THE JEDDAH DIARIES

THE JEDDAH DIARIES

Riyadh may be the garden of Saudi Arabia, but Jeddah is definitely the life and soul of the Kingdom!

Since my last blog in May, I finished my teaching contract at King Saud University in Riyadh, went home to London for a brief — and much needed — respite, then returned to Saudi Arabia as I had been offered a job at a private school in Jeddah.

When my contract at KSU was over in June, I found myself gasping for the sooty air and damp climes of London, where I would be able to leave my house and jump on public transport without the headache of finding a reliable driver, where I wouldn't have to shroud myself in a cloak of darkness for very public outing, and where I could enter any establishment I chose without looking for a ‘female entrance’ sign. Honestly, I felt I had dipped my toe far enough into Saudi life to sate my curiosity with the Middle East, and I was keen to teach in another exciting new country. But then something curious happened…

A couple of friends organised a weekend trip to a city on the Red Sea Coast of Saudi, called Jeddah, and this trip not only showed me a completely different side to KSA, but convinced me I could spend another year in the Kingdom, if only to experience life in Saudi that had previously been undiscovered for me. 

"Jeddah is one of the most cosmopolitan, diverse, and tolerant of all Saudi Arabian cities, hosting expatriates from all over the world who have made Jeddah their home. Economically, Jeddah is focusing on further developing capital investment in scientific and engineering leadership within Saudi Arabia, and the Middle East." (Wiki)

Anyone who has visited both cities will understand exactly what I mean when I say that Jeddah and Riyadh could not be more different. They may as well be in different countries. 

In a nutshell, people just don’t care so much in Jeddah,they are too busy living their lives. There’s no muttawah, so no one cares if your head is not covered, no one cares if your abaya is not fastened from your chin to your ankles, no one cares if your abaya is grey or blue or green instead of the traditionally enforced black. No one cares if you sit in the front of a car with a man you are not married to, and no one cares if the lady you are having coffee with outside Starbucks ain’t your sister! 

People in Jeddah are chilled. It was strange for me even flying into Jeddah from London — I had prepared myself for the intimidating stares on the plane and in the airport (the loneliest and most uncomfortable situation on earth is a single woman travelling alone in a Saudi airport), but unlike the flight in to Riyadh, at least on the plane no one seemed to care that I was travelling alone, which was pleasantly refreshing.

Having lunch in a restaurant during our first trip to Jeddah, we realised that in some parts of the city you could almost convince yourself you’re somewhere in Europe. The cafes are open, most restaurants shun the heavy partitions seen in Riyadh restaurants so men and women can sit intermingled, and Saudi women feel free enough to remove their hijab while socialising (many don't even bother with the face-cover niqab in Jeddah). In this particular restaurant, we even spotted a table of 6 teenagers, 3 girls and 3 guys, in what appeard to be a “tripledating” lunch, and they were laughing and joking as if they had no knowledge of any muttawah, or that in a city just a few hundred miles away, their teenage compatriots would likely face the death penalty if they were caught enjoying the luxury of having lunch with their girl friends and guy friends together in public.

Sitting outside a non-segregated Starbucks, watching Jeddah go by...

 

 

Birthday lunch in Jeddah...

One of the best things about Jeddah is the greenery al over the city. Unlike the half dead palm trees and shrivelled shrubs of Riyadh, the Red Sea makes everything in Jeddah more fertile, so everywhere you look there are lush green trees and plants:

 

 

To our delight we discovered that Jeddah restaurants have no qualms about playing music in for diners, like most eateries worldwide. The waiters were amused at our shocked expressions, before we explained to them that we were visiting from Riyadh, where restaurants would be prosecution, fined and closed for playing a single musical note. We arranged for them to surprise our friend with a chocolate cake for her birthday dessert, and where doubly impressed when they lowered the lights and sang happy birthday to her with CD accompaniment, just like we were back home! Jeddah is a city that knows know how to celebrate.

Whereas modesty and privacy are the golden rules in Riyadh, Jeddah is not shy about the fact that it boasts a vibrant social life (or as vibrant as you can get in Saudi).

Men in Jeddah have the pleasure of being able to watch international football matches in the balmy warmth of the night on giant screens outside cafes and restaurants around the city, and it’s quite funny at 2am in the morning when I'm woken by a mighty roar of triumph by the 50-strong crowd of men sat outside Mustafa Ali’s Shawarma Grill down the road, watching Manchester United battle against whoever. It makes me smile because it’s nice to know that there are some men in Saudi Arabia who like to chill out and have fun, because they are what makes Jeddah life so different from Riyadh life, where no-one makes a sound in public.

