The Kuwait Trip: Feb 24, 2005

Ok, well it's been about a week and I am just catching up on the homework I didn't do while basking in the Kuwaiti sunlight but I am still going to take some time out to write to everyone. I had a ton of fun in Kuwait, on both a tourist and political science level. Might as well use the timeline method

Feb 24, Thursday, Day 1.

I arrived at the airport in Kuwait, a very nice airport, and set about finding my rental car agency and an ATM. I found the agency with not too much difficulty and got the process started. The ATM was a little harder to find. When I did eventually find it I tried to pull out 200 Kuwaiti Dinars, to find that I didnt have enough money in my account for that. Then I tried 100 KD. Not enough $. At this point I began thinking "This whole trip could go terribly wrong if I can only pull out 10 dinar." Finally I tried 50 KD and it was approved. Sigh of relief. Then I asked the car dude, "so what's the exchange rate anyway." Answer: "oh, $3 to the 1 KD. I almost choked. Then I realized that it was a very very good thing I couldn't pull out 100 KD cause $300 is definitely too much money for a weekend. $150 ain't so bad. So finally everything gets sorted out and I get my car. My own private car. I realized when I got in that I had complete control over my destiny the moment I got the keys to that car. It felt great. The car was a compact 2 door, but it actually did have a backseat. This was key since the car, apart from getting me around, was my hotel. Yes. I said it, and did it. I slept in the back of a rental car in Kuwait across the street from the ministry of the interior for three nights.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

So after I drive out of the airport into town using some pretty ghetto maps and screaming at the top of my lungs with joy, I settle down and begin hunting for a shopping mall. I eventually end up on the corniche, the main road in Kuwait city which runs along the "arab Gulf" (at one point it turns into "Arab Gulf Street") It was pretty easy to get around on the main streets since all the signs were in English and arabic. The sides streets were a little trickier, being only arabic (but apparently that year and a half of arabic instruction worked cause I did get around). All the big malls were along the corniche. I first stopped off at a fish market, and then I found the bigger mall and went there. I ate at Mcdonalds for 1.4 KD, essentially 5 dollars, and then asked around till I found a kid you took me to a super-market. There I bought the essentials, kleenex and a map. I tried to also buy a Kuwaiti National team soccer jersey, but they didn't have one. This later became one of the most challenging endeavors of my trip, which is odd since one would think that on the weekend of Kuwaiti Liberation day every store and its mother would be selling the national team soccer jersey, but alas, this was not so.

Oh yeah, did I mention that I inadvertently visited Kuwait on the same weekend as Kuwaiti liberation day. This was a complete, but pleasant, accident on my part. It did cause me a whole lot of trouble though. After getting my map I decided to go on a hunt for the US Embassy so that I would know where to go if I had any real problems. Unfortunately I started my search late and got caught up in the National Liberation traffic.
This requires some explanation. Apparently on Kuwaiti Liberation day everyone in Kuwait buys foamy cans of soap spray and then gets in their cars, stick their Kuwaiti flags out the window, and drive along the corniche. This essentially means that for this specific weekend every single Kuwaiti citizen is driving on the corniche, in front of me, trying to spray each other with soap spray.
Well, I didn't know this at the time so I just thought I got some bad luck with the traffic. Eventually I did get out of it and found the US embassy. At first I tried to get in the wrong way and after checking my Passport they told me to go to the visitor lot, but it was all closed anyway since it was about 1 am. After that I didn't really have anything to do so I just went back to the corniche. This is when I had my first run in with a Kuwaiti. I was on the corniche with open road in front of me and cars on either side of me. I looked to my right and that guy was looking at me so I figured he wanted to race me. I thought that was kinda funny so I laughed, but drove away with no real intention of racing him. I made a uturn and drove into the parking lot of the first Mall I had gone to (Called Souq Shark, which means East Market). The guy followed me in. I parked my car and he drove past me and figured, whatever. But then he came back. He drove up next to me and, all smiles, said hi. Now one must understand that at this point I knew nobody in the country, I was trying to meet people since that's what traveling students do, and I was thinking maybe I could scam a couch out of somebody instead of sleeping in my car. However, I don't think that's what this guy had in mind. He invited me to TGIFridays (at 3 in the morning) and I didn't refuse at first. He offered to drive me in his car, but I was starting to get a really creepy vibe from the guy, so I said no. At this point he was out of his car and standing at my window and he asked if he could sit in my car. I said yes to not be mean, and I figured better my car than his. Eventually I realized that this dude, who lived with his family, was most likely Gay and probably hitting on me. When this dawned on me I began saying no to everything and implying in no uncertain terms that I wanted to sleep, and in the back of my car. He finally got the hint and got out of my car, but he turned before closing the door and asked "so you sleep only (meaning alone)?" I almost screamed "YES for the love of god!" but I think I got that across anyway and he told me to call him the next day at around 8am so he could show me around the city. Now it is possible that he was just being a kind hearted guy, but I switched parking lots the moment he was out of sight cause I didn't want him finding me before I could get the hell out of the city. So I went down the street a little ways and slept in front of the Ministry of the Interior.

