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The Beach

After being in country for nearly 90 days I find myself day dreaming about seeing other place on my “Places to see before I die list.” Near the top of that list is Egypt. While planning my exit visa Egypt entered in on an incredible near hostel take over of there government.  After chatting with one of my Saudi friends we had made plans to go to Yemen and Check out the tombs and catacombs in the south end of the “empty quarter.” Days after and hours before I was to book a flight I turn on the BBC and Yemen is now protesting. Settling finally on flying to Bahrain to go see a movie, which is what the Saudis have to do to see movies in theaters, Bahrain erupts in the worst riots in the country’s history. Now is seems that each day a different country in the Middle East is in unrest.  Adding that I receive emails from the US Embassy on a far to regular of a basis, about the dangers for those living and working abroad in this region, I began to have a bit of an unsettling feeling. Taking a second looks at each person I see, weather they are Saudi, Pakistani, Bengali or even American. The sites and the sounds of this country are so different so foreign that with even the smallest amount of concern yields a rather uncomfortable desire to look over ones shoulder. But one day in, my favorite place so far, the Al Ballad market after talking to a complete Egyptian stranger, I realized Saudi is a rather neutral location. The Saudis seem to not be concerned at all. They are happy with their king. Although not religiously or publicly diverse, Saudi Arabia is an immense cultural melting pot. Each day I see people from all over the world speaking all kinds of languages in all different dialects. English being least spoken in the market environment, which one would think to be a bad thing but yet I find it is fueling to deep inner thought. People in Saudi are very passionate to their country of origin and as opposed to being fearful of a bad situation secondary to unrest in their homeland they find themselves comfortable with there present situation dissolving the my unrest. I find myself comfortable asking there opinion of what’s going at home, this yields incredible conversations of what they have been through and how they ended up in Saudi Arabia. I’m interested to see what happens to the Middle East in the coming months and hope to see the pyramids soon.

            Given the situation of not being able to travel as easy as I had hoped I unwillingly settled into a routine of work and sleep and wondering around the market. Finally I had a day off that worked in correlation with several of the pilots and we were determined to find a beach and relax. Now one would think that living in a city that sits on the coast of the red sea, and being able to see the Ocean from my hotel room window, (well in the distance from the ninth floor) that it would be relatively easy to hop on down to the water and have a swim.  Well this is not the case. First of all, the port of Jeddah and the oil company’s private ports for fuel shipping consume most of the beach. The public beach is approximately the size of a sand box and its covered in concrete, so you have to find a private beach. All of the private beaches are in north Jeddah approximately a 45 min drive from our hotel. As you turn onto the coast Highway the beach disappears. Seriously you are 500 yards from the water and a 50-foot fence covers the entire beach as far as the eye can see. As you drive up the highway you see gates with guard shacks about every mile, with huge signs saying no public access in every language. Finding a gate that will let you in is a bit of trial and error, first you start with a story from a friend, second you plug the coordinates into a GPS devise because there are no numbers identifying each gates location, and you don’t want to follow the directions from your friend saying  “go down till you get to the double headed palm tree, turn left until you find the dead camel and then its about 7 clicks on the left.”  Second you have to find a cab driver that will take you to north Jeddah because of the increased potential for rather expensive checkpoints. Once you get to north Jeddah and once you get into the gate you begin interrogation about your race by the guards. The segregation in this country is ridicules. There is an order of seniority in which each nationality is ranked, #1 Saudi’s #2Americans (thankfully) #3 the rest of Europe #4 the rest of the Middle Eastern countries and then the list goes on until the very bottom of the in which you have most Asian country’s. None of it makes any sense what so ever. But nonetheless being near the top of the list gets you onto the beach. Now entering the private beach is like stepping out of the country. Literally as you cross the threshold of the gate and under the protection of the 50-foot walls the rules change. You wont find alcohol or naked Arabian orgies, but what you will find is a paradise. Swaying palm trees and crystal clear water. Cars will pull in through the gate and unload girls that strip down out of their Ebiyas yielding bikini clad bodys before their 6 inched stilettos even hit the ground. Men show up in Board shorts and sandals, which I imagine is a huge relief from the heavy canvases throb of the business world. The next thing that happens is the biggest crack up to me. The Saudis live not only a racially segregated life but a sexually segregated one as well. A huge group of people that arrived at the same time walk down the path to the sand and literally part ways men on one side women on the other, and as soon as they sit down they begin giggling and pointing at members of the opposite sex. It’s like Jr. high all the time. They don’t talk to each other, not because they are not allowed like any other location in the country but because the have this social stigma on talking to members of the opposite sex. When asking my Saudi friends why they don’t go talk to them, they just giggle puff on their sheesha pipe and move on to ogling the next girl like the sexually oppressed people they are. They drink virgin Mohito’s and margaritas smoke shessha and gawk and members of the opposite sex all day and all night with the worlds worst DJs scratching N’sync or Britney Spears records on the weekends, during the week the beaches are near empty, and coast half as much to get on too.  The other funny thing is that there are massive signs that read “no photography” in every language. So no picture of paradise, I assume its to keep the “private” beaches “private” and give them all the “privacy” they need, if only they knew what to do will all that “privacy.” With difficulty in traveling, finally finding the beaches and finishing my Open water Diving class I intend to fully utilize this opportunity to avoid boredom with swimming around with a tank on my back.

I nearly drowned in the desert!

