GITEX

I'll be leaving for Dubai in a few minutes to attend Novell's exhibitor booth at GITEX, one of the World's three largest I.T. trade shows. If I get time to blog I will, but the week will be pretty hectic so if you don't hear from me for a few days, you'll know why.

Karen and the children are coming out to meet me next weekend. Top of the agenda: cinema!

See you when I get back...

Bangkok Revisited

Friday
We're now in our hotel in Bangkok and I'm feeling better , having checked in this morning and gone straight to bed for five hours. I still have that general feeling of the body not knowing what time of day it is that is characteristic of jet-leg, but the flu-like symptoms I'd been feeling on the journey here have gone. We got so little sleep overnight on the plane that we didn't really have much choice to sleep through most of the day -- but I think I'm going to regret it later.

We had landed at Bangkok's brand new Suvarnabhumi Airport, so approached the city in our cab from a different direction from last time: the Southeast. A hot, stop-start journey that seemed to take hours but was actually only around 45 minutes, including a necessary detour to an ATM so that I could get some local currency -- not only for the fare but also to repay the driver for the two road tolls he had funded on our behalf. Bangkok's taxi and tuk-tuk drivers get a bad press, and it's true there are a lot of them out to con you, but in fairness we did met several who were nice and helpful, and a couple even joked about their collective but not universally deserved reputation.

Our constitutions weren't up to braving any kind of transport system other than Shanks' Pony the first evening, and we found a really nice shopping and dining centre called Silom Village just a short walk from the hotel. We joined several other holiday makers in the romantically lit outdoor dining area of one restaurant for a delicious and excellent value dinner, including a couple of curry dishes and -- the "top of the bill" for us -- salted pork with chilli sauce: a rare treat indeed for us Saudi dwellers!

A typical Thai tailor's shop close to our hotel. Note the "value added services" listed by the window.

Soap carving in Silom Village

Saturday
On Saturday morning we took the Skytrain to Lumphini Park where, according to the excellent Groovy Map 'n' Guide we found in our hotel room, is where many locals go to perform Tai Chi in the morning. The Groovy Map 'n' Guide series covers all major cities in Asia as far as I can gather, and it has a really neat format that combines a fold-out orientation map with a concise digest of recommendations, from parks to nightclubs, shopping to eating out; the blurb on the front says, "leave your 500-page guidebook at home", and I'm inclined to agree; if you're just visiting for a couple of days this little map is all the guide you'll need. We had overslept (body clocks still being set to the wrong time so we were up half the night) so by the time we arrived at the park there were just a couple of Tai Chi-ers left, along with lots of joggers and a small but perfectly formed lake. Bangkok's Sky Train system is modern, punctual, and efficient, with air-conditioned carriages and great value fares; an unlimited one-day pass costing 120 Baht (around £1.90). Its one drawback though is its lack of coverage. There are only two lines and they don't venture much outside the city centre. It is being constantly extended however, including a new line to take travellers all the way to/from the new airport. Our next intended port of call for example was not accessible by Sky Train, so we had to switch to the Metro: a similarly modern and efficient system -- you can even use your mobile phone down there -- but similarly fledgling (with only one line) and therefore not very comprehensive. The subway took us to Asok pier, where you can hop on a Klong boat to take you along the canal. This particular form of public transport has to be experienced to be believed and is definitely not for the faint-hearted!


The Klong boats are long, about fourty feet, and can hold about eighty passengers. They travel up and down the narrow canal at high speed, passing each other with only inches to spare. There is a conductor on each side who remains standing on the side panels of the boat and perform the dual role of taking fares and also mooring up at stops to let people on and off. Simply riding these boats is hairy enough in itself, but the really scary bit is embarking and disembarking from the regular scaffolding-poles-and-wooden-plank "stops". What makes it scary? The boats have low canvas rooves, and a wall of plastic sheeting along each side designed to keep you from getting soaked from the wash of the other Klong boat racing past in the opposite direction. At each stop this sheet is lowered on strings, and if you want to disembark you have to simultaneously climb the high seat and get your leg over the plastic sheet (whose second purpose in life seems to be to trip you up), and duck your head and upper body down to avoid giving yourself concussion on the roof poles, before making your carefully-timed leap onto the ramshackle jetty. All of this must, naturally, be done at the same time as twenty other people all trying to do the same thing, on a boat that manages to deposit all its disembarkers and take on new passengers without actually stopping. Once we had got off we realized we were at the wrong stop, but couldn't face going back on so instead opted for a taxi to take us the rest of the way.

Next stop was the legendary MBK Centre -- excellent, busy, frenetic, cramped shopping followed by another delicious and great value lunch at The Fifth: a trendy food court on the fifth floor. Bought a few presents for the children and friends at MBK, and I bought myself a trinket that I had been wanting since we first saw them on our last trip back in August: a Japanese treasure-beckoning cat. These cute-yet-creepy examples of Japanese kitsch and anime-style characterisation are toy cats, made of either gold or silver plastic with a cat's face painted on. If you've never seen one, imagine on of those Easter eggs shaped like the Easter bunny with a cartoon bunny's features on the foil wrapper and you'll get pretty close. The neat thing about the cats though is the perpetually waving arm. Each cat has its left arm raised up by its head, and a clever gizmo inside the body uses the power from a single AA battery to keep this arm swinging in a back-to-front waving motion for months. The end result is a creepy-looking gold cat that sits on a shelf and waves, for ever. I'm told that it is beckoning treasure towards it and therefore brings its owner good luck, but it seems to shooing something away, not beckoning. I think my treasure-beckoning cat may end up getting its very own blog posting soon...

