Finally the day arrived (sod’s law, right after a weekend of no flying) and I jetted off to Riyadh for the second meeting with the military where we hoped all our permissions would be granted for the remainder of the project. The drive from the airport towards town goes straight past the local university with male and female residences on either side of the campus. Presumably being caught anywhere near the residences of the opposite sex would result in a stoning, whipping or beheading. I stayed in the taxi. The university ground is apparently 26km long, so said my chatty taxi driver.
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| Water feature in Riyadh airport | Foyer of the Boudl Wurood |
I was hoping to be able to do a little shopping in Riyadh and hoped that the hotel wasn’t too far from civilisation. The city (and the same goes for Jeddah) is in a very strict grid pattern. There are very few bends and curves in the wide, multi-lane roads. Riyadh being the size it is, I could very well have been booked into a hotel in a rundown residential area, far from shops and the like. How lucky I was then that I was booked into the one of the Boudl Hotels – its a middle-eastern hotel chain. It was the newest addition to the Boudl chain and so was sparkly new and very posh-looking.
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| Bloody luxury | Could quite happily have been based here for 2 months |
I loved my room with small lounge area next to the bed, kitchenette with microwave, hot plates etc. Not that I really used any of it, truth be told. I was far too focussed on the shopping. And lo, not 2km from my hotel (well, about 500m across a busy highway which I had to cross via a bridge 1km away) was Jarir Bookstore – another large chain, this time of stationary stores, which was also reputed to sell computers and tablets at good prices. And right next to that was a Carrefour – a French hypermarket similar to Game, which I could compare prices with.
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| Harley Davidson, Riyadh | Parking area being dug up – interesting to see ALL diggers working rather than only one with everyone else standing and watching |
So, on the evening after I arrived in Riyadh I managed to purchase 1 laptop, 1 iPad mini and 1 flash stick. Booyaah! Sadly none for me, but I pretended that they were and loved the shopping. I also bought a Harley Davidson baseball cap from the HD store down the street for Chief Pilot, Pierre who has just bought a monster bike and already had a Jeddah t-shirt.
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| Seems they follow traffic rules as closely as they follow spelling rules | Downtown Riyadh – lots of construction |
The meeting wasn’t too painful and it looks like on the whole everything was sorted. I found it interesting that while most of the top brass at the meeting presented themselves as hard and difficult with regards to our requests, a number of them came to us quietly and told us what to say to make things happen smoother. Not to lie or be dishonest, but how to word what we wanted so that we stood a better chance of getting the permissions we needed. On the whole they were very nice, decent people.
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| Downtown Riyadh – like the city is only being built now | Every building downtown has a crane or three on it |
Being in the building of military aerial intelligence I didn’t think it prudent to start snapping pics for my blog, so nothing here – but it was a massive building that was almost completely empty in the middle. The offices lined two of three walls (the building is wedge-shaped), four storeys high, but about 60% of the building was a huge, empty atrium from ground to roof. Very strange.
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| One of few buildings without a construction crane on top of it | Some apartment blocks on the outskirts of Riyadh |
My next mission was to get my visa renewed in Jeddah. Since I needed my passport for travel I had to fly to Jeddah personally to hand the passport in. One is only allowed in the country for 30 days at a time, but can get that period extended under certain circumstances. The fine for overstaying a visa is around R25 000!! So definitely worth the extra flight and accommodation in Jeddah to get it sorted. The bonus was that I didn’t have to go in person, but could give my passport to an agent to do it for me, leaving me with a few days with nothing to do except wander around the streets and malls of Jeddah. Oh what a trial!
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| Clearly shop clothing posters can’t show model’s faces | Most stores have mannequins rather than picture posters |
It does seem that their visa division is very much like our Home Affairs Department, in that nothing was done the first day, giving me a second day in Jeddah, and by the end of the second day we were told that there was a power failure in the visa offices and so they couldn’t renew my visa anyway, but would grant me an extension for a week. So I got over 2 full days in Jeddah before flying back to camp and handing my passport to a guy who will drop it off when he flies back out through Jeddah for his home in a few days. So complicated.
