Flighty Farukh and Siphoning Sharukh
Yesterday was one of the most interesting I've had for a while. Wanting to grab a few things for *ehem* 'holiday season' from Dhahran myself and two other like minded ladies called up the local (safe?) cab company Majestic and ordered a cab thinking because it was an extended trip we'd get Saiful the king of all safe driving. Instead we got the dodgiest bugger on the face of the planet and as he didn't know how to speak a word of Engligh (bare in mind he's working for an expat cab company) we couldn't ask him his name. So I've decided to nickname him Flighty Farukh. My guess he was one of the newbies from Bangladesh whod never driven on a Saudi road. Well after about 15 near death experiences. (Your's truly sitting in the back middle seat able to witness everyone of them) we told him to drop us off at the nearest shops and to bugger off. He looked really confused but took the money and dissapeared and I went in to the local ladies loos to see if I'd truly wet my pants!
A note about the driving here. People don't break. Actually people don't know how to break I'm guessing because what they do is drive up really fast behind you flashing their lights and tooting their horn to tell you to get out of the way because there is no way in hell they can slow down (approx speed 150-200kmph) and both parties are in it if your car does not get out of the way. None of this is done arrogantly. Its just a courtesy to move out of the way so the gentleman behind you who hasn't yet discovered his brake pedal can have some more breathing space to find it before the next car going slightly slower. Because the brake pedal is (easily?) confused with the accellerator...he frequently speeds up before the next guy only to experience the same panic all over again.
Flighty Farukh obviously didn't understand this couteous custom which prevents both party's cars from intimate (haram?) contact and decided that what all the guys speeding up behind him wanted was for him to go faster instead of merely changing lanes. Needless to say I'm still having flashbacks and had, for want of a stiff drink, a dodgy coffee at the local starbucks.
So after a relatively unevently schmooze around the shops we decided to go off to one of the local Pakastani restaurants downtown. It was absolutely great bar the smell of the ladies loos right next to our table (don't even begin me ranting about male cleaning standards). We had a pleasant meal and then getting the bill in a folder put in enough money for the meal and a generous tip. On the way out the dodgy manager (Siphoning Sharukh) calls out and tells us we have not payed half of our bill. The money he says we haven't payed him is directly in front of him and the waiter helpfully pointed this out. However he insisted that we hadn't payed him and that we owed him. To avoid drama one of the girls forked over the money (30 riall or 8-9 aud) and we got out of there. The daft thing is, the food was brilliant and all three of us would have brought people back and probably tipped more generously than the amount the guy extorted out of us. The guy, knowing that one of us was Pakastani was still a bastard so I don't think it was even angst over us being potentially American...stupid.
The next stop was a supermarket on the way home for some groceries. We managed a record breaking endevour and in 20 minutes before prayer time we were all out of there and in the cab of a nice Pakastani cab driver who told us (or rather Aisha in Urdu) that a lot of the time Saudi women get in his cab and get out without paying. These guys would make about 300 riall a month (90 aud) so we gave him the trip to Ras Tanura and a bloody good tip too.
It might seem like all I do here is venturing into town and shopping but that's probably only one day out of seven or more. Most of the time here I've been reading, doing a bit of research and a whole lot of oil painting. The social scene here is, as aformentioned, agressive. My phone doesn't stop calling all day and I've started to take it off the hook in the mornings to at least have a coffee and breakfast after my walk along the beach. Otherwise people start calling around 6 or 7. The weekends are really layed back. Anthony and I usually get out and kick back at the cafe on Friday just in time to listen to the militant local imam blasting out his sermon through the loud speaker. We could swear he's yelling 'kill all the white infidels' in the camp next door although the local guys assure me he just has strong convictions about what a good lecture on Islam should sound like. So I'm guessing shirty is the order of the day.
However safety wize its really good here. The joke is that all the local boys who want to be militants are in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan right now so the only worry is what is going to happen when they get home!
