Searching for the Edge of the World

Did you know that gas costs less than water here in Saudi Arabia? It is literally about 45 cents a gallon. That makes renting a car extremely useful. We had heard of a place called the Edge of the World located about an hour or two northwest of Riyadh. We rented an SUV for 500 riyals which, when divided amongst seven of us, came to be about 17 dollars for the day. Just about anything in the wilderness here is difficult to find. I get the feeling locals don't care too much for a cool desert scene and whatnot. We looked up directions online and almost all of them accompanied stories of people getting lost on the way. So to keep up tradition we did the same.

This is us getting lost in the desert. We knew we were heading to the Edge of the World so we figured if we drove in the right direction we would eventually get there. We were wrong.

These twin mountains were one of the only landmarks we had to guide us to our destination. At one point in our wanderings we came across a road that was pretty narrow along a small cliff. There was a bit of tension as we drove along wondering if we would go over. I'm sure we would have lived if the SUV had fallen. Luckily it didn't. We passed many camels along the way just feeding on plants. We even passed a number of Saudi families camping which I have heard is popular to do. They say that the families will go out into the desert and have camel bbq's together.

We finally found our second landmark, a dam (which we assume fills up in rain season?) and that led to a gate with police vehicles but nobody was there to check us. We continued our drive through the desert and then drove to what we thought might be the Edge of the World.

Above we are checking it out to see if this was the right place. It was. The huge cliff gave it away.

This is me, living on the edge!

Now I am contemplating the vastness of the burning desert sands of Arabia.The place was really beautiful and we decided to go on a little hike and explore. Everything about this place reminded me so much of Utah and the hikes we would often go on. Below is Sam, our faithful driver.

The picture below is of me. This is one of my favorite pics of the day because it looks so endless.

Below is the entire scene. Extremely beautiful stuff!

Here is another pic below. This one is of Chris. He decided to go all the way out. I waited an took a few pictures of him.

Below is a close up of the valley. We were able to spot a single tent in the vast desert. Perhaps it belongs to some desert bedouins? Its kind of small so look close. Its kind of whitish.

Here is Chris walking back to us.

I hear this cliff edge goes on for about 100 miles.

We thought we might try and recreate the famous scene from Thelma and Louise where they drive into the Grand Canyon, but we thought it might be a little expensive, so we decided against it.

This is us, heading out. I'm really glad we didn't break down in the desert. Our SUV handled itself pretty good. If you plan to travel here in Saudi, its almost best to rent a vehicle rather than take a cab or a train (depending on what you are going to do). We brought plenty of water and our phones which did get reception out here so we felt mostly prepared. It was really good to get out of the city for awhile.

That is all for now. We have one more adventure yet to do before the break ends (Inshallah)

Al Khobar Getaway (continued) and Eid Mubarak

Did I mention that the sun is down now around 5:00pm? Its really psycho and messes with me pretty bad. I feel like its 10:00pm at about 6:00 these days. So to continue our little getaway to Al Khobar, we also visited some other cities. Below is a picture of the Aramco Exhibit in the city of Dhahran. The city is mostly industrial so this was the only site we visited. Its basically a museum dedicated to the largest oil company in the world, Aramco.
Believe it or not the museum was actually worth it, despite a few very corny self-aggrandizing videos. I learned a lot about the oil industry here in Saudi, which made the country what it is today. Oil changed everything here and without it there would probably still be far more bedouins and fewer modern cities that the people live in like Riyadh and Al Khobar. The grandparents of my students were still taking long trips by camel when they were children. This country is so rich because of oil that Forbes recently named the King of Saudi Arabia the 3rd most powerful person in the world.

We next went to Dammam. This is where our train trip ended a few days before and we wanted to at least see some of the city because this is where one of our company's schools is located. We went to a nice restaurant while we were there but the city seemed somewhat empty. We caught a taxi and had him take us to the cities Corniche along the sea but he dropped us off at a beach area that was kind of trashy. Along the sea here there were old broken down boats and a lot of litter. We passed fisherman along the way, but we were surprised that is wasn't nicer.

Here is me on an old broken down boat in the Persian Gulf, Dammam.

The funny thing was that we discovered about an hour after we left that we weren't at the Corniche at all. We looked on the internet and the real thing was really nice looking with paved stone walkways. Our taxi driver must been on something. So that will give us something to look forward to if we ever return. Our walk down this beach was still pretty interesting though.

That evening we went to the train station to return back to Riyadh. It was then we learned that all the tickets were sold out because of the holiday, Eid Adha, which is a feast to commemorate Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael (Muslims believe that it was Ishmael and not Isaac who was the preferred son). Because of this we decided we would catch a cab to Hofuf, about a 2 hour drive away, and we would catch the train there the next day. It only cost us 150 riyals for the trip, which is about 37-39 dollars. I was somewhat annoyed we missed the train, but the cab ride made it worth it. It was nice to get another view of the country from a car. It was dark but you could see many lights shining in the distance beyond the immediate desert. Our taxi driver was really cool. About 20 minutes in he had to stop for the last prayer of the day, so he pulled off next to a mosque and we waited in the cab. When he returned he filled up the gas tank and bought us tons of orange juice, pepsi, and water (he would have gotten us candy as well but we told him he didn't have to). He didn't speak a lot of English but he would describe some things for us along the way.