            As there is not much to do in Jeddah I decided to learn to Scuba Dive. This area of the Red Sea is know as one of Jacque Cousteau’s Favorite places to dive because of its clear seas and lush under water environment. Iv never really had a desire to spend the money to learn to dive. But given that ill be able to learn in an area that is on par with the great barrier reef, and the fact that there is nothing else to do I signed up for the class. I walked into the dive shop with my buddy Aaron, to meet the instructor.  Honest to god the instructors name is Ahab! I mean how random is that, the only guy I have every meet named Ahab and he’s a dive instructor in the desert.  He introduced himself to Aaron and I, when he shook my hand and asked my name I said, “just call me Ishmael.” Aaron proceeded to burst out in laughter until we both realized that Ahab wasn’t laughing. Upon trying to explain to him about the great American novel hoping that I didn’t offend him he responded with “hmm sound’s like a good book.” As we walked through the dive shop his employees call him captain. We tried our best not to laugh, but I really couldn’t be making this up. He then gave us our book to study and told us to meet back here in a week for our first pool dive.

             Now a week has gone by and I haven’t done much, the hotel room walls were staring to close in on me. Iv actually taken up the hobby of staring at the wallpaper and looking for shapes, just like watching the clouds except worse. Staring at the clouds spawns imagination and dreams. Staring at  wallpaper, in an Islamic country in which all the woman are covered up like ninjas, spawns weird images of woman in distorted shapes, but woman non the less. Aaron and I were up early to catch a cab for the dive shop in north Jeddah. As we stood out in front of our hotel waiting for our trusty cab driver Alam, the sun was shining and the day was looking beautiful. Now the day had been planned for Aaron and I to start off the day with our first pool dive have lunch, take a written test, and finish out the day with another pool dive. Aaron had figured that this day wouldn’t be too long or strenuous and the fact that he had worked the night before and at the start of the day had been awake for 18 hours was a non-issue.  Given that we both work in EMS Staying awake for 24 or more hours, well although not desirable wasn’t completely out of the ordinary, and I thought nothing of it.  We arrived at the dive shop to find the clouds closing in, a phone call to the owner of the pool had to be made to confirm the pool could be used. As the owner was not answering his phone the plans changed Aaron and I were to take the written test then dive if the pool were available. A little side story, we had intended to do our pool dives a week or so prior but the storm that I had previously written about had filled the pool with sand. We had finished our tests and walked out side to find the sky had not only filed with clouds but also had turned black. This is now around 10am. Captain Ahab being the good Saudi Muslim he is offered us coffee and tea, a tradition in which if you refuse they take as great insult. So far I have had a couple of incidents in which I thought I was going to pop from all the tea I had consumed. One of the oddest things about this country is that available to them is one of the most profound compilations of tea Know to man kind, most family’s upon serving tea to guests will serve three or four different types of tea. One sitting I was at had this really bitchen teakettle that had three spouts with three different types of tea. All from the same kettle, however they all drink “Lipton yellow label.” As we sat a drank our tea, the storm clouds opened up and dropped a torrential down poor of epic proportions, immediately cancelling our pool dive. Conceding to the weather we decided to stay in that part of town, which happens to remind me of Beverly hills given that the streets adjacent to the dive shop are lined with Gucci, Saks fifth avenue, Bentley and Rolls Royce. One of the things I intend to do before I leave this county is put on a suit and walk into a Ferrari dealership and pretend I’m some rich American just so they’ll let me sit in one. Lunch was simple enough walk across the street…Right? ……Wrong! In the ten minutes wading from the dive shop to the restaurant the streets had flooded up to our ankles. Assuming it was simply that one of the storm drains had clogged causing localized flooding we committed our selves to a restaurant. We sat down at the high end, prestigious, for Saudi upper class only, “Fuddruckers” and I proceeded to eat an amazing Chile cheeseburger, unfortunately with beef bacon. What is beef bacon you ask? I have NO idea! AN hour later its still raining and our localized ankle deep flood had progressed to mid calf. Back at the dive shop we attempt and failed miserable to hail a cab. Already an unknown series of event was in action, that would lead Aaron and I into an 30-hour adventure.

Aaron and I decide to walk in the, “ holy smokes IV never seen rain in which you might actually be able to swim up,” kind of rain to a major road to try and catch a cab. As we approach the main road, all the cars in the direction we need to go are in complete gridlock. No one is moving an inch and yet each and every one of them feels it necessary to honk there horn a minimum of 10 times a minute. Finding a storefront with an overhang we stop to laugh at our situation. Worst of all we still cant hail a cab, were so wet they wont let us in. After about thirty minuets of walking and stopping under the overhangs we could find, in a storm that lasted three hours we find a cab.  He’s a nice looking gentleman of a rather short stature, I half expected him to have blocks tied to his feet like the Asian kid from Indiana Joan’s. Most importantly he smiled and had a dry cab. Now I know I don’t speak Arabic, and Aaron doesn’t speak Arabic. This cab driver sure as heck doesn’t speak English, but I am definitely sure he didn’t speak Arabic or any other language for that matter. Most cab drivers wait to move their cab until they know where it is that you are going. Not this guy as soon as our butts were in the seats the cab was in motion. As we franticly attempted to tell him our destination traffic came to grinding halt. Thankfully there was a super nice guy stranded in traffic in the car next to use that was able to translate from English to Arabic to “mumble-eses.” Now it gets funny. The cab driver freaks out, throws his hands in the air, and starts yelling at the sky. We soon come to find out from our translator friend that our destination was under water. Our translator tells us the whole city is under water. This just didn’t make sense to me a city of 3.4 million people submerged after a three-hour storm. Well we were soon to find out that indeed that is what happened.

