Day 9: Shaybah

Our trip to the Shaybah Field started before the crack of dawn with 5 am bus transport to Camp and then the Aramco hangar at Dammam Airport.

The Shaybah development is Saudi Aramco’s crown jewel located in the Empty Quarter, ‘Rub Al Khali,” near the UAE border.  Given the remoteness and harshness of the environment, Shaybah is truly an engineering and operational marvel.  The 3 (soon to be 4) GOSPs (Gas Oil Separation Plant) and residential camp are set on the subkha plains surrounded by red sand dunes, some as high as 1000 feet.  It is nearly impossible to describe in words how desolate and inhospitable a setting this is.  Photos barely do it justice.

It was a bit windy, so photography was a little difficult, and we were coated with fine sand by the time we left early afternoon.  I made the mistake of wearing flip-flops which would have been perfect for walking on the dunes had the sand not been so blistering hot by noon.  And it was only March!!! 

After returning to Dhahran, we accompanied the Manges to Ismail Nawab’s home in Ar Rabiyah for more tea, coffee, and Arabic sweets.  The Nawabs are close friends of the family, so we were glad to have had the opportunity to accept their invitation.  The company and food were both excellent.  Regrettably, we could not stay longer as we had to run back to the hotel and change in time for the Farewell Dinner.

The Farewell Dinner was hosted by local businessmen in Al-Khobar at the Seef on the Corniche.  The bus was supposed to transport us to the restaurant, but, after a full circuit of the Corniche, couldn’t find the place.  He made a phone call and circled around again before Tom spotted the restaurant...a mere 5-minute walk from our hotel, not the 30-minute bus ride we had been on.  Our driver thought it was absolutely hilarious when he saw how close it was to the bus stop.

Both of us were pretty stuffed at this point, but we went to enjoy the company and hospitality. In addition to spending a few minutes socializing with reunion attendees we had not had much time to talk to, we ran into an old classmate, Lena Jalbout!  What great surprise!  She hasn’t been able to attend any of the Aramco Brat reunions because of a conflicting, annual business trip to the U.S.  We made plans to join her for lunch at her house the next day, had one more cup of kawa with our sadeeg in the lobby of Le Meridien, then called it a day.  It was a long one!