Oh to the joys of Shisha

Moving to the Middle East for the first time has been an interesting experience for a variety of reasons. One of the things which I am learning to appreciate, no infact love is the Middle Eastern shisha.

The shisha can be found across the Middle East and Asia and is one of the traditional ways of smoking. They are found in the hundreds of cafes which are spead across the island in an assortment of sizes. In the evenings Arabs from all backgrounds converge on them to smoke, chat and play games.

Without a doubt the shisha is the thing which brings the people together. Basically in a nutshell its a pipe which you smoke through a tube. The substance (be it apple, grapes etc) is below the charcoals at the top and when you breath in the substance kinda goes through the water. Now I don't understand the technique or how it works but its fun. Alas I am also realising that one night smoking is the equivalent to 20 cigarettes!!! So by the time I come back from Bahrain no doubt my lungs will have taken a severe hitting so I must frequent the gym more often!

So anyway the key to a good shisha is the coals. Back home in the UK it is really difficult to get good coals that get hot enough to make the 'process' work well enough. Here it doesn't seem to be a problem as you raise you hand giving a signal which results in a man scurrying over to you with 'fresh' hot coals ready to 'replace' you diminished stock. Within a minute your shisha is refreshed and your ready to go all again!

So tonight (like an other 2 nights this week) I joined some friend for a smoke and played backgammon in the middle of the 'Indian' suburb of the city. Here I was, 27 years old, learning to play a quintessential English game surrounded by Indian and Arabian men!

Afterwards we headed to the beach, well rocks as Bahrain doesn't have any beaches, to sit and chat. There is a lot going on in Bahrain as it is very much at a crossroads at it trys to compete with the other Middle Eastern states. Needless to say it is an interesting time to live in Bahrain.