7th November 2008, 21:45
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| BHPian  | An Eid Day Trip to Wafra, Kuwait An Eid day trip to Wafra Back in Kuwait from my vacation in Trivandrum on the 28th of September, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the 30th of Sep & 1st of Oct are Eid holidays. I was looking forward to 2 days of rest (after a hectic vacation  ) but my friend Biju had other ideas. He had been toiling alone in my absence & so he wanted to go out somewhere in the holidays. Ok, I said & the next question was where? Now, in Kuwait, the options as we know of now were pretty limited, so we decided on Wafra pretty fast.Wafra is a place in Kuwait close to the Saudi border. There are a large number of vegetable, poultry farms in & around Wafra. Also large number of sheeps & camels are reared in this place. Also Wafra is one of the places in Kuwait where you can find some greenery ( I am speaking in relative terms here). It is also the place which saw some major action during the Gulf War. The partners in crime: Me, Biju, Sooraj, Sreejith & Reddy. The vehicle ( I like this part): Our friend Sooraj's new Corolla. The preparations started on the 30th itself. As it was a holiday, we decided to take food along with us. The next question was - What food to take? After a lot of discussion, finalised on Chappathi & Porotta with Chicken Curry. No confusion in preparing the food, we declared my friend Biju as the Chef in Charge & with a little (with the emphasis on the "little") help from us, the Chicken Curry was ready in the night itself. We bought the Chappathis & Porottas from outside as it would have been a little too much for our Chef in Charge. So we were all set to go to Wafra the next day. It was decided that we will leave early morning at 6.30 from our accomodation in Salmiya. But due to the lazy bones among us ( I am not mentioning who) the trip started at 7.15 AM. First we went to Fahaheel to pick up Reddy. On the way we saw an accident that must have occured about 30 minutes before. The SUV had jumped across two dividers & was lying on the roadside with its front end completely mangled. The vehicle must have been doing around 200 kph to have got to its present position. Rescue personnel were already on the scene carrying the injured in stretchers to ambulances. What a sight to start a trip! I thought in my mind. No, no photos of the accident. I didn't want the first photo of the day to be that of an accident. Anyway we reached Fahaheel around 7.45 & picked up Reddy who was waiting for us there. One thing you we will find in Kuwait are lots of good & exotic cars as well as good roads ( I am snapping pictures of the various cars here, but that's food for another thread). Soon we were doing a constant 120 kph with the occasional 140 & 160 kph on the Expressway to Saudi border. The Corolla felt rock steady at these speeds. May be due to the good roads as well. 120 kph  160 kph  Soon I had my first camel sighting since I came to Kuwait.  Porta Cabin   These are photos of the Porta Cabin, short for Portable Cabins. They are complete with all facilities like work space, water tank, air conditioners, etc. They are used for working at remote locations. Note the air conditioners fitted on the two sides. After some more time, we got off the expressway & took the two lane road to Wafra. This road was also a beauty with the road snaking ahead of us.  Some more camel sightings   Reddy said that during December & January, people came out to these areas & put up camp in the desert & have campfire & spend the night in tents. We all agreed that it would be an experience not to be missed & noted this one for a future trip. We reached Wafra around 9.30. The scenery changed from desert on both sides to greenery with farms & green houses spread across the land. Greenery in the middle of the desert  Green Houses  On the way we saw a farm with well maintained lawns & trees even on the outside.  We tried to see if there was any security there so we could ask for a tour of the farm, but could find no one. So we had to satisfy ourselves by shooting photos from outside. Me (leaning on the car) & Biju with the Corolla  By this time every one was feeling the pangs of hunger. Sooraj & Reddy knew of a malayali hotel (not surprised, are you?) near the Wafra market. We decided to buy some hot tea from the hotel to go along with the Chappathi & Chicken Curry. There were roads crisscrossing the entire area. Sooraj was driving the Corolla now with Reddy donning the navigator role. After some confusion regarding which road to take, we finally reached the place with the help from some locals (fortunately for us Reddy was quite fluent in Arabic). We ordered tea from there & started scouting for a good place with some shade to have the food. On the way we saw a place with some shade. Sooraj slowed the car down & parked the car by the side of the road. This is what happened.  Yep! The car got stuck clean & proper in the sand.  Stranded!  