Mobility coming soon...

We have been here in KSA now for just over 6 months. This is the kind of place where having a car is a must. It has been ok during the late autumn, winter and now spring period as the weather has been absolutely fantastic. Just nice and balmy. Perfect T-Shirt weather.

I have been surprised actually as to how mild it has been. We all have an image of Saudi as a hot desert. Well it actually is but only for a part of the year. June, July and August are the worst months with August actually being named the "Hell month" because the temperature is between 45 and 50 C with tremendous humidity. I do remember coming here to Dammam from Riyadh (when I was here the first time), stepping out of the a/c car and instantly emulating a sodden sponge. They tell me that in the past it was common for a lot of older people to actually perish in the heat To keep cool they had a habit of simply lying down and covering themselves with wet rags during the hottest parts of the day.

These days its all a/c'd. You have it in your home, workplace, car, shopping malls etc. Makes life very tolerable and comfortable.

So what is the point of this pre-amble ?? It's to tell you that basically you cannot be without a car unless you are prepared to sit in your appartment for 3-4 months in the summer.

This place has no public transport worthy of any note. And the one that does exist is so erratic and unreliable and requires great sleuthing skills to actually find it. It is interesting to note that Riyadh is building a subway. The roads are a mess there at the moment as they are digging huge trenches to construct it.

Even prior to coming here I had discussed cars with my Saudi friends and one of them Fahad a coleauge that I worked with in Riyad Bank siad that he was selling his 2007 Jeep Commander and if I wanted to buy it. And so we agreed. I mean its a 5.7L HEMI 330 Kw, with 3 types of 4WD available. I mean what's not to like here, and with petrol being 16 halalas or 4.6 cents (AUD) per litre, you run the damn thing for next to nothing.

So one of the first things that I tried to do when we arrived was to try and get together a loan. Silly, naive me. Thought it would be straight forward. As most things in Saudi, not so.

The bank needs your usual documentation: iqama (residence permit), passport copies, salary statement and an employment letter. No probs the latter two provided by PMU. But when I submitted it all they said we also need a "Transfer Letter". That is basically a guarantee by your employer that they will transfer all your salary and end-of-service entitlements into a nominated bank account.

I thought that it was a routine letter but alas it was not. Companies do not provide this letter until you have been with them for at least 3 months. (most probationary periods are around this long). PMU however has a policy of waiting for 6 months. The reason for this is becausa quite a few people who start, take out a loan and then skip the place (do a "runner" in our parlance) basically stealing that money.

So it became obvious that we can do nothing for 6 months. Well finaly I have it and its all organised. I am just waiting for the first salary transfer into the new bank and it should all be there after that. We started banking with SAMBA but the loan will be with SABB (local HSBC) since Fahad works there.

Hopefully I will be able to post some pictures of our new transport in about 3 weeks.

Then it will be exploration time. Kuwait is 4 hours away, Qatar the same, Bahrain is 1 hour over the causeway, Oman is about 12 hours and Dubai and Abu Dhabi are about 10. So we shell explore and report to you from all these lovely places.