I finally have a car and it is a wonderful experience! It is a nice little Mazda 3, although when I picked it up at King Fahd International Airport it was nearly empty - and I was not sure it I would make it a gas station ... the first place I stopped at was out of gasoline, the second one stopped filling because it was close to prayer time ... so I drove on for a while into Dammam (an interesting experience I will get back to) and found a station later, but no lights were ... it was still prayer time. So I waited at the pump and finally prayer time ended I the tank was filled from near empty with 95 Octane (Premium) gas for a grand total of 28 Saudi Arabia Riyals (SAR), which is a little more than US$7 ...the price per gallon here (for premium) is approximately US$0.60 (or around CDN$0.165 per Liter for my Canadian friends). That was a nice little experience ...
Prayer time in Saudi Arabia occurs 5 times per day and changes slightly daily according to lunar phases; everything here is based on the lunar calendar so it takes some getting used to, but thanks to modern science this can be known well in advanced with very high accuracy! What makes this interesting is shopping times are generally 9am to 11am (except Friday) and 4pm to 12 midnight daily; the catch is prayer time around 6:30pm and again around 8pm - each for about thirty minutes. During this time all stores have difference policies: some may ask you to leave, others lock you in, and others simply let you wander in and out - but in all cases there are NO services. This means you wait until after prayer time to pay or get any kind of help. There is no deviation from this anywhere in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Back to the car ... the driver who took me to the airport was a fellow named Abu, who was recommended by Arun (someone I met in the same orientation as me - he is from Houston too but with his family). Abu normally works for someone else as a private driver, but has camp access and is free to drive for others when not working for his sponsor. He is the best driver I have had yet (i.e. I was not clutching the seat in fear of his driving - only for the other crazies on the road and our definition of crazies was identical). This got me to the airport where the Hertz agent was really helpful and got me the upgrade to the Mazda 3 (which is an automatic transmission which has some advantages when you are unfamiliar with an area). Speed limits here outside of Dhahran are posted in Arabic, which means I need to be able to read Arabic numbers (which I now can) but most direction signs are both Arabic and English (nearly essential). So due to the low gas, it seemed wiser to go through Dammam because I could not remember how far it was to a gas station on the highway ... so I took a scenic route through all of the construction and traffic - only one true near miss where someone turned on to the main road without stopping at the stop sign then veered into the adjacent lane while another car was on the left side of me at very high speed - good driver training (Smith System) had me looking far enough ahead to plan and see this so it was simply slow down (actually, slam on the brakes - nobody behind me) and honk ... then just continue on. You simply honk at people (politely - not an extended blare ... more of a "hey, get with the program") and you NEVER openly look like you are cursing someone or use hand signals (other than waving someone in). Drivers here are crazy but very predictable ... the scary part is the trucks .... think driving in a 100 km/h or 120 km/h zone with most cars traveling that speed and few crazies considerably faster, then the large trucks on the same road moving at speeds from 40 km/h to no more than about 80 km/h in rather high density (imaging entering and exiting). That is driving in Saudi Arabia. Just be alert and at all costs avoid driving on Friday night (avoid shopping too - that is the big shopping social night which is a substitute for entertainment here).
Now with the car; I had it for one day buy drove the moped (my 125cc Honda Dio) to work the next day because I needed to meet with payroll - and car parking there is an exercise in total futility unless you are driving an Aramco vehicle (I'm not authorized yet) but if you drive a moped or motorcycle, you can park where the bicycles are (i.e. right at the entry gate) without wasting time searching for parking. Very handy! But that morning I read the rental contract and realized I could not drive it to Bahrain ... so a few phone calls later (the only helpful guy was the one at the airport who rented me the car) it seemed best to go back to the airport so they could take copies of my driving licenses, Iqama and visa ... but it will take 2-3 business days to process. I tried talking to their head office in Khobar but it was not very productive. I even asked Ali, a co-worker from Lebanon who speaks Arabic, English and French ... his conclusion about the representative in Khobar was the same as mine - he even said the person not only was unable the speak English but there Arabic was just as bad! So yesterday I drove back to the airport and took care of these details ...
The drive to the airport was pleasant, right after work (actually after I helped Jesus, a new engineer in our group,recharge is mobily USB Internat modem - he does not have an Iqama yet which can be a problem doing this). The drive was nice - highway all the way and the only scary parts were the exits. Once I made the long stretch from the highway to King Fahd International Airport I was passing some sand dunes and in one area I saw a small group of camels (with no people) just wandering. It was quite a sight! The dunes are very beautiful! At the airport I saw the Aramco terminal, which is the hub for the Aramco fleet of jets and back to the airport ... which I am getting to know better now. It is a fabulous airport that I would send pictures of, but it is forbidden to take photographs of it ... such as same because throughout Saudi Arabia there is some incredible architecture which cannot be photographed.
So that is the present adventure. Settling in is happening ... today or tomorrow I will see if I can find transportation from the causeway into Bahrain so I can activate my visa ... plus I would like to see Bahrain.
Prayer time in Saudi Arabia occurs 5 times per day and changes slightly daily according to lunar phases; everything here is based on the lunar calendar so it takes some getting used to, but thanks to modern science this can be known well in advanced with very high accuracy! What makes this interesting is shopping times are generally 9am to 11am (except Friday) and 4pm to 12 midnight daily; the catch is prayer time around 6:30pm and again around 8pm - each for about thirty minutes. During this time all stores have difference policies: some may ask you to leave, others lock you in, and others simply let you wander in and out - but in all cases there are NO services. This means you wait until after prayer time to pay or get any kind of help. There is no deviation from this anywhere in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Back to the car ... the driver who took me to the airport was a fellow named Abu, who was recommended by Arun (someone I met in the same orientation as me - he is from Houston too but with his family). Abu normally works for someone else as a private driver, but has camp access and is free to drive for others when not working for his sponsor. He is the best driver I have had yet (i.e. I was not clutching the seat in fear of his driving - only for the other crazies on the road and our definition of crazies was identical). This got me to the airport where the Hertz agent was really helpful and got me the upgrade to the Mazda 3 (which is an automatic transmission which has some advantages when you are unfamiliar with an area). Speed limits here outside of Dhahran are posted in Arabic, which means I need to be able to read Arabic numbers (which I now can) but most direction signs are both Arabic and English (nearly essential). So due to the low gas, it seemed wiser to go through Dammam because I could not remember how far it was to a gas station on the highway ... so I took a scenic route through all of the construction and traffic - only one true near miss where someone turned on to the main road without stopping at the stop sign then veered into the adjacent lane while another car was on the left side of me at very high speed - good driver training (Smith System) had me looking far enough ahead to plan and see this so it was simply slow down (actually, slam on the brakes - nobody behind me) and honk ... then just continue on. You simply honk at people (politely - not an extended blare ... more of a "hey, get with the program") and you NEVER openly look like you are cursing someone or use hand signals (other than waving someone in). Drivers here are crazy but very predictable ... the scary part is the trucks .... think driving in a 100 km/h or 120 km/h zone with most cars traveling that speed and few crazies considerably faster, then the large trucks on the same road moving at speeds from 40 km/h to no more than about 80 km/h in rather high density (imaging entering and exiting). That is driving in Saudi Arabia. Just be alert and at all costs avoid driving on Friday night (avoid shopping too - that is the big shopping social night which is a substitute for entertainment here).
Now with the car; I had it for one day buy drove the moped (my 125cc Honda Dio) to work the next day because I needed to meet with payroll - and car parking there is an exercise in total futility unless you are driving an Aramco vehicle (I'm not authorized yet) but if you drive a moped or motorcycle, you can park where the bicycles are (i.e. right at the entry gate) without wasting time searching for parking. Very handy! But that morning I read the rental contract and realized I could not drive it to Bahrain ... so a few phone calls later (the only helpful guy was the one at the airport who rented me the car) it seemed best to go back to the airport so they could take copies of my driving licenses, Iqama and visa ... but it will take 2-3 business days to process. I tried talking to their head office in Khobar but it was not very productive. I even asked Ali, a co-worker from Lebanon who speaks Arabic, English and French ... his conclusion about the representative in Khobar was the same as mine - he even said the person not only was unable the speak English but there Arabic was just as bad! So yesterday I drove back to the airport and took care of these details ...
The drive to the airport was pleasant, right after work (actually after I helped Jesus, a new engineer in our group,recharge is mobily USB Internat modem - he does not have an Iqama yet which can be a problem doing this). The drive was nice - highway all the way and the only scary parts were the exits. Once I made the long stretch from the highway to King Fahd International Airport I was passing some sand dunes and in one area I saw a small group of camels (with no people) just wandering. It was quite a sight! The dunes are very beautiful! At the airport I saw the Aramco terminal, which is the hub for the Aramco fleet of jets and back to the airport ... which I am getting to know better now. It is a fabulous airport that I would send pictures of, but it is forbidden to take photographs of it ... such as same because throughout Saudi Arabia there is some incredible architecture which cannot be photographed.
So that is the present adventure. Settling in is happening ... today or tomorrow I will see if I can find transportation from the causeway into Bahrain so I can activate my visa ... plus I would like to see Bahrain.
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