My Travels in Arabia Deserta 1974 and other Miscellany: Lebanon

Showing posts with label Lebanon. Show all posts

19 June 2022

Place of Birth; Jeddah Saudi Arabia

Now available on Amazon!

A wander through my life, touching on travels in the sixties, marriage and my move to Saudi Arabia. Travels in Arabia Deserta with an unscheduled stop at a Saudi border town! Musings on life in the seventies and last, but not least, the birth of my first son, in Jeddah.

Over the years I have written about events in my life, and I started assembling them into a manuscript during lockdown, after finding an old notebook that I had forgotten about, something I had written on my arrival in Saudi Arabia, a new bride, in 1973.

Our trips into the desert and holidays in the sixties, contrast starkly with going 'travelling’ today, our children are guided by sat navs and have the world at their fingertips on a mobile phone. We drove into the desert with maps, a compass and sometimes only the stars to guide us. I find it hard to believe that the places we struggled to visit are now accessible by motorways and there are helicopter trips to Madain Saleh!

I was and still am the least intrepid of travellers and like to think there is humour in my tale!

From running down a street in Beirut, after curfew; an arrest on the Saudi border, to an unscheduled picnic on a beach, as the King of Jordan sailed by.

I have read a lot during my life, something that I have reflected on here, together with films, music, television and attitudes of the time.

I have called it ‘Place of Birth, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’ because it starts at the beginning of my pregnancy and ends with the birth of my first son, as some might say, including me, saving the worst until last!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Place-Birth-Jeddah-Saudi-Arabia-ebook/dp/B0B47LVZRB/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3ABRO6YYIBN35&keywords=place+of+birth+saudi&qid=1655635276&sprefix=place+of+birth+saudi%2Caps%2C821&sr=8-1

21 August 2015

Win 1 of 8 trips to see the Wonders of the World

Just upload your best photo from your travels and add a few words about your travelling experiences.

There are 8 amazing holidays for 2 people to be won!

http://www.onthegotours.com/

So many good images from around the world but here's my attempt:

http://www.onthegotours.com/feelgood/entry/Hot-1440078400

8 September 2010

Part 3 - Haql

We thought the drive from Jeddah had been worthwhile when we finally arrived at the Lebanese border and it had put the new Honda Civic through its paces but why were we being kept waiting by the border guards? Our papers were being examined, arguments ensued none of which we understood. When we were finally approached by an English speaking guard we were told we didn’t have an entry stamp into Syria so could not have an exit stamp! Their solution was for us to return to our point of entry (the other side of the country) to get an entry stamp. We protested as strongly as we dared how could they expect us to make a round trip of 300 miles to get this entry stamp that had been an omission on the part of a Syrian border guard. Eventually after much discussion, waving of arms, lots of tea and after a sufficient passage of time to show they meant business, suggestions were made, palms were greased and we were allowed into the Lebanon.

The next stop was Beirut where we visited friends from Jeddah also on holiday and other acquaintances in the city. The shops were exotic and the first I had seen that offered gift-wrapping. I bought a silk tie for my husband and watched it being wrapped in a way I had never seen before with curled ribbon and bows. We had a compilation tape made, the large reel to reel type, of music we selected in the shop I remember it included ‘Mrs Jones’ by Billy Paul and Perry Como’s ‘The Good Times’. The days were punctuated by sonic booms as Israeli jets flew overhead and at night you heard gunfire. One night we went with friends to the famous Cave du Roi from where we had to run back to our hotel like criminals, fortunately only a couple of hundred yards, because it was after curfew.

We had planned to go skiing so on Christmas Eve we drove to the Cedars. I didn’t ski because I was three months pregnant and didn’t think it would be a good idea. Christmas can be a depressing time of year and I spent Christmas day walking and then sitting in a mountain side restaurant listening to a fellow Brit pouring out his heart about how his wife didn’t understand him. We had chicken and chips for dinner and red wine that made me ill, this was before the days when drinking whilst pregnant was deemed bad for you but my body already knew!

After a week of civilisation we filled our cold box with bacon and beer and headed back to Jeddah. I can’t remember much about the journey until we approached Aqaba where we were going to stay the night as we thought it would have better accommodation than anything in Saudi. Ahead of us was the Red Sea reflecting the lights in the bay a welcoming sight we headed towards them. We soon realised our mistake when we encountered the roadblocks and barbed wire fencing we were heading towards Eilat, which had literally outshone Aqaba. We turned round and found the road to Aqaba, which didn’t live up to our expectations so we carried on to Saudi.

