On Sunday morning both the Jeddah trippers and those going to the Asir flew out of the Aramco hangar on a 737-700 (the Shaybah). We flew into Abha first to drop the Asir group off and got a spectacular view of the mountains and gorges of that area.
After stopping at the hotel for coffee and check-in, we headed into the older part of the city to see Naseef House. Naseef House was built in 1872 by a wealthy merchant family and has been partially restored as part of a larger project to restore and preserve Jeddah’s distinctive, old architecture. HRH Abdul Aziz purportedly ruled from this house for a year and a half before going to Riyadh.
Our host at Naseef House, Dr. Sami Nawar, the Director General of Jeddah’s Tourism and Culture Department, was something else! He had a wonderful enthusiasm for his city, great sense of humor, and fun tales. Several historic areas have been earmarked for preservation and restoration, and it was quite a relief to hear him speak about the importance of striking a balance between the two so as not to overdo the work and destroy the historic areas’ look and feel. Renovations and new construction in these areas will maintain the old architectural styles. The topic prompted us to ask him if he had ever been to New Orleans. While much newer than Jeddah, mile after mile of historic neighborhoods have been fiercely protective of too much change, summed up in a t-shirt design that says “la beaute d’entropie” or “the beauty of decay.” Our host had, indeed, been to New Orleans. An impish grin spread across his face as he told us he “had a LOT of fun!” Uh-oh!
He carefully timed our tour of Naseef House to have us up in the old wooden structure on top, enjoying the sea breeze, when the evening prayer call began. We sat quietly and listened while the muezzin calls rang out from 37 different mosques simultaneously. Beautiful! We then enjoyed some mint tea with him before departing for dinner at a seafood restaurant on the Corniche, Al Wadaa, compliments of Saudi Aramco.
Monday morning, we started out at a little suq recommended by Nancy, our Saudi Aramco tour leader who had lived in Jeddah for 6.5 years before moving to Dhahran. Unfortunately, Jeddah is a little slower to wake up than Al-Khobar, so little was open before we had to leave for our appointment at the Emir of Mecca’s offices. There were a couple of shops Nancy wanted to visit and managed to get them to open up a little early for her, but it was nothing the rest of the group was really interested in. A pattern was emerging.
It’s a good thing we arrived a little early for our reception at the offices of HRH Khaled bin Faisal bin Abdul Aziz. The drives were so narrow and sharply curved that we witnessed some pretty impressive bus maneuvering. Seemed like it would have been easier to park the bus in the lot and have us walk up to the doors, but proper entrances are very important, especially when being filmed. The driver almost made it under the portico without incident. Almost. On the 2nd to last cut, he took a chunk out of the wall near the entrance. Oopsie!
There was much discussion with Saudi Aramco Government Relations officials on proper protocol for greeting the Emir. The script didn’t play out quite as prescribed but close enough. We all filed through to shake his hand and bid him “salaam alaikum.” We were both struck by how much he resembled his late father, HRH King Faisal, who was ruling when we first moved to Saudi Arabia in 1972. He was presented with a commemorative gift of the inscribed crystal-variety and a few words of thanks and appreciation from our group. Saudi Aramco had a photographer present and is planning on sending the attendees a CD of the event which we will be sure to share as soon as it arrives.
Our Saudi Aramco tour leader took us a by a gift shop and another store prior to lunch at a Turkish restaurant. The last store was the Saudi equivalent of Garden Ridge Pottery. No one in the group had any business or interest in purchasing any large ceramic pots or patio furniture which prompted the question “what the hell are we doing here?” This is the point at which it became plainly evident to all of us that our tour leader, Nancy, was using this tour as her own personal shopping trip to Jeddah! She was buying items for her patio in Dhahran! We were none too happy with her. One of the attendees went so far as to loudly thank her for allowing us to accompany her on her shopping trip to Jeddah. The last shopping stop delayed our lunch at Al Fairouz, a popular Turkish restaurant, which left us with little time to see the Corniche before heading to the airport! The food was very good, but we can’t say as much for our tour leader.
Our last stop in Jeddah was a full 15 minutes on the Corniche, the famous 100-km, waterfront stretch along the Red Sea which is decorated with numerous sculptures and little mosques. We didn’t even have time to walk over to the little mosque that jutted out into the water, but we had sufficient time for one of our group to step in something really nasty as we were getting back on the bus. There were NO dogs running around the beach, so we’ll just leave it to the reader to figure out. What followed was a about 10 minutes of hilarity as he tried to remove all traces from the bottom of his shoes. In addition to the bus driver and a beach worker helping him with bottled water, paper towels,a piece of shell and a broom, he had the encouragement of the entire bus as we watched (and video recorded) the process.
So much for the Corniche! We headed back to Dhahran, getting to the hotel around midnight and caught about 3 hours of sleep before the early-morning Shaybah trip the next day.
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