Vacation Four

Christine, our new South African friend who just moved here three months ago with her husband, took us out on Thursday. Our first stop was the old part of the city, which reminded me a lot of old Manama (Bahrain), which I visited last May. You can see the old wind towers, which provided natural air conditioning to the houses. You could also see some of the old architecture and design. And of course Hannah wanted to have her picture taken with the camel.

We ended up at a gorgeous beach, but I didn't take any pictures there because photography was forbidden, presumably to discourage people from taking pictures of swimwear-clad women. I saw a guy with a large camera snapping pictures of his girlfriend, so I probably would have been fine to take pictures. But they say that they arrest people for so many things here, I didn't want to take chances. A couple was arrested for kissing in public, because they weren't married. "How did the police know they weren't married?" I still wonder. Maybe they would have been arrested either way. Your car can be impounded for 12 or 15 days if you run a red light ("a red robot," as Christine calls them). A guy whose friends were causing problems was picked up with them, even though he had nothing to do with the problems they had been causing at another place and time! Speeders are caught by traffic camera, a far cry from the police officers sitting in their little pavilions in my last location!