We had kept two beers to drink in no man’s land between Jordan and Saudi Arabia and as we left Jordan we were confronted by Saudi guards, there wasn’t any no-man’s land. We knew they were going to search everything it was such a novelty to have ‘khawajas’ driving in this part of the Kingdom our dilemma was do we hope they don’t find the beer or do we come clean? We decided on the latter laughing as we told them and then had to witness the ceremony of the ‘pouring of the beer onto the ground’. We were worried they had thought we were trying to bribe them with it, we were worried about what they would do to us, and we were taken to the police office.

Precious time was passing we wondered how long it would be before we could leave if indeed we ever could! It was Eid and all public offices were closed communication was poor at the best of times and we were told we would have to wait until after the holiday. We spent the evening in the company of the village dignitary and his family I took out some magazines I had with me thinking his wife and daughters would like to see them but they were taken by our host Mohammed who started to look through them. I told him they had been bought in Jeddah and were censored the evidence was plain to see on all of the advertisements where flesh had been replaced with black ink, but despite this neither his wife nor his daughters were allowed to see them. We really had to be careful we didn’t want a charge of dissidence adding to our crime.

We were resigned to the fact that we had to stay the night and hopefully things would be resolved in the morning we were consoled by the fact that we were being treated as guests and had not been slung into a jail if indeed the village had one! We were shown our bed for the night, our host’s bed! If only I could have seen the funny side then, the bed was so high because it had about ten foam mattresses on it, remember the bed in the Princess and the Pea? But unlike the bed in the fairytale this bed enveloped you once you had managed to climb onto it because it sagged in the middle. I tried not to think about the cleanliness of the sheets I had to believe they had been changed. The next day we returned to the police office. Again we were told that because of the holiday nothing could be done everything shuts down for Eid. We knew that the possession of alcohol was illegal but did not know if this was the only reason we were being held. After more waiting we were told there was a ‘villa’ we could use. We were taken to the rudimentary building and took stock of our situation. We would need sheets so we went shopping.

We thought it strange that all of the small shops had windows full of eau de cologne and it wasn’t until a much later date that we learned this was the local tipple! We were sold what were described as bed linen but looked and felt more like curtains with their blue and white pattern and embossed texture. We had bacon and mushrooms in our cold box that needed eating and we headed for the beach.

We were soon cooking our illicit meal on the camping stove; the appetising smell filled the air. After we had eaten and cleared everything away we saw two helicopters heading towards us flying either side of a speeding cruiser. This intrigued us and as we stood there watching we didn’t notice the police cars approaching until they were beside us doors flung open and several agitated armed police jumping out. It was beginning to feel unreal were we becoming part of a mirage as the sandstorm generated by the vehicles engulfed us? Another fine mess we seem to have got ourselves into! More questions more anxious moments why were we there whilst King Hussein of Jordan and the lovely Queen Noor were travelling by boat to Aqaba? Were we potential assassins?

Our local dignitary bailed us out, everyone in the village knew us, they had just been following orders etc. etc.

We returned to our cell like ‘villa’ and listened to James Taylor on our small tape recorder; that depressed us even more. I was actually three months pregnant at this time but we had tried playing that card but it hadn’t cut any ice, the general response was a smile and to congratulate us. Not all responses to our presence were pleasant I’d had stones thrown at me by local children; I was, after all, despite my modest dress, a decadent western woman.

At times we thought of making a run for it but fear of the consequences made good sense prevail.

Having missed the Rose Red City of Petra on our journey to Beirut we had reluctantly decided not to go there on our return to Jeddah because we didn’t have time as my husband was due back at work, ironic really, as the days went by and there was no way of contacting anyone. Nobody knew where we were. I often think of this with today’s society and their obsession with mobile phones and the need to be in constant contact with each other.

Five days we spent in Haql, I shall never forget them, it gave me an insight into how hostages must feel as the days slip away and you become resigned to the enforced situation. We returned to Jeddah on our release, our pleas that we had not intended to bring alcohol into Saudi must have been believed. I have looked Haql up on Google Earth and it is now a city not a village, I added my ‘pin tack’!

Part 2 - A Christmas Tale

Travel broadens the mind and enriches the soul. Great poets have written with fervour about places they have visited, or when abroad written passionately about home. In the same tradition I would like to share my visit to Petra with you. We, my husband Colin and I, were going to spend Christmas, 1974, in Beirut, not such an unusual destination as we were living in Jeddah at the time and the Lebanon was the nearest country where we could find civilisation, as we knew it.

