2. I’d Been Had

Even among the conservative Gulf states, Saudi Arabia is the most conservative and insular. It actively discourages tourism, so there is no such thing as a tourist visa. Getting our business visa has been an excruciatingly painful experience. For most countries that even require a visa for U.S. citizens, it would have been a three-minute procedure at the border or perhaps three hours at the consulate. For Saudi Arabia, it was said to take three days. It turned out to be three weeks of confusion, waiting, false expectation, and changing plane reservations almost every other day. The multiple entry visas we wanted required a letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be delivered via diplomatic pouch to the consulate. On top of that, this was the busy month of Hajj, in which some two million Muslim pilgrims visit Mecca. The Saturday-to-Wednesday Saudi work week and the eight-hour time difference didn’t exactly help either.

Finally it looked promising that I would get my visa on Thursday (March 11). I got an urgent message from our resident Amex representative saying that I should call the consulate immediately. They were working on my visa and needed to know what my religion was. Well, I certainly had put down "none" on my application form. I called and spoke to someone in the visa section. I told him that I had never practiced any religion. Word came back later in the day from our visa agent that my visa was not ready because I did not call the consulate. We immediately called.

Some fairly bureaucratic sounding guy first quizzed me on some facts in my application to establish my identity. He then asked what my religion was, to which I replied that I had not practiced any religion. I wondered if my answer sounded evasive. After all, there are plenty of non-practicing Christians or Jews around. He was certainly not satisfied with my answer. With a slight sigh he said, "Let me ask you this in a different way. What do you believe in?" The true answer is what I had put down on my application – None. But the mere fact that they wanted to ask me about this specifically made me pause. I wondered if to the religious, especially the conservative, the very concept that one may have no religious beliefs could make any sense. How could anyone not believe in some god, any god? None is not a religion. Getting into a debate with him about religion was definitely not advised. Perhaps one benefit for believing in None was that I didn’t feel much qualm about claiming to be a Buddhist. Give them something that they don’t usually hear and perhaps don’t quite know how to deal with. Having gotten an answer he deemed acceptable, the guy hung up on me before I could ask when the visa would be ready.

I called our Amex rep just about every half hour the whole afternoon in the office on Friday (March 12). Our visa agent was supposed to be able to tell us whether I can get my visa that afternoon. I wanted my visa as soon as it was ready. I wasn’t looking forward to changing my flights again. By four o’clock, there was still no word. I rushed to the visa agency myself since the courier would drop off the passports there first. At 4:15 p.m., I was told that the courier had left the consulate, and should arrive in 10 minutes. No sight of the guy at 4:30. I was getting very nervous and agitated since my flight would leave at 6:10 p.m. "He could walk in any minute now," I was promised. Yeah, right. Finally, the courier showed up at 4:45. I ran out of the building to the waiting limo. I watched the time ticking past, as we fought through the Friday rush-hour traffic out of Manhattan. By now there wasn’t much I could do.

I finally arrived at JFK at 5:50 – 20 minutes to departure time. I met up with my parents, who brought my suitcase and backpack and had been waiting there for quite a while. There wasn’t enough time to say a proper good-bye, as I rushed through the check-in. Thankfully I didn’t have to wait and it was very fast. Thank business class. So much for the two hours prior to departure rule. I was still shaking a little from all that adrenaline even after I settled down into my seat. Somehow, it always have to come down to a mad rush as if any less stress would be less fun.

This must be my third time transiting through Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. Somehow, I remembered very well the distinct layout and deco of this airport. It’s not surprising to see all sorts of people from all sorts of different places at such an international airport, but as I entered the waiting area for my flight to Jeddah, I was a little shocked to see so many Muslims in one place. They were Africans, Southeast Asians, Middle Easterners, but all unmistakably Muslims dressed in their distinctly non-Western style garbs. These were pilgrims going to Mecca. I was surprised that I could be shocked. It dawned on me that I was going to a place very alien to me. I realized that despite the many alien lands I had visited, none could be more alien than the one that I was about to enter, merely six hours away.

