Riyadh Retrospective

It seems like a lifetime ago that I was living and working in Saudi Arabia and yet it's only last September that I left.

An amazing experience, to be in the heart of one of the most conservative Moslem societies in the world. I lived in Riyadh, a city of some 4 million people, and worked in the Kingdom Centre which is an astounding 300 metre tower owned by Prince Al-Walid bin Talal. He's about Number 12 on the Forbes list, and a rare character himself.







His bio is on http://www.meib.org/articles/0209_med1.htm and I recall one evening at a South African get-together in Seder Village (the compound I stayed in) when two stunning, tall South African air hostesses walked in. They worked for him - one of many little quirks he has that annoy the, er, Hell out of the Grand Mufti of Islam and others. Hiring a female pilot for his private jet. Advocating political reforms. Anyway he's very popular among the youth in Riyadh.

But returning to the Kingdom Centre, or Al Mamlaka as it is known in Arabic. It's built on top of a large, luxurious shopping mall with all the big name brands from Saks to Debenhams.


Cool, clean, wafts of perfume here and there (the Saudis, like other Arabs, are big on their perfumes which in turn are big on notes of sandalwood, rose, myrrh, frankincense and others, quite different to Western tastes.) And with a great food court too - and my favourite takeaway ever, serving Iranian shwarmas which I ate in large quantities and so frequently that they knew my order off by heart.



What an amazing building it is though. Arab architecture can be breathtaking in its scope and novelty - and the Kingdom tower is no exception. At night it is spotlit and the top bathed in light of changing colours, and in the day it gleams against the Saudi sky. But best of all is at dusk, when it is quite surreal.

Apparently the unique shape, with an aperture at the top, is meant to resemble a veiled Saudi woman. Who knows. I only saw Prince Walid once and he was surrounded by a scrum of bodyguards and photographers - and amazingly, followed by a whistling and ululating bunch of Saudi girls all dressed in their anonymising black robes and veils. Like Robbie Williams being chased by penguins. I was in the food court in the Al-Faisaliah tower having a late night breakfast (during Ramadan, the first meal after sundown is called "iftar" or breakfast, and I was running late that day) when this hullabaloo happened and as the only Caucasian around I must admit I had a little spasm of "new to Saudi" nervousness.

Still, I do have some fond memories of the place and the people I met. Some great friends who I sincerely hope I'll see again one day, amazing architecture, fantastic food, strange customs, homicidal traffic, petrol at less than 10 pence a litre, enormously hot summers but very agreeable winters... perhaps if it had been easier to have a social life in Riyadh I'd have stayed. And if there had been even the remotest possibility of achieving what I wanted to at work.

Being single in Saudi presents its own cluster of problems. Dating as we know it is illegal - single men are treated like rabid dogs there and isolated from any contact with women. In fact going out for dinner is in itself a unique experience because singletons or groups of men are separated into their own space, and separated from families by walls and curtains. Add to that prohibitions against alcohol, pork and wearing shorts for men and you can see how an Antipodean boy would feel a little out of place there.

Perhaps if I had been able to entice someone to live in my little bungalow on the compound. Seder Village is one of the oldest compounds in Riyadh, a former American military base I suspect given the rows of square houses of a few basic types. I had a two-bedroom little place in "Red Bricks" street although most of the compound staff referred to it as Block Nineteen Unit 5, which is more accurate perhaps but less likely to make pale, nervous Westerners feel at home. For this little place I paid about $1400 a month including utilities which was quite steep I thought.

At least it had a little private garden. In fact that is I suspect the reason why so many Southern Africans liked to live there. Seder is in one of the poorest suburbs of Riyadh, known locally as "taliban country" and a good 20km from the city centre, but almost all the other compounds have communal gardens only and no private space where you can sit outside and have a barbecue.

Looking down "Red Bricks" street you can see the compound wall at the back. Seder had around 300-odd dwellings, ranging from tiny bachelor flats which were basically bedsits, to large 5 bedroom villas. It was well maintained, if quite old, and teams of amazingly heat-resistant Filipino gardeners in green overalls, masked against the dust, would wander around trimming hedges and tending the pebble-and-shrub streetside gardens. The private front gardens needed to be maintained at my own effort or own cost and frankly given the Saudi penchant for working late and my habit of getting up very early, I spent almost no time in the garden at all.

Getting into the city was an adventure every day - driving a tiny battered Mazda on the "wrong" side of the road through dense and chaotic traffic composed mostly of enormous American gas guzzlers like Hummers, GMC Yukons and the like. Before I accepted the role, I was assured by the local office that my tiny car allowance was enough for me to buy a decent car. Once I arrived in Riyadh I realised what arrant bullshit that was - firstly, I couldn't buy a car or even open a local bank account before receiving my residence permit ("Iqama") which takes a year, secondly I coudln't get financing before having held a Saudi bank account for two years (and see point one here to understand the full complication) and finally in any case the money my employers had allocated for a car was so completely inadequate as to be laughable. The cherry on the cake was when they offered to rent me one of the company pool vehicles (the aforementioned little Mazda) for a cost of 50% more than they had allocated me as a car allowance.

Having said all that, I am still proud of myself for learning to drive on the right in such a mini-mobile in the worst traffic in the Middle East. My numberplate reads (if you look with English eyes) what appears to be the numbers 790 and then some squiggles. Of course our numbering system in the West (which, weirdly enough, is the old Arabic system ) uses those symbols for 790 - whereas in the Arabic system (which they adopted from the Hindi system) those symbols mean "695". Confusing, innit? In fact there are only two symbols that have the same numeric value in both Western and new Arabic numbering - 9 and 1. Gives a whole new meaning to 9/11 doesn't it?