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| Derelict shopping mall | Everything boarded up and empty |
Having those two days in Jeddah was great. I was pretty lost, and in a very run-down, dodgy part of town away from pretty much everything worthwhile. But I was prepared to walk, and walk I did. I found a mall on Google Maps and walked the 2km only to discover a massive mall looking very grotty, run down and shut! Don’t know when it was last open but all the shops in it were empty and there was a Planet Hollywood sign outside, suggesting its been closed for a while. So I caught a taxi, not to be outdone, and asked the Arab driver (who spoke absolutely no English) to take me to “big mall to buy”. He nodded and we lurched off into the mass of frantic, unpredictable traffic and headed into the CBD.
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| A tribute to their driving? | “The Green Island” – grotty hotel/restaurant on stilts |
We shot past some lovely old buildings with strong Arabian architecture but with the speed and the swerving I couldn’t get a clear picture. I was deposited by one of the dodgiest small shopping centres I have ever seen. Nervously I got out and walked with speed inside. This is certainly where the local working class shop. Good deals on numerous items, and right next to proper souks which were a bit too crowded for comfort. I did, after all, stand out like a beacon of wealth and feared for both my wallet and my virtue…
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| Small concrete buttresses affording many sun downer spots – spot the cats in foreground | The Jeddah Hilton and others |
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| The one place where palm tree cell towers fit in – even if they’re much bigger & healthier looking than the real ones… | Apartment block along the beachfront |
But I walked most of the way back to the hotel along the waterfront. They call it the Corniche and its a promenade, similar to Durban’s, which is 35km long. I was down towards the docks, so didn’t see very much, but the following day I caught a cab all the way across town to the more affluent waterfront where all the 5 star hotels are. I went in the late afternoon and walked over 10km along the waterfront as the sun set. Very strange to see how the Arabs treat the evening as we do the day. Many of them were sat out on little concrete buttresses into the Red Sea, watching the sunset with their families or friends. And without a single proper sun downers drink between them!
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| Sunset – see how the sun sets into the dust a good 1.5 diameters before the horizon (clearer in the next pic) | Microlights and gyrocopters flew up and down the coastline until too dark to fly |
The waterfront was also crawling with wild cats. I must have seen hundreds and I wasn’t particularly looking – they were just literally under foot. I felt terrible for them - half starved and mangy. And a few tiny kittens “mewing” as I walked past.
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| Very strange – what looks like a smaller version of the White House under a large hangar roof | Twilight along the coast |
I watched the sun set and continued walking south towards town, when the town criers started up and a few of the mosques on the water’s edge began to fill up with men. However, many of the people sitting at the beach simply rolled their own prayer mats out on the pavement and started praying right in front of everyone.
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| How well positioned is this mosque | Sneaky pic of a guy praying on the pavement |
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| Mövenpick Hotel on a small island | Another monument on a traffic circle |
Once it got completely dark I stopped for supper before continuing towards town along the waterfront, and noted how the locals were all out in force with their kids rollerblading, cycling etc. along the promenade or playing on the jungle gyms and swings in the kids play areas. The street lights weren’t very bright but in the semi-darkness families were hanging out as we would during the day, when you could at least see which child you were taking home with you at the end. Funny how a few lost hours during the day can completely transform a daily routine. I would have thought a working day broken in the middle and then running up until past 11pm before starting again at 8am would be extremely disruptive to one’s sleep patterns, but they’ve been doing it here for centuries and clearly cope fine.
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| Prayer mats laid out on the pavement | The Eiffel Tower – a model |
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| King Fahd’s Fountain – 320m high | |
The final discovery in Jeddah was while I was being driven back to the hotel in a cab. They have a water fountain which shoots water at a speed of 375km/h over 320m into the air! Over 1000ft, which is taller than the Eiffel Tower! Its the highest fountain in the world and you can see it at night when its lit up with 500 spotlights, from all over the city. Sadly my picture was taken from the highway when the taxi driver stopped quickly for me when he saw what I was trying to snap. Far too far away to show it properly, but trust me, its incredibly high. Apparently there are over 18 tons of water in the air at any one time.
The following morning I caught a flight back to Bisha, and a car trip back to camp, where I had another big shock. I always assumed the petrol would be much cheaper here than in S Afr, but as we filled up the car I worked out (and I double checked my maths!) that their fuel is R1.50 a litre!!! Its cheaper than water! By a lot!