 After the cab driver was done ranting at the sky he literally reaches over me opens the door and push’s me out of his cab. The best part is that he took us three miles in the wrong direction. Being the brave explorers we are we bust out the GPS unit and decide to hoof the 11 miles back to our hotel, repressing the information that the city was under water. As we walk the streets the storm clouds open up again as if to send us an omen telling us to just stay put, but we kept telling ourselves, this was a good plan, given that all the cars were in gridlock and on foot we were actually moving. And making good time too boot! But the water is getting deeper and the number of abandon cars is rising.  Oh and the number of floating sandal’s was hitting epic proportions.

            Once we were in water chest deep and there started to be a current our plans of making it to the hotel were abandon, and we shot for the closer Ramada Inn. Upon our arrival of the prestigious five star hotel we found the entire first floor to be in water chest deep. But in true Ramada Fashion we were still meet by the concierge service. However I think the guy was just trying to be a comedian when he asked us if we would like call to call the bell hope and room service.  Wadeing through streets and the lobby was surreal; it felt like we were those people you see on CNN in some other country. We were except for the fact that the Saudi board of information refuses to let events like this go public. Pushing floating tables and couches out of the way we breeched a dark hall way that lead us to the elevator’s, comedic as he was the guy presses the up button and says, “you can wait for elevator but I’m going to take the stairs.”  Up the stairs we walked slower and slower as the water level dropped so did the amount of light. A slight feeling of fear crept up in side my chest of where exactly we were going. So far other than the jokes  the hotel manager had said nothing, we asked if the had rooms and he said “come. .Come,” and we made are way to the stairs. But in the back of my head the risk that I undertake being in another country let alone be a one that has folks in it that despise westerners is always sort of there. We climbed what seemed to be an insane amount of stairs just to get to the second story slowly in a dark, which became absolute pitch, black. What we found at the top of the stairs is something I never would have imagined I would ever see, shouldn’t have seen, and probably not many other non-Muslim westerners have seen or every will see.

Islamic law is very strict, but just like any other religion you have the die-hard religious thugs and the casual only prey when I feel guilty ones. Most Muslims are closer to the die-hard status than the casual status. The rules are vast and complex, and punishments bizarre and severe. One of the aspects of Islam that most do tend to practice is segregation of the sexes. At a very young age sons are there to protect mothers and sisters. Women can’t drive and fairly often you’ll see a 10-year-old male driving around his mother and sisters. As soon as they start school they are separated boys and girls don’t interact, you cannot just walk up to a woman in a mall or shop and talk to them. A few weeks ago I help and old lady stand up out of a cab and the driver warned me of how inappropriate it is for me to help them cause they are below us and that her husband could press charges under Islamic law and have me jailed.  Although that is an extreme situation that my Saudi friends that I trust tell me would never happen, but its possible. Should a man intend to be married, he is arranged most of the time by family, they go through a series of courtships where they discover if they are compatible with the other person. All of the segregation leads to a very odd community with abstract gender roles. As far as what it is for Saudi woman I have no idea and will probably never know. But Saudi men are strange in how they interact with each other. Often times you will see them walking through a store holding hands with interlocked fingers, men kiss close friends on the lips and I have seen others sitting on benches gently rubbing each others arms and resting there heads on each others shoulders. At first I wondered that perhaps the homosexual community was larger than what the government would ever let the rest of the world know. Iv become close friends with a few Saudis here, and at one point I felt comfortable with asking them about all the male on male affection, what Iv been told is that there truly isn’t a lot of homosexuality. Secondary to the amount of segregation and the fact that all woman are considered below men regardless of age sons look down on there mothers. But this ends up taking away all the feminine exposure; all the hugs from mom after a bad dream are gone. This need is inherent as a human being so they find it in other from somewhere else their friends that they trust end up for filing that role. Now one pint I want to make truly clear is that the woman below men aspect of this society is out dated and unnecessary, but I have never seen woman abused or treated poorly. Once their married there husbands dump thousands of dollars a month on anything they could ever need. They outfit they wear is an “ebiya” and the men see it as protecting there wives and daughters from “the evil.” When I asked what “the evil” was I was told “men.”  Unfortunately I can’t say the same for every other non-Saudi woman in the country.

What I saw when we walked up those stairs was incredibly unique, and I was able to see it only because of the flood. We were lead into a ballroom, which was being used for a wedding that morning and used as safe haven for the flood. Everywhere I looked I saw groups segregated men and woman sitting and talking. Every so often popping their heads up to look over at a group of the opposite sex and giggling. Old men sitting around candles like wise men telling story’s of there past, and passing there wisdom onto the youth, and old lady’s walking around patrolling the girls making sure they didn’t look at the boys for too long. I felt like I had walked into an article of national geographic, the images of Ethiopian village’s sitting around a fire kept creeping into my brain. Wedding tablecloths were used as blankets and the men were giving them to single woman and then children and then quickly shooed away by the old ladies as soon as the girls started giggling. It was like an abstract matting dance never before seen by western eyes.  But the most incredible thing that I was privileged to see was yet to come.

Another aspect of Islamic living is prayer. In the Islamic religion they are what is called “under the law” which means that five times a day through out the country, prayer calls ring out from every where, and if you are Muslim you are required to go to a mosque and pray, Men in one mosque and woman in another. As a non-Muslim I may not enter a mosque and cannot look in on one while they are praying. 