Another important feature of Jeddah nightlife is the Shisha cafes. Jeddah would not be Jeddah without its variety of “hubbly-bubbly bars”. Shisha in public is frowned upon in Riyadh, and it is especially taboo for women to engage in this act in public or private, but the culture of shisha cafes in Jeddah is akin to clubs, bars and pubs in the Western world. No night out is complete without a trip to a sheesha cafe, and both men and women are more than welcome. In fact, some of the shisha cafes have the distinct appearance and feel of a Western nightclub, which I'm sure is the result of a desire to create the effect of Western nightlife in a conservative and alcohol-free Muslim society.

In one of Jeddah’s shisha bars...uncannily similar to a nightclub

 

Not only do ‘Jed-ites’ (my name for the residents of Jeddah) get to enjoy the natural beauty of the Corniche stretching along the coast of Jeddah there are also a number of secret private beaches that are open only to Westerners. 

On our first trip to Jeddah, we used the contact of a friend of a friend to get us access to one of these private beaches. 

Jeddah has a number of private beach resorts, most of which are owned by the big-name international hotels who offer their guests free use of the private beaches as part of their stay, or offer day-passes at a fixed price to non-residents.

Although they are well known on the grapevine, it can be difficult to get access to these beaches, as management understandably scrupulous about who is admitted. Everyone they admit on these beaches needs to accept and embrace the fact that they are a haven for non-Saudis and non-Muslims, where tourists and Western residents can sunbathe in bikinis, or strip down and go snorkelling. These hotels rely on the eager flow of tourists to use them as a weekend escape from the oppressive strictures of Riyadh, where they can come and hire a villa on the beach and chill out freely as if they were on their own private tropical island, with no muttawa around to cover bare midriffs and thighs with black swathes of abaya. So highly is the secrecy of these beach resorts regarded that we were not able to purchase day passes from the S- - - - - Hotel until we had provided adequate proof that we were, collectively, British and American teachers and not Saudi spies sent to check on the ‘haram’ sunbathing committed by Western strumpets on the sacred land of The Kingdom. We were instructed to be in the hotel lobby at a designated time when the shuttle bus would transport our fellow sun-seekers to the hotel’s private beach. After a 45 minute drive (by which time we had no idea of where we were) we reached the beach resort and went through a further 30 minute vetting process to ensure we were the right type of visitor to the beach. It was frustrating, but as Western visitors to Saudi you appreciate that management will go to such lengths to maintain the closed paradise which we can enjoy without the pressure of ultra-conservative prying eyes interfering in your freedom.

Rather than trying to explain how idyllic and relaxing this beach resort was, I’ll just show you the photos. Now does this look like the Saudi Arabia I’ve previously described to you…?

 

 

 

 

Despite the bliss of being able to walk along the corniche on the Red Sea and frequent idyllic beaches at the weekend, Jeddah is not without its problems. Even in this multicultural cosmopolitan city, it is still not easy to forget that your are in Saudi Arabia. Any expat female that doesn't bear the hallmarks of a typical Saudi woman (Gucci abaya, oversize Prada sunglasses, Vuitton bag and Filipina maid trailing in her cloud of Chanel perfume) will still feel eerily singled out from time to time, a distinct air of conservatism and distance between the sexes still lingers, and the shops still close strictly at prayer times. But the lack of muttawa, and the feeling that people in Jeddah know how to relax and let foreigners get on with their lives, is what makes life in Jeddah that much easier while living in this desert they call The Kingdom.

Out and about in the Old Historic district of Jeddah:

NEW CITY, OLD HABITS...

Followers of my earlier blog entries may be proud — or horrified — to note that despite moving 530 miles to Jeddah, I have kept up my delusion of being a pampered Arab Princess. On one occasion my apartment was undergoing maintenance work, so I was moved to a hotel that was less than a 2 minute walk from said apartment. As a proactive and independent Londoner, I naturally weighed up my baggage — nothing more than a light rucksack and my handbag, and decided it was perfectly reasonable to walk to the end of the block back home. However, the side of me that has been irreparably corrupted by Arab culture then kicks in and reprimands me, reasoning that no reputable woman in this country would walk in 40ºc heat with 2 bags, even for 2 minutes. Surely the only reasonable thing to do would be to wait 15 minutes for my driver, in order to deliver me 30 seconds later outside my front door. Well, the Arab in me defeated the Londoner and I willingly acquiesced. So this is a warning to the expat ladies reading my blog about to move to KSA — common sense and logic have the tendency to leave you in the Kingdom...

Jeddah has been full of surprises these past 3 months. I was thrilled when I was served by a female cashier in a large grocery store for the first time EVER in Saudi — something that Riyadh will probably take ages to catch up to.  I made a beeline for her checkout, presuming that she would use some sort of female magic to swiftly ring up my items, but alas, the event was on a par with being served by a young female cashier anywhere else in the world. She looked bored, frequently checked her Blackberry, and I could swear a couple of my eggs were broken because of her when I got home.

Along the Corniche in Jeddah: