Part 5

Just before getting out of Anes’ car, I asked him if he could come around 2pm to pick me up. I would like to see the old town. Also, I need to withdraw some cash and need to buy a SIM card. His answer was evasive-diplomatic and his last word is “Inshallah” – God willing. This is something you get to hear often in this part of the world. Unlike in our country, where entire generations learn at the Kindergarden one and the same proverb and grow up with it: “Do not put off until tomorrow, what you can do today!”. However, the motto here is slightly different: “Why don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today?” “Bukra” – tomorrow, is another favourite word of the local population.    

Because I was aware of the fact that Anes would never ever come at 2 o’clock, I needed a plan. First I slept long and now I’m waiting for his call. In the meantime I take out my iPad, open the Lonely Travel tourist guide and go to the chapter Riyadh. Under “sights” are only four things! Wow! There’s a castle! That I’d love to visit! On the small map I also discover a market, a mosque, a clock tower, etc. Very interesting. The question is, how do I get there?

Anes calls and says that he’ll need longer, because he has to go to the bank to withdraw money. The bank opens later and since he doesn’t know how many people will be there before him, he can’t really tell what time he’ll be able to pick me up. Translated this means that he’ll come in the evening.  

So, I go downstairs to the lobby to have breakfast. Since there is no public transport in Saudi Arabia, you have to take a taxi if you have no car. It is indeed true, there is no public transport system. Since the people are either wealthy, rich, or super-rich and everyone owns at least one car, there is no need for a tram or metro. Given that distances between the cities are too long to drive, you simply fly. It is very cheap to fly within the country. There is only one train route in the Kingdom, from Riyadh to Dammam in the east. There are plans for other routes across the country and also a metro for Riyadh is being planned.   

I go out of the hotel door and a taxi comes already around the corner. Colour: white – what else. The driver stops and opens the window on the passenger side. I ask him whether he speaks English. He asks me whether I speak Arabic. Sign language perhaps? Let’s try it this way. I take my iPad and show him where I would like to go. He doesn’t know it. Oops! I didn’t expect that! Something in the vicinity of the fortress, he doesn’t know either. I read to him the name of the district I’d like to go to, but he doesn’t know it. I get the receptionist from inside to translate it for me. The receptionist turns his head shacking to me and says that the taxi drivers here don’t really have a clue of the city because things change every day. Good, I get that, but the fortress has been standing there for centuries. Then the receptionist calls Anes and things get much more complicated and I’m feeling like being in a film.  

“Why do you want to go to the city?” he asks.

“Shall I spend the whole day waiting for you?” I ask.

“It could be dangerous to go alone to the city” he says.

“Nonsense! I would like to go to the old town, please tell this the driver. And on the way I need an ATM. If he doesn’t know the way, he should ask for it or get me a colleague who knows!” I say and pass on the mobile to the driver.

Anes talks to the driver and he passes me the phone back after two minutes. Anes says that he negotiated with the driver to take me to the National Museum. “Why that?“ I ask.

“Because it’s safer and he knows it.”

God Almighty! I get on the taxi and the journey begins. We drive and drive and drive. Somewhere I see a bank and shout “Stop!” The driver stops, I jump out, thank God the instructions on the screen are available in English, I hit some buttons, and what I get is some banknotes with funny characters printed on them, which I don’t understand. Why did we learn at school that our writing is Latin and the numbers Arabic?

0 = ٠

1 = ١

2 = ٢

3 = ٣

4 = ٤

5 = ٥

6 = ٦

7 = ٧

8 = ٨

9 = ٩

All right? Wonderful! Thank God the numbers we know are printed on the other side of the banknotes. We continue our journey and I take photographs out of the moving taxi. I really don’t care if the driver now thinks I’m stupid. Eventually we arrive at the museum. I ask for the price and we negotiate. Although there is a metre, you never pay the displayed amount. Always haggle.   

I walk to the entrance and the door is closed. Locked. Fantastic! Then I hear some children’s voices from somewhere and follow them. At the end of the building goes a long way back and ends in front of a glass door. Some families are walking this way and I follow them. Indeed, the entrance of the museum. The thing is so huge! I get a small tourist guide in English language and I’m being told what and where I can see. Ranging from prehistoric times to the modern day, you can learn everything not only about Saudi Arabia, but also the surrounding area.  