We had heard good things about Hofuf. We got ourselves a room for the night and made plans for things to see the next day. Of course we weren't thinking and it turns out everthing was closed the next day. Why? Because of Eid Adha! All the families were getting together for a big feast so our plans were kind of a wash. We spent a lot of time walking around exploring the city, but didn't get to do much. By the way, Eid Mubarak (in the title of this post) means "blessed feast" which basically is like saying happy holidays. You say it to each other during this feast. Incidentally our President's name is Barak (blessed) Hussein (beautiful) Obama. Just thought you might want to know. Below are some things we saw but didn't do:

This is us finding out the doors to Ibrahim's Palace are locked during the holiday.

This is me in front of the empty palace wishing we could get in.

This is us at an empty souq (market place) that would have been really awesome if it would have been open. Still cool to see empty though.

Luckily not all restaurants were closed. We went to a restaurant and ordered kappsa (chicken and rice). But the way you eat it is by hand. You literally rip off pieces of chicken scoop up a ball of rice in your hand and eat. We do it sitting on the carpet. It was pretty weird just ripping off chunks of chicken while others are doing the same thing to the same chicken. But it was good.

Here is Chris with a handful of rice and chicken. Our hands were really greasy afterwards.

Here is a nice looking but mostly empty Hofuf. The streets would likely have been very busy had it not been for the holiday.

I don't know what it is with the people of Hofuf and Sponge Bob Square Pants, but we literally passed 4 cars completely covered in Sponge Bob stickers and had Spong Bob dolls hanging in the windows.

So that was our Hofuf adventure. We then caught a train back to Riyadh. It was nice to be back and relax from our vacation. While I'm at home I've just been reading tons of books. I finished reading the Qu'ran recently and I've also been reading an incredible book about the life of the Prophet Muhammed. I have to say that his life was pretty miraculous. The book I've been reading is quite amazing and I'm surprised I didn't know about the Prophets life until just now. Currently we still have another week left of our vacation so we hope to do a little more travelling before we return to our students.

Al Khobar Getaway

After five weeks in Riyadh we finally were able to get away due to the Hajj. We were worried we would be stuck in the city for the entire 17 day break because we still don't have our Iqama's, or residency, and the government has our passports at the moment. They conveniently are not working during the Hajj. Luckily, we have a letter from our sponsor, and a copy of our passport and that worked well enough for us to buy a train ticket to Dammam shown on the map below.
The man at the metal detector was extremely pleased to see us. He looked at the copies of our passports and says "America?", we nod yes, and he, very excitedly says "Welcome!" So that was a relief because again, I thought we would be road blocked the whole way. My students assured me that because we are Western we shouldn't have trouble getting around. Below is me in front of the train. It was actually very nice and well air conditioned. The ride was four hours and the train stopped at a few cities along the way, such as Hofuf, which we visited later on. Ever since I got here I've been waiting to get out into the desert and this ride was my first semi-experience passing through. We passed many sandy dunes, and I managed to get a picture through a dirty window of camels wandering through the desert.

When we arrived in Damman we caught a taxi and headed to the city of Al Khobar, about twenty minutes away. We chose this location because we heard it was the second most beautiful city in the Middle East. I don't know if that is true, but we enjoyed it very much and I definitely thought it was beautiful.

The moment we got out of the taxi we noticed an immediate difference between Al Khobar and Riyadh. First, the air was so fresh because the city was right along the Persian Gulf. I had no idea how dirty the air was in Riyadh until we left. Riyadh is the most conservative city in Saudi Arabia and you could just feel that Al Khobar was a bit more liberal. We dropped our stuff off at the Al Nimran hotel and went off into the city - specifically the Corniche, or boardwalk, right along the Persian Gulf.

The Corniche was completely filled with families. There is not a lot of entertainment in Saudi Arabia. There are no movie theaters (except for one in Jeddah) and so a popular thing to do is for families to come to the Corniche, have picnics, and play games. There were also a lot of joggers which surprised me because I thought that was more of an American thing. We also saw a lot of men wearing shorts which I've only seen a few times in Riyadh. Below is a picture of the park along the Corniche with some families, but its from a distance because I didn't want anyone to freak out I was taking pictures. There were many more people than this though. One night there were a lot of kite flyers and a lot of the boys were playing football.

I love these two pictures. A father and his sons, and below a very cool walk.

The next day we got up early and caught a taxi to Half Moon Bay which is 20 minutes away from Al Khobar. Half Moon Bay is also along the Persian Gulf and we chose this location because it was popular and it was one of the only places we could swim. As we drove we passed some women in abayas (the black robes) fishing and even wading into the water. Even swimming the women wear their abayas. We arrived at the Holiday Inn at Half Moon and paid to swim there. It was one of my favorite things we did on our trip. It was nice to get out and swim. It was the first time I had been in the water since I was guiding on the Colorado River a few months ago. Chris pointed out that this was the furthest away we had ever been from home.

