Immediately below is a photographic walk through one of the world's least discovered trips. Below the photos is a more detailed, written account of the route.
Regardless, I still hurried eagerly over for some, now clean, tameez (a flat bread, like a pizza base) and fool (mashed fava beans and tomatoes) and as I entered, the eyes of the baker burst wide open with undisguised lust. He was soon informing me that he was Pakistani Taliban and the only country he didn’t love was America, all the while playing with his pants’ package, tugging at it and jiggling it about in his hand, weighing it up with a big smile on his face. Mental note: buy airline ticket, quick.
To make The Magnificent Journey That Not Many People Know About possible you have to get to Schipol Airport, Amsterdam under your own steam, because that is where it begins. Don’t worry - it’s a global hub.
My getting-there trip was a 3pm taxi to al-Khobar then a 6pm limousine service (bog-standard Toyota, albeit with tinted windows) to Bahrain Airport all provided by the airline, KLM.
Impatient to leave the sand, as well as to escape from gay religious fanatics, we got in the limo, drove 50 metres down the road to a mosque where the Pakistani driver stopped, got out and went for sunset prayer. I stood about on the street, smoking.
When the driver had finished winding me up, we got underway, again, and were soon crossing the causeway, calm waters below, free of cars as the Saudis awaited their salaries, spare cash immediately blown on Devil’s Island the moment the last paycheck had arrived. End of the month blues meant an easy crossing.
We zipped through immigration and were therefore early. So I drank Guinness and whisky in Diggers’ Bar, downtown Manama, not a riot in sight, got irritated by the scrum of desperado Chinese hookers (there must have been 3 women to every man in there), met up with the limo driver, who had been internetting with his family, and then whizzed off to the airport in Muharraq, the driver giving me an expert, matter-of-fact account of the island's sex trade on the way. I drank some more in the airport's Sky Bar and staggered on board at 10.30pm.
Abetted by this cunning sleeping device, I snored through the flight and stepping off, vaguely refreshed at 6am, the journey truly began when passport control (magic new, fast-track self-scanning machines for EU citizens) was cleared, then outside to cool, fresh North Sea air and the sun coming up alongside coffee, croissant and cigarette.
From there, it's an escalator ride to the platforms and only 15 minutes to Amsterdam Centraal on frequent trains. Fields were frozen, trees encased in frost, sparkling in the dawn, beneath the mist; temperature minus five without chill factor. Mental note: buy gloves.
It is indescribably pleasant to stretch the legs in Amsterdam, especially at that spacious time of day, through the tunnel, past Moonflower florist’s, out onto the big grey concourse, due south across the tram tracks, over the canal bridge and into Damrak, where 70 metres down, on the right, past the Victoria Hotel, you turn into Haringpakkers Steeg, with the pink bicycle on the corner, where neon-lit Prix D’Ami coffee shop will almost bump into you and will pull you in at journey’s end.
Enjoy! Some time or other!
PS. An hour later, as I sat there, gawping at space, the cafe slowly filled up and this song came on ...