Kuwait

This weekend was a getaway to Kuwait. My Turkish friend and his wife has never been to Kuwait and he said that in Turkey it has a reputation as a luxurious place because Kuwait invests a lot of money in Turkey and wealthy Kuwaitis frequently travel there. I had not been to Kuwait in almost eight years so what the heck, we booked a flight and hotel maybe 10 days before we headed out. Not a smart move in hindsight, I contacted a Kuwaiti friend of mine to see if he was around and it turns out that weekend he was in Doha! Whoops. What were the odds.

So here is downtown Kuwait. This awesome picture was not by me, I took a picture of a picture posted at an exhibit in a mall (credit: Nasser AlOmari).

Kuwait, even though it has a lot of oil wealth, is not as flashy as the UAE and Qatar. There isn’t the tons of construction and big projects/developments like in Doha, Abu Dhabi or Dubai. At times you’re left wondering where the money is, but some have told me that Kuwait invests a lot more outside of the country rather than do all those mega- projects in the country. I suppose that makes sense given it wasn’t that long ago that Iraq invaded Kuwait, causing all sorts of chaos. I am glad though that Kuwait is considering expanding the airport, compared to the shiny airports in Doha, Dubai and Abu Dhabi the one in Kuwait needs to be upgraded.

One exception is a new mall called Avenues, which I think opened a few years ago. The place is HUGE, possibly as big or slightly bigger than Dubai Mall. Not surprisingly I think half of Kuwait was there, despite its size it was really crowded and it was difficult to find a table at any of the restaurants or cafes without waiting for a while.

Otherwise we hung out by the pool of the hotel or went to a few other places in the downtown area. It was too hot to spend a lot of time outside but since we were there only a couple of days it was easy to fill the time.