People and Friendship in a Kuwaiti Outpost

As is always the case, I don't tend to migrate to the sun and sand of mass tourist destinations — having never been to the North Coast, Sharm El-Sheikh, the Caribbean and with only brief visits to western Europe.

Kuwait was also a place I had never been before — it became the 62nd country that I have visited since 2005. It was in the region — making it a flight that I could sleep off in a couple of nights and spend less than LE 2,250.

The visit really was now or never, because in a couple months time temperatures start to hover above 40 degrees Celsius, and move up to greater than 50 degrees. In the summer of 2011, temperatures hit 59 degrees in one of the hottest places in Earth's sun belt. There is an unfortunate joke that peppers the conversations of expatriate workers in Kuwait — that the temperature is constantly kept by the weather station at 49 as all workers are ordered home once the 'official' temperature ekes up a degree.

When scoping out a place to visit, I often scan Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada,  an incredibly comprehensive website that immediately tells me about travel advisories on a four-point scale, the current security situation of populated cities, as well as laws and customs.

What I find most important, because I often ignore or am already aware of risks, are the visa restrictions and the required vaccinations — my body has received a plethora of live viruses and immunizations for thousands of Canadian dollars.

A search is possible for all recognized countries in the world but is incredibly important for travel in the Middle East, Africa and the Gulf because one can decipher whether entry is permitted if your passport contains an Israeli visa or evidence of a border crossing at Taba, Egypt or Eilat, Israel and Aqaba or the Allenby Bridge in Jordan. It also offers helpful tips for women and couples traveling with young children.

It was good that I had arrived on an empty stomach, because I was soon to find out that my Filipino hosts — Mike, Third and Kharee, like to eat. I was doing most of the talking, as I was peppered with questions on Canada, why I hadn't been to the Philippines and if I was going to get a fourth helping at the all-you-can-eat Fusion restaurant, the same chain that has locations in Giza and Maadi here in Egypt. Fusion, Kuwaiti style, is a cut above the rest. As most of the food and beverage industry employees are Filipino, I was assured by my unbiased hosts that I would be in for a treat. Several types of sushi, marinated duck, Japanese Teppynaki and chicken began to fill me. The buffet was KWD8 (LE 173) including tip and Mike took me back the next night.

So to burn off the constant feasts of Kuwait, over the next couple of days I made it a habit to join in the pickup basketball games on outdoor courts and the miniature football pitches of artificial turf whose players represented the United Nations of nationalities. All of the facilities were adjacent to the unimpressive beach, but still home to a memorable afternoon beach football match alongside a dozen Egyptians working in Kuwait. Our spectators included a pair of friends from Goa, India. It was Friday and the Cairenes welcomed me back the following week as they said they do so every week on their day off.

Now I had not played pickup basketball since the days of captaining my school's team to the city championship, so I decided to dust off the sneakers and see if I still had 'game'. I had still remembered how to perform a layup and shoot a decent jump shot, but I soon labored with players half my age to make it up and down the court each time and so I settled for being a defensive stalwart. The next night I made my way to the football pitch and bested Messi by scoring at least seven goals, I lost track after my Emirati friends, to be honest, stopped trying.

Fulfilling my Facebook duties in posting pictures of my trip, I foraged around the city snapping photos of the idiosyncratic and artistic side of Kuwait City. I also made sure to grab enough postcards for those back home in Canada, showing off Kuwait's impressive accelerated, vertical development — a skyline that I would nonchalantly see in the distance later.

But as you can tell from the hospitality I have been seeing, Kuwait was about the people, not the spectacle. It was about me conversing with a couple walking four of their dozen dogs imported from their ancestral home in Uttar Pradesh, India. It was about African Americans trash talking on the basketball court and calling touch fouls much to my chagrin. It was about three Filipinos that took me under their belt, stuffed my face and lost to me in billiards. In the end, exercising a 'high degree of caution', courtesy of my government's travel site, was lost on me. I had found my own Mecca in the sands of Arabia.

To find cheaper flight rates I used kayak.com and ended up flying Kuwait Airway, frountrips average at around $300 (LE 1,820). I also used Red Sea Travel in Dokki for bookings. Above all else, I had been able to go on CouchSurfing.org and find a Filipino host for the week that I would be there. There is also the footnote that traveling on a newly minted Canadian passport, I could obtain a tourist visa upon arrival for KWD3 (LE 65), les s than my later purchase of an Egyptian entry visa at $15 (LE 91).