Saudia II

A few weeks ago we had a chance to use Saudia again, but this time we took a domestic flight to Jeddah, the commercial hub of Saudi Arabia. As before, this particular flight with Saudia was a rather interesting cultural experience for several reasons.

Firstly, the passengers. Since Jeddah is one of the closest cities to Mecca, there were quite a lot of hajj pilgrims on the flight. Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam. All Moslems who have the physical and financial means to do so, should visit Mecca once in their lifetime. For the hajj men dress in white unsewn towels. We’ve been told this is so because during the pilgrimage all people are equal. Women dress modestly, but it was interesting to note that not all women were wearing black. Since a lot of the hajj pilgrims are from abroad you see a variety of colors at the airport compared to the ever-popular black elsewhere. We also saw several groups of women wearing bright colored headscarves, such as the mint green in the picture below. Our guess is that these are hajj tour groups and travelers are wearing the same color headscarves so that it would be easier for the guide to take care of them.

Secondly, holy water. There is a well in Mecca called Zamzam, whose water is holy for Moslems. At the airport you can see people carrying canister after canister of Zamzam water. We were told that the water is used for all sorts of purposes, such as bathing sick people with it, blessings babies, drinking etc. At Riyadh airport you frequently see laborers from Pakistan and India taking the water back home with them.

Thirdly, prayer areas. Now this is not something that you get on any airline. At the back of the jumbo jet there was an empty space dedicated for praying. A veteran expat told us that during longer flights men often congregate in the prayer area. Also, upon arrival at Jeddah airport, there was a prayer area right next to the terminal doors. So basically, if you don’t have a chance to visit the prayer area at the back of the plane during the flight, you can make up for possible missed prayers at the terminal already before you’ve collected your luggage.

Fly-In Fly-Out

Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport offers surprisingly large number of connections not only to all regional destinations in the Middle East but also to all major air transportation hubs in Europe, Asia and USA. That said, there are two things that continuously puzzle me (T):

First, when flying to/from Europe, almost all flights depart/arrive middle of the night. And with "middle of the night" I really mean "middle of the night". E.g. Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul arrives around 1am and leaves around 2am. Rare exception is British Airways daily flight to London that departs 8am in the morning. Yes, it might be that airlines just want to ensure as good onward connections as possible for their customers but there is probably something else behind this, too.

Second, with the exception of Dubai there barely is any regional destination that you could easily fly-in in the morning and fly-out in the evening - something which is a standard business procedure everywhere in Europe. Either you leave middle of the night (see above) and arrive to your destination around 3am or 4am (with at least 4-5 hours waiting before any morning meetings commence) or you can leave middle of the day (not very effective use of your time) and spend the night in a hotel (extra costs). Maybe it is so that whenever somebody has a chance to travel out from the Magic Kingdom, they want to spend at least one night in their destination.

Sunrise as seen from King Khalid International Airport.

Prayers – Part III

A while ago there was a question about prayer or “salat” times. Prayer times are determined by the position of the Sun. As the day lengthens or shortens the times gradually change. Times change only about 1 min/day, but in the time I've been in Riyadh now, which is roughly 30 days, the first prayer call has gradually shifted by 30 minutes. So now, instead of a 4.15AM wake up call, we get a free wake up call at around 3.45AM. That’s when the mosque right on the other side of the compound wall starts the call. Lately, the mosque has also started broadcasting the first prayer of the day to the entire neighborhood. Hubby tells me they’ve not done that before as long as he’s been here.

In case one of you is now feeling an urge to download a prayer application for the purpose of using it in Riyadh, I highly recommend iPray. Since the position of the Sun determines the prayer times, it naturally varies by your geographic location. iPray let’s you set your location as Riyadh, as opposed to some other apps that only recognize Mecca… Not very useful for someone in Riyadh if the prayer times are off by 15 minutes. Remember, all shops and restaurants close during the prayers and you don’t want to get to the cash register one minute after they’ve closed, but a few minutes before they close. Oh and by the way, uncle Steve at Apple still owes me 99 cents for that useless app that only gives Mecca prayer times.

