The Reindeer of Riyadh

About a month ago I made my first visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, visiting the capital Riyadh and then on to the seaside port of Jeddah in the Western province.

I have to say that my first visit to the Kingdom had long been put off for a variety of reasons and so this trip had taken on rather large dimensions in my mind.

I had been issued with a three month multiple visit visa and set off from Dubai on the comfort of Emirates airlines. No drinks on the journey over as Saudi is officially very dry indeed…

Approaching Riyadh we were issued with landing cards which apart from all of the bureaucratic details also contained in large bold capitals the message that “the importation or possession of any narcotic substances will be punished by the death sentence”. This kind of sets the tone for the Kingdom – direct, hard-line and rather unnerving. . .

Landing was also fun. Apparently the insurgents like to hang around the Riyadh airport area with shoulder rocket launchers and take pot shots at passenger aircraft. (I suppose you have to amuse yourself somehow in Riyadh, and there sure is a shortage of bars!). As a consequence, commercial passenger aircraft have slightly different landing procedure which follows the following broad approach:

a) Stay nice and high until very near the airport.

b) Go into what feels like a nosedive and descend at an extremely rapid rate causing most passengers to envisage their dinner reappearing on the headrest of the seat in front.

c) Pull up just before you plow into the tarmac and put the bird down at high speed, followed by slamming on the brakes in mad fashion while your passengers pray to their gods for forgiveness of their sins and go through the last rites.

d) Nonchalantly announce on the PA system that we have now landed at Riyadh airport, thank you for flying with (and nearly dying on!) XXXX airlines. . .

Riyadh airport is brown. Not a nice rich comforting brown, not even a nice light beige / cream colour, just brown. Nice. This again kind of sets the tone for Saudi Arabia overall.

I was met, thankfully, from the plane by a government relations executive sent by my client to escort me to the outside of the airport. This essentially means the ultra fast-track as I was whisked through a special door and taken to a VIP lounge to munch on juicy fat dates and wait for my colleagues flying in from Europe to attend the client meetings in Riyadh. My passport was cleared and my suitcase located and we were escorted outside into the delightful 37 degree evening heat of Riyadh.

My driver was wearing full Arab national dress but actually turned out to be Pakistani. We enjoyed one of those magical “I speak some English, but not enough to form a coherent sentence” conversations as we drove in towards the centre of Riyadh, covering his work, religion, family and thoughts regarding world peace, famine and American automobiles.

The environs seemed to be a sea of sand punctuated by rather large concrete constructions, some of which were quite impressive in a cold war communist kind of way, and some of which were just plain ugly – and don’t forget this was still in darkness. Things did not improve aesthetically in daytime I can assure you.

After about 30 minutes we arrived at what appeared to be a dead end road with a large checkpoint featuring two small armored cars, five machine gun nests and about half a dozen soldiers armed with automatic rifles, plus two Indian gate attendants armed with clipboards. The windows were lowered and guns pointed towards us in the car. Questions were asked. Answers were given. Notes were made. Our examiners totted up the scores from the entry test and having passed the gate exam we were allowed through to drive to the second checkpoint at the entrance to the “Arizona compound” – more on the name and history later!

The second checkpoint was really quite grand – featuring two proper full size tanks, at least a dozen soldiers with large guns, some bomb proof barriers, spikes in the road and all kinds of cameras and other gadgetry. Our passports were duly exchanged for compound i.d. cards and a key to our villa where my colleagues and I would be staying for the next couple of days.

The Arizona Compound is one of the many compounds which were built to house ex Pats – mainly US – during the boom years in Saudi and before the trouble of the last few years. It is owned by a Saudi national, and who is the only Saudi allowed on the compound. All the other staff and management are Indians and Asians including one who had a very interesting name on his badge – “Bonk” – classy. The compound’s name (and indeed design) were inspired by the Saudi gentleman’s wife (or mistress – no-one knows for sure) who hails originally from the state of Arizona in the US.

On entering the compound proper, two things immediately strike you:

1. This could be anywhere in the world – but probably somewhere in the US – with its lush green grass lawns, flowers, neat and tidy roads leading to neat and tidy condominiums and of course the 9 hole golf course.

2. The covered wagon in the centre of a roundabout with the “Wild West” style signage above it indicating the main roads of the compound “El Paso Street” and the “Santa Fe Trail” . . . (so much for Arizona then!).

