Saudi Arabia, Part 2 of 5

Dhahran to Riyadh

In case you missed Part 1, here is a link to it:

Thanksgiving in Saudia Arabia

I took the 8:50 shuttle bus to the Al Khobar area so that I could walk around, get a better look, and take photos. Yesterday, it was starting to get dark when we arrived, so I wanted to capture some scenes that I had missed.

I enjoyed walking around there. People were friendly. I had the pockets shortened in one of my pairs of pants and I also bought some fabric that will be a new lining of the jacket I have with me; I’ll get that job done further along the road.

The shuttle picked me up at 11:15 and took me back to the compound.

At about 14:30 we headed two doors down to some neighbors for Thanksgiving. During the afternoon, several other families came by. Altogether there were five kids, too, all of whom were girls between the ages of six and eighteen months.

It was an enjoyable afternoon spent with Americans celebrating outside our homeland. This is now the fourth continent on which I have spent Thanksgiving. Maybe I will have to find a way to do this in Australia and Europe at some point.

Friday

My friends and I went to the Friday brunch at the compound. There were lots of other people there whom I had already met. Everybody is so well-traveled; it’s always fun hearing them talk!

We pretty much stayed in during the afternoon, which was perfectly fine with me. First of all, the reason I am here is to spend time with my friends. Secondly, as they warned me before I got here, there’s not much to do, anyway.

It’s my last night here with them, so I was doing laundry and putting some things together. There were two bottles of wine left over from the ones I had purchased, so I thought I would pack them up and take them along with me to Riyadh. When my friend saw me do this, she gave me some information that I did not have: if for any reason, any of the authorities were to stop me on the train and ask me to open up my luggage, I could get arrested for having the wine with me.

Having that little bit of knowledge was useful: I decided to leave it behind with my friends.

The train from Dhahran to Riyadh

I woke up to rain, which is quite unusual around here. My friends said that during their first year here it rained only three times. We have had as much rain this week during my visit.

I was going to get a driver to take me to the Dammam Railway Station so I could make this trip, but one of my friends volunteered to leave work with a driver who would take me there. How’s that for customer service?

The four-hour trip was fairly uneventful. Most of the way, with the exception of a few small settlements between Dhahran and Riyadh, it was all flat desert.

My hosts in Riyadh had sent me directions for getting to their home in the Diplomatic Quarter [usually referred to as DQ] of the capital. They indicated that it was just under twenty kilometers and should take about 26 minutes to get there. As I anticipated, there were plenty of taxis at the train station. Now the fun would begin: negotiating a price and making sure the driver knew where he would be taking me.

There were two Filipino guys looking for taxis as well. I asked if they lived here, and they said they did. So I asked what a reasonable price would be for a taxi to the DQ. They said 50 riyals.

At first, most of the drivers were Saudis and they started the bidding at 100 riyals. I decided to give my counteroffer of 40, thus leaving room for me to move up to 50 as a compromise. I found a guy who spoke limited English and agreed to take me for 40 riyals. However, after my luggage was in the trunk and I showed him the map, he finally connected “Diplomatic Quarter” with “embassy” and decided he did not want to take me after all.

A Pakistani driver rode up. He spoke decent English and said he knew all about the DQ. Then he pointed to the meter and asked, “Do you want meter or agreement?” By “agreement” I took him to mean that we would come up with a price in advance and go by that. I asked him how much the agreement would be. He said 40 riyals, so I didn’t see the need to do any further negotiating and I accepted that offer.

Once we got into the DQ, however, it turned out that he didn’t know it as well as he had led me to believe. I was glad we weren’t on the meter, as all his driving around would have driven up the price. Eventually, though, we reached a point where we could not find the proper street, so I called my host.

We weren’t far from the house, so he drove over to get us, once I gave him the name of the landmark where we had parked.

I asked Imbram, the driver, to follow us to the house so that he would know where it was. That way, in case I need a driver again he can find me.

Sunday

My host was up early to leave for the airport; he is meeting his wife for a few days in Dubai. He gave me instructions about feeding the cats and watering the plants, then handed over a set of house keys, and off I went.

I went for a walk around the DQ. It is vast. There were lots of taxis driving around, too, so I needn’t have been concerned about transport.

In all my travels I have never seen such a large secured area that is set aside for embassies and residences. It’s like a city unto itself.

There are also small shopping centers here, mostly along the order of strip malls, but convenient nonetheless.

I took my laptop with me so I could get on the Internet and make onward plans for my flight to Jeddah. My search led me to Nas Air, where I eventually got a prompt to check the box that I accepted their rules. Once I checked it and entered it, I was led to a new prompt that I needed to accept their rules. I was trapped in an endless loop. I was especially keen to get this flight booked because it is coming up this Thursday and my search had shown that many of the flights are already sold out.

