Saudi Arabia’s Most Aptly Named Clothes Shop

My memories of shopping at malls in the UK are of gangs of surly teenagers, packed shops and poor service. It might not be fair but that’s how I remember it.

I love the malls here in Saudi Arabia. As a man they actually make shopping almost bearable. They’re always clean, they’re rarely busy, I’ve never seen any surly teenagers and generally the service is pretty good.

It can also be a slightly surreal experience for a foreigner. One of the first things I saw was a ninja (a lady in a full abaya with either her face totally covered or just a slit to see out of) buying make up at Debenhams. Obviously she couldn’t try it on and the (male) staff could not see her skin tone to help her pick the right colours. It just struck me as odd. Because their eyes are often the only thing you see, women here wear a lot of eye make up. I wonder if they also do up the rest of their faces when they go out shopping.

You see a lot of ladies here carrying Louis Vuitton hand bags. I always thought a large part of the appeal was that people can see you carrying something considered expensive and desirable. But if no one knows who you are or can see your face it suddenly doesn't seem to make as much sense.

Barring a few exceptions (e.g. nurses, ladies' toilet cleaners, shop assistants in ladies' malls) women are not allowed to work, so you see guys doing things here that they would not be seen dead doing anywhere else in the world. Dressing mannequins in clothes shops (and boy can you tell!), selling make up and perfume and (most bizarre of all) selling ladies lingerie.

In a country as conservative as this, it seems odd to me that ladies buy their lingerie from men. I wonder how many people apply for the job when they have a vacancy.

Women are not allowed to try their clothes on and there are no female changing rooms. Refuse any offer to use the store room to try clothes on. A western woman accepted such an offer at Granada mall and was attacked by one of the staff. Fortunately she was unharmed.

This means that when a woman sees an item of clothing she likes, she has to hope it will suit her, estimate the correct size, buy the clothes, take them home and try them there. Then return the ones that do not fit.

Saudi’s most aptly named clothes shop?.........

.....Guess.

Creepy Crawlies

When I received the Saudi job offer I stayed open minded and did my research. I bought the Lonely Planet (did the authors ever live here, I wonder?), I went to all the Web sites and bulletin boards and I spoke to people that were either former or current residents of the Kingdom.

Whilst I was mulling over the comparatively minor issues of giving up alcohol, pork and my illusions of safety, I was also having to contemplate how the move would affect my relationships with all my family and friends back in the UK.

In truth my desire to see the country and the region made the decision easier than many would expect. That is, until I saw pictures and videos of the camel spider!

Religious persecution and unbearable temperatures are one thing, but I'll be damned if I'm living with these monsters! That's it! The move's off!

When I read that "camel spiders prefer the shade" I had images of me standing under the sun in 48C heat because I didn't dare share the shade with an army of angry camel spiders.

I read a story by an American in Riyadh that used to see them regularly in airplane hangers and he described them as the most aggressive creatures he'd ever seen.

I also read that as the Camel Spider charges it's hapless human victim, that it emits a screaching noice known as the Camel Spider Scream! I am reliably informed by ex-pats in Saudi who have had the dubious pleasure of seeing a Camel Spider, that when they attack there is a lot of screaming....but this is usually attributed to the human frantically running away, rather than the spider.

As I have yet to see one in 6 months I've calmed down and I no longer jump every time I hear a rustle in the bushes or see a shape in the shadows.

I now see similarities between Saudis and the camel spider. No, really! They're shy, elusive desert dwellers. They both prefer the shade and only come out at night.

I'm happy to add that unlike the spiders, most Saudi's I’ve met aren't aggressive. So far I haven't been bitten once…

Missed Universe

Well done Miss Turkey for winning Miss Universe. I missed the show, but I'm sure your suggestion to bring about world peace was a sound one.

I wish that just once a contestant would answer the token question with honesty:

Interviewer: If you're crowned Miss Universe, how will you forward the cause for women worldwide during your tenure?

Contestant: Do I look like Hillary Clinton? I didn't just strut around in a bikini to forward the cause for women worldwide. I did it to make lots of money and become very famous. Why don't you forward the cause for men worldwide by talking to my face instead of to my cleavage?