After lunch we took the Sky Train for Sukhumvit district to find a spa that Karen found in the Groovy Map 'n' Guide. The trouble with mass transit is that it only covers part of your journey: the bit that the line covers. To get all the way from Point A to Point B you have to do half the work yourself, walking from Point A to station, walking to change trains, walking from station 2 to Point B. No wonder people still prefer to use their cars in places like London, where this disadvantage is compounded by high fares and poor service. The service here though is good and the fares very cheap, so ordinarily I'd be glad of the exercise but in 80 degree heat and high humidity, plus still having to limp because of my bad leg and carrying several shopping bags, this walk took its toll on us, so we descended the steps from the Sky Train station in Sukhumvit in dire need of refreshment. What luck! The Black Swan -- English pub right there on the street at the foot of the staircase! John Smiths bitter on tap, draught Guinness, and free wireless internet to boot, so in we limped. A small place but quite cosy and English-looking, apart of course from the all-girl, all-Thai staff. I took the middle-aged Englishman looking at home propping up the end of the bar to be the proprietor, a guess which was rewarded about 30 seconds later when I heard him ordering the staff around. Later as we enjoyed our drinks and a quiet sit-down we saw his Thai wife emerge from the back room with small son in tow. Here's something else I learned while we were there: you know how when you're overseas the English papers that are available are a few days old because of the journey they have to take to get there? Well now there an internet service called Newspaper Direct that provides today's edition on-line and in a special format designed to be downloaded and then printed locally. Because of this The Black Swan had several current English dailies on the shelf so that expat customers can catch up on news back home. This is a really neat idea. Karen and I wondered whether his wife/staff have to do all the printing or whether he uses a local print shop. Our whistles whetted, it's time to get a massage, and we find Chivit Chiva about 5 minutes' walk from the pub.

Chivit Chiva spa, Sukhumvit Soi 19 -- foot massage!

This is a lovely little spa with tiny indoor fountains and subdued lighting all combining to create a relaxing mood. Karen and I each had a 60-minute foot massage (GREAT! you sit back in a really comfy recliner and nod off while the masseuse rubs away all the tensions of the day's trudging about), followed by a 60-minute body massage. Karen had the aromatherapy one while I went for the traditional Thai massage. The same woman who had done my feet took me upstairs to a row of curtained booths, inside which were a flat mattress on the wooden floor, with matching brown pillow and towel. Low-level candlelight and soothing music complete the picture of calm -- calm before the storm as it turned out! An hour later I'm lying in a mangled mess on the mattress having been pressed, hit, yanked, punched, sat upon, kneeled on, twisted and pummelled. I'd also heard all the bones in my fingers and neck crack into the bargain. Now I'm exaggerating a bit here because I did come out feeling really nice, loose and relaxed. It was the following morning the bruises came up! The whole lot came to just under £35, which for four one-hour massages is very, very cheap.
Later, back in the hotel room, we pick another of Groovy Map 'n' Guide's recommendations for dinner. Naj is a gourmet Thai restaurant set in a colonial teakwood house. We didn't have a reservation but got a table anyway, and were seated next to each other on a sala at one side of a largish table (the waiter removed the other two place settings, by a small indoor fountain.


The food, drink and service at Naj were all outstanding and we had one of the loveliest meals we've had in a very long time. From the appetizer of Sweet 'n' Sour crispy vermicelli to the Thai recipe crispy aromatic duck with thick black soy sauce, to the Pad Thai noodles, every dish was superb and beautifully presented.

Karen and me enjoying a toast at Naj. The dinner that followed was fabulous.

After dinner a stroll down the street led us by accident to The Irish Xchange: an Irish Pub ALSO mentioned in the Groovy Guide. What better to complement our succulent and sophisticated Thai meal than a pint of Kilkenny and England v. Argentina rubgy match, live on the big screen?

The Irish Xchange. It was much busier when we were there!

Sunday
We roll out of bed at about 10am, and after breakfast take a walk down to the river to catch the ferry up to the Grand Palace, home of the famous Emerald Buddha. The ferry stations consist of a low-ceilinged corrugated iron structure right on the river's edge, with small shop stalls inside. When we arrived the river must have been at high tide because the whole thing was flooded with about six inches of water, and passengers had to walk down the middle of the scruffy structure along a wooden gangplank covered with flattened sandbags.

Exiting the ferry station was a bit of an adventure. The stop where we got on was very similar but I was too worried about dropping my camera to get it out.

They don't do much business at high tide.

All a bit tricky, especially when you've got freshly disembarked passengers coming at you from the opposite direction. The river ferry was a much larger boat than the Klong boats from yesterday, and our was packed with what must have been 200 people. Again the seat-of-the-pants element of travel was there, with the ferry swooshing up to each jetty, passengers jumping off and jumping on while the conductor holds the boat to a mooring post, when swooshing off again up river all in one fluid motion. You feel like to complain or ask the conductor to stop the boat bobbing about so much would be letting the side down, as all the locals and other tourists are leaping on and off as if they do it every day.

The problem with living on the riverbank.

