Riyadh - The King and I

King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz, born August 1, 1923 is the current King of Saudi and when referred to in the press or on TV he goes by the title Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. He has four wives, six sons and 21 daughters. The king is one of the richest men in the world sitting atop an oil revenue that brings in billions a day in revenue. And as absolute monarch, the money is his -- all his, or so it would seem.  But he does share some of it with his people and with the 5,000 members of the royal family.  There are so many people in the royal family that they have their own terminal.  In many countries, there is a domestic terminal and an international terminal.  Here in Riyadh, there are also two terminals but one is exclusively for the royal family and their VIP guests and another terminal for everyone else, both domestic and international travelers.

When I took the first picture of the king, three or four stories large, I thought I was lucky to get the picture.  But then I saw small flags on the traffic dividers with his picture and then saw this second picture.  I realized quickly the king's picture is everywhere: maybe not every street and every large building but it sometimes seems that way. In Riyadh, the people seem to genuinely like the king.  The news reports stories on unrest in Saudi and wonder if it will be the next hotspot.  It would not be out of the possible when one man and his family own all the wealth of the country - it is the king's country - and share it as they deem fit with the rest of the population.

The king does share.  When he came back to the country after three months in the US for medical treatment, he double the size of the development fund that Saudis can access to get married, to build a house or for any major need.   He gave amnesty to 10,000 prisoners.  His ministers decreed hospital visiting hour would be extended 9 to 9 in honor of the king and declared a national holiday to celebrate the king's return.  At the airport, hundreds of tribesmen did an elegant sword dance to welcome the king and hundreds of hijab clad women cheered and waved the Saudi flag.  The rich young men drove their Ferraris and Maseratis around the airport to welcome his return. 

Like the reality and the concept of the "hijab", I just could not get used to the reality and concept that one man owning a country and one family getting the majority of the benefits.  I think the king really does love his people and cares greatly for them but it seems incomprehensible in 2011 that one man has absolute rule and ownership of a land.

Riyadh - The Hijab - The Veil

(Google Photo)

This  picture is similar to the one at the start of my last blog.  I show it again I guess because  I could not get used  to seeing women in the hijab or the veil and even now find it strange.    It started when I was at the airport in Frankfurt waiting for my flight to Riyadh.  Sitting across from me was a lady wearing a hijab but, unlike the one in the picture , her veil had a thin film of cloth across the eyes so that she could see out but others could not really see her.  I wondered to myself how she felt travelling the world "unseen" by others. I wondered if she enjoyed wearing the garb for the protection it might provide from interaction with strangers or if she resented having to wear it or was it so much a part of her upbringing and every day life that she did not even notice or give thought to her dress.

Leaving Riyadh, I was again at an airport but this time instead of one woman in the hijab, there were perhaps one hundred women , or so it seemed, in the airport waiting area but most were not Saudis or even Middle Eastern.  They were mostly Filipinas, domestic workers, and a goodly number of Western women, all wearing the hijab to appear modest in society.  I never did find out if they dressed this way to avoid the hassle of standing out or if they were required to dress this way.



(Google Photo)

 I checked on Google to learn more about the dress code in Saudi and learned the following:.  Rules regarding Muslim women's (and men's) attire are derived from   the Quran, Islam's revealed text, and the traditions (hadith) of the  Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). In the Quran, God states: "Say to  the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their   modesty...And say to the believing women that they should lower their  gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty
 and adornments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they  should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers...

 The vast majority of Muslim scholars  and jurists, past and present, have determined the minimum requirements
 for Muslim women's dress: 1) Clothing must cover the entire body, with the exception of the face and the hands. 2) The attire should not be   form fitting, sheer or so eye-catching as to attract undue attention or reveal the shape of the body.