Feb 25, Friday, Day 2

sleeping was rough the first night, but if anyone has ever seen me sit in a chair or sleep before, you know that I have a tendency to contort my body in strange ways, so eventually I worked it out. The best part of waking up was really not having to wait or consult anybody and I got on the road real fast. My first stop was the Saudi border in the South. I hit the road filthy. Eventually and found a Burger King and stopped in to wash my face and eat breakfast. Fast food restaurants are very good for this since they usually have clean bathrooms. After that I struck out for the border at 150kph. One thing to note here is that rental cars in the Middle East, so far, have this setting where if one drives to fast, say over 120kph, it beeps at you. This had happened to me in Jordan, but the difference in Kuwait was that I didn't have any passengers. That meant I just rolled down the windows and turned the radio up, thereby drowning out the loud, annoying, painful beep with louder less piercing sounds:)
Along the way I saw signs for a US military base. Every corner of Kuwait has a Major road to it which runs past a major US military base. A little further on and ran into a convoy of busses carrying American soldiers, probably coming back from Iraq. It had been my plan to see if I could get onto a US base and chill with some soldiers so naturally I was very happy to see these guys, apart from just loving the US army (as I was driving a Black Hawk flew overhead as well and I suddenly felt very nostalgic for America). Well, since every soldier in the Buses had his M-16 right next to him I figured it would be a good idea to identify myself so I whipped out my BLUE Passport and stuck it to the passenger window of my car. When the soldiers saw I was an American citizen who actually liked them, that I was one person looking at them and smiling, one person who didn't wan to kill them, they lit right up. They were all smiles and seemed pretty happy to see me. I ended up following them onto their base and ended up talking to a security guard. He was a very nice guy and he thought it was pretty funny that I was there. He told I wasn't supposed to be there though and that they had to get the MPs and stuff, but I was so cooperative the guy just figured I wasn't there to do any harm just turned me around. I think being from Hawaii helped to cause they just thought that was the funniest thing they had ever seen. If a crazy Hawaiian on the other side of the planet from his home drove onto your military base, what would you do? I never got to talk to the guys on the Bus cause they turned onto a side road and I just left, not wanting to get the nice guard in a bunch of trouble because he let me go and I started driving all over the friggin' military base. So I continued onward to the Saudi border. I got there, and there wasn't much to see. I talked to one of the border guards and he made fun of the fact that I was speaking Fusha formal arabic, which I thought was pretty funny cause he could actually speak it. After getting my Saudi border picture and went back north.
Along the way I did have one major success. I found Dune Buggies. Apparently they're everywhere in Kuwait and I got to ride one for 2KD for a half hour. I even got he guy to film me driving around (of course, when he was filming was the one time I crashed the thing, flip it on its side and went rolling across the desert:). That was great fun since I had been trying to find Dune Buggies in the middle East for awhile. I found Jet Skis too, but the guy said it was too cold still. PAH!
So after that I just went back the city.
In the city I went on another Mall hunt and found a Virgin Mega store, but unfortunately all the merchandise was coded for Middle Eastern stuff so I could use it, say on my American Xbox. PAH! I also wondered around the whole mall looking for a Kuwaiti Jersey, and they didn't have one. They had british ones, but no Kuwait. Apparently Kuwaitis like rooting for winners, at least that's what the Philipeno shopkeepers kept saying.
Oh yeah, on that note, most of the store workers were from South East Asian and spoke better english than the Kuwaitis. In fact, just about everyone spoke english, but the philipenos especially spoke it well, and they had the same accent as people back home, so for a little while I actually felt quite comfortable cause I was the only white blond guy in a sea of Asians as opposed to a sea of Arabs.
The other homey thing about the mall was that I bought a Grande Chocolate Crème Frappachino (introduced to me by my cousin Nava, who's a genius) at a Starbucks at one end of the mall, and by the time I finished it I had walked to the other side of the mall... and there was another Starbucks. I love Starbucks.
After that I tried to go hunting for more sports stores, but neither sports store nor sports centers had that jersey. I did find a pharmacy though, and got some hand sanitizer and Listerine strips. Handy stuff.
By this time it was getting late and I knew the streets were going to be packed so I decided I would relax the rest of the day and go to the Kuwait Towers. These things are huge spires with round balls on them, one of which is a restaurant and one was an observation deck. The restaurant was fun since I was the only person in it for the majority of my time there and the waiters were cool guys. That's when I got the full skinny on the Liberation weekend. The buffet was amazing and I absolutely stuffed my face, especially since that one meal cost me about a fifth of my trip funds. After eating I went up to the observation deck and filmed the corniche below for a little bit. I also bought some hilarious anti-Saddam, pro-Bush t-shirts (the Kuwaitis love Bush x2) and mailed some postcards home. After that I filmed some pictures of the damage wrought on the towers by the Iraqi "Barbarian invaders" (who could apparently put chairs on tables, but were unable to actually destroy the towers). Then I went back down to the restaurant and read my History of Iraq textbook (which has a picture of Saddam on the front) until the place closed and they kicked me out. Then I went back to my parking lot and crashed.