More riverfront property, this time better designed for high tide

Finally back on dry land, we enter the Grand Palace where King Rama IX was crowned sixty years ago this year. The Palace compound is also home to many beautifully designed and decorated Buddhist temples, including one housing the Emerald Buddha, which is carved from a single block of Jade.



Like the Mona Lisa in The Louvre and the Manikin Pis in Brussels, the Emerald Buddha is surprisingly small when you see it for real: only about two feet tall (sitting). Another thing the Buddha has in common with Brussels' most famous little statue is that it has its own collection of clothing: national costumes, policeman's uniform etc. for the Manikin Pis, but the Emerald Buddha's wardrobe consists of a collection of robes and other regalia made of gold; one for each of the seasons. Today it was dressed in the Autumn robe, but we could view the other three sets in the special exhibition adjacent to the temple.

Another exhibit for my "Lost in Translation" files

Three "B's" outside the Grand Palace: buskers, Buddhist monk, beggar.

We leave the Grand Palace and again we're gasping for a drink after the gangplank-walking and boat-hopping in the heat, but in the area around these temples there is not much on offer by way of a hostelry. We need a nice sit-down, a pint and a spot of lunch so we unashamedly unimaginatively opt for a return to The Black Swan, a twenty-minute taxi ride away, where we enjoy Scampi 'n' Chips (Karen) and Roast Pork with Apple Sauce (me), and a photocopy of the Sunday Times. After lunch another taxi takes us back to Silom Village where we finish our present-shopping before walking back to the hotel to rest and get ready for dinner.
The Groovy Guide comes to the rescue again in recommending Bed Supperclub: a spacey fusion restaurant and nightclub where you have a gourmet meal while reclining on -- yes, you guessed it -- beds. Diners lie on four rows of beds all joined together and covered in pure white sheets and pillows. The room is a squashed cylinder (the end flat oval rather than circular) decorated all in white, with the four rows of beds lining the long sides -- two on the ground and two upstairs in a gallery -- so whichever row you sit on you're facing the centre of the room and can see everyone on the row opposite you. The upstairs gallery is better because you can see both rows opposite: top and bottom. In between all this is a small dance floor, a live DJ, and the open kitchen, while hanging from the ceiling are state of the art (white) speaker systems and an LCD projector beaming videos onto the blank white wall at the end of the room. Another excellent meal follows, and we chill out to the ambinet soundtrack while watching the mixture of tourists and local clubbers to an fro. I embarras myself (as usual) by walking downstairs and into the hall to ask a waitress where the loos are, only to have it pointed out to me that I forgot to put my shoes back on, and I probably don't want to visit the urinals in my stocking feet. I sheepishly scurry back through and up the stairs to put my shoes on and come back down, trying to look cool for the four long rows of people watching me and no doubt wondering what the hell I'm doing. Bed Supperclub is a copy of -- but not part of -- Supperclub, a worldwide chain of bed restaurants, the Amsterdam branch of which I have also visited, during business trips.

The only aspect of our two visits that we found a little unsettling was getting around. The traffic is extremely heavy with constant traffic jams, few taxis -- and no tuk-tuks -- have seatbelts fitted, locals whizz about on scooters without crash helmets, sometimes even carrying children. I was amazed that we went the whole weekend and saw only one minor collision. Even walking is dangerous because the pavements are really bad: cracked, loose stones, uneven edges, fire hydrants that force you to step into the road to get past them, that sort of thing. The Sky Train and Metro are the cleanest, safest and cheapest form of transport, but they seldom get you exactly where you want to go. Another irritation is the constant hard sell of the multitude of stall-holders, tailors, massage parlours, food vendors, tuk-tuk drivers and boat renters who all have a cheap offer for you; they want your money and don't like to take No for an answer.

Taxi/Tuk-Tuk Tips
Most guidebooks tell you to be wary of taxi and tuk-tuk drivers, and rightly so. Many want to take you for a ride in more ways than one, and an acceptance of a seemingly attractive offer of "one hour tuk-tuk tour for 50 Baht" will invariably end up costing much more and land you at a fake gem store or backwoods sleazy restaurant run by the driver's brother. However it is possible to use both quite happily as long as you remain firmly in control. Only take taxis that display "Taxi Meter" on the roof, and always ask the driver to turn the meter on as you get in, otherwise he won't and you'll end up paying about three times what you should. If you know the city well enough to guess what the metered fare should be (the meters calculate the fare based on distance, not time, so traffic jams are irrelevent) you have the option of negotiating a fixed price for the journey before you get in, but I wouldn't advise that for the first-timer: I did that last time and paid about double what we paid on this second trip. Never accept an offer of a tuk-tuk ride that you didn't instigate yourself. If you want to take a tuk-tuk, state your destination before you get in and agree a price, and whether tuk-tuk or taxi, NEVER let the driver con you into going somewhere else, and don't believe a word he says if he tries. It's not as bad as it sounds as long as you don't give them control of the situation; we took several taxis and even one tuk-tuk on this trip, and found them all very good value. Also remember that all this talk of rip-off fares is relative. When the proper fare for a cross-town trip is only £1 and you get "ripped off" to the tune of £2.50, it's no big deal. Taxis and tuk-tuks really are very cheap IF you follow the advice above.
Bangkok has a seedy reputation as a centre for sex tourism, and that side of it is present and, I'm sure, appropriately seedy, but don't let that put you off going to visit if you get the chance. We didn't go looking for it and it didn't intrude on our enjoyment. Bangkok is a buzzing, lively, happy, dangerous, smelly, delicious, beautiful place that should definitely be on everybody's list of Places To Visit Before You Die.

