A friend posted this article today on FB and it made me laugh. Top 10 Sin Cities in the World
It turns out Manama is ranked at #2, behind the nastiest place in Thailand (Josh has plenty of stories of the horrific things he saw in Pattaya) and ahead of Amsterdam? The drug capital of Europe that brags about easy access to weed and hookers?
I wouldn’t have ranked Manama at #2, though there is plenty of ugly here. It tends to appear late at night when I’m tucked in bed like a grandma with my Judge Judy and my knitting.
It is true that Saudis come over by the thousands on the weekends. Their weekend is different than ours, so the crush begins on Wednesday nights. By Saturday things are back to being relatively peaceful, aside from our own local protesters and tire burnings.
The biggest issue with the influx of Saudis is they drive like everyone else on the road is beneath them and traffic laws don’t apply to them. Josh can always pick out a Saudi driver and then says, “See? KSA!” (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) as he points to the tell-tale letters on the license plate as the car speeds by, swerving in and out of the lanes and running red lights.
There is a saying that Allah can’t see over the bridge between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain so “what happens in Manama, stays in Manama” to paraphrase Las Vegas’ popular slogan. Thus, they feel free to come over here and drink, hook up with prostitutes, and even let their women drive cars. Nothing like a group of unlicensed women drivers on the road to make you feel like staying home.
Maybe I’m hanging out in the wrong (right) parts of town, but in my opinion, Vegas is WAY seedier. There’s no gambling here, a much smaller percentage of drunks staggering down the street and 99% of the women walking around aren’t falling out of their tops and their bottoms. If they are, you can be pretty sure they’re a prostitute.
From the article: