Causeway Links Saudi Asceticism With Freer Life Style of Bahrain

On a recent weekend night, the driveway in front of the Gulf Hotel looked like an expensive car showroom. A maroon Mercedes-Benz 1000 SEL with a golden steering wheel had seized the position of prominence from a Rolls-Royce and a Jaguar.

After months of economic doldrums, the hotel industry seemed to be on a roll. A closer look at the cars disclosed the reason: All but one of the expensive cars had come to this island from Saudi Arabia, and the exception was from Qatar.

Their owners had come for the liquor.

Inside, dozens of men dressed in conservative dish-dashas-- gray or white skirts with headpieces surmounted by black ropes--sat transfixed as a Scots piano player sang one of his homeland’s tunes. Almost mechanically, the audience hoisted whiskies and beers.

It has been nearly two months since the opening of the King Fahd Causeway linking Bahrain to Saudi Arabia, a 16-mile concrete ribbon that connects the island to the mainland and the ascetic Muslim world of the Wahabis in Saudi Arabia, where alcoholic drink is forbidden and women may not drive, with the relatively free-wheeling atmosphere of Bahrain.

“Traffic on the causeway has gone beyond anyone’s dreams or expectations,” said Tariq Moayyid, the island’s minister of information and tourism.

On the Muslim weekend, which begins here on Wednesday night and ends on Friday, Moayyid said, 10,000 to 25,000 people cross the bridge. About half are Saudis coming to Bahrain and the other half are mostly Bahrainis going to shop in Dhahran in Saudi Arabia.

Every hotel in Manama is now sold out on Wednesday and Thursday nights.

Moayyid said the causeway is attracting a lot of family business, but members of the staff at one leading hotel said the overwhelming majority of customers they see are single men.

Certainly, a major attraction is Bahrain’s liberal attitude about alcohol. Saudi Arabia, like many other conservative Muslim countries, bans alcoholic beverages because the Koran, the Muslim holy book, warns against wine in particular and excess in general.

There has been a rash of stories about Saudis getting drunk at the hotel bar and then drinking more in their rooms. A liquor shop that stocks the small refrigerators and mini-bars in hotel rooms said the island’s supply of miniatures has been exhausted.

“The Saudis want to have a beer or a whisky because they have been told it is bad,” one hotelier said. “It’s like the States during Prohibition.”

After suffering several weekends of misbehavior, one top hotel has stopped accepting walk-in business from Saudis. One inebriated Saudi lifted a woman guest’s dress in the hotel parking lot, a hotel official said, and another nearly drowned after passing out in a bathroom.

Bahrain at the weekend has taken on the atmosphere of a liberty port full of carousing sailors. A number of Bahraini and expatriate women said they are afraid to venture out in the evening, but it was not clear whether this was a reflection of their concern about receiving sexual approach from Saudis or drawing reproaches for driving and going about with their faces uncovered.

In addition to giving Bahrain’s economy a needed boost--its traditional banking sector has been hurt by the oil slump--the $1-billion causeway, which was paid for by the Saudis, is also helping Saudi businesses.

Because Dhahran is so much larger a market than tiny Bahrain and imposes no import duties, prices there are significantly cheaper for a whole range of goods. As a result, Bahrainis are flocking to Saudi Arabia for the weekend.

“Bahrainis fill up their gas tanks in Saudi Arabia, where gas is only a third of the cost it is here,” a diplomat said. “The gas alone pays for the bridge tolls, and everything there is so much cheaper.”

The bridge toll is currently two Bahraini dinars, or about $5. The trip takes an hour from Manama to Dhahran. In contrast, the 10-minute airplane flight is 35 dinars, or $85, and involves a couple of hours getting through the airports.

In Dhahran, cooking oil is 60% less than in Bahrain. Eggs, which are subsidized by the Saudi government, are less than half. On the whole, food prices are 25% less in Dhahran.

“There is no way we can compete,” Trevor Burrows of Bahrain’s Marhaba market chain lamented to the Gulf Daily News. “It is difficult to bring a village down to the prices of the big city next door.”

The Saudis also import huge quantities of watches and consumer electronics, which are heavily discounted.

“These days, you can’t sell a watch in Bahrain,” a diplomat said.

Moayyid said: “Some of the small businesses are hurting, but those who could lose have accommodated themselves. This could be a real boost for our tourist industry.”