Passage to Bangkok (again)

I wrote this last Thursday in Dubai, en route to Bangkok. Originally intending to post it once we got there, we never actually got around to sorting out any internet access -- too busy having fun!, so I'm posting it belatedly now that we're back in Riyadh after our short, but wonderful, break.


So my torn calf muscle recovered enough in the last week to brave the trip to Bangkok for our free holiday. We got to the dreaded King Khalid International Airport to find it almost completely deserted -- a very pleasant change from last time.
Got checked in on the first leg, Saudia Airlines to Dubai, in ten minutes flat, the plane was there, we took off on time in a new plane, the service was good, and with a tailwind we landed about an hour ago in Dubai, ten minutes early.

So what's the problem?

The problem is I feel really rough. A late-night party last night, couple with several other late nights, poor diet, no rollerblading (leg) and general stress about the Bangkok trip and something else at work have all combined to leave me feeling pretty run down and with the odd chest pain.

I'm writing this in the Business Class Lounge at Dubai airport where Karen and I are wiling away the two hours until we board the flight to Bangkok, and all I really want to do is sleep in my own bed. I know: "What an ingrate! You've got the holiday of a lifetime, FREE! How dare you bemoan your lot in life!" Believe me, I'm saying that to myself as loudly as you, and I am counting my blessings but that doesn't change the way I feel, which if pretty flu-like ... again!

I can't get on-line here to post this so will save it til we get to the hotel, shortly after which I'll give you an update on my ailing condition (sniff) -- like you care!

Excuses

CLICK HERE to read my weak excuses why I haven't been blogging much the last few days.

"Yeah Baby, Yeah!"

The social drought of Summer over, it's finally time for the new season of expat and Embassy events to kick into life with a ball in the garden of the Ambassador's residence. Organised by the Wadi Club – the Embassy's social club – it was decided that this first ball of the season should be a little unconventional and light-hearted, so that's how we arrived at The Totally Shagedelic Autumn Ball which, for those of you not familiar with Mike Myers' most famous creation, was based on the Austin Powers franchise.

Karen looking lovely in her new frock

The dress code was, "fancy dress or black tie", so I went black tie and Karen bought a new dress (of course!) for the occasion. There are two kinds of people in this world: those who "do" fancy dress and those who don't; guess which ones we are? I wondered for a brief moment what we'd have done had Carol -- the organiser -- made fancy dress compulsory. We'd almost certainly have still gone and would therefore had to have had a go at costumes, but I for one wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly so much, so thank you Carol for giving us the option. I don't know why I feel this way -- I enjoy seeing others who do dress up, but I think I see the whole effort as being more bother than it's worth; Blimey I'm starting to sound like a right party-pooper aren't I?

Others did, thankfully, go to the effort of dressing "Austin-style" and they made it a very colourful occasion.

"Don't get carried away Karen (another one), he's only a cut-out!"

"Smashing Baby!"

Karen with Carol -- who took the theme from idea to spectacular success

Austin's let himself go a bit since 'Goldmember'

Even the waiters were dressed in frilly shirts and thick-rimmed glasses (although I'm not sure any of them knew who Austin Powers was).

A glass of liquid "mojo"!

The tickets weren't cheap but they proved excellent value because, not only was it a great night out, but the numbered tickets also doubled as prize draw entry cards, and a few lucky winners went home with some very nice prizes, including dinner for two at the same Mondo restaurant where Karen and I won our Thailand holiday and a pair of return air tickets to the UK with bmi (they do nice things occasionally I suppose).

Victoria Kensington, Felicity Shagwell and Foxy Cleopatra share Austin stories

Dr. Evil in rare party mood, with Mini Me copying, as always

"You're not fooling anyone with that pathetic disguise Dr. Evil". Well, apart from Mini Me apparently.

"The name's Shagwell: Felicity Shagwell."
(Ed:) "Oh. And who's your cardboard friend?"

Even Fat Bastard knows a move or two. Favourite dance: The Bump.

The main ball finished at 01.30, then a group of us retired to the Wadi Club itself for an "after-party", and we finally got home around 4am.

"Groovy Baby!"

A nice drop of Zamzam

Well, I said I might look into the reasons behind the throngs of smelly Pakistanis at King Khalid Airport last week carrying jerry cans of water with them on the plane...

Living in such a dry country my first impulse upon seeing water is to drink it, but if I'm honest with myself I concede that it would be a little O.T.T. to carry two gallons of the stuff with you. So, it's almost certainly not drinking water, and I know it's not for washing themselves (ask my nose), so what is it and why are they all taking it home?

It is water from the Zamzam well in Mecca. The water in this well is believed by Muslims to be blessed, and they claim it has healing properties. All these men we had to fight our way through to get checked-in for our flight to Abu Dhabi were on their way home from Umrrah: pilgrimage to Mecca. All Muslims are supposed to go on pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lives. The official time to do this is called Hajj, which this year will take place in December (it happens 11 days earlier each year, just like Ramadan, because of the difference between the Islamic and Gregorian calendars). During Hajj, about four million Muslims undertake the journey to Mecca: Jeddah International Airport (the nearest) even has its own Hajj Terminal. However, Muslims are welcome to pilgrimage to Mecca at anytime, and when they do so outside of Hajj it is called Umrrah, so this crowd of Pakistani men were on their way home from Umrrah, clutching their cannisters of Zamzam water to give to family and friends on their return.