It's natural for men to cast admiring glances at women, I know this and am big enough to admit that, on occasion, I also partake in this male pastime.

Over here in Saudi Arabia however, the sport is practiced on an entirely different level. I catch Saudi men leering unsubtley at western women in the malls all the time.

In Saudi, in spite of all attempts to subvert it, human nature is still human nature and Saudi (and expat) men are still men. But because there are so few outlets, there seem to be fewer admiring glances and many more leers.

Recently I was at Debenhams when I observed a man opposite me go through a typical leering manoeuvre. As the lady walked towards him he stared at her head, and then let his glance travel down her body with a pause to ogle idly at her chest. As she walked past his leer followed her, with his ogle this time being slightly lower down.

Like all leers this was rude, but it was amusing because the lady was completely covered from head to toe by her abaya. In this country the men must have fantastic imaginations!

In Saudi we don't have Miss Universe, but we do have Miss Automobile. Last week I went to the car souk in Al Khobar. When I arrived I noticed an unusually large number of Saudi guys all standing by the road waving frantically. I wondered why all these men were trying to hail taxis. Had prayer time just ended? Had there been an accident? I slowed down.

The men started to swarm towards my car shaking their fists at me! What the hell?! Have I stumbled accidentally into the annual meeting of the Osama Bin Laden Appreciation Society? Lock the doors! Get the hell out of here!

As I sped around the corner it became apparent that the men weren't angry honkey haters, they just wanted to buy my car.

This is a part of town where men drive their cars up and down in the hopes that someone will buy it. All men are welcome to come and watch the show. You can glance at the ones you can afford and you can leer at the ones out of your reach.

No angry husband will hit you for leering at the cars. Just don't restrict your inspection to its cleavage........

....... and don't expect it to have a plan for ending world poverty!

Brown underwear Day # 2

Regular readers of this Blog will no doubt recall my encounter with armed customs officers not long after I arrived in the Magic Kingdom.

Last month I had another bad day in the line of duty and although things turned out alright, I wasn’t so sure of that at the time.

The eventful day began with me flying to a remote city called Al Jouf in the North of Saudi Arabia, near to the Iraq border. Before I flew I had been warned that this region was particularly anti-American and had a reputation of being the home to many Al Qaeda training camps and hardliners. As you can imagine therefore, I was really looking forward going there.

I arranged for the company I was meeting to send a driver to pick me up from the airport. I even let my beard grow for a week before I flew especially as I had been told by many Arabs that with a tan and sporting a beard, I looked like I was a Jordanian Arab! This, I hoped, would prevent any potential kidnappers or “white boy haters” from noticing me.

Problems started with the flights. The only available flight from Riyadh to Al Jouf departed at 6am. Even worse, the only available flight back left Al Jouf at 11pm. So I was prepared for a long long day.



Al Jouf has a small airport located in the middle of the desert approximately 20 miles from Al Jouf city. When I arrived, I was glad to see the driver waiting for me (he was holding a placard saying Mr Austin Steward Boy– MYI !!!!!) and we made the drive into Al Jouf where I met with a very pleasant Saudi regarding a defective American car which had crashed, killing the driver.

By 11am we had concluded our business, but the Saudi was generous to let me stay in the office until it closed at 5pm. He actually took me out for a great lunch at a fabulous traditional Arab restaurant (sitting on floor eating with our hands….).

When the office closed at 5pm, the Saudi offered to drive me to a local hotel so that I could relax before getting a taxi to the airport. Foolishly, I decided against this. I requested that he drive me to the airport where I would just sit and wait until my flight at 11pm. I explained that I had a good book to read and would at least be able to get something to eat and drink at the airport.

At 5.30pm we arrived at the front of the airport building and said our goodbyes in the car. As the very pleasant Saudi gentleman drove away, I waved goodbye and reflected that my day in Al Jouf had been very pleasant and without incident…….little did I know!

I walked to the front entrance of the airport….and it was locked shut! I peered inside, not a soul was to be seen. The lights were on but definitely no-one was at home!

Oh shit! I thought. Peering into the departure lounge I could see the departure/arrivals board. Only 2 planes were scheduled to depart or arrive all day…and they were both my flights!!!