We had been deprived of bacon and beer for quite long enough and were going to drive; or rather Colin was, women not being allowed to in Saudi Arabia. We headed north from Jeddah towards Medina taking care to keep to the Christian bypass because as Khawajas or non-believers to the Saudis, we were not allowed to enter the holy city. Signs along the road had warned us of the severe penalties for getting too close to Medina; death is one that sticks in my mind. If there was ever a need for accurate map and compass reading this was it! My mind went back to my early attempts at navigation when I had sent us heading back into the centre of Yugoslavia instead of towards the Austrian border I had never seen Colin get angry and he did well to control it on this occasion by walking round and round the car in disbelief, we only needed to make an error of two miles here to be in deep water unlike the sixty mile detour in Yugoslavia!

After carefully avoiding Medina our first stop would be Tabuk where we planned to stay overnight. We were travelling in a new Honda Civic which we had just bought but its size was no match for the heavy lorries that hurtled down the middle of the road, which was quite narrow in parts and we were nearly driven off the road on a couple of occasions. We arrived at our destination in the evening and looked for somewhere to stay. We found a building with a hotel sign; Colin went in to see if they had a room. We knew from friends' experiences that if we were shown a room with two or more beds we had to make it clear we wanted to pay for all of the beds to ensure we had the room to ourselves. If we did not we would run the risk of being disturbed in the middle of the night by other travellers seeking respite, on reflection not dissimilar to a Youth Hostel.

Colin returned with the news that there was "room at the inn" (I had been pointing out a bright star on the way), we went inside, there were four beds in the room and they all looked dishevelled. Just as Colin was going to commit us to this dark dingy cell for the night, I don't know why but I glanced upwards, the ceiling seemed speckled. I wasn't wearing my glasses so I squinted and the speckles came into focus, flies, and dozens of them parked up for the night. I immediately thought of what it would be like in the morning with the flies performing aerobatics then zooming in to land on our recumbent bodies. It was the only time I said emphatically: "I can't stay here" and I have stayed, under duress, in some unsavoury places. Colin reluctantly agreed to drive on to the Jordanian border where I was convinced there would be somewhere better to stay. We arrived there about midnight, having avoided the hazards of the night, lorries hurtling down the middle of the road without lights, herds of camels, the usual thing.

When we reached the border it was deserted, on either side of the road there were small government buildings but there was no one to be seen. We didn't want to risk driving through without first obtaining permission; it was important to follow the procedures to the letter or be prepared to suffer the consequences as we were to find out much later. We found a sleeping guard in one of the buildings, he stamped our papers and we drove into Jordan. By now Colin, having driven all day, was extremely tired and there was nowhere to stay at the border the only option was to sleep in the car.

When we found a suitable lay-by, we reclined the seats and settled down for the night. Colin had no trouble he could sleep standing up if necessary. I, on the other hand, was of a more nervous disposition, it was the middle of the night and we were in the middle of nowhere. I couldn't sleep, I thought I saw shapes and heard noises. I woke Colin and told him I had seen something, he said I was imagining it, I probably was. He slept on, I did not. I woke him again and this time persuaded him we should drive on.

We proceeded on our journey, it was uneventful except for more trucks without lights juxtaposed with the ones adorned with fairy lights and looking like Christmas trees, we saw no wise men, shepherds or angels although it was Christmas. In a couple of hours it would be morning. It was shortly after dawn that we saw a sign to Petra, hadn't we heard of this place? Were there some ruins or something? We decided to take a look. We drove into yet another small dusty town, littered with small box shaped buildings in no particular order and because of the time; there was nobody to be seen. We pulled off the road into what appeared to be a car park and turned off the engine.

“What shall we do?” asked Colin to which I replied “I don’t know, I can’t see anything can you?” “No” he replied.

We searched through our maps to see if we could find any information about this place we thought that we had heard of. We couldn't find anything and we were too tired to get out of the car to have a look around. We set off again and drove through the town and we still couldn't see anything of interest so we continued on our way. It was when we reached Amman (not to be confused with Maan as we nearly did) and collected a batch of leaflets that we found out what it was we had missed, Petra "a rose red city half as old as time" later to be brought to everyone's attention in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom."

We had a good time in Beirut and skied at Cedars, well, to be truthful Colin did and I didn't because I was expecting my first son and thought it would be rather foolhardy in my condition. We didn't visit Petra on our return journey, we didn’t have time, which is ironic considering what did happen to us on that journey, but that is another story.

So you see Petra remains the most beautiful place I have never seen, although if asked if I have been there I just say yes and move swiftly on.

4 September 2010