They say Zamzam water has healing properties: on this occasion I wish its cleaning properties had taken centre-stage!

Abu Dhabi trip, Part 2

My cold's feeling a lot better this morning, and it feels much better to have got all that about King Khalid Airport off my chest, so now I feel able to finish the story.

The living room in our suite: Swanky!

There's actually not a great deal to tell about our time in Abu Dhabi itself, as we spent most of the time relaxing by the pool and the beach, and shopping and eating: two of my favourite pursuits. The hotel had a small beach on a man-made lagoon, and in the middle of this small lake of calm water was a floating platform made up of air-filled plastic blocks fastened together, with swimming-pool-style steps providing access. The water felt warm as we stepped in on the beach and we could see small fish swimming around our legs before reaching the deeper water and swimming out to the platform. Abigail dived into the sea for the first time. We got out after a while and I walked over to the fresh water shower on the beach, to read a sign there warning that there might be Jellyfish about! Good job we hadn't read that earlier, as it would almost certainly have deterred us from going in the water.

Karen getting a henna tattoo

The pool area was very nice; not a very big pool but it had the two most important ingredients in a holiday pool: a water slide and a pool bar. We spent a good few hours here, reading on sun-loungers and propping up the pool bar with our Martinis.

You gotta love pool bars!

...although it is possible to love them too much.

Abu Dhabi is actually the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), but you wouldn't know if for all the upstaging Dubai does. Dubai is like its younger, better-looking, more rebellious sister; the older has more experience and should be taken more seriously, but it's the attractive, flamboyant younger one that visitors are interested in. Like Dubai, there's development going on here but at a much lower scale, as the city is already pretty well-developed, with shopping malls and restaurants to rival those of the young upstart.

Still growing...

We'd bought one of those tiny pocket-sized guidebooks, and one night I was flicking through it trying to find a nice restaurant for dinner. This was Eid after all, and I quickly found that many restaurants were fully booked until late in the evening, so it was that we ended up reserving a table at Jade -- a "Chinese/Japanese fusion" restaurant, according to the guidebook. This prompted mixed feelings -- Karen and Abigail are not big fans of this kind of food, but Elliot and I love it. We had already seen another Japanese restaurant called Wasabi just down the road from our hotel and had dismissed in precisely on these grounds, but as I said, beggars can't be choosers during Eid. We got in a taxi from the hotel and I told the driver to take us to, "Jade restaurant. It's in the Al Dair Mina Hotel."
"Al Mina?"
"Yes, Al Mina" (reading from the guidebook).
He still looks like he doesn't understand but he's starting to drive off anyway, which is making Karen nervous (remember the 'Samboon Dee' incident in Bangkok!). I end up calling the restaurant so that they can give him directions in Arabic, and after about 30 seconds of gabbling and head-shaking he hands the phone back to me and sweeps into U-turn, looking a bit put-out.
"Very close to hotel!" he says. "Next time no taxi..." and then he slaps his thigh to indicate that where we want to go is so close to where we started from that next time we should walk. I feel incensed by this: after all, this is our first time, we don't know the city; how the hell are we supposed to know where it is? I'm about to pull him up on this but quickly realise the futility of it, given the language barrier, and just sit there fuming instead and putting his tip money back in my wallet.
Guess where the taxi pulls up? Yes, outside Wasabi -- the Japanese restaurant we had poo-pooed earlier in the day. It turns out Jade had changed its name to Wasabi at some point in the past (no-one could tell us when), but when I phoned to make a reservation and opened with, "Hello, is that Jade?" they said, "Yes"! Had they told me the name had changed we could have avoided all this. Still, we were there by now and had a table reserved, so in we went. It turned out to be very nice indeed and we had a lovely meal. My favourite part was the Sake. They had a "Sake List" in the same way as other restaurants have a wine list. I ordered the Sampler 5, which as the name suggests is five glasses of different Sake's for you to try. Up until now I had always believed that Sake should be drunk hot, or at least warm, but according to Wasabi the majority of Sake's are best enjoyed chilled, like white wine, and it is only certain types that benefit from warming up. My Sampler 5 arrived: a cylindrical clear plastic bowl (bit like an ice bucket) containing five long, clear cylindrical glasses of Sake resting on a bed of crushed ice -- lovely! Although each was unmistakably Sake, it was surprising how much they differed in flavour.

"Ah...Sake!"

It quickly became a Sampler 4 though, as the cocktail Karen had ordered was in need of "spicing up" a bit, so one of my test tubes was sacrificed for the greater good.

The short holiday over, time to brave Gulf Air once again. We arrive at Abu Dhabi Airport at 11am to check in for our 13.25 flight to Bahrain, to be told by the (female!) check-in agent that the flight is delayed by two hours. Not again! We explain that this would cause us to miss our connection to Riyadh (again), so she offers us seats on an Etihad flight later in the day, direct to Riyadh. This sounds great until we hear that departure is at 19.50 that evening: nine hours from now. We accept -- no alternative -- and she points me to the ticket desk at the end of the hall where I need to get the tickets changed, then -- waving a pointing finger in Karen's direction --, "It's OK, just you {me] need to go. Mummy can take seat." The look on Karen's face says it all: Mummy?... Mummy???
I gently lead her and the children to a row of seats before she bites the agent's head off, and then stride down to the ticket desk, where I am informed that there is no room in Business Class (we had Business Class tickets to Bahrain) and that we will have to go Economy and then claim a partial refund later. Again, not much option but to accept grudgingly, although I do insist on an invitation to the Business Class Lounge: if we're going to be hanging around here for nine hours we may as well do it in comfort.