Feb 26, Saturday, Day 3

I slept a little better Friday night and on Saturday I was ready to hit the road. The mission for today: Iraqi border. And I got there. As fast as I could drive. I only traveled in the mornings too since nighttime is kinda dangerous in Kuwait, especially outside the city (and sometimes inside, although no one seemed to bother the bum in the back of the rental car). The drive north was interesting. There was one checkpoint, but no one stopped me so I just kept going. I passed some military convoys going North (American pretty much owns Kuwait outside of the city) and got to the border in good time. I took a picture of one sign I saw which said:

<-------
Baghdad

I went straight.

I got out my video camera, but I was very discreet since it didn't seem like the kinda place to be taking pictures. I did get a few though. I also saw this biker dude doing the same thing as me. I eventually got some gas and drove out of there, but as I was driving away I realized I was hungry, and there was a food place called "Texas Chicken" right next to the road to Baghdad, so I decided to try there. I ran into the biker guy there again and it turned out he was a British school teacher in Kuwait. He was taking pictures of the military convoys driving by (including some Brits) when a Hummvee of American troops yelled out "We got a guy taking pictures over here!" I decided not to take out my camera. Eventually a Kuwaiti security guy drove up in a mini-van and the British dude had to erase some of his pictures (but not all of them). I didn't try to chat with anyone else, and Texas Chicken was closed. I drove like a bat out of hell getting away from that all too serious little border crossing. I have never driven that fast for that long before.
When I got back to Kuwait city area I stopped at a little Kuwaiti restaurant, washed up and ate a little and then proceeded to drive as fast as possible to the Iraqi-Saudi-Kuwaiti border in Western Kuwait, as I was apparently completely unphased by the last border.
Along the way I saw a couple military bases and a lot of trucks moving about. The biggest US base I saw was in the Western desert. I drove past it this time and continued on to the border. Now, since I am still in school I decided it would be good, while gallivanting around the Kuwaiti countryside, to study some vocab words from my Arabic of the News Media class. When I got to the border I just left them on my seat and got out to film a little. I filmed the border and a little bit of the desert where I thought Iraq was. The border crossing itself actually went to Saudi, not Iraq. after filming a little I got back in my car and then went and parked it in a little lot. I got out with my video camera and went trotting off towards the border to see if maybe I could talk the guards into letting me into Saudi and then back into Kuwait, just so I could say I did it. Unfortunately the Kuwaiti border security Henchmen were on the prowl! One of the leading Henchmen caught me with my video camera and promptly ordered me to follow him. He walked with a very determined stride, one which brokered no nonsense. However, he was skinny and funny looking and barking up the wrong tree. He took me into the office and they all started questioning me. I gave the passport and told them I didn't take pictures of anything except some desert. This wasn't strictly true, but if I had told them the innocent little things I had taken pictures of, US bases, Iraqi borders and their own border crossing, they would have confiscated all the film for my entire trip, which I wasn't about to let happen. After a while of them wondering out loud in Arabic if I could understand them they went out and searched my car. It occurred to me that my Arabic vocab words were out in the open and they might cause a ruckus if the Henchman found them. He did. And it caused a ruckus. Let me enlighten you with a few examples of the words I was studying at that time

martyr
bomb
gun
grenade
killing (three different words for it)
explosive package
killed
missile
armed clash
battle
settlement
to blow up