As the night went on it started to get colder, the hotel had very little water and no food. I had already entered into survival mode, planning an exit strategy and ideas of where to obtain food and water.  We secured our chairs and tablecloths and hunkered down for the night, as Aaron had been awake for now 26 hours he was fast asleep on a window ledge. But that small amount of fear I had earlier had risen with the water, to the point where I was considering waking up Aaron and braving the neck deep water and swift currents. Abruptly enough to take me away from my window view of a round about that was now a lake and cluttered with abandon cars, all the voices that had once been too loud for me to think had stopped and dead silence had filled the room. A solo voice then rang out through the ballroom singing, it was time for the evening prayer. A chant of thanks for the day, sung in a delicate manor with a wondering pitch. Every man and woman in the ballroom was in rows with there heads bowed towards the holy city. As the soft song of the one man brave enough to stand in front of 50 strangers and sing an elegant song of thanks and faith stopped the silence filed the room once again. As abruptly as the silence started each one of them sang the closing chant together, a short yet incredible beautiful mantra that I would have never heard if I hadn’t been stranded in that ball room because of a flood.

Soon after the prayer we were able to find an actual bed to sleep in and woke up to sunshine and travesty, as we were still five miles from our hotel. We walked into the lobby to find images that we are all familiar with, a flood ridden community on the news. Furniture strewn about large amounts of dirt on the floor, no power and people attempting to salvage what they could. We walked outside to find thousands of abandon cars clogging the streets making a cab ride impossible. We ended up walking several miles on a freeway filled with empty flood damaged cars. When the road started opening up we were able to secure a ride in the back of a truck from a non English speaking total stranger that gave us about three miles less of walking. When we finally did find a cab it was a short ride as we were only half a mile from the hotel. I wanted to go diving and the only water my fins saw was from a flood while on my back. Maybe soon ill actually get to use them on my feet while diving.

First two Weeks in Jeddah

Iv now been in Jeddah for two weeks, and already I’m finding it difficult to keep the boredom demon off my back, especially at work. My schedule is two-day shifts, two-night shifts and six days off. The aircraft are piloted by an amazing group of gentlemen from all over the world that work for Abu Dhabi Aviation. The aircraft are antiquated bell 412 with about a billion hours on them but are meticulously maintained by a fleet of very capably mechanics. So far I’ve had one 12-hour shift in Riyadh and four 12-hour shifts in Jeddah. The shifts in Jeddah have been a tumultuous combination of channel surfing with the inevitable thumb cramp, close calls with falling off the couch while napping, and hunting mosquito’s with an electric fly swatter like a super secret service ninja ranger seal. Luckily I think my training is nearly over as I haven’t fallen off the couch in two shifts and IV been able to keep the mosquitoes at bay, now if I could only avoid thumb cramps. When we actually did get activated for a call in Jeddah the pilot looked at the map and realizing that it was 300 kilometers away and in Mekkah he refused the call based on the fact that our crew of four (pilot, co pilot, doctor, and I) had 3 non Muslims and are unable to fly in or around the holy city.  Then we were grounded on account of weather, the weather ill talk about later. SO yes for those of you keeping track that’s 4 shifts with a grand total of zero calls!! Now when I was in Riyadh the ship is crazy busy we had 2 calls in 12 hours, I know painful right?

              Let me tell you about my EMS experience in Saudi so far. We are flying into unsecured landing zones, that are being bum rushed by locals that have never seen a helicopter before. Iv been told stories by other medics that have been working “pin in” car accidents that have had to stop treating there patient to get bystander’s that are holding there kid in one arm and a camera in the other hand out of the car that there trying to extricate the patient from. In other words patient care really doesn’t start until you get into the helicopter and have lifted off. Once your in the ship the doctor (well more of a med student than a doc) is the only one that speaks to the patient given the language barrier, but you cant help but laugh at the “Abbot and Costello” routine going on with there communication. For those of you that have never been in a helicopter they are extremely loud. Those headsets you see actors wear in movies aren’t just there to make us look like total badass’s, that’s the only way we can talk. Now picture this, we have two English speaking pilots, one English speaking medic and an Arabic speaking doctor and patient, but for some reason, I just cant get across to the doctor that no matter how loud he yells at the patient he wont hear him either because of the sound of the jet engine or because the doctor is wearing a headset and a the patient is not.  Once we get to the hospital the fun really begins, we land and a trauma surgeon meets us at the helipad, which I thought was pretty cool until he started yelling at us for bringing in a patient that didn’t require his specific services, so we are then handed off to the poor ER doc who looks like he hasn’t slept in a year. He’s a nice guy, given that he works in a hospital that has the appearance, technological ability, and intelligence level of the old “Scenic circle care center.” Upon exciting the ER doors back to the helipad there are about 75 people all standing in front of the ship taking pictures and posing like they’re at Disneyland. Will it be like this in Jeddah? I guess ill have to run a call to find out.

            Ah the weather, well I was told I was arriving in Jeddah during the rainy season, and that there typical rainy season is about two weeks long and consists of about two good storms. This time last year that information was entirely inaccurate. A city of 3.5 million people was flooded to the point where 143 people died. At first I thought this was crazy but after seeing how this country drives in the rain, it’s suddenly clear as to how they all perished.  One of the local news articles warned people not to drive into standing water, as you never know how deep it will be. Laughing out loud at the headline I asked the hotel manager about the article, His response was a rather interesting story. Apparently last year a large number of the flash flood related deaths were due to people driving through an underpass that had filled with water potentially up to 20 feet deep, and they drowned, as most people don’t know how to swim. This information was discovered after the water had evaporated or been drained out and they found cars with body’s in them. As outlandish a story this is IV been told it several times by multiple people. I’m looking for news articles to confirm it but the government censor’s every thing, and I’m wondering if I ever will. So upon arrival in Jeddah I meet the rain and with desert rain comes flash floods. I have never in my life seen rain like this. The night at the bases when I as grounded due to weather, it rained so hard  for 4 hours that I put a standard drinking glass out side and it filled to the point of overflowing in 15 minutes.  The buildings we stay in at the base are made out of metal and normally the slow smooth chant of rain on a metal roof is one of the most amazing and soothing sounds I can think of. This sound however was not soothing; it started abruptly and loud and only progressed in volume causing an ominous uneasy feeling, one causing a subtle fear to rise up inside you. Making you want to look out the door every so often to check for biblical type flooding.  Then it simply stopped raining and thunderstorms rolled in to the north and flooded the mountain cities with torrential downpour. The next morning the news said that 75% of the city’s roads were flooded and closed but that didn’t stop people form driving on them and our typical 20 minute ride from the base to the hotel took an hour and a half to navigate through the city’s least flooded roads.