To learn more about the hijab, check this site:    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijab

I was surprised at how all encompassing the dress code seemed to be whether required by regulation or norm.  At the Riyadh airport, I saw tall well- dressed European women wearing the hijab casually open and uncovered standing  in the Immigration line but then pulling it closed when they left Immigration.  At the Marriott Hotel, all the women guests wore the hijab. In fact, when they checked in, they were given one to wear.  It was strange to see all the female guests wearing the hijab in the lobby, in the restaurant and even the executive lounge.

At the embassy, the female workers, both American and third country staff ( there are no Saudi workers here or for the most part at any of the large companies) wear Western clothes  and can be quite fashionable.  But  when the office I was working with invited me to lunch thee women all put on the hijab.  All the women ( three US Foreign Service Officers and three Filipinas) met us at the motorpool van wearing the hijab to go downtown to a Chinese restaurant.  When we got to the restaurant and were shown to a private room ( a family room where women are allowed to dine) all the ladies took off the hijab .  I found it strange for women to have to live in two worlds and go between these worlds a couple of times a day.

They talked about how  difficult and stressful it was being treated like second class citizens ( or is it second class people)   One of the American ladies said she tries to travel to other countries as much as she can to relieve the stress.  She said going to Abu Dhabi or Kuwait was good enough for a break,  She travels for the needed relaxation but she said she also wants the change to make sure that the present state of affairs never becomes "normal ".  

THE DIPOMATIC QUARTER

The Diplomatic Quarter


Fortunately for all the ladies I lunched with, they spend most of the work week in the Diplomatic Quarter (DQ) and for the State Department employees, they spend most of the week in the DQ where they live in embassy residences. I think it cuts down considerably on the stress but they can't hold up in this oasis. They do need to go downtown for a normal life of shopping and dining but when they do, they wear the hijab.

The Diplomatic Quarter truly is an oasis.  It is a seven mile closed in area where all the embassies (90 countries) have their chanceries and the residences for their national employees.  In this location, women can wear what they so choose and couples can even walk hand in hand.   Serving in Saudi has got to be a hard tour of duty and so much more so for the women in the US community. Without this oasis called the Diplomatic Quarter, it would be even harder.

 



Riyadh - Around the City Part 2



(Google Photo)



Is it me or does the store below seem out of place?

Or is this store out of place ?

No, wait.  This is the store that is out of place.

Riyadh - Around the City




Riyadh was, for me , a series of contradictions and mysteries.  In fact,  in all my journies, this was a place I truly felt like a foreigner. I did  not feel foreign in Central Asia or in Africa but I did here. Perhaps, it was the location of my hotel and the ride to the Diplomatic Quarter (DQ): lots of open space, low buildings, no one on the streets and approaching the DQ and inside it, security everywhere from guys with sub-machine guns to guys sitting on machine gun trucks. Just not the same as Charlottesville.



Even the streets were different, tending towards curves and angles rather than straight lines.  Two of the most popular and said to be "most representative" places to visit were huge multi-story towers , like the one in the first photo.  However, what struck me most about the buildings is that most were three to four stories with the majority less than ten stories high.




The other  famous tower.  I believe it is called "Freedom Tower". 

Nonethelss, I liked the buildings that seemed more normal, ones I could identify with.

Like this one:

ABU Dhabi

I was delighted to land in Abu Dhabi.  There were no immigration or customs forms to fill out.  The bags came out quickly and the driver from the Holiday Inn was waiting with a big sign with my name on it.  The airport was modern looking, sparkling, and so clean you could eat off the floors, of course , only if so inclined.

The manager of Holiday Inn told me Abu Dhabi’s goal was to become a global city,  the place people thought of first for conferences, exhibits,  concerts and travel.  The city built one of the world’s largest mosques and one of the most elegant hotels in the world to attract the citizens of the global city. It started its own airline, Eiwad, which for three years in a row has won the “Best First Class” award ,for those of you still searching for the best first class accommodations on an airliner.  On my Eiwad flight, the purser announced “Our crew today speaks Arabic, English, Russian, Polish, Korean, and Amharic (Ethiopian) .  And to back this up, the crew looked like a United Nations contingent.