The golf course, in particular, intrigued me. Here we are in one of the hottest, driest countries in the world and they have built a golf course! The irrigation alone must be one of the most wasteful and indulgent activities ever, not to mention the idea of wandering around the 9 holes in check trousers and stripy shirts in 50 degrees of heat on a summer’s day.

It got me to imagining the full implications of golf in Arabia. I conjured up images of Gulf Arabs wearing a golfing version of their national dress . . . orange and green tartan dish dash robes, with a purple lining, coupled with bright yellow golfing shoes with long leather tassels, and crowned by a Titleist branded headdress . . . nice image.

We entered our villa on the Santa Fe Trail. This place was designed by Americans, for Americans even down to the electricity sockets in the wall and the huge “I am never gonna move unless it is to grab the remote for the TV or dive into another bowl of cheese covered potato chips” kind of a sofa which extended around three walls and sat at least 10 people comfortably.

All in all, the villa was very well appointed and comfortable right down to the secure hiding place under the stairs and the emergency alarm system in case of attack by terrorists. There were very detailed instructions also supplied about what to do in the event of gunfire being heard in the street outside. However, it failed to advise keeping spare underpants under the stairs in the hiding place, which I thought was at the very least short sighted under the circumstances.

After playing with the panic alarm for a while (yes - we all remain children at heart!) we turned on the TV and flicked through the channels. Channel 1 was rather special, featuring as it did, live TV feed from the CCTV cameras surrounding the compound showing all the tanks, razor wire, machine gun nests and soldiers on the outside. This chilling sight was accompanied by the light pop sounds of Natalie Imbruglia warbling in a spirited fashion to a modern beat . . . the perfect match for Saudi soldiers and desert camouflaged tanks!

After unpacking we set off for dinner around the main compound pool area (which was actually a swimming lake rather than a pool) with a restaurant, bar, and lots of poolside tables etc. The compound also featured a hair salon, gymnasium, beauty parlor, supermarket, bowling alley, pool tables and a gentleman’s tailors . . .

The bar was unusually busy for a dry country and we went over to get a nice refreshing 7-UP, only to find beer being served by the pint. Real beer. Well, real in the sense of containing alcohol, but brewed on compound by a team of chemical engineers. After quaffing as much of this as we could before last orders (some rules on drinking on the compound exist!) we started on our enormous steak dinners and my colleague who resides full time on the compound revealed his collection of wine and sangria – also home brewed.

I have to say that I have drunk many different wines around the world, but nothing prepared me for the delights of Chateau Arizona (based on the Riyadh grape variety). My colleague informed me that at the large supermarkets there are whole aisles which contain cartons of grape juice from floor to ceiling, right next to the sugar section which is adjacent to the yeast section. Indeed some compounds actually have delivery trucks come in with sugar and grape juice by the ton!

Chateau Arizona is not a delicate wine. Indeed “robust” would be an understatement. Its “nose” is like a shotgun to the olfactory system, only matched by its aggressive assault on the taste buds which, I should add, immediately surrender for fear of death. The first few sips for unaccustomed drinkers cause some interesting reflex reactions such as sharp twisting of the head, a screwing up of the eyes and a strong body shudder. However, careful training over the course of a glass of the stuff results in rapid acclimatization and one adjusts quickly – especially faced with the alternative of alcohol free beverages.

After dinner and drinks we made our way back to the villa wandering through the streets of Arizona, when we suddenly encountered the most bizarre sight yet for me in the Middle East . . . three tame reindeer eating rubbish from the bins near the restaurant. I checked with my colleagues that this was not a result of excessive consumption of Chateau Arizona and they confirmed that we were actually stroking the heads of Riyadh Reindeer.

My resident colleague informed me that these were the Arizona reindeer and that many of the residents treated them as communal pets, feeding them scraps and walking around the compound with them in the way we might expect people to take their dogs for a walk. . . (You can see what a lengthy stay in the Kingdom will do to ordinarily sane people!)

Off to work the next day at our client’s headquarters in Riyadh we were driven by bullet proof cars through the delights of Riyadh. This is not a pretty city . . . in any way. It is very dry, barren, full of concrete and with a miserable atmosphere. It is still advised that foreigners do not venture out into the city after the evening prayer as there are many insurgents in Riyadh who seek out such people out with extremely unpleasant consequences, although all the Saudis I met in Riyadh were extremely kind and pleasant and certainly distanced themselves from the radical section of society which they described as ill-educated and easily manipulated by the extremist leaders.

