Dammam Again

Despite my misgivings the flight from Riyadh to Dammam was Ok and the landing very smooth.  The terminal was large, clean and rather empty.  A driver was waiting to collect me holding a sign with my name on it in bold letters. 

Nasser is a local and his family has apparently lived here and in Bahrain for many generations.  The airport is 50 km out of Dammam so there was an opportunity to see some of the countryside.  It looked very similar to outback Australia!  There were a large number of tent camps on the outskirts of the city and I asked if they were Bedouin.  Nasser told me they were mostly family weekend retreats.  Like and NZ “bach” or and Australian “shack”.  He told me his family owned one and they went there most weekends to unwind.  Further into the city and the traffic started to build up with long queues forming.  It was 1.30pm and Nasser told me it was the end of day rush-hour.  So I asked what time people started work.  Apparently the manual labourers (eg, non-saudi) start at 7am and the office workers start at 8am.  So the working hours are 8 – 1.30 and they need a weekend retreat to recover?  To be fair this is mostly the government workers.  Saudi’s working in the private sector have longer hours.  The problem for the Saudi government was high unemployment compounded by the fact that Saudi’s are not skilled in technical work and are uninterested in learning.  To reduce unemployment the government created a public service bureaucracy but have now realise this is a dangerous strategy and are attempting to reverse their direction.

I had been booked into the Carlton Hotel for the night and Nasser told me he would collect me at 6am in the morning for the drive to Bahrain.  I had a late lunch in the restaurant on the top floor of the hotel.  The view wasn’t that interesting as the hotel is situated in a commercial area surrounded by numerous building sites.

However there was a building opposite that looked quite interesting

The building has the same problem as me….. Expanding waistline!  The building behind and to the left was also interesting.  The top third was turned 45 degrees to the bottom and it has a helipad on the very top.

I decided to keep working and skipped dinner!