Kuwait has a system of 34 Water Towers, built during 1970-1979. The leaders of Kuwait had commissioned a Swedish company to construct a water-supply system for the city. You can see clusters of water towers all through Kuwait City. Each cluster of Water Towers feed water to that locality. Like many nations in the Middle-East, Kuwait also uses desalination plants and it is the water from these desalination plants that are used to fill these Water Towers.
The “Kuwait Towers”, which consists of 3 “towers”, is the most famous ones within this system. The Kuwait Towers were inaugurated in 1979 and is the major tourist site in Kuwait. The towers were closed for maintenance between 2012 and 2016. The main tower is 187 meters tall and carries two spheres. The lower sphere holds a water tank (lower part) and a restaurant/cafe/lounge/hall in the upper portion. The upper sphere (at 123 meters) holds a cafe and turns fully (360 degrees) every 30 minutes. The views were very nice. The 2nd tower is 147 meters high and serves as a water tower. The 3rd thinner tower holds the lighting equipment for the the main two towers. The towers are lit up in the night. In total, the main two towers hold 9000 cubic meters of water.
My original plan was to visit the Kuwait Towers twice, once during day-time and once during the night, as I had done at Taipei 101 (for example).
Because I could see Kuwait Towers from my hotel room window, with an umbrella and my camera kit, I walked over to the Kuwait Towers. I reached the Kuwait Towers around 08:30. There was not a soul in sight! The only other human I saw (other than the passing cars along the Arabian Gulf Street) was a lady jogging in the extreme heat. I love jogging, but I had to admire her determination in doing the job when it was at least 40C+. One interesting incident was when I noticed a really small kitten in the shade of a small partition. Its Mom cat was trying to lift it and carry it elsewhere (hopefully somewhere cooler) but when she saw me, she scurried away (but always looking back to see what I was doing). As the sun was still rising, I was sure that closer to noon, the poor kitten would die from the heat. I wanted to pour out the drinking water I had with me around the kitten so that at least the evaporating water would cool the area down. After a few minutes, I decided that it was best that I allowed the Mom cat to solve the problem. Later, when I returned to the area, I was glad to notice that both the Mom and the kitten were nowhere to be seen (and had escaped to cooler places).
I inquired at the Ticket Counter and was told that due to Ramadan, the Kuwait Towers would only open at 14:00.
A couple of days later, my friend took me to the Kuwait Towers around 18:00. There is an elevator in the Main Tower, which will take us up to the upper sphere. The elevator displays the “meters” as we go up. To be frank, I was pleasantly surprised at how good the view was from the top. After experiencing behemoths like Burj Khalifa, Taipei 101, World Trade Center (Sniff!), Sears/Willis Towers, Petronas Towers Etc., I was underwhelmed by the height of the Kuwait Towers (from outside). The top sphere of the main Tower keeps turning (you can feel the floor moving) 360 degrees every 30 minutes. Because the glass was not perfectly cleaned (I assume due to Ramadan), my photos were a bit blurry.
Adios!