Summer Time

“Ladies and gentlemen welcome to King Khalid International Airport, Riyadh. The local time is 7.15PM and the temperature is +39C…”

Yes, summer is here. Those of you who know me (K) better know that I am pretty much always cold. Hubster’s been amused lately because I’ve admitted to him a few times that it’s “a bit warm”. One of these moments was a few days ago when we arrived back in KSA. Waiting for the taxi outside the airport terminal (in the above mentioned 39C), wearing no less than three layers of clothes I had to admit that maybe I should have taken one layer off underneath the abaya before getting off the plane.

Passport Control and Saudi Ladies

One of the things I've (K) always wondered about Saudi airports is how the women pass through immigration. Most Saudi women cover everything but their eyes. Contrary to what you might think, it is actually not against Islam to show one’s face to a non-related man. But since Saudis follow a strict form of Wahhabi Islam, it's very much become the norm here in KSA that women do not show their faces to non-related men. So what I've always wondered is if Saudi women need to take off their face covers when passing through immigration. The catch is that all immigration officials are men, and non-related men at that. The answer is no, at least not when leaving Riyadh. It looks like you can use anyone's passport when leaving the country because the only thing that shows are your eyes.

Naturally though, women will not be able to enter very many countries with their faces covered, so it pays to actually have your own passport with you. One exception is Dubai. Immigration officials didn't ask women to uncover their faces when entering Dubai and I suspect it might be the same in other Arab Emirates. There's been talk of hiring women to work at airports so that female travelers could deal with female immigration officials, so this might actually change in the future.

Sprinklers

Who ever said it’s not possible to grow stuff in the middle of the desert? Check this out:

Where there is a will there is a way...

Saudia

Again we found ourselves at the airport. This time on our way to Dubai. Business or pleasure? Well a little bit of both. For hubster it’s business and I (K) just tagged along for fun. This time we took Saudia, which is KSA’s national airline. At the beginning of the flight they show you a safety video, with the same Bob the Builder animations as any other airline. You first see Bob placing his hand luggage under the seat in front of him, then fastening his seat belt and finally smiling courteously to other passengers. What you don’t get with other airlines, however, is a Quran recital right after the safety video.

When departing with Saudia they also don’t check if you are the person whose name appears on the boarding card. And security checks? Well, no, not really. You do get to put your luggage through an x-ray machine, and there is a separate security check for ladies. The times that I’ve been through the ladies security check they haven’t really checked anything though. In the room you usually find two ladies chatting with each other. Once you enter they wave a metal-detector in your general direction and send you on your way.

Brand Promises

During the weekend we visited Istanbul. The flight departs from Riyadh almost at the same time as a PIA flight departs for Lahore, Pakistan. So for those of you don’t know, PIA is short for Pakistan International Airlines, which is Pakistan’s national airline. For some reason all passengers for that flight had been separated into two queues in the terminal based on gender. We were left wondering if this queue system has anything to do with seating arrangements on the plane. We also wondered how exotic it would be to actually be on that plane. Our guess is that there aren’t many westerners on their way from Riyadh to Lahore. But it was not until we boarded our own airplane that we saw the brand promise boldly taped on the side of the plane.

Check it out: (click on it and you'll get the full size image)

‘Nuff said.

Prayers – Part II

So, as mentioned in a previous post there are five prayers or “salat” per day. Four of them fall during waking hours. By waking hours we mean business hours. So what happens when you are at the yogurt shelf at Carrefour wondering if the flavor of the day is strawberry or pineapple and prayer time starts? Well, most shops close and kick you out. Some big ones, like Carrefour and Ikea, let you stay inside and keep shopping, but the cashiers close. So, you can do your shopping during prayer time but you can’t pay for your yogurt or bookshelves because the cashiers are closed.

Each salat lasts about 25 minutes so it’s not the end of the world if you have to wait. I’ve (K) not hit any prayer times while shopping so far. Our strategy has been to move from one shop to another during salat. So, for example, you do your groceries and pay 5 min before salat starts. You hop in the car and drive to the next shop during the salat, and then you are conveniently at the door of the next shop you intended to visit when the salat ends and they are just opening up again.

Now, some of you might remember from the previous post that prayer times are not carved in stone but keep changing. Ha! So what you need to do is download an iPhone app called iPray and it will conveniently tell you when the next prayer starts. If you want, you can even get the app to start singing “Allah akhbar” when it’s prayer time. I’ve turned that functionality off in my phone. For some reason it just didn’t feel right. One of these days though, I’m going to turn it on for the 4AM salat and leave the phone on T’s nightstand.