Sooraj tried to reverse the car out of the sand, but it didn't work so he told us to push the car from the front. Immediately me, Biju & Sreejith tried pushing the car, but save for the fact that we were jumping around like monkeys holding our hands, nothing much happened. You see, that is what happens when people don't take into consideration the effects of the hot (as in real hot) Middle east Sun & the heat from the engine on the bonnet can do to one's skin. Reddy was giving directions from the back, so he was spared. After a round of the choicest swear words from me & Biju (Jith is a comparatively gentle soul), we waited for some SUV to haul us out of our predicament. Many vehicles passed us, but no one stopped to help us. Finally an Indian (from Andhra) in an SUV towed us out of the sand. We offered him our thanks. He was working in a farm nearby. We offered him some money also but he didn't accept the money & only asked for some water. After drinking the water he bid goodbye to us. Now our hunger pangs returned with greater intensity & all of us agreed that maybe having food in the car itself was the best option. Suddenly Reddy said that he remembered a mosque nearby where we could have food "aaram se". We sped to the place & it was just as Reddy said. A nice, calm, well maintained place where we gorged on the food. All of us gave full marks to our Chef in Charge, Biju who was very happy with the result. A special mention should be made of the care taker who allowed us to have food there. He had only one request, not to go inside the Prayer hall, which we all respected. He was a Kashmiri & said he was in Wafra for more than 6 years. He said that we had actually come at a wrong time as all the farms would be closed for Ramadan & the Kuwaitis will be there in the farms with their families. Now we understood why all the farms were closed. Well, that left the farm tours out of the question. The mosque where we had our food  Hogging time!!  After thanking the helpful caretaker, we were on our way to Saudi border. Once we got out of Wafra, the landscape again became arid & the only things to be seen were transmission towers & power cables. In between, Sooraj was cautioning us from taking photos in some areas as photography was prohibited in many areas along the road. After reaching the Saudi border (I don't have any photos of the border as my friend was a little paranoiac with us taking photos & was probably right also. So we refrained from taking any) we decided to head ourselves to the sea side. We took a detour along the sea side. we saw many beautiful villas along this route.  This one was very beautiful, with a nice view of the sea. We asked the security whether we could go inside. Again the answer was that the Kuwaiti family was inside enjoying the holidays, so no one was allowed inside. We continued our journey & suddenly there was this Beemer in front of us. I think it was the X6 coupe but it was gone before I could see it clearly.  We drove to Fahaheel as we had to drop Reddy there, but not before we took some photos by the sea side. By this time it was afternoon & it had become really hot outside. So we didn't stay long there. After the photo shoot, we dropped Reddy & headed back to Salmiya. On the way back, we had another impromptu photo shoot on the beach. Biju, Sooraj (standing), Jith & Reddy (sitting)  Finally around 3.30 PM, we reached our accomodation in Salmiya. The odo had clocked around 340 kms. Although we couldn't get into any farms & our vehicle got stuck in the sand, all of us really enjoyed the trip. As for the things that we couldn't do during this trip, there is always another time & another travelogue. Hope you guys enjoyed this one day triplog. Bye! |
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7th November 2008, 23:34
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| Senior - BHPian  Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Jaipur
Posts: 1,194
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8th November 2008, 02:43
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| Senior - BHPian  | |
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9th November 2008, 22:01
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| Team-BHP Support   | Nair, good to see another travelogue from you. Simple and sweet, is the trip, and your description of it. Kuwait outskirts look the same as other Middle Eastern countries, which isnt surprising. There's nothing like a trip and picnic with friends, and some adventure to add to it. |
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9th November 2008, 22:27
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| Senior - BHPian  Join Date: May 2007 Location: Vadodara
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9th November 2008, 22:36
| #6 |
| Senior - BHPian Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: N.A
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| Thanks for the writeup, Nutty. Fahaheel, Wafra, Salmiya - these places bring back memories of time spent in Kuwait. During those days there was only one 'Veg' restaurant and one had to drive all the way down to Fahaheel (okay, 40 kms) to have dosa/idli at the Udupi Restaurant there. So you live in Salmiya? "Near Eeddi Stores", I guess  |
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9th November 2008, 23:29
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10th November 2008, 09:31
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| Senior - BHPian Join Date: May 2007 Location: Vadodara
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| Quote:
I went to Toyota Kuwait website. There are interestingly two motors available in Toyota Corolla. The car is similar to " Altis " sold in India. Toyota Cars Kuwait | Corolla The two motors are : 1) 1.6 ltr, 107 bhp 2) 1.8 ltr, 130 bhp. Still amazed by the high gearing. If it comes to India with this gearing in an additional gear, then it will very efficient mile muncher. | |
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