Kuwait City Stopover

Kuwait City isn't exactly brimming with attractions.
'Oh there are things to keep you occupied there,' I was once told, 'just so long as you don't do them both in the same morning.'

On a long stopover from Deir Ezzor to Dubai, I rack my mind to recall what the two main sights are. One was surely the Kuwait Towers – the glass and steel structures shaped like skewers of kebab on the waterfront, which I manage to tick off the list in half an hour – but the other? In the 'viewing sphere' of the Kuwait Towers are photographs of the damage wrought by the occupying Iraqi troops, and these stir vague memories of a museum on the Gulf War. Trouble is, none of the taxi drivers I encounter appears to have heard of it.

'Could you take me to the Gulf War museum? The liberation museum? The Iraq war house? Museum Saddam Hussein?'
Blank stares each time, followed by a slow, sub-continental shake of the head (most of the drivers were from Pakistan).
One chap was confident he knew the place, but deposited me in front of the science museum instead. 'Science museum, history museum same-same!' he announced brightly, which led to a small altercation over the fare. 'I'm not paying to be taken somewhere I don't want to go!' was my last word on the subject, as he sped off in a cloud of imprecations.

I was just about to give up and head back to the airport when I found myself in the back of Ahmad's cab. Originally from Mumbai but with seven years on the job in Kuwait – initially ferrying reporters to the Iraqi border after the last Gulf War – Ahmad had a pretty good idea where most things were.

Thanks to his navigational skills, I eventually find myself at the Bait al Watani, near the spanking new headquarters of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation. The sign next to the entrance proclaims it to be the 'Not to Forget Museum', while its little compound bristles with tanks and other military hardware. I wave Ahmad off in the sweltering midday heat and turn around - only to find the main gate locked and the museum very definitely closed for the afternoon.