At the HQ, one of our party, a female colleague from London (dressed from head to toe in a black dress to avoid offending the locals) enquired as to the whereabouts of the ladies toilet. In a thirty storey monolith that is my client’s HQ, there is only one ladies toilet, as of course, women do not generally work in Saudi. The toilet in question had a special key which had to be located and I and my colleagues took turns during the course of the day to escort our female colleague to the ladies.

During the afternoon she wanted to go again (we had advised her at one point to stop drinking so many fluids, but we were ignored!) and I escorted her down to the floor with the ladies loo. The door was locked.

The call of nature was too immediate to seek out the key holder, so after checking the corridors, I escorted her into the Gents toilet on the same floor. I ushered her into the disabled cubicle and stood loitering at the basins, whistling. It was only then I saw the shadow under cubicle 2 of the large Arab gentlemen who was occupying it and going about his business in a rather earnest fashion (as I surmised from the grunts!).

Clearly this was looking like turning into a very embarrassing incident, but luckily my colleague was swift in her ablutions and I smuggled her out of the gents in a deft move which saw her rushed down the corridor in front of me with my back to the CCTV cameras on that particular corridor. I think the gentleman in cubicle 2 must have been quite surprised to hear a ladies voice in his toilet on a Sunday at the office . . .

My last evening in Riyadh was seen off sitting in the restaurant near the Reindeer drinking Chateau Arizona and a real bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label which had mysteriously found its way onto the compound. A very drunken but amusing evening was had by all.

On to Jeddah and a quite different experience. A much nicer atmosphere with green open spaces, parks, trees and the usual seaside atmosphere that most port cities have. I generally felt much safer in Jeddah and even took local taxis during the night without fear. Visiting my colleague from Jeddah in his home was also interesting, involving by now the standard checkpoints and machine guns in the face before entry.

At his apartment on the compound he has built an entire pub in his sitting room with a proper beer pump imported in pieces and stages from the UK over the years. He is a member of the Jeddah Ex Pat Rugby club and they collectively brew several thousand gallons of beer each year and it is extremely good. They also distill the famous Sadiki (nicknamed SID) which is moonshine made from potato peelings and various other substances and patented by British and American Chemical Engineers. It does actually make you go blind in large quantities and there are a multitude of flavors which have been concocted to make it taste like Gin, Malibu and various other spirits including a not wildly successful attempt at Scotch.

When in Rome . . . when in Saudi drink SID!

On returning to Dubai I did the now customary impression of the late Pope John Paul II and kissed the tarmac, rushing through to Duty Free to pick up my usual allowance of evil liquor. I had drunk more alcohol in Saudi in one week than I had in Dubai in 5 months! Extraordinary!

Incidentally, the following weekend after my return to Dubai from the Kingdom, my resident colleague, together with several other ex pats, was arrested by the Riyadh police outside the British Embassy and detained throughout the night for allegedly loitering.

I spent most of my Saturday on the phone to various contacts in Saudi and elsewhere trying to have him sprung from jail. The Embassy staff later confirmed that they believed this to be a reaction from the police to “too many embassy parties on Fridays recently” and that this kind of fun had to be stopped.

This was clearly a harrowing experience for my colleague who managed to get through it with his sense of humor intact. It was one of the worst and strangest calls that I have received though . . .

“Hi! How are you?” (Me)

“Fine. Well not fine actually. I am in Riyadh Jail.” (My Colleague)

“Oh!”

“Went to a party last night, got arrested by the Riyadh Police, been in jail since just after midnight, can’t seem to get out.”

“Jesus! Have you been treated properly?”

“Not too bad. No fluids, and nowhere to sit down, and I haven’t slept. I don’t know what we have been charged with or even if we have been charged, nor do I know what to do to get out and my papers are apparently not complete. I am the last one left as everyone else has been sprung. The police are quite polite. Any chance of helping out at all?”

And so on. . .

He was released unharmed, but exhausted. We now have ensured that a dedicated Saudi “fixer” is available to him I the future to negotiate him out of these kinds of scrapes.

I will be back and forth to the Kingdom several times during the course of the rest of the year, but I don’t expect to encounter anything as strange as the reindeer of Riyadh or drink so much home brewed alcohol as I did on the first trip. I am also hoping not to be invited to the British Embassy on a Friday . . . !