After 12 looooong and gruelling weeks of meetings and teaching at our new school, my family and I finally had a holiday. Woohoo! Term times internationally are different and due to the way Eid fell this year, it has had a knock on effect on term times at our school in Saudi Arabia. Take into account that we also had Saudi National Day, where the school had to close for a few days, and you're looking at a confused timetable with a 10 week term of chalkface time with the kids!
As you can imagine, after all this we were looking forward to our break as we didn't get one over the summer, what with moving abroad and the school term starting on August 1st.
When we were thinking of where to go we though Bahrain would be a good place to travel to. It's only an hours flight from Riyadh and is made up of over 30 islands, so the fact that we would be surrounded by the blue sea whilst living it up on the beach resort rather than just the beige desert appealed to us immensely.
Having booked our stay for 4 nights at the 5 star Sofitel Thalassia Spa and Sauna Hotel in Zallaq, we were looking forward to proper spoiling ourselves. The hotel had a private beach, kids club, splash pad and a sense of extravagance these two teachers from England wanted to experience after years of being unable to do anything like this. We knew that Bahrain would be expensive as it is £1 to 2 Bahraini Dinar but how bad could it be really? Well, to give you a glimpse as to how expensive this was I will use the universal conversation code of the cost of a McDonald's Fillet of Fish meal (regular size mind you, I've watched Super Size Me and it scared me sorta slim-ish). Well, it costs 2.8 dinar, that's about £5.60! By triangulating the cost of staples like a can of Coke, Pringles and Mini Babybels I worked out that Bahrain has a 33% markup premium on goods and services when compared to England, it's science! But more on the cost factor and how it would affect our holiday later...
Anyways, we arrived after the most expensive cab ride in the world (£45 for about 30 mins) and saw that the term palatial would be an apt description for the Sofitel. Another would be proper pimp as it was all marble floors, crystal chandeliers and bell hops with those posh looking trollies…. a mark of true class. We checked in and went to our room and it was okay, slightly dated but nicely appointed. Our balcony had a great view of the palm trees and the beach beyond that.
We had a lovely view of the entire complex and a stunning view of the beach and sea.
We saw the stage going up as preparations were underway for the Halloween Beach Party blowout we had been emailed about a week or ago, about a month after we'd initially booked the room. We then went for a reccy and saw the pools, beach and sea. All looked well but the large crowd gathering for the Halloween party had us a little concerned. How busy was this thing gonna be, how loud and did the parents know where their teenage looking kids were? Well, we found out the volume of the party later as we put our kids to bed amid the most thumping bass I've experienced since seeing Crystal Castles way back in 2008 at the Electric Ballroom in Camden! Our kids are troopers though and fell asleep amidst all the noise, I'd like to think that the spirit of my trance loving formative years from 1996 to 1999 took over in their genes and acted in a soporific way to lull them into sleep... much like Cafe Del Mar did for me all those years ago.
Anyways, my wife, Jeannie, was like a she-wolf and went downstairs to complain. She's really good at that after being married to me for nearly 9 years (with good reason I might add) and the duty manager upgraded us and offered us access to the exclusive 6th floor lounge area with access to free sandwiches and stuff- but as the hotel was fully booked that would have to wait until tomorrow. I have to say, when it comes to complaining I'm proper British in that way and don't want to make a fuss but my wife, she knows what's fair and right and she fought the good fight for customer service. Who puts a family with two young kids on the side of the hotel with an all-out rave going on on the beach? Years ago, I might have joined in with the festivities but with two young kids in tow and my dad dancing I’m sure I would have been asked to leave! Also, without a babysitter we weren't going to McGann our way through it either.
So anyways, the kids slept through the crazy loud music whilst Jeannie and I endured the noise until midnight when, thankfully, the gig finished. The kids woke up the next day knackered and we were shattered too. It took a lot of the day to recover but after that the holiday really started to come together. We spent loads of time at the beach, building sand angels, castles and stuff, hanging at the splash pad and chilling out in the cabanas. We were proper European about it, getting to the cabanas at 7am to lay down our towels before we went for breakfast to ensure we staked our claim to this prime beachside real estate. We had a buffet brunch as it came as part of the holiday package and that worked out well as the food was plentiful and delicious. I followed the holy trinity of breakfast brunch rules of course; full greasy English, followed by pastries, finished off with fresh fruits and juices to atone for the earlier unhealthy food sins.
With lunch and dinner, however... well, that was another matter entirely. I thought we'd fake it til we make it, pretending not to being poor teachers... after all they didn't know our professions! I could be some relation to some royal family keeping things on the d-low, an eccentric tech. billionaire who liked to keep it 'real' or someone suitably nouveau riche who was adjusting to being ‘new money,’ but that lasted only as long as I saw the drinks and food menu. The average mocktail cost the equivalent of £10 and a cup of something stronger considerably more. The food was about £25 to £30 for nothing too fancy and they didn't accept the Taste Card so we couldn't get 2 meals for the price of 1 we often enjoyed back in Blighty. I mean £22 for a lasagne, sans garlic bread I might add! I've never been so stereotypically east London Asian hood rat in my life but more than once I thought to myself, "For that I could get 3 Kennedy Fried Chicken buckets from opposite Barking Station, or if I'm feeling flash, a whole butterfly chicken, 2 sides, a fino side and a bottomless drink from Nando’s with change to spare."
So being the prudent folks we were, we snuck a few bread rolls ‘for later’ and I went and found the local mini-mart where I got some vittles that would help tide us over… nothing fancy, just the essentials like milk, cheese, crisps, noodles, biscuits etc… and tide us over it did! We were careful where we ate and what prices we paid, only paying for a buffet dinner on one night and ordering a single room service dinner each other night to save moolah but also because the restaurants didn't open until 7pm, our kids bed time when they were shattered after a day at the beach.
However, one afternoon whilst the family was sleeping, I was in the sauna by myself, cleansing my body and soul when I had a kind of epiphany... Why were Jeannie and I sweating the small stuff? We were being so very careful with our money as since we'd been married it had always been an issue, but no more of an issue than it is for most people living in England. As two teachers living and working in east London and then Kent most of our wages went on rent, bills and childcare. We had got into a mentality of frugality, which is no bad thing but it had kind of led to us being super careful all the time and not being able to enjoy the nicer things in life. Even now, when we were on holiday we felt guilty for ordering meals and drinks that would cost us over £50 in total. So, on the final night in Bahrain I bought that £10.60 strawberry mocktail that I’d been eyeing up on the menu but had been ordering the bitter lemon because it cost half as much, and even though it wasn't that tasty, metaphorically it was sweet.
Jeannie and I had a chat on the cabana enjoying our £20+ drinks, watching the night sky as our children watched a sub-par digitally animated cartoon on the projector on a grassy knoll as we decided that we would still be frugal but we needed to chill and not live like mendicant monks, foregoing all pleasures and joys in life.
The next day we had our final buffet brekkie and nabbed two bread rolls for the flight to Dubai ... Hey, I didn't say breaking the habit of a lifetime would be easy!