It slowly dawned on me…… this was a small airfield in the middle of the dessert with only 2 planes arriving or departing a day. Therefore, everyone buggered off home between the flights and the airport was closed.

So, I surmised, my situation was thus:

1) I am in the middle of the dessert out side a closed airport which probably wont open for another 4 ½ hrs!

2) Its 50 degrees celsius and the sun won’t set for another hour and a half when the temperature will maybe drop to 40 degrees!!

3) I’m wearing a suit and have no food or water!!!

4) I’m in the middle of a region known for Al Qaeda camps. No one is about and I could be abducted/shot/beaten up (take your choice) and no one would be any the wise!!!!

5) My mobile phone did not have a signal, so I couldn’t call my Saudi friend or even a taxi to take me back to a hotel!!!!!

6) Oh shit, bollocks, arseholes!!!!!!!

Hmm… I thought, trying to subdue the rising panic, perhaps today is going to go tits up after all!

Realising there was nothing I could do, I removed my jacket and tie and sat on the pavement keeping in as much shade as possible. I took out my book (an Arthur C Clarke novel) and began to read, already sweating profusely.

…..And there I stayed for the next 3 hours. Christ it was hot! Christ I needed some water!...... but the book was good.

At 8.30pm there were at last some developments. A military police vehicle drove past, but didn’t stop. 10 minutes later it drove past again without stopping. 10 minutes later in cam back once again and decided to stop.

Two Saudi Royal Air force Security officer got out of the car and approached me. I stood up and began to walk over to them. Worryingly, I noticed both were carrying AK47 assault rifle. One of the soldiers shouted at me in Arabic..

Oh bollocks…its Jubail customs all over again.

I tried to explain using a mixture of hand signals and gestures that I was waiting for a flight at 11pm, but the airport was closed. The soldiers seemed very cross, but eventually one of them seemed to realise I was waiting for a flight. The soldiers talked to each other for a minute, went back to their car and drove off!! I was so surprised I forgot to ask if they had any water I could drink.

I sat back down and got back to my book.

Ten minutes later and the soldiers were back. In broken English one said “ Go, go. You no allowed here!!” I got the gist and again tried to explain I had no where to go. They then shouted something in Arabic again, but I couldn’t understand. I apologised for being so stupid.

One of the soldiers made a call on his phone and after a few minutes handed the phone to me. “Speak. Captain!”

I took the phone… “Hello??” I ventured.

I was answered by a Saudi who spoke perfect English. He explained he was the soldiers Captain in the Saudi Royal Air force. I explained my situation and he was very understanding. He was delighted when he realised I was from England as he had learned to fly at RAF Cranwell. I explained that my father had been in the RAF and had also trained at RAF Cranwell. This delighted him even more and we ended up having a good chinwag. Eventually he explained that the Saudi Royal Air force were responsible for patrolling the airport.

He said it was very dangerous for me to be waiting in the open. He also explained that the airport would not open until 10pm (another hour). I advised that I would just wait outside as I had nowhere else to go. He wasn’t happy and said he would see what he could do. And I passed the phone back to the soldiers who got back in their car and rove off again.

I sat back down. Oh well only another hour to go I thought. Back to the book.

5 minutes later, the soldiers were back with an annoyed looking airport employee. He opened the entrance door to the airport and let me into the air conditioned paradise that was the departure lounge…Bliss. Grumpily, he explained that the Air Force Captain had insisted that he open up the entire airport an hour early to let me in. He even gave me 2 bottles of water to quench my thirst.

I thanked him and the 2 soldiers profusely and sat down to wait another 2 hours for my flight.

Sadly things didn’t end happily as the flight was delayed by an hour and the pilot did his best to try and crash the plane when landing at Riyadh. I eventually crawled into bed at 3am knowing I had to get up at 6am to go back to work.

NAS air - Don't fly with these cowboys!!

At least, I reflected the next day, I hadn’t died of dehydration, been abducted, killed or arrested by the police…close call though!

A Strange Day at Work

I had a very strange day at work last week when I became an honoury member of the Saudi Civil Defence Force.