            Now I’m on my six days off, and I’m finding it difficult to find folks who want to leave the oasis of our hotel. Our hotel is another interesting topic, Its not a bad hotel, in fact in 1975 when it was built it was a five star beauty built on the edge of bustling down town Jeddea. Well as time affects most cities, there down town becomes a slum and five star hotels from the seventy’s aren’t five stares in the current market. To put it another way I’ve been told not to walk to far from the hotel at night, but the hotel has enough amenity’s to not need to. Plus my room has a pretty good view from the ninth floor of the seaport with amazing sunsets each night.

            As I’m having trouble finding, folks to go adventuring with me I figured id do the same thing did in Riyadh, go out to the, street find a cab, point to something in the distance and see where I end up. Well this time I pointed at the ocean with hopes of ending up at the beach, well I soon found out that the hotel is in southern Jeddah and all the beaches are in northern Jeddah about an hour or more away. So I didn’t end up at a beach, instead I found my self at the most amazing fish market I’ve have ever seen. Walking through the gate there were posters in every language about not taking any pictures, why? I have no idea I didn’t think fish were a national secret, but non the less one of the things Saudis don’t mess around about are there photography laws, the will take your camera and if you get caught taking pictures of government buildings they don’t deport you but instead you get to spend time in a Saudi jail, something I have no desire to do so I set my camera to auto and took pictures with it slung on my shoulder. Although a rather stupid a clever idea it did get me some great photos. Now the fish market covers probably an area the size of a football field and had hundreds of booths, all colorfully decorated with pictures of the king, selling every kind of sea food from blue crabs to grouper and lobster. Each booth consisted of a table covered in fresh fish and between one and eight sales men all yelling at the top of their lungs trying to get people to buy from there booth, or haggling over prices. So I decided to watch a sale go down, bare in mind it’s all in Arabic. The sale starts with a gentleman simply looking at a fish, the sales men will come over and pick up the fish and hold it up in the air. Proclaiming that his fish is the best in the market, he then slams it down on the table and states a price; the purchasing gentleman will then brush off the fact that this is the best fish in the market, pointing out its obvious flaws. The salesman offended, then slaps the fish ignoring the flaws and increasing his price for all the good points of the fish. The purchasing gentleman waves his hand and starts to walk away, desperately the sales man lowers his price and declares the quality of his fish over every other fish in the sea, this back and fourth mating dance go’s on for about ten minutes longer with both men progressively yelling louder until a price is meet. As if the sales man had just one a marathon he begins proclaiming his sale to the others in his booth, money is exchanged and the fish is wrapped up. All for the process to start again granted this all took place in Arabic, so for all I know they could have been talking about playmate of the month.

            After the fish market I asked another cab driver to take me to a shopping mall, so I could buy a pair of running shoes, I doubt he knew what I wanted as I found my self in the oldest souqe in Jeddah, Al balad. 

            Now this is what I had imagined a true open-air market to be like. As a little kid watching Indiana Jones walk through a bizarre in bally or some other strange country has always initiated my desire to travel and just see. This market was incredibly full of life stores and shops and carts with every thing you can think of. Walking the catacombs’ of streets and alleyway’s and temporary isle one could see any thing form beautifully colorful and handmade dress’s to shoes and handcrafted jewelry. One could easily become terribly lost and destine to wander the market for what would seem like eternity. Follow your nose and one will find the incredibly well stoked confectionary’s, with immense cakes and candy’s, or incredible baklava, Coffee shops with fresh ground Turkish coffee mixes, which if you have never had it try it you’ll hate it then love it. Follow your nose to far though and you’ll notice the street turns from brown bricks to bloody bricks and the sweet scent of cakes turns to wet stale smell that even if you had never had this scent cross you nose in your life you knew what it would be. The butcher shops of AL balad,  they are a site to see for only the strongest of stomachs. Livestock cages with every thing from chickens to goats are out in front of shops filled with stainless steel tables, band saw’s, and men wearing blood stained aprons, standing in fresh pools of warm blood and piles of entrails from what ever animal they just slaughtered. All armed to the hilt with knives of every size and type, and smiling calling you to come into there shop and to pick out a lamp or chicken from a cage like pulling a lobster from a tank, to have it killed butchered and packaged. Suddenly I wasn’t hungry anymore, but the wonderful smell of “shawarma” coming from one of the many restaurants’ changed my mind. Either that, or it was just a good reason to get out of that part of the market. With a full belly of freshly grilled lamb, I was back on the search for shoes.

