Nate and Kara Buchanan vlog their day in Bahrain during a Middle East cruise (day four of the trip). They travel from the cruise port into Manama, explore an outdoor souk, meet a local guide named Shabana (a UK-raised, multilingual magazine editor who has lived in Bahrain ~5 years), taste local juices and a large homemade lunch at a villa-turned-restaurant called "Food at Home" featuring dishes like smoked eggplant, vine leaves, kabeda/kebab and lamb shank, visit Bahrain Fort (origins ~2200 BC; later Portuguese-built walls), and reflect on visa logistics provided by the cruise. The video closes with thanks and a blog plug about their Q4 income/expense report.
Chapters
Sam.
Today is day four on our cruise through the Middle East. Yesterday we had a full day at sea and this morning we have arrived in our 69th country of Bahrain.
So there's this girl. Her name is Georgie. We've never met in real life, but I think we're going to be best friends. She grew up in Bahrain and she is so excited that we are here today. But she actually lives in Dubai now, so she was nice enough. Oh, there's a band.
She was nice enough to hook us up with one of her friends who lives here. So we're gonna get shown around today again by a local, which I think is just the best way to see these kinds of places.
But first, we are 45 minutes away from the city, so we have to catch a bus into the city center.
Well, we're here.
That took every bit of 45 minutes. The cruise port is a very long ways away from the city center.
But it's super fun right here. Everybody's busy. There's cars and people everywhere. We're really close to the entrance to the souk, which is Arabic for market. So we're gonna go check it out before we meet our new friend. She's on her way.
Hello.
Hello.
This is totally different than the souk that we went to in Oman. Instead of being inside, this one's like outside streets just never ending alleyways. It smells so good. There's spices everywhere and smells of curry. It's kind of like an outdoor Walmart. Like there's some kind of touristy things like clothes and sunglasses, but then there's like brooms and silverware.
Hi.
Good.
How are you doing?
We have no idea where we are. We got really lost back in the souk somewhere. Do you think we can get back to the I heart BH sign?
We could try.
We're gonna try.
We found shabana.
And I've just taken them to my favorite juice.
They're trying chiku for the first time.
It's so yummy. It is so good. It is only chiku, no added sugar or anything.
It is so creamy and fresh.
It's off to a great start.
Perfect.
So now we're going to go to Baring Fort and for a nice little lunch.
You're good at this.
It smells like so cute.
It almost makes it a bit cheesy.
Yeah.
Okay.
And then we'll have one. Let's try the vine leaves.
Yeah.
Okay, so a few fun facts about Shabana. She grew up in the uk, she speaks five languages. She's lived here for five years. She's a magazine editor. She's super awesome, and she's watched our vlog, so she knows that food is a huge deal to us. We are at a restaurant called Food at Home. Basically, a grandma who was a really good cook decided that everybody should experience her cooking because it was so good, and started a restaurant from this little villa. And we just ordered so much food, but I don't know how to say any of it.
It's gonna be awesome.
So what are these?
Okay, so this is kash badington, which I believe is like a smoky eggplant with some fried onions.
Perfect.
This is.
Something like that, but it's like a really creamy, like, cheesy sour cream with a little bit of olive oil. I hope that's all right.
Yeah.
Pine leaves, which are packed with, like, all the ricey goodness, and they're a little bit tangy, so everything's gonna be super yummy, guys.
And this bread that just came fresh out of that big oven in the ground.
Do you want anything more?
No, I mean, we're good.
Ye.
I think. I think we're all right.
This is one of the best things I've ever had. The smoked eggplant with onions. It has some mint on it. Oh, my gosh. We had to stop ourselves because the main courses are here. There's so much food on the table right now.
So much rice.
The meat looks amazing. Still not sure what a lot of it is, but it's all beautiful. It smells so good.
There's literally no rules, so you can eat this however you want. You can mix up the rice.
And there's three different sauces, and no rules. There's no rules.
There's one rule.
Much goose is, like, a very local dish. You can put chicken, lamb, prawns. The seafood one is always really yummy. So this is kabeda kebab. There's a chicken one, and there's a beef one. And this is, like lamb shank, literally in a nice curry. And it's going to be my first time eating it as well, so I'm excited.
So.
Oh, it was bright, I think. No, I know. We can honestly say that is the best meal we've had since we've been in the Middle East. That was amazing. And Shabano's been coming here for a long time and has never met the grandma who started it. And we got to meet her today. She was adorable. It's all of her recipes. She's so good. Now we're going to the Fort.
Albert, guys.
She rocked that.
Yes.
She rocked that.
That's not what it sounded like when you said it.
Okay, you say it.
I'm gonna say it like her now.
Easy.
So a few fun facts about the fort. It was actually built like, the beginnings of the fort were built in 2,200 BC, so I think it's probably one of the oldest, like, structures that we've ever been inside. The walls that you see today were actually built by the Portuguese. So some people actually refer to the fort as the Portuguese fort.
The coolest thing to me though is standing like on the rocks and seeing how old they were and then overlooking the city of Bahrain. All these like modern buildings in the background. I just loved the contrast.
Oh, it was so nice to meet you. Thank you so much.
I can't believe that today is already over. Shyvana, you were the perfect tour guide. I feel like we really saw Bahrain today. So much fun. She even gave us a gift. We now have cute little Arabic people as salt and pepper shakers that are going to be on our table for the rest of our lives. Now we're heading back to the ship.
Such a good day here in Bahrain. One of the really nice things about coming on a cruise to the Middle east as an American is that the visa situation is sorted out for you when you get on the ship. So there's a couple countries here that we need visas for, but we haven't had to do anything. Every morning we get off the ship, they give us these little green cards. It's basically like a one day pass into the country. So we were supposed to pay a lot of money to get into Bahrain and we just got to go for free today also.
One of the reasons I'm just so happy that we're here right now is almost two years ago at the London.
Travel market, which is like a big travel conference.
We were walking around all the booths and every country is there represented by their people. And there's this one booth that was super fun with all these guys wearing these white robes and these red headdresses. They were playing the drums. I was like, oh, let's go. So we went over there and it was Bahrain, and I'd never heard of it before. I didn't know where it was in the world and I didn't think we would ever go. And here we are a year and.
A half later in the country.
So first thing I thought of this morning, it's just so funny that we're actually here.
Hey, guys, before you go, just wanted to quickly let you know that we just published our Q4 income and expense report over on the blog. So if you've ever been curious at how we afford to travel full time, go check it out. I'll put a link in the description below.
Wait, what were you doing?
I was totally kid crashing your video. I'm really sorry that I missed the.
