both agreed that it would take an awful lot of money to entice us to live, even briefly, in Kuwait but we were so happy that we made the trip.  It was a great combination of education. revelation, luxury, enjoyment, stimulation and challenge.  Thank you Rym and Kheireddine and Kuwait University for this exceptional opportunity!!!