Category Archives: Bahrain

Are you headed to Bahrain? I’ll share everything from my trip. This includes staples like the currency, and stories like how I ended up at a Bahrain camel farm.

Here’s some of the top posts from Bahrain:

500 Camels – my surprising favorite Bahrain experience was something that wasn’t even on my list! The Bahrain Camel Farm has so many camels

Bahrain World Trade Center – my favorite building in all of Bahrain! It has twin wind turbines in the between the two towers.

Architecture in Bahrain – here’s the top 5 buildings in Bahrain.  I was fascinated by them!

Bahrain World Trade Center: Wind Turbines on Twin Towers?

Where’s the most interesting architecture you’ve seen? Have you ever seen a building with its own massive wind turbines? When you travel to visit the middle east, check out the Bahrain World Trade Center skyscraper. It might be the best example of wind energy integration.

The most interesting architecture in the world?

The first thing you’ll notice is the unique shape. Those twin tower triangle shapes are to help maximize the wind power.

me at the Bahrain World Trade Center. Impressive wind turbines right on the building
This is what I look like on less than an hour of sleep. Impressive architecture though!

How big is the Bahrain World Trade Center?

The Bahrain World Trade Center is 787 feet (240 meters), 50-floors, with three wind turbines in between twin towers. The turbines are 29 meters, 68 tons, and generate 1100 megawatts per hour. Impressive!

Did you know

Bahrain World Trade Center was the first skyscraper in the world to integrate wind turbines into its design.

Wind Power, in an Oil country!

It’s great to see a country with an oil economy innovate. I never would have guessed that the first country to have a building with wind power integrated is an oil rich economy.

I was fascinated to learn how it was specially designed to maximize wind power. Perhaps you will be too –

Bahrain actually has two skyscrapers with twin towers right near each other. The Bahrain Financial Harbor is even larger than the Bahrain WTC.

How the technology in the Bahrain World Trade Center works

The tapered, elliptical towers act as airfoils, channelling offshore winds to drive three massive wind turbines set between the towers on a series of skybridges. Engineers say the turbines are designed to generate between 11 percent and 15 percent of the centre’s energy needs.

– Otis (full case study linked here)

Engineers say they used computational fluid dynamics and sophisticated wind-tunnel tests to determine the ideal shape of the towers to maximize the power generated by the wind turbines. Their analysis led to an elliptical, tapered design that funnels offshore winds between the towers and creates negative air pressure (or lift) from behind. That innovative design accelerates the wind’s velocity as it hits the turbines “

More info on the Bahrain WTC design

The elliptical plan forms and sail-like profiles act as aerofoils, funneling the onshore breeze between them as well as creating a negative pressure behind, thus accelerating the wind velocity between the two towers. Vertically, the sculpting of the towers is also a function of airflow dynamics. As they taper upwards, their aerofoil sections reduce. This effect when combined with the increasing velocity of the onshore breeze at increasing heights creates a near equal regime of wind velocity on each of the three turbines.

research by Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat
Bahrain World Trade Center - fascinating architecture design! See the 3 wind turbines between the buildings.
Bahrain World Trade Center

More from my Bahrain trip

I found Bahrain to be really interesting! My Bahrain trip was compressed into just 19 hours on my way to Jordan.

The Bahrain Camel Farm might have been my favorite part of my Bahrain trip, and I hadn’t even planned to visit!

The Bahrain WTC isn’t the only fascinating architecture in Bahrain. I’ve outlined my favorite buildings in this post.

500-Camels-in-Bahrain-Visit50
one of the many camels I met in Bahrain
Bahrain map
Bahrain connects to Saudi Arabia via highway

Bahrain Camel Farm – 500 Camels!

Did you know there’s a Bahrain Camel Farm with hundreds of camels? They brought 500 camels to Bahrain. I’ll share the story behind how they Bahrain got camels, and some info about camels too in a photo tour.

Bahrain Camel Farm’s 500 camels

Business tourists visit Bahrain for meetings, but rarely ask, are there camels in Bahrain? There’s lots of of camels in Bahrain, but the reason might surprise you. Here’s the quick story he shared:

How did Bahrain get camels?

My guide told me that the King of Bahrain (actually Sheikh Mohammed, uncle of the King) wanted camels, and thus 500 camels were brought to what became the Royal Camel Farm in Bahrain. He decided to open up this Royal Camel Farm to the public. I’d never seen so many camels!

Bahrain Camel Farm photo tour

I’d seen camels before, but never this many, and never like this.

Camels in Bahrain at sunset

Bahrain consists of mostly desert, making it the ideal habitat for camels.

Feeding a camel at the Royal Camel Farm in Bahrain
Feeding a camel in Bahrain

Despite being called a camel farm, the camels here are not for eating. Sheikh Mohammed set up the farm to preserve the presence of the camel in Bahrain which, before the advent of the motor vehicle was the Bahraini’s foremost mode of transport. Indeed, the Arabian Peninsula has a huge cultural connection with the camel, and for the Bedouins of the past, the camel was revered as a sacred symbol of life amid the inhospitable desert. -Time Out Bahrain

posing with a camel in Bahrain at the Royal Camel Farm
posing with a camel in Bahrain

meeting the camels in Bahrain
this photo reminds me of the creature in Star Wars that they ride

I mostly just observed and took photos, but camel rides around the farm can be arranged.  You can also play with them, feed them, watch them, or take photos with them. If you’re feeling adventurous, there’s also the occasional sale of camel milk.

cute camels in Bahrain

Note, the post is called “500 Camels” because that’s what my guide/driver called it, but it looked more like 150 or 200. Either way it’s a lot of camels, and waaaaay more than I had ever seen.

so many camels in Bahrain! Royal Camel Farm

my guide shows some love to the camel in Bahrain
my guide shows some love to the camel in Bahrain

Royal Camel Farm in Bahrain

Visit Bahrain Royal Camel Farm info

Camel riding is so much fun!

Where is the Royal Camel Farm in Bahrain?

Junaibiya Highway in Al Janabiya (near Manama), Bahrain

Hours: open to the public every day.

Sunset at the Royal Camel Farm in Bahrain
Sunset at the Royal Camel Farm in Bahrain

Besides the spitting, the camels in Bahrain were very friendly!
Besides the spitting, the camels were very friendly!

Camel in Bahrain

This destination wasn’t even on my list of things to visit in Bahrain, but ended up being a highlight!  I trusted my driver a bit more to improvise from my prepared list, but that trust was short-lived. The next place he showed me was… the Bahrain King’s Parking Lot. I’m serious. I tell the quick story here.

Do camels really store water in their humps?

For some reason people learn that camels store water in their large humps, to allow them to live in desert climates. That’s not actually literally true; they store fat in their humps, but it is a crucial part of how camels bodies allow them to live in hot deserts. This video on how Camels store water explains it in just 2 minutes. Enjoy!

What else is in Bahrain? I’m fascinated by the architecture in Bahrain , especially the Bahrain World Trade Center with wind turbines connected to the buildings.