Friday starts the weekend in Saudi Arabia. and a good friend of mine, Waleed, and I took the opportunity to visit the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh to see what it had to offer. It's a beautiful but ostentatious complex of facilities that serves high-level conferences for the Kingdom. Originally built by the King's son solely for use by the Royal family, the complex is now managed by the Ritz-Carlton and used to welcome any guest who can afford to stay at the hotel.
Smoking a Havana Montecristo at the Ritz
We sat in an outdoor atrium that allowed smoking where I ordered a Montecristo #1 (a Havana cigar). Like most Cuban cigars I've smoked, this stick was stale and its wrapper sloughed off as I smoked it. Still, it was a restful respite from the crazy traffic outside the Ritz compound. The ostentatious atrium sported a 600 year old olive tree that was transplanted from Lebanon and a 400 year old South American tree also transported and planted into the atrium. Actually there are three atriums, one reserved for "singles," meaning males unaccompanied by females -- where we sat, another for females only, and a third that was reserved for "families."
Arabic coffee and Kingdom dates, the best in the world
I ordered Arabic coffee and Waleed ordered some kind of foo-foo pomegranate drink. The coffee tray arrived with a plate of Kingdom dates, renowned to be the best in the world -- and they were the best I've had! The Arabic coffee comes heavily flavored with cardamom and sugar. There's very little coffee flavor that comes through the spice. Enjoyed it very much and will have to do it again. The restaurants at the Ritz didn't open for dinner until 7:00 pm, and we weren't going to wait three hours, so we chose to head out to a Pakistani restaurant that Waleed had located by talking with our hotel staff.
Riyadh neighborhood that serves the labor force (primarily Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, and Filipino)
Saudi has over 9 million foreign workers who provide most of the services and all of the menial labor in the Kingdom. Many of them run businesses to support the local workers. Whole neighborhoods in Riyadh look like the picture to the left -- streets filled with small shops and restaurants serving foreign food. This is where we found the Pakistani restaurant that Waleed wanted to go to. We had tried to locate it the night before but gave up after an hour of driving around and getting lost only to eat at a Indian restaurant one street away.
Inside the Pakistani restaurant
Most of these "restaurants" aren't classified or licensed as restaurants at all. They are licensed as "kitchens," meaning they are allowed to cook set-piece meals they vend to taxi drivers and other foreigners who purchase meals and take away. The gentleman sitting to the right was a Pakistani taxi driver who ended-up driving Waleed and me back to our hotel following dinner. As it turns out, he had worked for Americans elsewhere and spoke very good English. "Real" restaurants have menus and are allowed to cook multiple items for a sit down customer base. But, the few available tables at this kitchen served us well, except that there was no silverware available. We had to eat with our hands using the naan provided with our meal.
Our kitchen meal
Waleed speaks five or more languages including all the ones from Pakistan. So, he ordered-up a small feast which we devoured. After this experience using my hands slurping down lentils and curry, the next day I purchased a set of spoons to bring with me for our next adventurous meal which we are planning next weekend. During the week, we tend to walk from our hotel to the mall's food court across the street to take our meals. But now, that I've been made aware of this other world here in Riyadh, I won't be a stranger.
As I mentioned in a previous post, the local news rag, the Daily Tribune, is published in English for propaganda purposes and distributed to all the western hotels and made available in the coffee shops and cafes for free. The juvenile writing, editing, and content always provides me with entertainment to start my day.
CNN and other western news sources have reported snow falling in the Middle East and Egypt received quite a bit of snow -- for the first time in 112 years. So, it came as no surprise to see a photo of the snow with a caption below it describing the scene. Here is a snapshot of the image from the DT:
Snapshot of a photo and caption from the Daily Tribune (Bahrain) on 15 Dec 2013
As I was glancing at this photo and reading the caption, I noticed the chubby and smiling Orthodox Jew helping to push the car out of the snow, and I thought, why the hell are the Egyptians using Jews to push cars? Then I noticed the Hebrew writing on the car door and the other Orthodox characters in the photo. So, here is another example of the quality of editing found in the local papers here. We've got a photo from a Jerusalem scene with a caption referencing Cairo. I mean, sure, the difference is only an inch or so on a world map. But culturally and linguistically, they're worlds apart. Wouldn't the writer or editor of the paper, and Arab, have noticed the Hebrew writing and the Orthodox Jews? I guess not.
...This time in Manama, Bahrain. Before I left home for the Middle East, I watched a variety of YouTube videos about Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The video below caught my eye and my attention. Most of the buildings in Bahrain have been designed, architected, and constructed by South African and European companies. This World Trade Center was no exception. But what stands-out for this design was the "Green" building approach. The architect did a great job including wind and solar electrical generating capabilities into the building design as well as specifying coatings for the window glass to minimize the need for cooling.
This building is the first of its kind to employ wind turbines into the design. Only one Danish firm agreed to design, test, and install this wind system -- every other alternative design firm in the world turned down the concept because of the structural issues surrounding the mounting of the wind turbines onto bridges spanning two buildings and a host of other design issues thought to be too hard and too risky. Spend the time to watch the video below -- entertaining and informative.
But, as Paul Harvey used to say, here's the rest of the story. The night I checked into my hotel here in Manama, I went upstairs to the bar to rest and have a drink. Met a Brit there who was here for years installing a water park ride system into the mall across the street. When I mentioned the World Trade Center, he told me that there was another story associated with the building. After the building was constructed but before the wind and solar power generation capabilities were installed, the design teams from multiple companies held a party on an Indian dhow in the Bay of Bahrain.
The dhow was so unsteady that sixteen passengers refused to sail on it. The boat capsized later that evening, killing 58 of the passengers and crew. The dead included 50 senior executives involved in the construction of the Trade Center, a large percentage of the western expat engineering and construction population here in Bahrain.
Indian Dhow Dinner Boat capsized and killed 58
I guess one lesson learned is never to board a shaky Indian dhow in the Bay of Bahrain, or anywhere else for that matter.
As I was packing my bags at home and preparing for my trip to the Middle East, a local news story ran about a six year old Canyon City, CO boy who was suspended from school and labeled a sex offender. His crime? He kissed a six year old girl on the cheek at school. When I listened to the newscast, I yelled out some major expletives which pissed off the wife. Still, my anger was justified. Colorado's State Education Department needs to be eliminated. We can save the tax dollars spent on these useless bureaucrats who create these bullshit PC rules and regulations and put more money back into educating students.
This morning, while I was having breakfast at my hotel in Manama, Bahrain, I picked up a Bahraini news rag and read it to see if there was anything interesting. I can usually pick up on local politics and demographic/ethnic issues but you really have to read between the lines to get to them with these cheesy newspapers printed for western expats. Bahrain has incredible demographic and religious issues and divisiveness most recently highlighted by the 2011 strikes and demonstrations that threatened to topple the monarchy here. You'd never know that from the puff pieces in the papers. But, I found a column about the Colorado boy in an appropriately titled piece.
Six year old sex offender.
Sigh. Anyway, I've vented enough. I can now move on to more interesting and important American news about Kanye West and Kim Kardashian...
