Jeddah

There has been quite a gap since my last post.  It wasn’t intentional, I’ve been away longer than anticipated.  The plan was to go to Jeddah for two days to meet with potential clients.  Jeddah is the major city on the west coast of Saudi Arabia and is reputably more ‘liberal’ than Riyadh. 

The flight took about 1hr 30mins which slightly surprised me as I hadn’t realised it was almost twice the distance from Riyadh to Jeddah compared to Riyadh to Dammam.  I had already put in a full day at work before we left in the early evening.  By comparison my local colleague arrived at work one hour before we left for the airport.  I guess that makes me the silly one!

It was after 10.00pm by the time we reached the hotel in Jeddah and I asked him if he would like to meet for breakfast.  He told me 9.00am at the hotel restaurant.  Well I was there at 9am but he never appeared.  In fact I never had any hotel meal with him for the duration of the trip.  Saudi Time!

Hotel lobby

Pulling back the curtains on the hotel room I got my first look at Jeddah.

Nothing unique here…. I could just as easily be in Riyadh….. or Cairo…. or  Tehran….. or Lima.  Except for the odd mosque!

Well I could be almost anywhere!

The first task for the day was to iron my crumpled shirts.  Fortunately the hotel room had and ironing board and iron.  The plug on the iron looked like this

And the wall sockets all looked like this

???????????? Talk about a square peg in a round hole.  Why the hell would the hotel leave an iron in each room that was incompatible with the wall sockets? 

We left for our first meeting at 10.30 and after driving around for 20 minutes I realised neither my colleague or taxi driver knew where we were going.  But we eventually got there.  The meeting took all of 15 minutes.  Most of it in Arabic and I only participated with a few words.  Well that was the work done for the day <huh!>  Back at the hotel I carried on with the work I started in the morning whilst my colleague went for a rest and to pray.  Later he decided to change hotels.  This one wasn’t ‘nice’!  I packed and we departed for the ‘better’ hotel using the same taxi driver.  “Would I like to see some of Jeddah?”  Well why not… I’m probably never going to return!  The drive actually turned out to be a search for a new hotel.  Apparently we didn’t have a booking and the afternoon was spent driving from major hotel to major hotel looking for two vacant rooms.  After six failed attempts I was starting to think we might be spending the night in the taxi.  Why couldn’t this have been done by internet or phone before checking out of the previous hotel?  I must admit to seeing a few interesting buildings whilst driving around.

I think the ‘stem’ is a lift to the globe….<maybe?>

I struggled to get a photo of the above building which is under construction.  the driver either kept turning away from it or another car obstructed the view.  Interesting to see the helicopter pad being built at the top.

We eventually reached the coast road where I was able to get glimpses of the Red Sea and the container port.

Notice how I managed to artfully include the rubbish bins!  Saudi Arabia has two major container ports (Jeddah & Dammam) on opposite sides of the country.  One of the major rail projects is to link both ports by a modern rail line. 

I though the blue and white fishing boat had run aground.  However when we got closer I realised it’s part of a children's playground!

Eventually we found two vacant rooms in a rather ‘tired’ looking hotel back in the industrial part of the city.  My colleague was pleased to tell me he had been able to arrange a ‘suite’ for each of us rather than the standard room.

Saudi’s are really into their beds and bathrooms.  Every bed I have seen is at least 6ft wide!

Having a ‘suite’ instead of a room didn’t particularly excite me.  However I did notice the room wasn’t all that clean.  When I had my evening shower the water ran black from the “stuff” I’d collected on the soles of my feet.

That evening I had dinner on my own (and breakfast in the morning).  After doing another four hours work on the laptop I phoned my colleague to ask when we were leaving.  “11.00am!” Of course I waited….. and waited, in the lobby before we headed to the next appointment.  Same taxi driver and again neither of them knew the address.  This time the meeting was even shorter and all of it was in Arabic.  I tried to ask a couple of questions as the meeting concluded but was bundled out the door.  On the way back to the hotel my colleague decided he needed a shave.  Now I shave myself, but over hear males don’t necessary shave every day (designer stubble?).  When they do shave, it appears they have this done at a barber shop.  Not my colleague; we go looking for a Health Spa in the taxi.

Eventually we find one and he disappears inside.

One thing I immediately noticed about construction standards here is that whilst the finish might look OK the underlying quality of work is frequently poor.  The steps into the Health Spa are just one example.

I was anticipating we would return to the hotel and then depart to the airport for our return to Riyadh.  However my freshly shaved and facial massaged colleague informed me there had been a change of plans and we were now going to Dammam for a the remainder of the week.  OK…. But I only bought clean clothes for two days………..

More tomorrow…..