Abu Dhabi is the capital of the United Emirates and while it does not have the opulence of Dubai ( another Emirate) it has its own character.   You can check here for more information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Dhabi

Today I took a quick tour around the city and was able to photograph  the main sites:



The Grand Mosque

The Grand Mosque gets its name for a reason: It's the third-largest mosque in the world (the first two are in Saudi Arabia), and it's got enough marble, gold, and silver to make the Taj Mahal jealous. Seven giant Swarovski crystal chandeliers hang from the ceilings (more than one million crystals were used to create them), where silver looks like fine needlework; a giant Iranian carpet, handmade by hundreds of artisans, stretches from one end of the main prayer hall to the next; and marble with colorful stone and gold makes up the walls and floors. The mosque, which opened in 2008, holds three places in the Guinness Book of World Records: the largest chandelier (10m/33 ft. in diameter and 15m/49 ft. high); the largest carpet 7 sq. m (77 sq. ft.); and the largest dome of its kind (the mosque has 82, but the main one is 32 m/105 ft. in diameter and 70m/230 ft. high). The mosque can accommodate almost 41,000 worshipers at once.

Emirates Palace Hotel 

From its golden chandeliers to the golden finials on its rooftop domes and the gold-leafed mosaics on the columns in its lobby, the Emirates Palace literally glows with luxury. The hotel, owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, took more than three years and reportedly more than $3 billion to build, which would make it the most expensively constructed hotel in the world.

The hotel's most modest rooms, each with several enormous plasma screen televisions and a personal butler, start at  $773 . A Palace Suite, on the other hand, heavily decorated with silks and gold and silver leaf, and including a living room, dining room and three bedrooms, can run as much as  $11,200, a night.

The Marina Mall: the shopping mall to go to see and to be seen and also to shop.   The tower attached to the mall has an entrance fee but you can have it returned by showing a receipt from the restaurant or tea room on the top of the tower. I hear tell it is much much cheaper to just pay the entrance fee.

Okay . See if you can read Arabic and identify the name of this local  restaurant where I had lunch today.

The Cornish

 

Trinidad : The Shops

Best Bar In Town

Best Pizza Place

2nd Best Chinese Restaurant

Best Bar in Town

Best Chinese Restaurant

A Nice Place to Go

A Nice Cell Phone Place

Trinidad: Port of Spain

My last day in Trinidad and Tobago, the official name of the country, was delightful.  I hired a taxi to take me to the area known as the Savannah.  It is a beautiful green space.  On the edge of the Savannah, there are wonderful old buildings that capture the old and the new of Port of Spain, Trnidad's capital.

Trinidad was a Spanish colony from 1498 to 1802 when it was ceded to the British.  It became independent in 1962 and a republic in 1976.  Trinidad is member of the British Commonwealth. It's official language is Englsih.  Unlike other Carribean countries, it main industry is industrial , with petroleum its main product.  BP has a large presence here.

The name Trinidad and Tobago reflects the two islands that make up this country.  Trinidad has 96% of the 1.1 million population.



Now a school anyone can attend. Queen's College, established 1903, was once only for the elite. Students graduated from here and then went to London to study law, medicine, religion or politics.

In the hopes they could come back to :



White Hall  - The Prime Minister's Office

T

  The Archbishop's Residence

The RoyalMuseum

Not part of old Trinidad , but of the new, is the  National Carnival Commission that oversees the number one tourist event : CARNIVAL. The most number of tourists to come to Trinidad do so in March.  Hotels rooms are booked a year in advance and local families substantially increase their income by renting out a room for the festival at prices from $250 and up.  Did this nation perfect Carnival and make it the best in the world as they say ?  I will  listen but not join the debate.    

And finally let me share some of the sayings that made the walk here a little nicer, a little more meaningful.