Aiwa! Aiwa! Aiwa! (Yes, yes, yes!) The Moroccan dancers flick back their tresses as the string band lurches into local favourites, and the white-robed audience responds with gusto.   Fancy the one in the red satin dress? Toss her a garland!  And wack another thirty dollars on the tab…

Bahrain is right up there in the mass-tourism stakes, with 2.7 million arrivals each year – but 80 per cent of them are Saudis flooding across the 25-kilometre King Fahad Causeway.  These weekend refugees blend into a population which shares their cultural heritage – with a few crucial differences.  The rest of us can drive out to the hour-glass island midway, marvel at this billion-dollar engineering feat and peer through the haze at the Forbidden Kingdom. 

This Singapore-sized island kingdom offers the ideal stopover introduction to the Middle East – sunshine and sparkling turquoise waters, smart shopping and a few sights, six hours short of London.  In the northern winter, the air is delightfully mild and the skies a piercing china-blue.