I visited A' ali on the 23rd of january. Just a few hours before I had marked all dilmun burial mounds on an off-line map of maps.me in order to find all relevant mounds in that area even without an internet connection.
A'ali is easily reachable by public transport. I just took the bus from Manama's central bus station to Isa Town Bus Terminal and from there another bus to A'ali . The bus stopped a stone's throw away from the royal burial mound nr. 2 ( If I remember correctly) . I visited as many burial mounds as I could in A'ali. I lost track of how many I really saw there. One of them had its own guard and a tiny guardhouse. I just asked the african guard if I could go inside. He had no objections and even opened the gate for me. All other mounds were fenced off by a more symbolic kind of fence. I climbed up on some of them.
I spent around 2 h in A'ali, visited many burial mounds,had a karak tea in an indian cafe and a long chat with two elderly australian ladies.
All in all I had a pleasant time in A'ali and the trip was worth the spent time and energy. A'ali is a strange place with all the mounds plastered around the city. Makes it a kind of unique place in the world.
As Frederick wrote:""" The mounds were quite underwhelming, but collectively with its sheer numbers of burial mounds showing the long history of burial tradition in Bahrain creating the city of dead with the sea of burial mounds, Dilmun Burial Mounds became something that worth to come and see while in this small Gulf country""""
I fully agree with the above mentioned statement. The sheer numbers of burial mounds is truly worth to see with your very own eyes.
Public transport in Bahrain is quite good and easy to understand(unlike-for example-Kuwait's one). A'ali is very well connected with Bahrain's capital Manama. Every 10 minutes there are buses to Isa Town bus terminal. From the bus terminal you can take every 30 min a bus which passes through A'ali