Failaka Island

Failaka lies an hour and a half out in Kuwait Bay and has been settled since the Bronze Age, when it belonged to Dilmun. The Seleucids garrisoned it and called it Ikaros, and their fort and temple are the only standing Greek buildings in the Gulf. Its people were cleared out during the occupation of nineteen ninety and never came back, so the villages stand shot through and empty behind the restored heritage quarter where the hotel and the craft workshops are. The ferry from Ras Al-Ardh is the only way over and its times follow the tide rather than a fixed timetable.