Residents are very familiar with what happens in Bahrain mid December, but anyone who has visited the Island at this time will be very aware of the swathe of red and white lighting and decorations which adorn the island for National Day (December 16th). It is also no secret that the lights stay up until after New Year. So many could easily be swayed into the misconception that the lights are indeed ‘Christmas decorations’. Oh really? Of course, it is a tradition here and you would be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn’t relish the whole Christmas thing. Bahrain is one of the very few Muslim countries which embraces Christmas with such vigour.
This short sequence is a bit of a mish-mash and was not expected to be so well received. As is, many comments on social media and thousands of hits on Facebook, it was decided to post it on www.whodoeswhat tv.
The story: The Ritz Carlton Hotel tends to light up for National Day (by default) and this year (2016) went big time by covering the long drive to the hotel lobby ramp. ADmaze Media was already at the hotel covering a local chef competition (a two day event – Dec. 13 & 14 – where 12 wannabe chefs go up against each other and the winner gets a trip to the London Ritz – more on that after the edit). Of course, the set up and striking of the set took another two days of our time, so we were there very late into the night.
The Marketing department approached the crew to see if we had a ‘drone’ in order to sweep the lights. Flying drones in Bahrain is not allowed, but of course they are about, so say no more. More curious than insisting on it being another job, the whodoeswhat.tv cameras were switched on once more about 1 am as we drove through. It was only supposed to be a sample and something we thought might be useful to us somewhere down the line. As a matter of course, it was sent to the Ritz Marketing dept. with the message that it was only a test. They uploaded this simple sample to their Facebook page and as of this post, over 4,000 hits. Hello!!!
Well come the weekend – 15th, we did indeed have a drone and attempted to get a similar sequence, but that proved logistically extremely difficult, with the added pain that the battery only lasts a few minutes but takes a good while to charge. Consequently, it was a disaster and we spent an entire day until late attempting to get something useful. Around midnight, It became painfully obvious that it wasn’t going to happen, what with moving data in an ad-hoc enviroment taking an hour each time, it just became untenable. So as a consolation, we went back to our original footage and took a gander to see if we could make something of it. What you see is what we did and so very many thank yous to so very many people who like it. Why? Well, we think a lot of the likes were ex expatriates who see this and it sets of the little pang of ‘missing Bahrain’ at this time of year. Bahrain has a not so obvious charm which so many in the rest of the world have never experienced.