On the visa front I don't have it yet but we're chilling out. Jen took off on our trip yesterday morning and I did mope a bit (actually a lot) but c'est la vie...what can you do. We knew when we came here I might not get it in time. As a result however, my head still hurts as a result of the sideffects of the local grapejuice imbibed the other night in commisseration. (I still can't remember half the night...Anthony's been holding this one over my head and it will probably come out of the closet everytime I annoy him from now on. Try driving an innebriated lady home in a golf cart when she doesn't want to go home!)
Anyways off to do some boring admin stuff.
A note about the driving here. People don't break. Actually people don't know how to break I'm guessing because what they do is drive up really fast behind you flashing their lights and tooting their horn to tell you to get out of the way because there is no way in hell they can slow down (approx speed 150-200kmph) and both parties are in it if your car does not get out of the way. None of this is done arrogantly. Its just a courtesy to move out of the way so the gentleman behind you who hasn't yet discovered his brake pedal can have some more breathing space to find it before the next car going slightly slower. Because the brake pedal is (easily?) confused with the accellerator...he frequently speeds up before the next guy only to experience the same panic all over again.
Flighty Farukh obviously didn't understand this couteous custom which prevents both party's cars from intimate (haram?) contact and decided that what all the guys speeding up behind him wanted was for him to go faster instead of merely changing lanes. Needless to say I'm still having flashbacks and had, for want of a stiff drink, a dodgy coffee at the local starbucks.
So after a relatively unevently schmooze around the shops we decided to go off to one of the local Pakastani restaurants downtown. It was absolutely great bar the smell of the ladies loos right next to our table (don't even begin me ranting about male cleaning standards). We had a pleasant meal and then getting the bill in a folder put in enough money for the meal and a generous tip. On the way out the dodgy manager (Siphoning Sharukh) calls out and tells us we have not payed half of our bill. The money he says we haven't payed him is directly in front of him and the waiter helpfully pointed this out. However he insisted that we hadn't payed him and that we owed him. To avoid drama one of the girls forked over the money (30 riall or 8-9 aud) and we got out of there. The daft thing is, the food was brilliant and all three of us would have brought people back and probably tipped more generously than the amount the guy extorted out of us. The guy, knowing that one of us was Pakastani was still a bastard so I don't think it was even angst over us being potentially American...stupid.
The next stop was a supermarket on the way home for some groceries. We managed a record breaking endevour and in 20 minutes before prayer time we were all out of there and in the cab of a nice Pakastani cab driver who told us (or rather Aisha in Urdu) that a lot of the time Saudi women get in his cab and get out without paying. These guys would make about 300 riall a month (90 aud) so we gave him the trip to Ras Tanura and a bloody good tip too.
It might seem like all I do here is venturing into town and shopping but that's probably only one day out of seven or more. Most of the time here I've been reading, doing a bit of research and a whole lot of oil painting. The social scene here is, as aformentioned, agressive. My phone doesn't stop calling all day and I've started to take it off the hook in the mornings to at least have a coffee and breakfast after my walk along the beach. Otherwise people start calling around 6 or 7. The weekends are really layed back. Anthony and I usually get out and kick back at the cafe on Friday just in time to listen to the militant local imam blasting out his sermon through the loud speaker. We could swear he's yelling 'kill all the white infidels' in the camp next door although the local guys assure me he just has strong convictions about what a good lecture on Islam should sound like. So I'm guessing shirty is the order of the day.
However safety wize its really good here. The joke is that all the local boys who want to be militants are in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan right now so the only worry is what is going to happen when they get home!
On the visa front I don't have it yet but we're chilling out. Jen took off on our trip yesterday morning and I did mope a bit (actually a lot) but c'est la vie...what can you do. We knew when we came here I might not get it in time. As a result however, my head still hurts as a result of the sideffects of the local grapejuice imbibed the other night in commisseration. (I still can't remember half the night...Anthony's been holding this one over my head and it will probably come out of the closet everytime I annoy him from now on. Try driving an innebriated lady home in a golf cart when she doesn't want to go home!)
Anyways off to do some boring admin stuff.
posted by George at
9:46 am
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