So when he saw this henchman realized he had found the TERRORIST of the MONTH and thought he was going to get a raise, or something. After that he watched my film and his in depth investigative techniques paid off when he saw I actually had filmed the little booths where they check the passports and the chest high border fence. I realized that I wasn't going to have any problems when one of the slightly higher ups said to one of his higher ups, in arabic, that I hadn't filmed anything but "shae 'dee" (roughly transcribed) which means 'normal stuff'. They then sent me and henchman to the real authority in the area, the Kuwaiti military. While he was explaining the situation I was trying to think of the best pose to be in to make the situation seem the MOST ridicules, so I got down on my haunches (ya know, not on your butt, but with your knees up in your chest and only your feet on the ground, no knees) and started fiddling with something on the ground. The officers looked down at me, asked me if I was a student, if I was a American, too which I nodded, and they promptly threw me out of the border and scolded henchmen for being a nincompoop. Needless to say henchmen wasn't too happy (he was just doing his job) and they let me go without taking my film or charging me the $5000 dollar fine for taking pictures in an International Zone.

After hauling it out of there I went to visit Camp Victory, the US base in the area. I was a little worried at first that they might take my camera, but eventually I just drove onto the base. The first checkpoint had three people at it. A stereotypical white private with a little country drawl, a female duty officer, and a slightly older guy running the gate. I drove and said hi to the guy and showed him my passport. He got a kick out of the fact that I was a Hawaiian and thought it was hilarious that I had driven onto a US military base in my rental car. I asked him if they had a cot I could sleep on for the day as I had been sleeping in the back of my car, and he laughed and said he would ask the boss but that they probably wouldn't let me on base. As he walked over to the booth I heard him saying, "Well, we got a real character here. He IS, A US citizen from Hawaii..." I saw her shake her head and then he told me no, but that I could drive up to the next checkpoint, get searched and then turned around. I said sure, I'll go say hi, and he told the gate dude I wanted to go get searched. The gate dude said "He's entitled to that." And I responded "I am?" Then I drove up to the next checkpoint and a bunch of the soldiers just stared at me either in disbelief and suspicion. They eventually turned me around, but I had to wait for a convoy to drive by so I got to chat with one of the guards for a bit. He said there were still terrorists in Kuwait and that some of the convoy guys were going North (Basra, Baghdad) and he wouldn't elaborate much further, and I didn't press him. Eventually they let me pass and I continued on my marry way. They didn't search me because by then they had realized I was about as non-threatening as anyone could possibly be, but I still got the feeling, at least from these guys, that, although they thought it was funny that I was there, it was a little weird. I mean, these guys were probably in Iraq, or had friends there, or knew people who died there. All this supposedly to protect little ole me so I could drive around foreign countries and sleep in parking lots. Strange world we live in.
After that sobering experience I decided to go have some juvenile fun and get involved in the soap spraying on the corniche in celebration, oddly enough, of the great soldiers of the US military. But first, I had to find that soccer jersey.
So I went back to the sports center. It was closed at first, so I took the time to buy supplies for the coming street battle: soap spray and an American flag (I already had a Kuwaiti flag). Once the sports center opened they told me they didn't have it, but one guys did know a place to go. It was in the same neighborhood that the creepy guy from the first night lived in. I drove there in terror that I might have to talk to the guy, but I didn't run into him and I eventually found the store. Turns out this guy was almost completely out and that he was the guy who actually made the jerseys for the Kuwaiti national team... let me say that again. The only place in Kuwait I could find the Jersey for their NATIONAL SOCCER TEAM DURING LIBERATION WEEKEND was at the ACTUAL suppliers store...which was actually pretty cool cause he made one for me right there (which involved a hot plate and a sticker on the front of a blank blue jersey...go figure). After getting two shirts, one for me and one for my buddy, I went to the corniche. At first I tried driving and spraying people, but that just got me and my car sprayed a whole lot with my American flag. Then my car began to overheat. I guess sitting in traffic wasn't