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Dear All,
I hope that this finds you all fit and flourishing. I’m very well and have just come back from a holiday. This is the other big holiday for the Muslims and many of them rush off on pilgrimage to Mecca every year around this time, depending on what the moon is doing. This is the time when the Haj pilgrimage is performed, which commemorates the flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina in 622 AD. The Muslim calendar, which is based on the moon, dates from this time and, just as the Gregorian calendar uses BC or AD, the Muslim calendar uses BH or AH, Before Hejira and After Hejira. James wanted to use the opportunity to go to Bahrain, but you are not meant to leave the country for the first year of your contract, just in case you decide not to come back. This is not a Saudi law or anything, just a rule of our rather paranoid employer. The reason that you are unable to leave the country without your employer’s permission is that if you work in Saudi Arabia, you have to give your passport to your employer and you are issued with a Saudi identity document. If your employer grants you permission to leave, he will then return your passport to you about 24 hours before you are due to depart and you have to give him your ID. On your return, you swap again.
James was very upset so my boss, Mr Saleh, decided to hire a car for us to visit other parts of Saudi Arabia instead. We asked the other teachers if they wanted to come with, but it was only us four South Africans who decided to go. We originally wanted to go to Madain Saleh, which was built by the Nabataeans about 2000 years ago and is a sister city to Petra in Jordan, but we discovered that you need a permit, which you can only get from the Ministry of Antiquities in Riyadh, and that was already closed by the time we had decided to go. As a result, we decided to do a grand tour of the south.
We set out for Jeddah on the morning of the Thursday before last. Jeddah is on the west coast of Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea. We passed through Riyadh, where we had lunch, and finally arrived in Jeddah at about 1 am early on Friday morning. The main road from Riyadh to Jeddah goes via Taif and Mecca. Taif is very high in the mountains and there is a very steep pass going down to the coastal plain where Mecca and Jeddah are situated. Going down the pass was rather hairy as it was at night and these Saudis are the craziest drivers; passing on hairpin bends and going at stupid speeds, etc. They all believe that whatever happens is Allah’s will, so if it’s their time to die, so be it. Never mind the other lives that they are endangering because of their irresponsible behaviour. At the bottom of the pass, there is a split in the road. Non Muslims are not permitted to enter Mecca, so we had to take the horrible little side road around Mecca. It is dubbed ‘the Christian road’ by the Saudis, although of course it would also be used by Hindus, Buddhists, etc.
We found a very reasonable hotel in Jeddah, which was basic, but clean. The only problem was that, unknown to us until the next morning, there was a mosque right next to the hotel and the minaret with loudspeaker was just outside our windows. At around 5 am the prayer call was made and we all just about fell out of bed it was so loud. Very rude of them! Anyway, we were all so tired we fell asleep again almost immediately. In the morning we took a stroll around the old part of Jeddah, which I really enjoyed, had lunch, and then headed for Abha, in the far south-west of the country.
We had intended to drive along the coastal road, but we missed the turn-off as it wasn’t sign-posted, so we went back up the pass to Taif and then along the mountainous spine to Abha. The mountains receive quite a bit of rain and it was like being in another country, very different. From Abha, we had wanted to go across to the Farasan Islands, but the sea was too rough and the ferry from Jizan had been cancelled.
We then went to the Hanging Village of Habalah. To me, this was the most fascinating part of the trip. It is about 60 km south-east of Abha and was built about 350 years ago by the Qatani tribe to escape the Ottoman Turks. There were about 25 families living in the village and they were almost self-sufficient. There is a constant supply of water from a spring that runs down the side of the mountain and they grew coffee, fruit, and vegetables, on terraced farms, as well as raising sheep, chickens, and goats. The only way that they could get down into the valley was to be lowered on ropes that were attached to iron posts that had been driven into the edge of the cliff (habal means ‘rope ladder). Remarkably the village was still inhabited until about 1980, when the king built a new, more conventional village for them.
We then pushed on to Najran. This is very close to the Yemeni border and was captured from Yemen by the Saudis in 1934. This is a fascinating place, but you have to be careful as it is very conservative. Being so close to the Yemeni border, there are lso a lot of guns and knives about. It was already an important city in the 6th century BC when the Sabaeans (of the Queen of Sheba fame) ruled the area. It was a centre of the trade in frankincense and as a result the Romans actually held it briefly in 25 BC. It was a Christian city until the Muslims arrived and expelled all of the Christians.
From Najran we headed home. This was the longest drive and took us along the fringe of the Empty Quarter. This is the largest sand desert in the world and we felt quite a sense of occasion as we set out, thinking back on the great explorers such as Wilfred Thesiger. The British explorer, Bertram Thomas, was the first person to cross the Empty Quarter, in 1930. It’s very easy now as there is a major road, with conveniently placed petrol stations, and the police patrol the road in case anyone breaks down. One reminder of its remoteness though was that our mobile phones didn’t work and I was confronted by an Arab shopkeeper who was having trouble with his Thuraya satellite phone. He shoved it at me with a very confused look on his face saying “Thuraya, Thuraya. How work?” I suppose he assumed that as a Westerner I would know the ins and outs of this modern marvel, but, unfortunately, although I knew what it was from the ads on TV, I have no idea how the thing works. We again went via Riyadh and stopped for dinner at a Nando’s. This is part of the same chain as in South Africa, but the service was rather poor. The Kingdom Tower is across the road and I found out that it is 300 m tall. When we finally got back to Khobar we were exhausted, but we had had a good trip and the car went very well. I did most of the driving, but James helped as well. We had done 5000 km in 5 days! Well, I’m now off for a rest, so take care and hope to hear from you soon. Cheers for now Alec
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