Here I am before we go swimming in the Persian Gulf!!! Below are Chris and Jared.

Easily the greatest thing I saw on our whole four day trip was here at Half Moon. They were renting jet skis out for anyone who wanted a ride. In Saudi Arabia it is against the law for women to drive cars, but we did see women covered from head to toe in black abayas (robes) riding jet skis and shouting and yelling with extreme happiness the whole time. I wish everyone could have been there to see it.

Very relaxing.

We only spent this small afternoon at Half Moon but it was well worth it. We went back to Al Khobar, spent more time at the Corniche, and we also went to what we were told is the largest mall in Saudi Arabia, the Al Rashid mall. I have already written about how visiting malls is one of the only forms of entertainment here. The mall was very large and nice. The two pictures below are of the mall. Its too bad I hate shopping or else this would have been a lot cooler for me. I've seriously been to 5 or 6 malls in this country.

One of the last things we did in Al khobar is go to one of the most popular restaurants in the country (that is what the guide books say). The Al Sanbok restaurant was definitely worth it and I think the guide books may have been right. The Al Sanbok is right along the Persian Gulf and we ate right out next to the sea. It was a beautiful setting, the restaurant looked nice, the waiters were very attentive. The only funny thing about it was that they were playing 80's music on the inside which wouldn't be considered classy in America. However, the cool thing about it was that you would never never hear this in Riyadh. Playing music in public is considered bad in Riyadh I guess but I don't know their reasoning for that. The people in Al Khobar played music in many places.

I ordered the lamb and it was amazing.

This was our view from the restaurant.

This is another view from the restaurant. It is kind of hard to see. The line there is actually a bridge going to the country of Bahrain. It is the place that many Saudi's go to get away and party...perhaps do things they wouldn't do here in this country. The country of Bahrain is extremely small. We hope to go someday soon just to see what it is like (and see a movie in a movie theater!)

There was a lot more to this trip (which went from Saturday to Tuesday) but I will write the rest of it later. I'm just glad the Hajj came when it did. It has been a nice break so far and I hope the rest continues to go well.

My Fifth Week and the Hajj

I completed my fifth week of teaching yesterday. Many of our students didn't show up this week because it is the beginning of the Hajj, the most wonderful time of the year, and so everyone is travelling or getting together with their families. The Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, and is an extremely important part of their faith (hence, a pillar). The five pillars are:

1. Declaring your belief in Allah as the only God, and in Muhammed as his prophet. This is called Shahada. Reciting this declaration is how one enters into the religion of Islam. I believe it is usually done with witnesses nearby but I'm not exactly clear on that.

2. Prayer 5 times daily. This is called Salah. I've mentioned this a few times but during five periods of the day Muslims pray towards the Grand Mosque in Mecca.

3. Paying yearly alms. This is called Zakah. It is a similar concept to tithing. It is giving money to the poor. A person pays 2.5% of their yearly savings (not income).

4. Fasting during Ramadan. This is called Sawm. During one month of the year Muslims around the world fast from sunrise to sunset. The month of Ramadan occured before I arrived in Saudi.

5. And finally making a pilgrimage to Mecca, which is called the Hajj. Every Muslim is to make at least one pilgrimage to Mecca in their lifetime if they have the means and ability to do so.

Mecca is the holiest of sites in Islam. It is the location of the Grand Mosque in which is located the Ka'ba. The Ka'ba is small black cube shaped building and has ties to Abraham, Ishmael, and the prophet Muhammed. During the prophet Muhammed's time it was filled with idols until he cleansed the Ka'ba and destroyed the idols. It is this specific building that Muslims pray towards five times daily.

One of my students got very excited to show me many pictures of the Grand Mosque and the Ka'ba, and he told me many stories. Currently there is a massive building project to build an enormous and beautiful clock tower/hotel near the Mosque. Below is a picture of the Grand Mosque surrounded by potentially millions of people.

In case you were wondering, I did not take this picture. Nobody is ever allowed to go to this place unless they are Muslim. Which is too bad because as you can see it is a very beautiful place and I would love to visit. If you look closely you can see the Ka'ba located in the mosque. Below is an artists rendering of the Mecca Royal Clock Tower and Hotel, which is under construction currently and I think will soon be completed. When finished it will be the tallest building in Saudi Arabia and the largest Hotel in the entire world. This picture below is a real photograph of the tower with the Grand Mosque. Its literally mind blowing. Beautiful!Because of the Hajj I have 17 days off of school! Which is great, but due to the holiday and millions of pilgrims coming in and many of the Saudi's leaving the country for vacations, it makes it difficult for us to get around. We are going to try our best to travel within the country to various places, but we're not sure how that will go yet. So wish us luck! Hopefully I will have good stories to tell soon.