doing it a whole lot of good. I pulled off the street and me and some random guy outside the "Center for Telekinesis and Telepathy" tried to open the hood for 15 minutes. I couldn't figure it out, so I just got back on the road and went to look for a gas station. When I was moving it wasn't a problem. I didn't find a gas station but I did inadvertently run into the huge informal car repair market. I ended up pulling into some place run by a bunch of Pakistani guys and they started going at my car. They popped open my hood in about 2 seconds, and then started trying to open my engine block. They took the little plastic label off the engine, which was nothing but a plastic label, and then proceeded to superglue it back on. Eventually they figured out that my fan was broken. After several attempts to overheat my car to test their hotwiring of my fan, they told me I needed a new fan and that if I left the car with them they could fix it by the next day for 25 KD. Since it was a rental car I had absolutely no intention of paying for that so I just left. I figured I could just park the car near the corniche and just walk down it to TGIFridays, spraying people as a I went. So that's what I did. I strolled down the road with my camera, Kuwaiti and American flags and sprayed people as I went. I got a good spraying myself (which was great since I hadn't showered in three days and stuff was basically soap anyway), and then ate a nice salad and burger at TIGF, and then got back on the road. I ran into some Afghanis on the way and they saw my flag and were crazy happy to see me, which I thought was pretty cool. I had a lot of fun spraying people and getting sprayed and eventually, when I had run out of ammo and was one block away from my car, I met some young entrepreneurs out selling ammo in the street. While negotiating price, I just asked em if I could get into their van. They said sure. After they realized I had no money the just gave me a free can. Apparently these kids were elite Kuwaitis who had lots of money anyway and they were just out having fun. We eventually got to the end of the street and the driver almost ran over a cop. They pulled us off the road, but the kid called his three-star general friend and the problem disappeared. Then they invited me to Sheesha. Once I get the sheesha invite, I can't refuse, and Sheesha is always a great way to meet people. I ended up hanging out with these kids and their friends at their sheesha place. I found out they were Kuwaiti Shi'ites and I had a great conversation with them about politics (they loved Bush, and they loved everything America did, except Israel. NOt even the Kuwaitis support us on Israel. Nobody supports us on Israel). After getting their email address and dispersing they offered to drive me back to my car, but first they demanded to drive me to the East Market and buy me a bunch of candy and some water for my trip. I tried to refuse, but they said arab hospitality demanded it. So after that they drove me to my car. They saw where I was parked, out front of the law center, and suggested that I sleep, in my car, on the other side of my parking lot. As I was getting out I told them if they ever came to Hawaii they could stay with me........in my house......

Let me explain a little more...

Kuwaitis apparently get $4000 for getting married to other ethnic Kuwaitis. After 5 years of marriage they get a interest free $75000 loan to buy a house. A couple weeks ago the Amir of Kuwait gave every Kuwait citizen $450 for absolutely no other reason than that he wanted to. These kids were all rich, they didn't pay taxes and they had connections with three-star generals. I don't wanna ask for too much, but it would seem, if you're going to be hospitable and pay for my sheesha and buy me some candy you could, at the very least, lend me couch to sleep on....

However, I understand that paying for someone's food and letting some crazy random foreigner stay in your house. All in all those guys were pretty cool and staying in my car that night wasn't so bad.

feb 27, Sunday, Day 4

Before I get started on Day 4 I need to mention that I visited some museum on the Iraqi occupation and it was a lot of fun. Lots of pro-west, anti-Iraqi propaganda. There was also a new section on the most recent Iraq invasion and where they found Saddam and stuff. They also had a brass bust of Saddam which the US soldiers donated to the Kuwaitis and I got to step on it.

Ok, Day 4, not much happened. I returned the car and found out I had driven over my Kilometer limit, which I didn't know I had, and had to pay something like $400. Besides that everything worked out well. I got to my gate way to early but luckily I had all those snacks those guys had bought me so I didn't starve:)

That wraps up my Kuwait trip. I'll hopefully be in Bahrain this weekend and hopefully I'll get an email out about that and it will be just as entertaining:)

Lots a love
Sam King