There was that time I went to Bahrain to take advantage of a flight connection on my way home from Nepal. I had left Nepal a few days early because I was exhausted from my time in the mountains and really struggled to get rid of an intense counghing. So I thought a few days in a warm country would do me good. Unfortunately it would turn out that getting home would become quite a challenge and a costly one that was!

With my plane ticket home already having a stop over in Bahrain, I decided to phone up the airline company to ask if I could still use the rest of my ticket home if I bough a one way ticket to Bahrain and left a few days earlier than planned. They confirmed that this would be no problem, so I went ahead. However, once I got to Bahrain in the middle of the night, I learned that "no, we do not have to care what a company representative from our Kathmandu office had told you while you were still in Nepal!". Because of course, now that I was actually in Bahrain, I was told that my entire ticket home was no longer valid. Now I admit, since I was exhausted from having been somewhat sick and with an injured leg for a week, and with it being in the middle of the night and me low on cash, learning that I had to pay in the area of 800EUR for a one way ticket back to Copenhagen, actually made me cry and phone home just so I could talk to a familiar voice. Yes, this is what long travel under challenging conditions and physical exhaustion can do to an otherwise normal backpacker. I eventually swallowed the pill and got my ticket. I hadn't been in bed for over 24 hours at the time, so I went straight to the cheapest hotel I could find to try to get some sleep. Unfortunately this for some mysterious reason was deamed impossible - my body wasn't up for sleeping, so I gave up on the idea. Now time to explore Bahrain since, heck I was now here anyway!

Prowling the streets of Manama, Bahrain taught me something I'm really grateful for today: that unlike what previous travel experiences had taught me, in some Islamic countries, you can most easily walk on the street without having to worry about getting too much attention or having to fight off aggressive touts. Yay! I felt so good walking around Manama, snapping pictures of every other building I came near.

At lunch time, I found a sushi restaurent. Yes, I know, sushi isn't exactly a classic arabic dish, but I was exhausted and just wanted something I knew I like - and in an unexpected way, it turned out to be quite an adventurous choise that I would come to regret terribly about 18 hours later!

Leaving Bahrain late that same evening, still not having slept (how was my body keeping me awake for about 40 hours by then?) and out 800 EUR I really hadn'y budgetted for, I was really looking forward to going home. But oh no, not yet, it would seem! With my new ticket I now had a stopover in Abu Dahbi, much to my annoyance, but I would only realise once there how much! By the time I got to Abu Dhabi, I just wanted to move on, but unfortunately, this would not happen. I boarded my next flight, this one to Düsseldorf, Germany (seriously, another stopover?!), but I didn't make that flight - while in my seat waiting to take off, I felt terrible. I had such an intense pain in my chest that I had to let the crew know, and they of course did not dare to let me fly, so I had to face reality and leave the plane to go see the airport doctor. After a short examination and a little talking, he wasn't worried about me any more though - those chest pains were just muscle pains from my intense weeks long coughing since I had left the mountains in Nepal (no kidding!). This meant they had to find a new plane for me to board - and this would prove not to be so straight forward, because apparently, at Abu Dhabi airport, the staff have about the attention span of a weed smoking teenager and the empathic capability of a an already dead lemming.

I was taken around the airport in a wheel chair at first, before they eventually dumped me next to a few chairs under a television not far from a counter and told me I would get a ticket for a new flight home any minute. Well, that was one bloody long minute, one that lasted over twelve hours all throughout the night, because, guess what, they kept forgetting about me - although they did try to put me on a flight to Sydney, Australia at one point, because now my real identity didn't even matter anymore! I had little ability to object to their incompetence at the time though, because by then the true adventurous effect of the Bahrain sushi was kicking in! Apart from the harmless but horrible muscle pains I now had to accept the fact that I had food poisening, which caused severe vomitting and diahrea (I won't get too graphic, I promise) for the entire reminder of the night and the next day. A rather unfortunate side effect of not being able to keep anything inside was not just hunger but also dehydration. By the time it became morning, I was so dehydrated I found it hard to move around, so I continously didn't make it to a bathroom when I had to vomit, making me grab the nearest bin more than once (okay, so now it got just a little graphic anyway - sorry!), to which the airport staff's only reaction was "not in the bin!" (really, that's your concern at the look of my current state?). Between my - let's call them "fell bad moments" - I sat in the wheel chair exhausted while whatching The Excorsist on the TV screen right above the seats (oh, what a fine choise for entertainment in an airport where passengers are waiting with their KIDS!). But at least I got to confirm that yes, it was possible to look worse than I felt I must have at the time. And also, my head didn't spin 360 degrees, so I suppose I could have been worse off.

In the morning I finally got my new plane ticket, now with another stop over in Paris, France (I couldn't even be bothered to sigh at the time), but at least I was going home - I thought. Well, I was told that due to me still being in a wheel chair a staff member would come to take me to the gate once it was time to start boarding. Being well aware that I was seriously dehydrated, but not wanting to let the staff know since I feared they would take me off yet another plane, I was glad to hear that they would at least help me get to the gate. But of course, SURPRICE, they never came, and by the time I was supposed to be boarding, I decided to give it a go and get up, get my bag and try to make it there on my own. I didn't feel like calling attention to myself, fearing I wouldn't be allowed to fly (not that there was much of a chance the airport staff would notice, it would seem!), so I moved slowly through the airport feeling like a zombie, desperately hoping I wouldn't vomit or collapse.

I made it to the gate, waiting to board while prying not to get sick until the plane had taken off. While onboard, I mananged to maintain my poker face right until the plane had taken off - and then it was back to being sick every 30 minutes! During the almost eight hours long flight to Paris, I drifted in and out of consciousness while continously being sick while awake. The cabin crew took really good care of me though, bringing me any sort of drink and food I could possibly get in my system, even though it was technically not included in the ticket price. But of course, with my luck our flight came to Paris late and I missed my connecting flight to Copenhagen. I Paris, I practically crawled over to the counter to ask to be put on another flight. The airport staff, noticing that I wasn't well (nice upgrade from Abu Dhabi standards!) took me straight to the airport doctor, who put me on a drop for a few hours because my dehydration at the time was becoming quite dangerous.

Eventually I was put on a plane back to Copenhagen and at the airport, and I was picked up by my dad and taken back to the town where I grew up (in the other end of the country!), because I couldn't go back to my own place which I had subletted for a few more days, not expecting to be back before time. I did of course have to also realise that my bag hadn't made it onto the flight from Paris (what else would I expect at this point?), so I left Copenhagen behind without any spear clothes and sleep for three continuos days, but at least glad to finally be home!