Motoring nirvana...

The command post :)

Well finaly the wait is over. I went down to Riyadh last Monday night to pick up our car. It has been such a protracted saga with getting various loans and permits etc that we almost lost hope there for a while. Even on the last day when I was told that the car would be loaded on a truck to get it down to Khobar I was told that I need one more permit. This was the University permitting me to own a car. As it trinspires in Saudi your employer has to allow you to own a car. Simply another unfathomable step.

Having gotten that out of the way I was then asked to come down to Riyadh to affect the transfer and registration (ishtemara). I did but of course that was not the end of the story there. It could not be done on that day as the guy who did these things was not coming in until 4 but the registration department closed at 2. Nice :). At any rate I was given the car and told to drive it Khobar and than take it to a Jeep dealer who will make the registration here locally in Dammam.

The process involves impounding the car at the dealership until the paperwork is done. So inshallah it will be done next week. Until then I can drive it locally but cannot take it out of the country (Bahrain etc)

But what a joy is to have it. It is giving us the complete freedom of movement and that is something to relish after all these months of dependance on taxis and compound buses. It just means we are not limited to the 5-6 places where the buses go. I must admit that the bus service is actually quite good. One can survive quite easily as they go to all major shopping centres and supermarkets and give you around 3 hours to do your stuff.

So I hopped into the car and drove it from Riyadh to Khobar. Its around 360 km with a very good road. (more on that in our previous post on Riyadh vacation). The Jeep is incredible to drive. It is creamy smooth, silent and rides like only an American softly suspended limo can. There is hardly any engine noise and at 140 its barely ticking over at about 1,800 rpm. That is the beauty of a gutsy 5.7L V8. I tried a few bursts of speed on some lonely and straight stretches and lets just say that I had to back off long before the car limits were reached :)

Its 3 years old and is the top of the line in Jeep range. The Overland. Inside its simply luxurios. Jill was very pleasantly surprised to find out that it was not that big actually. She expected it to be as big as a GMC suburban or one of those ridicoulosly sized Nissan Armada's. But its actually not that much bigger than our Mazda CX7. It is a bit Tonka toy and Hummerish in styling but it simply looks awesome in the flesh.

It has 3 rows of seats but the third row is for legless midgets only. Still not as if we will be loading 7 people any time soon.

It has a very good sound system from Boston Acoustics with a huge subbie.

The drive from Riyadh cost me 35 Riyals which was AUD 11.13 for 95 RON. This is simply heaven. The power from the V8 is sffortless in ANY situation and it actually cuts out 4 cylinders when cruising so it is economical as well.

Anyway here are some photos:

So now we can go and truly explore our wonderfull environs. Motoring Nirvana :)