            Each and every moment here I’m am learning something new, weather it be about religion or about ways in which not to offend my hosts, in the souqes you learn very quickly that finding a specific thing in a timely manor is about as possible as learning quantum physics in a 20 min conversation. Each moment in the market is filled with intriguing sites and smells, shop owners calling to you from every direction showing you rare spices and incense, or fine jewelry and electronics.  And as soon as something peaks your interest they pull you into their shop to show you more only to discover that there shop has the same meticulous catacombs as the market itself. Pulling away from each shop only to be found by yet another intriguing site that I had only dreamed about before I had come here. I found myself just content with wondering the endless walkways with a silly grin on my face that either initiated a response from the beggars or shopkeepers to strike up a conversation with a goofy looking white guy, or for them simply to smile back and nod somehow understanding that I was there for the experience and loving every second of it.

Flying to Jeddah

1-7-11

             Well IV been transferred to Jeddah.  Something that I’m not entirely happy about but I think that this city has a lot of benefits over Riyadh, such as far more liberal, Beach, Scuba diving etc. But these things seem trivial compared to living in the same hotel with multiple other folks in your same position. In Riyadh it was as simple as calling one or two guys to have an adventure. People I could trust to help me out with info or ideas, and people to vent with. Going to Jeddah takes that away. There’s only one other Flight medic at the hotel I’m staying at so who knows what’s on the horizon.

            The process of gong to Jeddah has been a nightmare, of missing stamps and wrong signatures, and when things finally did get worked out, I had 10 hours notice. Oh well I just keep telling myself “the prize is in the journey”

            This was shown to me in full form in the airport the day I left. There was nothing terribly exciting in the beginning.

-Arrive at airport

-Haggle with cabdriver about not changing the price he told me when we left the hotel

-Haggle with Bengali to take my bags (important step if you want to get through the airport in a timely manor

-Find check in counter

-Find someone who speaks English at check in counter

-Wait for some one to show up at counter to say in English that no one speaks English

-Question him in English about his ability to speak English

-Try not to laugh when he explains to you in English that no one speaks English

-Give up on someone speaking English

-Go through security

-Try not to laugh at the first security guy sleeping or X-ray guard not even looking at

-Find coffee

-Sit down to wait for flight

-Read book

This is where things got interesting!!!! I pull out a book that was given to me by a flight medic that had gone home about a week ago. He told me it was a good book   I put it on my nightstand and there it sat. Now rather engrossed in the book I was interrupted by an older Saudi gentleman, wearing only a large towel like cloth around his waste cinched with a small clasp and a similar towel over his shoulders like a shall not covering nearly enough of his hair covered body, asking me to move my carry on so that he could sit down. Later I learned that outfit is worn by those on pilgrimage to Makkah, to them by wearing only simple cloths equalizes them to every man in the eyes of god, meaning that weather you’re a doctor or banker or cab driver during pilgrimage you are all equals to god. I was rather perturbed initially given his lack of attire and that he didn’t sit in any of the other HUNDRED open seats and wanted to sit next to me. Granted I did have a great view of the runway and a beautiful desert landscape behind that, but SERIOUSLY THERE WAS A MILLION OTHER OPEN SEATS. I kindly smiled and moved my bag. He sat down and began asking me in near perfect English about my book. In my frustration of loosening my personal safety bubble I gave the short answer, “Don’t know just started it” He smiles and says, “this book hmm, I know this book.” Suddenly it hit me, I remembered the flight medic who went home telling me several weeks before he gave me the book that it was on the Saudi Banned list. I instantaneously started having visions of the Matawa (Saudi religious police) running a sting operation for westerners with bootleg reading material.  I mean why else would he have sat right next to me with a zillion extra seats open. These things happen, this is an incredibly censored country. I once saw an Oreo cookie add with the teen girls blacked out in Sharpie because, an ad showed too much of there legs. I looked through the other copies of the magazine all cookies ads blacked out. Its so crazy that there’s a “black market” for books and magazines, you know like in the states where you can buy a kidney but here its for books about open thought like the bible or Vanity fair.  I have yet to find it but ill keep you all posted on my progress. (Attention all statements about the Saudi book black market are fictitious and don’t exist){The government made me put that in there}[ HAHAHAHAHAH]

            The gentlemen in now a softer tone keeps prodding me about the book and where I got it, getting more and more nervous that soldiers in Thobes are going to come rappelling down from the ceiling, he asked me in the softest tone “may I see this book.” Fearing arrest and hoping for a lesser sentence for not resisting I handed it to him, as he thumbed through the pages I looked into his eyes and saw he was nearly in tears. At that moment all fears had left, he wasn’t the secret police, I was in no danger, and in fear I missed the fact that the tone of his voice had changed when I told him the title of the book. Now intending to have a long conversation with a total stranger in another country about a banned book that obviously had a massive emotional effect on him, I got excited. But that conversation didn’t happen. He simple looked at me and said “I read this book while in Egypt in 1989, I haven’t seen a copy since Thank you.”  He turned to a specific page and gestured to a specific passage. His worn dry hands resembled experience, openness and knowledge so much that I was so excited to read the passage I didn’t notice that he had gone until I had read it.

             This is what he pointed too:

A Certain Shopkeeper sent his son to learn about the secret of happiness from the wisest man in the world. The lad wondered through the desert for forty days, and finally came upon a beautiful castle, high atop a mountain. It was there that the wise man lived. Rather than finding a saintly man, on entering the main room of the castle, he saw a hive of activity: tradesman came and went, people were conversing in the corner a small orchestra was playing soft music, and the table covered with platters of the most delicious food in that part of the world. The wise man conversed with everyone, and the boy had to wait for two hours before it was his turn to be given the mans attention. The wise man listened attentively to the boy’s explanation of why he had come, but told him that he didn’t have time just then to explain the secret of happiness. He suggested that the boy look around the palace and return in tow hours.

“Meanwhile, I want to ask you to do something,” said the wise man, handing the boy a teaspoon that held two drops of oil. ”As you wonder around, carry this spoon with you without allowing the oil to spill.”

