We are situated right near the Holiday Inn which is on the edge of Al-Khobar. The main road for us is the "Sports Centre" road which is one of the main arterials. Al-Khobar is a smallish coastal city with a substantial shoreline "The Corniche" as is locally known on the Arabian Gulf. It has a provincial feel to it but is nonetheless equipped with everything for good living. One of the big advantages is that we are only a few kilometres from the causeway which leads into Bahrain. It is less than 4 hours drive to Kuwait and Qatar. Dubai is about 8 hours drive whilst Oman is is about 12. Riyadh is 400 km or 2.5 hour drive (Saudi driving habits used here)
Our compound Al-Bilad 1 was built in the 70s and is still considered to be the better one around since it has a lot of open space. The only one as a matter of fact that has grass and open spaces. It comprises of blocks of units and some stand-alone villas. We live in a 2 bedroom unit which is really spacious but rather basically furnished. We are working on making it more a home that we are used to.
This Compound was temporarily used by U.S. Forces (7th Transportation Group, U.S. Army) in 1990 during Desert Storm.
This is the aerial shot of it:
http://wikimapia.org/1663024/Al-Bilad-Compound
This is what the outside looks like:
Looking from our balcony | View from stairwell | |
Units on our left | Units across the fieldd | |
Our units the front | Looking out of the corner  |
We are on the second floor. We have a double sized swimming pool that has been recently renovated but are now awaiting the completion of the Gym and the recreational area. The compound has been let go in recent years but PMU is now investing a lot of money in re-furbishing the whole lot. It should be a very good place in about a year or so.
The interior is typically a Saudi one meaning that everything is tiled. The floor is just a huge tiled area which keeps things cool in the summer.
This is some of the interior:
Kitchen | Front entry |
Lounge 1 | Lounge 2 |
| Above is the lounge with the new carpet that we bought in Qatif Market. | The place is lot bigger than what it looks like in pictures |
 Hallway to bedrooms |  This is our "domestic staff" Hussein who comes on a weekly basis to assist Jill with her domestic duties :) |
We have just recently got new appliances, Fridge, washing machine, microwave and dryer. The television is a big disappointment of course. 22 inch CRT. Blah. However that gives a chance to look at the new 65 inch LED TV's. :) Who knows.
As we furnish the place more and more we will post more entries for your enjoyment.
Posts
"It should be a very good place in about a year or so."
ReplyDeleteThis made me lol! A year or so eh? So if we use the standard Saudi "Inshallah" Time vs Reality equation I would say you should realistically be shooting for a new pot plant to be placed in the guard house by 2015.
Although it -is- Saudi so the "renovation" will likely be something absurd like a tea house outside the walls of the compound in that pretty little empty lot.
I also love the architecture of the buildings..! Clearly been dreamt up by a Godless, Communist, concrete slab worshipping Russian named Yorgi who spent the bulk of his higher learning years at Moscow's "Fuck You" School of Engineering ;)
That said though.. Home is where the heart is and the inside looks great!
Thank you my friend
ReplyDeleteBasim
This was my home from 1985-1992. Many fine memories of parties from the Northrop Aircraft days. Believe it or not the place rocked during those years. I was looking for photos of the place to share with some old Bilad neighbors who visited at Thanksgiving and your site came up. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteJust had to say thanks again for the great blog. I will share it with the wife when I get home tomorrow. She's a Sydney girl who came to Saudi for some adventure........and found me instead.
ReplyDeleteMy dad worked for Northrup back and my family was one of the first to move into the compound when it opened back in 197. It was state of the art back then! We lived in one of the 4 bedroom townhouses. Some great memories of life there! We buried a time capsule in the sand on the playground! Thanks for sharing what it's currently like...I've always wondered. The rec center was the best! We were the only place with a bowling alley!
ReplyDeletethe bowling alley is broke down and a storage room. The tennis courts are cracked up and full of weeds. The gym never got fixed it is run down. The community center looks abandoned and not air conditioned anymore. The restaurant and little store are also now storage rooms. The whole place is an abandoned ghetto that they make us live in.
DeleteI was the "Maintenance Supervisor" there (for Saudi Catering) from Jan. to Sep. 1989. The main problems with the villas and the grounds were plumbing-related. The site manager asked me about this - being as the cost of the ongoing repairs was steadily rising and I let slip that the best solution was to level the place and rebuild afresh. He set up a meeting with the (English-speaking) representative of the Sheik and this gentleman asked me the same question and I gave him the same answer, to which he relied: "But seriously, what is your recommendation?". I replied that I was serious.
DeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteI was wondering if anyone could let me know about the maintenance in these homes...is the management prompt in fixing any needs that arise on a routine basis? Also, any issue with roaches, etc? Any information will be really valuable...thanks in advance:)
the maintenance is a joke. They are not professionals and they refuse to hire anyone that is licensed and knows what they are doing. A team of philipenos works here and they sit around in the office all day. You can always find them in there. There repairs consist of tape and stuff like that. We had our electrical box explode and blow the door off. Smoke was pouring out of the wall. They refused to come because it was after 6pm and they were off. I found one of the repair guys waiting for his ride. I gave him money for a cab and asked him to stay and look at it. He cut the burnt wires out. and tapped the ends together. The wires are so old they are hard as rocks and need to be replaced. But they will never do that, they are going to allow us to live in danger. They have a generic pest control, not a real company. The same philopenos that cut the grass and tape electrical wires up, go around the compound with a very strong heavy smelling spray that has that chemical in it that was banned in the US, shown to cause cancer. They do not spray the apartments. If you ask them to, they will sometimes send this guys with that outdoor spray to spray your walls. We chose to buy Raid instead. We take out our garbage every night and we never leave food out. We bought caulking and filled all the holes in the wall. So far we haven't had bugs, but other people living here told me they have big roaches. They are on the first floor though. They have much bigger cracks to the outside in their apartments. We live on the third floor.
DeleteI lived there from 1986-1991 while employed by Lear Siegler, Inc.
ReplyDeleteBuildings shown above appear to be in worse shape than when I was there.
Good times and good friends.
See ya.
I was the Maintenance Supervisor (for Saudi Catering) from Jan. to Sep. 1989; you probably remember me: I was the miserable bastard.
DeleteI dont suppose Ive read anything like this before. So nice to find any individual with
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