I return to where the others are waiting to find they are surrounded by a group of Arabs taking their falcons on holiday -- at least that's what it looks like. Probably going to the all-Arab-peninsula Falconing Championships or something.

Karen and the children are somewhere behind this lot

"This is the ONLY way to fly!"

That's pretty much it. You can read about our nine hours in the lounge here if you really want to. A nice break away sandwiched between two nightmare journeys. We have decided never to depend on a connecting flight in the Middle East again.

Abu Dhabi trip

My cold is really streaming now and I'm sitting here on a cloud of crumpled tissues. I'll try to soldier on to the end of this entry, but my nose is dripping onto the keyboard and each key I type responds with a little squelching sound. Anyway I'll keep going 'til either the laptop short-circuits, the story becomes unreadable due to finger-slippage, or I die.

The plan was to fly to Abu Dhabi from Riyadh via Bahrain: Karen left it too late to get direct flights (but if you ask her about it she'll try to convince you it was my fault)! Our journey began, therefore, at the hell-on-earth that is King Khalid International Airport. Normally I/we fly from here to UK on bmi which, being a quiet and punctual route, makes for a relatively straitforward airport experience. This time however, we're going Bahrain-Abu Dhabi with Gulf Air, and things are very different, in a bad way.

You know you've got a stressful time ahead when crowds of passengers pressed up against the main doors prevent you from even entering the terminal building. After a struggle we finally pushed our way inside - mainly by using our suitcase-laden trolley as a battering ram -- to be confronted by the enormity of the next challenge facing us: checking in. The check-in area was a seething mass of people all crammed together, the vast majority of which was made up of single Pakistani men all dressed alike and all carrying the same two odd items in addition to their luggage: each had a briefcase with a large sticker on the side (or was it parcel tape?) bearing some text in marker pen that I couldn't make out, and a plastic jerry can full of water. These puzzled me quite a bit; what was in those briefcases? Maybe that's just what they happen to choose for their carry-on baggage. And what's the water for? Do they get partcularly thirsty when travelling? I just asked Karen and she says it's Holy Water, but couldn't provide more detail. Maybe I'll look it up and if I do, maybe I'll let you know what I find out. Or maybe let's just leave it at that.
Separating us from our objective -- the check-in desk -- was a throng of smelly (B.O. with a capital "O!") male passengers in no discernable queue or any other kind of orderly arrangement, then a security checkpoint -- the same kind you always see at airports: X-Ray machine, metal detector etc. only here there's one before you check-in as well as after -- manned by Saudi guards who don't want to be there, don't care how long it takes you to get through, and in general just wish you would go away and let them enjoy their cigarettes and tap out their text messages in peace. And beyond the checkpoint, the final hurdle, another throng of similarly smelly, similarly unorganised male passengers all wearing the same type of robes and all carrying stickered briefcases and jerry cans of water.

This is turning into a rant about King Khalid Airport isn't it? Sorry.

We were standing there, feeling utterly helpless and wondering what to do next (give up and go home?) when our saviour appears, in the form of a little Indian man in green overalls.

"You want Gulf Air?" he asked, taking hold of my trolley.
"Erm, yes...?"
"This way please" he replies.
"Er, hold on a minute. What are you going to do? Where are we going?"
"It's OK. This way, come!"

Now we know what's going on here: he's an airport porter -- there are dozens of them around all in the same green overalls, which in itself isn't helping the congestion problem -- and he wants my business. Karen and I are wary of being ripped off, but the alternative -- a reserved English family with a sense of fair play attempting to queue our way politely to the front so as not to push in and risk offending anybody -- was too stressful to contemplate, not to mention the fact that we would never get to the plane on time that way, so I told the man to lead on, and in the same breath turned to Karen and the children and ordered, "Here we go, stay close and don't get left behind!" as if I were Indiana Jones leading them through the Temple of Doom. The little man darts first left, then right, and I'm desperately trying to pick out some identifying mark on his overalls so that I don't lose him in the crowd and start following the wrong porter. We stick to him like glue as he pushes his way to the front, through the checkpoint, and on into the second crowd. Within about five minutes we are third in line (yes, by this time there is some semblance of a line) at the Gulf Air Business Class check-in desk. We're not flying business class but by this time I'm prepared for a fight, so just let him try and move me to another queue! It is at this point that we understand the reason for all the congestion: the check-in staff, like the guards, don't really want to be there, don't care how long it takes you to get through, and in general just wish you would go away and let them enjoy their cigarettes and tap out their text messages in peace. It takes our guy fifteen minutes of vacantly staring at an unseen (from our side) computer screen and tapping sporadically on the keyboard to check in the single passenger in front of me. My blood pressure's rising, my pulse is quickening, and I'm starting to feel faint from the cloud of B.O. I'm being forced to inhale. Finally it's our turn and the first thing we realise is that this particular check-in desk has no luggage scale, so although he can check us in we then need to check our bags at another desk. Our porter hears this and is on the case (sic) immediately, taking Karen in tow and pushing his way to the front of the next "queue" with our bags. I'm finally given four boarding cards by our sleepy agent and quickly pass them, baton-style, to the porter over a line of heads. As he and Karen check the bags I start to wonder how much all this queue-jumping assistance is going to cost me.