The boy began climbing and descending the many stairways of the palace, keeping his eyes fixed on the spoon. After two hours, he returned to the room where the wise man was.

“Well,” asked the wise man, “did you see the Persian tapestries that are hanging in my dining hall? Did you see the garden that it took the master gardener ten years to create? Did you notice the beautiful parchments in my library?’

The boy was embarrassed, and confessed that he had observed nothing. His only concern had been not to spill the oil that the wise man had entrusted him.

“Then go back and observe the marvels of my world,” said the wise man. “You cannot trust a man if you don’t know his house.”

Relieved the boy picked up the spoon and returned to his exploration of the palace, this time observing all of the works of art on the ceilings and the walls. He saw the gardens, the mountains all around him, the beauty of the flowers, and the taste with which every thing had been selected. Upon returning to the wise man, he related in detail everything he had seen.

“But where are the drops of oil I entrusted you?” asked the wise man

             Looking down at the spoon he held, the boy saw that the oil was gone.

“Well there is only one piece of advice I can give you,” said the wisest of wise men.

“The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never forget the drops of oil on the spoon”

            Taken from Paulo Coelho “The Alchemist”   

Maroond in the desert after finding Diomands

    So far my adventures have been taking place with a small number of people Doug the “bata” Pro, Joel a pilot who intends on living in Costa Rica for the rest of his life, Todd the oil buff, jay a pilot who owns a restaurant in Canada with a golf pro, and Lonnie. Lonnie is always with me, we share a rather peculiar sense of humor and our personality’s (My “what the hell lets just see what happens sense of adventure” and his “older brother don’t get yourself killed and laugh after you fall down”) match to the point where were perfect for random adventures together. Lonnie is a middle age man with a family back in Florida and of all the things I know about Lonnie what I realize the most is how much he loves his wife and kids and how each day away from them pains him a little bit more.

  Today was Lonnie’s choice of adventure. A few days after I had arrived into the country Doug had shown me his desert diamonds. Stones found in the sand that can be taken to a jeweler and cut into stones resembling diamonds. Now these stones are valuable there worth about $50 a caret are harder that zirconium and only slightly softer than diamonds. AND apparently all you have to do is pick them up out of the sand. Not really my speed but I was down to go anyways.

 We arrived in the desert about two hours north of the city to find vast open space. After a short lesson on what to look for, we were off to find diamonds. Joel and I to the left and Lonnie and jay to the right, as were wondering around staring at the ground Joel and I think we have hit pay dirt. A huge area covered with the stones that Lonnie described just laying in the dirt their for us to pick up.  After Joel and I fill our bags full of rocks we walk over to Lonnie thinking we have found our fortune only to find out that of the 25 pounds of stones we thought were diamonds Lonnie advised us that only two were and that 3 other stones were actually petrified camel dung. The funniest part is thinking of some nomad finding our pile of regular rocks and camel dung that we just dumped out of the bags into a pile, and wondering how the rocks found there way into a pile as opposed to strewn out in the desert.

 After leaving the area with the diamonds we headed back towards the hotel, driving through Thamama again we set out to ride a camel, but couldn’t find a salesman willing to let us so we rented Dune buggies instead. Now when you’re in a foreign country that happened to consist primarily of sand and a guy name Joel says “ this reminds me of that show I shouldn’t be alive” don’t rent dune buggies just go back to the hotel and watch a movie. Yea well we rented them anyways. Mistake 1. Upon inspecting these buggies I point out there just simple VW’s with the body ripped off and a make shift roll cage snottily welded to the frame. We bartered for two of them for one hour, the guy asked for my phone number and I assumed it was like renting a car; they want your phone number. Well that was mistake 2. He wanted my number in case anything were to happen to his buggies, well the four of us all left our phones in the truck for fear they might get lost, and only being gone an hour we wouldn’t need water or jackets. Mistake 3. With the deal done and our testosterone flowing were tore off into the desert. To honest as big a pile of crap this things were they were fun. The sand was soft and doing things like donuts and jumping sand dunes was easily done. But climbing hills well that was mistake number 4. As we approached a rather un steep hill our buggy bogged down to the frame and threw so much sand onto Lonnie and I that when I washed my hear that night I clogged the drain. (Weather that was due to the bad plumbing that frequently backs grey water up into the tub or the sand is unknown) Joel and jay found us and tried to push us out of the sand pit we had created there buggy and got buried and we had to be pulled out by a random Saudi that was out there doing the same thing we were, in his bran new hummer, the great thing about being in a country were no one speaks English is that the thought you would normally keep to yourself and tell your buddies later can be said openly. So while the army of young Saudis that helped us out Joel turns and says to jay. “You think there making fun of the four dumb tourists?” as jay is laughing and about to respond one of the younger ones says “ yup they pretty much are and they think Lonnie looks like Nicolas Cage.” We were all laughing so hard that the young one that knew English had to explain to the rest of them why we were laughing. Then everyone was laughing and pointing at Lonnie asking to take pictures with the actor. Soon we were off and reeking havoc again and 20 min into our sixty Lonnie an I find Joel and jay stopped, thinking they were stuck again, we started circling them spraying them with sand until they were yelling that there buggy had died. Of course this didn’t yield help it yielded more laughter and taunting. Finally Lonnie and I get out to help Joel and jay and Joel jumps into our buggy and starts doing doughnuts. Mistake 5. Less than five minutes into Joel’s ride our buggy dies. Now we cant get either of them started. First its all laughter and jokes then when the four of use simultaneously realize we got to walk back to the rental guy the weight of our “who knows how long” walk out of the desert in soft sand was going to more than suck. But in true “dumb young group of guys” fashion we all started laughing, blaming, and taunting each other  for the potentially paroles position we were in.

