Kuwait

Kuwait caught me off guard. I had expected heat and glass towers and not much else, but the city kept offering these small surprises — the way the Kuwait Towers look completely different in daylight versus at night, the cool dry air after sunset when everyone comes out, the old dhow sitting quietly beside a mudbrick fort like nothing about that scene had changed in two hundred years.

The nights here have a particular quality. Buildings light up in the colours of the national flag for any occasion worth celebrating, and walking around the waterfront at that hour feels electric in a low-key way — not loud, just alive. Al-Mubarakiya market with its string of fairy lights overhead and Kuwaiti flags swaying in the corridor made me slow down and just look up for a while.

The food was the other thing. A full mixed grill spread arrived at the table with more dishes than I could count — rice, salads, hummus, flatbread, everything. It was the kind of meal where you just eat slowly and feel grateful. Kuwait is a place that operates on its own pace, and once I stopped expecting it to be something familiar, it started to make a lot of sense.