AA-Kuwait (1.13.26)

One constant on our trip, along with museums, was mosques.  For all of them, I draped a scarf over my head.  Some mosques required women to be completely covered.  Several women on our tour brought their own abayas (long, dark overcoats) with them.  On January 13, 2026, we flew from Doha to Kuwait, at the north end of the Persian Gulf.  The most iconic sight was the Kuwait Towers, but the mosque was also fascinating.

The mosques were often elaborately and flamboyantly decorated.  We mostly visited "grand mosques," which could house 1500 and more people.  Muslims pray five times daily, and the men are encouraged to make their prayers within mosques.  There are small mosques on nearly every corner in some of the cities.

One of the imams gave us the Islam 101 presentation.

As we flew into Kuwait City, the Kuwait Towers were clearly visible from the airplane.

The Kuwait Towers are water storage facilities, but they have also become tourist favorites.  

We had an interesting guide--an Englishwoman from Cornwall who had married a Kuwaiti and converted to Islam.  She bought the tickets for us to ascend the Kuwaiti Towers.  The photos of the present sultan and his son are ubiquitous in Kuwaiti buildings.

The views of Kuwait City and its coast were stuffing from within the Kuwait Towers.

A highlight of our day was a visit to the Tareo Rajab Museum.  It was a private house museum filled with treasures from throughout the Muslim world.  When Iraq invaded Kuwait in the 1990s, the owners of the museum created a false door.  They piled minor treasures outside the door to fool the Iraquis that they had discovered the treasures of the museum, when they hadn't even opened the real door.  

The first treasure was the huge, intricately carved metal door, itself.

The museum was filled with intricate armor, shields, and daggers.  The Arabs have been a warlike people, sending their missionary/conquerors throughout the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa.

My favorite treasures, though, were the case after case of silver jewelry.  The collection above once belonged to the emir of Bukhara, in Central Asia.

 

I also love ethnic clothes and textiles.

Guests in the Gulf States are served Arabic coffee from coffee pots like these.  I searched the souqs and brought home four of them as centerpieces for my Middle East dinners.

Before oil was discovered in Kuwait in the 1930s and developed in the 1960s, Kuwait was a sleepy place supported by dhow building and pearl fishing.  The natural pearl market collapsed in the 1960s when Mr. Mikimoto, in Japan, learned how to create cultured pearls.  Luckily, the Kuwaitis discovered oil, and Kuwait is one of the Gulf States with the most of it.

We learned about the pearl trade and about the boats that plied the Indian Ocean from Zanzibar to Mubai at the Maritime Museum.  The old photographs were one of the best parts.

Gulf States city people descend from the Bedouins who lived among the sand dunes of Saudi Arabia.  Bright Bedouin designs decorate many restaurants and other public places, and traditional weavers still favor them.

With Adventures Abroad, there is always time for one more sightseeing stop!  We lingered for a bit at the local fish market.  I saw varieties of fish that I had never seen before.