Anyone ever been to the Middle East?

[rumguy]

I spent a few hours in Abu Dhabi, the capitol of the United Arab Emerites waiting for a connecting flight. I remember there was a big, ornately tiled dome in the airport that I found impressive. There were also some nice duty free shops...

[Taverner]

1. Cairo, Egypt for 2 days is all I can claim

Great place if you're a guy, I can see being intimidated if you're a woman.

[rumguy]

2. What was great about it?

[Taverner]

6. Oh yeah...

The pyramids were really fun...but the most bizarre thing was watching fundamentalist Islam co-exist (and not that peacefully) with "Decadent" Western Culture. And by that I mean rich Cairo women wearing tight jeans and miniskirts, watching MTV...

Cairo is interesting - definitely two worlds going on there...

[SmileyBoy]

3. I've been to Turkey and Cyprus, but that's it.

I've heard real good things about the UAE and Dubai in particular. I wish I could go to Dubai someday. That city is literally popping up out of the ground. The population there is booming. Nice skyscrapers too.

[arbusto_baboso]

4. Yeah, Kuwait and Iraq during Desert Storm....

The Arabs have a saying, "When God created Iraq, He started with Hell, then added flies." That's about got it covered.

The hospital in Bahrain was pretty nice, though.

[rumguy]

5. What's Kuwait like?

I always picture it being pretty modern, even Westernized to a great extent, and wealthy.

[arbusto_baboso]

8. Yeah, the urban portions are quite modern...

I just have a bad taste in my mouth about the Kuwaitis after learning from some of combat engineer buddies that they had to install gold-plated toilet seats in the repaired Kuwaiti palaces.

I don't care how nice your country is, if you use American soldiers as common laborers to fix your fuckin' palace, then your country is a shithole, and I don't care to ever go back to it!!

Sorry. End rant. But yeah, Kuwait isn't really too bad. But Bahrain is really the resort spot of the ME.

[NightTrain]

7. Middle East? You mean, like Delaware?

[El Supremo]

9. I worked in Sana'a, Republic of Yemen during a Spring.

Really interesting country. The closest thing to a true democracy in Arabia. I also visited the Hadramaut region where Bin Laden called home - excruciating heat. Never tried the qat - looked nasty. And I never got used to the call for prayer at the first light of sunrise.

[Catch22Dem]

10. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Jordan

Nice people everywhere. Just like here, ya know. You have your good people here you have your good people there. You have your assholes here, you have your assholes there.

I was impressed with Jordan. Very western. Very beautiful. I got to visit Petra while I was there.

Petra: