Into The Unknown

We drove across the causeway close to midnight, the warm stale air of the desert mixing with the humidity of water. In front of us was a series of check points and border controls, behind, the allure of western culture, neon and Festive Winter Celebrations.

I imagined that the process of entering an Arabian country was indifferent from gaining access to an obscure part of the Eastern Bloc. Money being the first step in the process. We ambled forward to have our car scanned and visa scrutinized; suspicion merely being the act of queuing. Our papers were in order; weeks of bureaucracy had ensured that. But in the end, traversing the series of border checks took a mere 20 minutes; a few grunts, a little more queuing and we'd entered a new country.

The lights faded behind us and a mix of orange lamps and sand lit our way. No women drove, no advertisements beaconed our trade. Billboards contained stern men with thick black moustaches, and tea-cloth headdress. Meaningless Arabic offering us banking or maybe the royal family; who could tell which? All we knew was that we'd finally entered Saudi Arabia.

I'd like to have said that every few miles a police road block would check our papers and move us on, but in reality, it was hard to determine why entry into the country was so restricted. Once in, you had free access to pretty much anywhere you wanted to go (more so if you were Muslim). Sure, the occasional road-block complete with police-officer sleeping in his jeep was encountered, but little else.

Bahrain came across like Las Vegas but with a British colonial feel; bright lights, new buildings, sand, sea and fun. While Saudi was an opposite with desert, rubble, twisted metal and construction. “Opening 2010” as I liked to say.

We entered the Aramco camp in the early morning. Strict checks were performed by armed guards to ensure that the incidents that plagued other parts of the country and other camps didn't occur there. The edge of the camp was lit like a prison border; high-tech surveillance ensuring no night time mission could penetrate. To add comfort F16's periodically patrolled the area flying low level around our perimeter; somehow you knew you weren't in Kansas anymore.

To call the camp a camp is somewhat of an injustice. A small city would be a better approximation. Tens of thousands of people cohabited this ex-pat community built during the 70s and 80s for a predominantly American workforce. From houses to traffic lights, plug-sockets to garage doors, you truly felt you were in middle America rather than the Middle East. Yet the westerners had fled in their droves; sections of the camp being a ghost town, other areas taken with an influx of workers from India and Asia. You could see the heritage, but also the future of this company run complex.

The camp was also completely self-sufficient, it contained shops, schools, hospitals and entertainment. In fact, the camp was so alien to Arabic culture that women drove and walked around bearing arms and legs to the winter sun. There was a golf course despite being in a desert land, and reclaimed water ensured it was an oasis of palm trees and manicured lawns. Teams of low paid male workers diligently preened and sculpted the forna and flora daily; women however aren't allowed to work.
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Over the week we haggled for purchases and mused at markets akin to the set of Indiana Jones. We ate with our hands in a true Arabian restaurant and we drove in the local traffic (which isn't dissimilar to driving in London). We saw the Persian Gulf, which is known as the Arabian Gulf in Saudi. We followed the rusting pipelines of the oil industry through to huge refineries by the coast. We overlooked fishing vessels while prayer time echoed from the speakers of mosques across the land.

We also did the most sinful of sins; we celebrated Christmas with all the smuggled contraband such festivities entail.
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I started 2004 sipping tea in the lounge of Hong Kong's Peninsula Hotel; the sound of chamber music wafting over the great room and white uniformed waiters discretely refilling cups. Curiously, I finished the year also bound to fine dining but this time sipping Martinis and Mai Tais at the Ritz Carlton in Bahrain while (rather oddly for the Ritz) listening to Britney Spears. It just goes to show, the future is anything but predictable. I wonder what 2005 will bring.