I was visiting a paper recycling plant in Khobar Industrial city to inspect damage caused by a fire 3 days before. As I arrived it became apparent that the fire was still burning 3 days on and had caused substantial damage. At least 3 warehouses had been totally gutted along with an employee accommodation block. In addition a large quantity of raw material had gone up in flames.

As you can probably guess, there is no such thing as health and safety or safe working practices here in the Magic Kingdom and consequently, the paper company thought nothing of storing flamable paper out in the sun and next to items of hot machinery.

I managed to get onto the roof of a nearby building to view as much of the damage as possible as the Civil Defence (fire brigade) were still tackling the fire and wouldn’t let me near to the damage.

A "fireman" tries to put out a fire by weeing on it!!

The Civil Defence are not what you could call a professional fire fighting service. Their equipment is basic and at least 20 years old. They always take at least 30 mins to arrive and often longer. I recently went to a foam factory situated 5 mins drive from Al Khobars central fire station. However, it still took the Civil Defence 40 mins to arrive and then they decided not to tackle the fire and let the whole facotry burn down!!!


They dont even wear fire protective gear. As you may have noticed from the photograph they wear police uniforms! Indeed, the civil defence are part of the Police in Saudi Arabia. They are the only fire fighters I have seen who like to have a smoke while tackling a fire.

As I was standing on the roof taking down details and breathing in copious amounts of smoke and ash, I noticed smoke rising behind me from a completely different section of the plant. I pointed this out to the general manager of the plant who was up on the roof with me.

He shouted “Fire fire!!!” and went a bit berserk as it slowly dawned on me that a new fire had started near to the main plant. From that point on everything was a bit of a blur. The company management and employees were running around like headless chickens. The Civil defence who were already on site, were in the usual Saudi fashion, in no hurry to move their fire trucks from the first fire to help tackle the second.

This was followed by a mad dash in a company lorry driven by the general manager to the site of the new fire, during which he almost crashed twice and actually skidded around 180' once.......in a lorry! As you can imagine, I was holding on for dear life and preaching caution to no avail!

Once we arrived at the site of the new fire, it was obvious that bails of recycled paper had caught fire and the flames were quickly spreading.

To cut a long story short, I ended up being drafted into a fire safety team and manned a hose directing water on to the burning paper until the civil defence arrived about 20 minutes later.




It was all very exciting. I even had to suggest to the on site fire safety officer that he try to isolated the burning paper by removing the bails of paper surround those that were burning. After explaining the logic of this several time he seemed to get the idea and dispatched several fork lift trucks and a bulldozer.

I left about an hour later. The fire was isolated but still burning merrily. As I left, I reflected that it had been a strange sort of a morning.

Unfortunately as I left site, a fire truck went through a road flooded with the water used to fight the fire. The fire truck splashed me from head to foot in a dirty combination of water mixed with ash and paper pulp. Nice!

This was the damage inside one warehouse when I went back 2 days later...oh dear total loss. Notice the buckled steel frame...of course I was able to wander freely about this dangerous structure which could collapse at any time....Saudi H&S...whats H&S???

A Strange day in Saudi Arabia

If you haven't lived here this won't sound strange at all.

I went to Rashid mall today. My congratulations go to Khobar’s newest mall for also being Khobar’s nicest. It also appears to be trying to push the boundaries of what is acceptable in Saudi Arabia. I'd wager that Panda supermarket's current prayer time arrangements will not last. Time will tell.

Anyway, whilst in Panda the following all happened in quick succession:

- I accidentally walked out in front of a Saudi chap's shopping trolley and he said "excuse me" even though it was my fault.

- I was trying to get some cooked food from the deli counter and a Saudi gentleman offered to help me order. When the staff were painfully slow he turned to me and commented "just between you and me, these guys are complete wankers!"

- Another Arab man arrived at the deli counter just after me and when the staff member asked him what he wanted he told the staff that I was first.

- When I went to pay a Saudi chap let me move in front of him in the queue because I only had one item, rather than his full trolley.

These sorts of courtesies are very uncommon here in my experience. I'm not saying that all Saudis are rude, there are cultural differences and of course I do not speak the language.

Behaviour always makes a bigger impact when it is unexpected so these four gentlemen really made my day. Thanks guys!