Ten minutes later we stumble back out through the checkpoint, minus our bags but plus our boarding cards, and it's time to bid the porter farewell.
"Thank you: how much?"
"100 Riyal" (with a smile)
This is about £15 quid and way more than I was expecting!
"No, too much. 40 Riyal!"
"No sir, is no good. Please give 80."
I look in my wallet and don't have anything smaller than a 100 Riyal note.
"Here, give me 50 back."
He takes a wad of cash out of his overalls, counts off four tens and holds them out, smiling. By this time I'm past caring, and I'm still high on armpit stench so I let it go. I've paid him the equivalent of £10 Sterling which is a bit of a rip-off but, on reflection, he has just saved us at least an hour of hellish waiting and jostling so, what the hell.

Immigration and the second security check are positively streamlined procedures by comparison, and pretty soon we're in the poor excuse for a departure lounge: a couple of refreshment stands and just one tiny duty free shop (remember, no alcohol here) which we have to walk to the next terminal to reach. After a quick browse around the shop we get to the gate, to read on the computer screens that our 17.20 departure to Bahrain is both leaving at 18.00 and on time! Not sure how they manage that. Our original departure time comes and goes and there's no plane a the gate yet. We saunter up to the airline representative -- a podgy twenty-something man with what I can only describe as a Bob-gone-wrong hairstyle, mobile phone-in-hand, and a now familiar vacant middle-distance stare -- and ask when the flight will be departing, as we have a connection to make.
The agent shrugs and says lazily, "Maybe... 6.30"
Maybe? "MAYBE??" <-- Karen's had about enough by now.
Another shrug tells us it's probably not worth pursuing, so we skulk back to our seats.

The flight finally starts boarding at 18.10 and we take our seats in Row 40 amid the aforementioned throng of smelly men. Oh No! It appears that we are one smelly man short! The crew are making final call after final call, and eventually the decision is taken to off-load his baggage before we can depart, so we end up sitting there stationery for an hour and twenty minutes, fretting about missing our connection. I ask the flight attendant about it and she tells me not to worry -- the Abu Dhabi flight we need to connect with is also delayed, so we should make it.

We land in Bahrain and leg it off the plane, along the jetty, down a long corridor and up a (non-working) escalator to find that we've missed the connection, which took off on time. Dejected, we trudge back down to the transit desk, where they put us on an Etihad flight leaving at 22.35, which would get us to Abu Dhabi around 12am and two hours later than planned. Upon reaching the gate we find that the Etihad flight is subject to a 90-minute delay, and will now be departing at 23.55.

We finally land in Abu Dhabi at around 1.30 am, and Joy! our hotel limo is actually there waiting for us! At last, something's gone right! We get to the hotel around 2am and check in, to be told we have been upgraded to a Royal Suite from the Diplomatic Suite we had booked. "Lovely!" we thought. We are taken to the Royal Suite: very nice indeed but with one major drawback -- it only has one bedroom. A further wait of around half an hour ensues while they find us another room: the Diplomatic Suite we had booked in the first place, and we all fall into bed at about three in the morning.

That's it: I can't go on. The rest of the story will have to wait 'til tomorrow. Stay tuned for part two while I go off to get some more tissues to mop the keyboard with.

Eid Mubarak!

Going away for a few days. CLICK HERE for details.

No Rest for the Wicked

It's half-term so the children have a week's holiday from school. Despite that, Abigail's coaches have told all the team members to swim 3km during the break, so this morning (Friday: Sunday in our world) we went to the Embassy so she could swim a few lengths.

"Ready, on your marks, GO!"

First job was to measure the pool. We know it's shorter than the standard 25m but we don't know by how much. It takes us three tries to measure it accuratly (WITH a tape measure), and it turns out to be 20m long. This is bad news for Abigail because her 1km practice just grew from 40 lengths to 50. I've brought my camera bag with me - partly because I like playing with it and partly because it gives me an excuse not to do any swimming myself - so while Abigail's practising her techniques I'm trying to get some good action shots.






Elliot doesn't get involved (he "doesn't feel very well"), and Karen's got a book to read, so that's how the four of us spend a pleasant late morning; Abigail swimming, me snapping, Karen reading and Elliot feeling sorry for himself.

Prizegiving

In case you've been asleep for the last few weeks I'll repeat that we recently WON A HOLIDAY TO BANGKOK in a prize draw at a local hotel, and went to the Intercontinental last week to be presented with our tickets and a certificate by the hotel's management. This morning I received an email from the Manager of the hotel informing me that the photo had been printed in today's copy of Arab News, so naturally we ran out and bought a copy so that you could all share in our joy :-)

I don't even get a name-check; Abigail and I are just, "and family"!

We haven't booked the holiday yet but it looks like we'll be going mid-November - can't wait to see Bangkok again!

