Diesel, Guns and... Kitchen utensils!

One of the best things about living here in Saudi Arabia is that a lot of expat social life is centered on embassy based events. And so it was that the Coolabah Club attached to the Australian Embassy held a “Community Night” couple of weeks back. It was an ideal excuse to get back to Riyadh again. We also took with us Dr. Bruce Wells who lives on our compound and is a lecturer here at PMU. He is a fellow Ozzie and it was his first trip to Riyadh.

The evening at the embassy was excellent. It was actually held in the ambassador’s residence and was a great opportunity to mix and meet a lot of other fellow Ozzie expatriates. I was particularly impressed by a painting in the Coolabah clubroom of a Ozzie rules footy. It was one of a high mark being taken by no less than a Saints player. These people sure know their football.

Riyadh as usual provided to be a treasure trove of things to see and do but that will be in another post.

On the way to the Edge of the World we had to stop at a petrol station. No big deal you may think. Well you have never been to a petrol station till you have been to a Saudi one. They are an oddest mix of supermarket, army disposal store, music shop, camping and outdoors shop, beauty parlour, general store, hardware store, toy store and anything else that you can think of.

There is an amazing range of snacks, foods, drinks and other travel oriented condiments. But the most fascinating is the range of gun holsters, whips, pummelers, clubs and other assorted assault weapons right next to a great range of kitchen utensils and coffee pots etc. Why not? After all, when one has been hunting, bludgeoning and pulping some poor unfortunate soul one may as well sit down and cook a hearty, nourishing meal to replenish the energy and prepare one for the rigours of the following day.

Here are some examples of what is to be found in these magic places. Oh and by the way, you can also refuel your vehicle here J

Gun holsters and kitchen utensils - A natural item grouping

Of course we should not forget the kids. If they start to annoy with their infantile "Are we there yet??" mind games just get them one of those plastic bikes and send them on their way. Toys galore at these petrol stations.

Now if they still persist with these silly games just try and bribe them with copious drinks and snacks of a mind boggling variety such as these (Only a small sample shown here)

If the bribe and corruption utterly fails then there is still the option of battering them into submission with one of these handy pummeling artifacts. Just what any petrol station needs to sell.

But alas all we did was fill up and get on our way. I have still not overcome the sheer glee of filling up a 79 Liter tank with 95 RON premium petrol for the grand sum of $21.34. Ahhh the guilt of it all.


Even paying for petrol here is different. Gas attendants fill your car and then take cash. No card payments or EFTPOS here. And it is a unique sight. They whip out a wad of banknotes that any crack dealing pimp would be proud off from which they will peel off the change.


For anyone who has ever been in Saudi this will bring a smile to their faces.

All in all these places are truly unique and almost a tourist attraction of their own. Only in Saudi :)

Post Ramadan and Hello Brendan :)

We survived Ramadan without too much hardship – and I must say I did enjoy it better than “normal” times, as we started work 1 hour later and finished 1 hour earlier :) and then there was the six day holiday to mark the end. The shopping was also great as most shops and cafés didn’t open until about 9pm and went through to about 2am.

I really didn’t think that it would have that much of an effect on our lifestyle with us not being Muslim, but I was wrong! If we wanted to eat out we had to schedule to eat late, then we would go and get groceries so we weren’t getting home from shopping until midnight – or later.

There was another bonus that we really enjoyed, and that was that by the time the shops opened at night all the prayers were over so we didn’t have to leave while they shut for prayer or rush to get in to eat before they closed. We both really got used to the changed later hours and it was hard to get back into the normal routine of going midway between the second last prayer and the last – I have gotten to be a master at scheduling. If we get in between these prayers, you can eat in comfort, and when finished, all the shops are open so the shopping is uninterrupted.

After Ramadan, we were really pleased to welcome Brendan into the PMU community. His wife Sarah had come across our blog while trying to Google info on living conditions and what to expect in Saudi, as well as anything relating to PMU. She contacted us and I tried to answer some of her questions and concerns. We are still trying to figure out why he would leave the Guggenheim to come to PMU…lol

We were sitting relaxing, on what for us was a weekend, and the next thing there was a very timid knock at the door, and there was Brendan to say hello. He had a big smile and a big bag of goodies in hand for us –3 “Family” size boxes of Triscuits (we soooooo love Triscuits - all gone now) and some lovely organic coffee from Sarah’s mum. So thank you so much to Sarah’s mum for this - it is very nice and we are enjoying it a lot :)

We weren’t concerned about his jetlag – he is young and can cope – so we bundled him into the car and took him straight to Rashid Mall, first to eat (we also love Fuddruckers hamburgers) and then onwards to the Mobily shop to get his phone and internet organized. We were successful with his phone, but our friend who was leaving at the end of that week wanted to sell him his internet device, and he did take that on but didn’t have a lot of luck with it. He is going to the local Holiday Inn just in front of our compound to Skype Sarah – who he is missing a lot as she is still in the USA waiting for her visa…. :(

He came again a few weeks later and very apologetically told us that his phone was locked – able to receive calls, unable to make them. We got him his phone on the first night, but because he didn’t yet have his resident permit, Jesse put the phone in his own name as we already have two phones & internet with Mobily……..the problem with this was, that we also didn’t have resident permits (Iqama) because Jesse had to renew his passport, which of course has a different number than his passport that he entered into Saudi with. We did manage to get it sorted so Brendan now has a phone back :)

The situation here at the moment is that neither Jesse nor I have our resident permit or our exit/entry visas. He has been told sure, tomorrow – this is 4 weeks ago now……lol but we really are expecting it this week – who knows maybe tomorrow Inshallah.

We have not been able to go to Bahrain to the cinema or to Paul :( or to the Ritz to get my hair done. To top it all off – we haven’t had a car for 2 weeks because he put it in for a service after our desert dunes trek (more coming on this subject) – and they informed him after having it for a week and a half (after he actually went to the Jeep dealer and walked through the workshop to find out why) that they would be almost ready to give him the quote for the brakes…… hahahaha…. can you imagine Pete if you had a customer’s car in for a service for that long and then just informed them after they came to find out, that you were ready to give them a quote….hahahaha

It is lucky that we don’t get too upset and keep a sense of humor for the ridiculous. I must say that I didn’t miss the car that much before we had it, but now we do, it is a total chore to be catching the compound bus to get our groceries….