There are not many people in the museum and there are almost only families there. Pram pushing fathers or carrying their kids on their shoulders. Very commendable!

Shortly before the exit, there is a special exhibition on the royal family. The security guards immediately jump off their seats and offer me all kinds of info material and guide me into the hall. One even plays the guide and explains everything to me.

It continues outside with the various gardens and some other halls with cars, etc. But since I really want to see the fortress, I take my iPad out of my pocket and open the Lonely Travel guide book and go to the page with the city map. I doesn’t seem to be far away. Also not really complicated. Unfortunately, I never make it to the fortress, because a) the map is not accurate, b) I can’t find anyone who speaks either English or any other language and c) nobody I show the map or the name of the fortress to, knows what it is and/or where it is. Frustrated, I get into a taxi, pull out the business card of the hotel and take the journey home.  

Because I’m hungry, I ask the receptionist to order me food. He’s happy to do so, but I have to wait for 2 long hours. Why? It is about half an hour before prayer time, so the delivery place slowly shuts its kitchen. Then the place shuts for half an hour and when they reopen, they have so many orders to go through, that it takes time to cook and deliver all the food. After two endless hours, my food and also Anes arrive.  

It is already dark, the last prayer of the day long prayed, and now nothing can disturb a smooth evening. We drive to a locksmith and there I see an Arab nerd like out of a tale. The street is full of shops and in the middle runs a traffic island with palm trees. Over it is the moon. A dream of 1001 nights.  

Then we go to a supermarket. At some point, I go with my things and lost in my thoughts to the checkout and notice that the cashier a fully veiled ‘her’ is. She says something excitedly in Arabic and point with her finger behind her. Her scream brings me out of my thoughts and back into reality. Other thoughts of dungeons come to my mind. Like a good boy, I go to the next cashout where there is again a woman at the register. Again the same scene, screaming and pointing. As soon as I turn around, I look right into Anes’ laughing face. “What is wrong?“ I ask. „Only families, women and couples are allowed to them. Us men have to go to the men over there.”  

From there we go to a street with restaurants, because Anes is hungry and needs something to eat. There I notice that almost every restaurant has two entrances. One for men and one for couples or families. This is taken very seriously here. I’ll write another time about it. From there we go to a shop similar to Dixons. I knew that everything is cheaper here, but now I realise how cheap things are. BlackBerry phones are half price compared to Europe. Since there is no VAT, it really makes a difference if an iPhone is 400 Pounds and not 550. Here I get my SIM card with credit. While Anes is talking to the seller and arranges everything, I read my way through the brochure. Have you ever heard of ‘post-paid’? It works like the good old land-line. You don’t have to pay in advance and talk down all your credit, it’s the other way round. You talk and get billed afterwards. How far ahead of us the Arabs are!

After a long ride through the nightly Riyadh, we reach my hotel. My Philippino gives me a laptop and a photo camera to deliver to some colleagues and lets me go to my room to pack. He comes at 3am to pick me up, flight goes at 6am.

As we speed over the motorway in the early hours, not even 4am, we drive along a building complex that goes on forever. It is one of the universities and the largest of the country. Due to the sex segregation even at the university, all the buildings exist twice. That’s why everything is so big. But there are also sports facilities, swimming pools, restaurants, cafés, libraries, shops, etc. A whole city.

As we arrive at the airport, I check-in my travel bag, ask what gate my flight goes from and where it is, I look briefly at the ticket I was given after I handed in my bag, but it doesn’t seem to say Ar’ar, but something else, but because I’m very tired, I don’t pay much attention to it and am not quite aware of what this means.

Anes is waiting in a sitting area and is holding two bundles of money in his hands. He’s counting the banknotes in front of all passing people and hands me the bundles to re-count them. Is my Philippino nuts? But then I think to myself, this is probably the safest country on earth. So I count it and place it in my pockets.

We say goodbye and I go through the controls.

The wild times are yet to come, says my inner voice. And how they will come! The adventure has not even started yet!

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