Lost in Translation

Author's note: This is a partial copy of today's post on Bloody Marvellous! As I'm sure you've guessed by now I'm having a bit of a schizophrenic moment between the two blogs. This story should really belong here by rights but it's also compatible with the "mission statement" of Bloody Marvellous, so I'm taking the path of least resistance and posting it twice, because I don't want readers who only read one of my blogs to miss it. I'll try not to do this again...much.


Outside of Ramadan the shops close four times per day for prayer time, re-opening after about 30 minutes. Every store or mall has either a mosque nearby or a prayer room with mats facing Mecca so that the staff can pray. During prayer time the shutters come down, new customers are not admitted and no business can be transacted, but in some shops customers already inside are allowed to remain there and browse until prayer time is over. We regularly time our supermarket shopping trips to coincide with "lock-in", so that we can work around prayer times and still get our weekly food shopping done. It's quite nice being shut in a large supermarket: the lights dim, the staff all disappear and you are more or less alone in the store (there are others partaking in the lock-in, but in a superstore the size of Carrefour you're not likely to see them).
This happened to Karen and me the other day, when we had almost finished our shopping, forcing us to spend the half-hour of voluntary captivity browsing the non-food section.

At times like this and when we've got nothing better to do (and there isn't much better to do here), we like to amuse ourselves by reading signs and labels that have lost something in the translation from Arabic to English, such as this message on a little wooden sign sticking out of the ice on the frozen fish counter:

DEFROS ADVICE
TO MOT BE FROSTED IT AGAIN

Even funnier are the children's clothes. The Saudi budget clothing market seems to have latched on to the idea that it's cool to have children's T-Shirts, pyjamas etc. with slogans printed on them in English. Sporting an English slogan on your chest must tell fellow Saudis: "Hey, look at me. I'm sophisticated and cool because I'm into English fashions!" This is quite sad because, not only are these the worst taste garments imaginable - with fringes in places that should be a fringe-free zone (i.e. the entire garment), and colours that I never knew existed let alone should be allowed out in public - but they also bear the most bizarre legends that have obviously been written by someone who cares more about spattering the front of the shirt with English characters than delivering a meaningful message. Here then are some examples of real phrases that you can buy printed on bad-taste clothing in Riyadh (and I guarantee there are NO typos here - every one appears exactly as I've written it):

On a girl's T-Shirt (bright orange with the slogan down the left and a Bratz-style cartoon chick down the right)
SPOPPNNG
DLARY
ON
THEIR

On a toddler's T-Shirt (various dayglo colours available):
Whatever
how nice you look
a friend is

On a teenage boy's shirt:
hip hopchaofa boys king

On a small boy's shirt (age 5):
Served hot wateroff
Should be served
toooed off
Morning Pleasu
Hot water esoresso served
This was obviously once about espresso being served with hot water and topped off with something, but somewhere along the line the tails of the "p's" were lost and no-one noticed. The same no-one also noticed that it is complete gobbledegook.

On girl's pyjamas
All the splendour in the world
is not worth a good frinds

And my personal favourite, on a pair of boy's pyjamas:
The darkest
Three days old
Has trod fish smell

It's like each phrase began life making some kind of sense to somebody, but got hideously mutilated during its journey from conception to hanger. I have a picture in my mind of the phrase's epic journey, beginning in the mind of a "designer" in the clothing company, then travelling to the place where the slogan is printed via a tortuous route of fag packet scribblings, coffee-stained faxes and muffled telephone instructions.

Whatever slipshod, half-hearted, error-check-free process they follow, the end result makes us giggle in supermarkets.

Swim Meet

Given Abigail's love of all things pool-related and the fact that there are very few opportunities for children here to get together in large numbers and compete, it was no surprise when, a couple of weeks after term started, she declared that she wanted to try out for the school swim team.

Competitive swimming is taken pretty seriously among the international schools in the Kingdom and several schools employ professional coaches. The British School team used to be called The Barracudas but have now changed their name to the Tiger Sharks (Barracudas are continuing and are now our arch rivals!).

Every child that tried out for the team was given a place in the school's four-squad model:

• Junior Development
• Junior Elite
• Senior Development
• Senior Elite

Abigail is in the Senior Elite squad which means she's a competent swimmer in the senior age bracket. There are lots of children in the squad who are faster than she is right now, but she's only just started proper training so we expect her times to improve quickly.

The field of battle

Yesterday (Friday) was the first official Swim Meet of the season. Six teams met at a residential compound at 7am Friday morning for a full program of heats in several events. Yes, I did say 7am. And Friday is our Sunday remember, so several Mums and Dads were a little bleary eyed. Five-thirty am is not my favourite time to get up at the weekend, particularly when we only got to bed after a party some three hours before. If there had been a Bleary Eye competition for the parents we'd have been tough to beat.

The warm-up

Coach Butch gives a last-minute pep talk

Abigail preparing mentally while she gets ready

"On your marks..."

"GO!"

Not Abigail but a good photo!

Abigail in action

She won her backstroke heat!

"I mean business!"

The event was long, hot, and tiring but the children all seemed to enjoy themselves, which is the most important thing. I'd say there must've been about two hundred children competing, more against their own best times than against each other. Abigail swam in three events: 50m freestyle, 50m backstroke, 50m breaststroke. She won her backstroke heat (we were so proud!) but was disqualified from the breaststroke heat for executing an illegal turn - lesson learned.

There are similar meets planned for every Friday in November so we'll have to try and have early nights on Thursdays while we look forward to Abigail's times improving with each event.