I eventually found a travel agency in the DQ, so I went in there and booked not only my flight to Jeddah, but one from Jeddah to Doha, Qatar.

I asked the guys there about the location of a nearby supermarket, and they told me where Tamimi was located. I went out there to buy ingredients for the dinner I will make tomorrow night. It was easy to find a taxi, as there are many of them driving the streets. I asked the driver if he knew where the Tamimi Market was located, and he said yes. Of course, he said yes. It would be culturally inappropriate for him to say otherwise.

But saying yes does not mean that he knew where it was. As we drove away, he got right on his phone. I don’t understand Arabic, but I could tell by his talking about Tamimi that he was asking somebody where it was.

Once I was finished at the supermarket, I needed a taxi back to the DQ. A guy who was not driving a standard taxi stopped. He didn’t speak English. When he heard me speak English, rather than refuse the ride, he made a phone call and connected me with somebody who spoke English and could tell him where I was going as well as negotiate a price. We settled on 15 riyals for the ride. The vehicle didn’t have a meter, so it was obviously not a taxi. I don’t know what the rules are here about guys like this.

In the evening, the transport situation was totally different. It was dark and I could see that there were no taxis plying the streets of the DQ. How was I going to get out of there? After a few minutes, a guy in a pickup truck made eye contact with me and pulled over to the side of the road to wait for me. That was lucky!

He didn’t speak much English, but I learned he is from Egypt. He dropped me at a brand new Marriott Courtyard hotel just south of the south entrance to the DQ.

My goal had been to get to the King Khaled Eye Hospital, where Ebby was going to pick me up. I called Ebby to tell him where I was and he knew the spot, so he came to get me.

Ebby and I went to the home of his friend Tony, who works for the Canadian government and lives in a compound inhabited by other foreign nationals in a different part of town than the DQ. We had an enjoyable time socializing.

Monday

I thought I’d better get cracking to see some of the sights around here. One of them is the Masmak Fortress, so I thought I would start there. When I hailed a taxi and told the driver where I wanted to go, he indicated that he had no idea what I was talking about. A security guard in front of the Pakistan embassy explained it to him, and off we went.

The driver let me off and pointed out the fort to me. It looked like a fort, but it was definitely not the one I had seen pictured in the posts of my friend Heather. But it was nice just the same.

After walking around the fort for a while, I headed into the surrounding neighborhood. I had no agenda. It seemed like all the shops sold toys. Many of the shopkeepers said hello as I walked by. Many people have been asking me where I am from. When I tell them, they enthusiastically reply, “Obama!”

I was hungry for lunch, but couldn’t find a restaurant. Right around 11:20, I found a place. It was clear that I was going to be stuck in the restaurant during the prayer call, but I didn’t mind that. I would just sit and relax until the place opened up again.

As I was eating, the staff turned off the lights and locked the front door. One of the workers made a gesture to indicate praying and I told him one of the few Arabic phrases I know: “mafi mushkila” (no problem). Nobody inside was praying, though. In fact, some women came up to a small window, ordered food to go, and then they were served through the window without having to open up the door. How legal is that?

After a few minutes, the employee came to me and said, “No sit down.” I guess I should not have been sitting during the prayer time. I hadn’t seen that enforced anywhere else before. Then, when I got up he opened the front door, so I left.

I observed, as I wandered along the street, that there were buses. But I had no way to explain to a bus driver where I wanted to go, so it appears that I am stuck with the taxis. A taxi driver I walked by beckoned me to come and talk with him. He turned out to be from Iran. Though I initially told him I wasn’t in need of a taxi, I eventually changed my mind and asked him to take me to the Hayat Mall, where I heard that there was a really good supermarket. (When a local person told me the name of the market, I wrote it down as “Danob,” which is what it sounded like from his pronunciation. When I got there, I could see that the name of it is Danube.)

The mall is quite posh and the supermarket was huge. Some stores were open and many were shut. I asked somebody about that and he told me that the closed stores would open at 15:00.

Though I have wanted to take photos of people in their traditional clothing, I have been rather timid about it. Three teenage boys saw that I was taking photos of the mall and as they walked by one of them said to me, “Take photo!” and they all posed for me.

I headed back to the house and started preparing dinner for my Peace Corps friend Heather who is now teaching at a women’s college in the area. Once again, I made mafé, which turned out well. It was the first time I have seen Heather since we closed service in 2005.

Since the fort I saw today did not match the photos of Heather’s that I saw, I showed them to her. She confirmed that they were, indeed, NOT of the fort she saw. She referred me to a driver, Tariq, who speaks good English and I called him to arrange for a trip to all the right places for the next day.

To continue your reading adventure, you may visit here for Part 3: