Kuwait

With Kuwait, we had reached another of the “rich through oil”-Emirates of the Arabian Peninsula. 1.5 million of Kuwaitis live together with 3.5 million of foreigners, mostly in the capital, Kuwait City. Once a trading hub in the south of Mesopotamia, Kuwait now exploits its oil reserves.

Kuwait Towers – a landmark in the city

The tower on the right is 187 metres high and carries two spheres. The lower sphere holds in its bottom half a water tank of 4,500 cubic metres and in its upper half there is a restaurant. The top sphere has a revolving viewing platform with a café, where we went to enjoy the view. The second tower is 147 metres high and only serves as a water tower.

Scientific Centre

The heat during the day was close to 40 degrees, which made us look for places with aircon. Many museums were closed after lunch, but the Scientific Centre, which houses an aquarium and an IMAX cinema, was open. Of course, the aircon was so cold that we were freezing while watching a film about whales.

The exhibition about oil was highly recommended, had of course air-condition and was free. We went on a guided tour and learned a little bit more about the oil production.

After the occupation through Iraq in 1990-91, Saddam Hussein ordered to destroy all the oil wells of Kuwait, which resulted in 700 burning wells, an environmental catastrophe. Luckily the firefighters of Kuwait, together with teams from all over the world, managed to get all the wells under control again in just 9 months, a great achievement.

Kuwait City has a long and beautiful Corniche with many parking areas, beaches and restaurants. People start to arrive after 4 pm and in the evening everybody is enjoying the lower temperatures at the sea side.

Grand Mosque

The Grand Mosque of Kuwait was built in 1979-86, and doesn’t impress very much from the outside, but the inside is very beautiful, with the colours of sand and the sea dominating the interior. We got a guided tour and could visit the main prayer room for men and the reception area for special guests.

Beautiful decorated Mihrab
Copy of a special Koran, the original was written on leather pages
Reception area for illustrious guests

We had found a good place for the night outside the city centre, directly at the coast. The water was very muddy there, not enticing to go for a swim at all. But during low tide we could watch hundreds of Mudskippers, little fish which can move on land with their strong front fins and which can breathe through their skin, they only have to keep it humid.

Mudskipper
Especially the Western Reef-Herons were good in catching the little fish

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