    Well we started walking, we didn’t even make it 100 yards from our dead buggies when two young Saudis blaring Britney spears out of their SUV stopped and starting talking to us in Arabic. What I’m sure he said was “ What the hell are you four dumb Asses doing in the middle of the desert with two piece of junk buggies.” Thankfully after we all looked at him with what must have resembled that dog twisting his head, he said “ you American? I love American!! I help now,” We told him we were from Canada. He laughed and said, “ Ok Ok close enough” now we had a choice to make. Walk a million miles through the desert with no water in the direction we thought we needed to go or let this guy who seemed nice give us a ride back to the highway. Well the four of us conferred that we could probably take these guys if necessary, or that the sand was soft enough we could just bail out of the car and be fine. So we all climbed in his SUV. This guy insisted on continuing to talk to us in Arabic even with all the confused looks and we continued to smile and try to communicate. About 20 min later we made it back to the highway instead of getting on the nice smooth highway he instead he shows us the high speed off road capability’s off his SUV. Which normally I would see as fun but the “opps I did it again” (painful Britney spears song) blaring in the background made the ride brutal. Now in our broken communication we figure out that he’s asking us what direction to head to get back to our vehicle. 20 min later in the direction we thought it was we noticed our Saud friend was beginning to loose his penitence’s. We decided that we were at least to the highway and we should exit the vehicle and release our rescuing friend. Well he decided to not let us, picking up speed and calling people on his phone. We start discussing our “bail out of a moving car” option. As Joel starts to open the door we begin to slow. And cars start showing up. Now about 20 Saudis a get out of three or four vehicles, kissing each other cheek in the traditional Saudi greeting, and the last guy to show up was this guys brother, he gets out of his car and laughing and says “ What the hell are you guys doing this far out” thankfully he went to school in the states and spoke perfect English. Come to find out that the angry phone call that prompted us to consider bailing out of the moving car was to his brother and was about him being pissed off at the buggy rental guy for renting us such huge pieces of junk.  He herded us back into his SUV and took us straight back to our vehicle. All, while warning us about the dangers of getting stuck in the desert, we all felt like little kids in the back seat of the car getting yelled at by mom and dad.  

Bluffs at Thamama

     WOW is truly the only way to explain Thamama. It’s an Area of Saudi Arabia North East of Riyadh, which the Saudis use for a multitude of things. Primarily it is the home of the largest Camel Soque in the county, secondarily its used as a recreation area for all sorts of ATV's dune buggies and the occasional impromptu camel race.

  Today’s plan was to go out and see the camels. As we approach along the main highway you can see tens of thousands of camels ranging in size color and most importantly value. One needs to only stop and try their hand at bartering for a camel to get the show of a lifetime. We decided to stop at one of the venders with a large herd of white camels. For some reason the white ones are worth more than a new Mercedes and BMW combined. (Those are the exact words of the sales man and was confirmed with one of my local Saudi friends) As we get out of the car the odor of a barnyard nightmare hits your face like sledge hammer. Then as the sales men approach you realize that the smell is not only the camels but also the people. Most people in Saudi Arabia DONT have a BO problem as they relish perfumes and incense. Each and every one of them wears a different scent and wants his or her sent to be the strongest in the crowd. So walking through a mall or shop can be an adventure for your nose as well. But the camel sales me are form a more traditional way of life similar to the "boudin" but aren’t nomads. They simply live in large tents and sleep on the ground. Now these are definitely the most lavish tents I have ever seen or imagined but none the less they live in tent and only bath when the camels turn there noses up at the stench. Now as the sales men brought over several camels I was awestruck at its shear size and lack of grace. When asked, a camel will walk the desert forever but trying to get them to do things like walk in a circle around three American tourists was like watching the three stooge’s. So instead the salesmen simple brought over bread and began to feed them first with his hands then with his mouth. I nearly barfed when it licked his face. Soon the sales man realized all we wanted to do was look and take pictures (I think that if I were to buy a camel customs would be a little difficult) they became very agitated and began demanding money. Unfortunately our opportunity to ride them was cut out. SO instead we rented ATV's and had a gas fumed race across the open dunes, jumping sand bluffs and attempting to climb the endless hills of sand. 

  The most beautiful thing we did today was simple make a right-hand turn off the main road and see where it leads. No one had even imagined what it was we were about to discover.

   We turned off the paved road in a rental car that was actually barrowed from a friend that was out of country on vacation (sorry Doug) heading into the desert on hard ground over loose rock.  It was fun to say the least in a compact sedan with a whole whopping 4 inches of ground clearance.  When we maxed out the car we got out and walked. Now the idea was to find a cliff that overlooks Thamama we had a general idea but no idea if we could reach it. As we walked we joked about being stuck out in the desert and suddenly as if it appeared out of the sand beneath our feet we found the cliff. (This is an optical allusion the Saudis call "masbaH" as you approach cliffs you walk up a gentle incline, often too gentle to even notice, that’s created by the wind storms, this incline helps your mind merge the ground your walking on with the ground seen in the distance beyond the cliff, making for a rather startling surprise when your confronted with a several hundred foot drop) As our eyes adjusted to be able to pick out the difference between the deserts we stood on and the desert that was in the distance we realized the treasure we had found. A stunning panoramic landscape of cliffs overlooking the rocky desert that in the distance merged in to the brilliant red sand of Thamama. To those of you that believe that the desert is a barren waste land, must realize there is a beauty to this desolation and emptiness.