After dinner on my flight from New York to Amsterdam, a flight attendant came over with a tray of what I had at first thought to be white chocolate cakes. They turned out to be some very nice blue delfts made into the shape of traditional Dutch townhouses with blue roofs and windows and doors and wax sealed chimneys. The bottles were filled with some kind of liqueur. The houses came in many different styles and looked quite collectable. On the flight from Amsterdam to Jeddah, I found another one of these blue houses on my tray when I woke up from my nap. I wasn’t all too happy to find that this one had been opened for me, as I didn’t want to drink the liqueur then. I held it up to my mouth, but nothing came out! The label on the other side said, "Empty due to customs regulations on this route".

Prior to landing, it was announced that the flight attendants would come around to collect the newspapers and magazines. It was announced that no alcohol should be brought into the country including any blue houses from a prior flight. I debated whether I should dump my blue house, but decided not to. Perhaps there was still some foolish streak of living dangerously in me. The debate kept going on in my head as I got off the plane, got onto the waiting transfer bus, asked a Briton about my connecting flight to Riyadh, and learned that it might take some time as the customs searched all bag. I then decided not to risk it and ran up the airplane to dump the liqueur. The flight attendants were quite helpful, frantically cutting away the wax seal and the cork for me.

The customs did search all my bags, but the guy didn’t seem to pay that much attention to the blue delft bottles. The entry card I filled out earlier did say in big red letters, "Death to Drug Traffickers", but I did not have to sign a "death letter". For my visa application, my company had had to include a letter stating that I would abide by all laws of Saudi Arabia and that the company would take responsibility.

I had thought that Saudi Arabia was very wealthy, but the airport terminals looked fairly crummy and not terribly well kept. I was immediately approached after getting out. One guy followed me and was rather persistent. He told me that my connecting flight to Riyadh was at a different airport 20 km away. This I was not aware of, so I was suspicious. It was partially my fault for not having done my homework on Jeddah. Actually Lonely Planet does say that the international and domestic terminals are separate. I asked someone at the information desk, but what did he know? I figured I’d go with this guy, but "how much?" "No problem." I asked again. "No problem." I asked again. "No problem." I asked again. "Fifty." "Fifty riyals?" "Yes."

We walked to his car in the parking lot. I got in this his car and was asked to pay, which was fine with me. I didn’t have any riyals, but now he was asking for fifty dollars. I hesitated, but gave him forty, which was extremely generous. He kept repeating, "20 kilometers." "Fifty dollars." I gave him another five. He wasn’t satisfied. I gave him another five. He asked if I’d want a receipt, and happily wrote out one. Doing 160 km/hr on the way, he got me to the domestic terminal in short order. Out of the car, he shook my hand. This guy just gouged fifty bucks out of me, and he’s calling me "my friend."

Out of the car, the luggage promptly got onto a waiting push cart. A hundred feet into the door was the check-in desk. I gave the porter two dollars. This I also considered generous, since with the rollers on my suitcase I never wanted or needed a cart, let alone anyone to push it. He wanted ten. Well, I haven’t got ten. "The company gets five." Now, this guy was persistent too, and kept repeating, "The company gets five." He let me check in before continuing with the mess. I told him I only had twenties. He offered to go change the money downstairs. I let him. He came back with the receipt and the money. Twenty bucks exchanged into 75 riyals, but I found myself holding 30 riyals plus the receipt. Now, what’s wrong with this picture? I wanted my fair share. Grudgingly, he led me to the door where "the company" had someone sitting there, and he got me another five riyals. Well, good-bye to the two bucks I gave him earlier. He shook my hand too. This guy just gouged ten bucks out of me, and he wanted to be my friend too.

I could rationalize that these poor laborers don’t make that much money; I could rationalize that I could expense them anyway; I could rationalize that I was doing some redistribution of income among the different classes. But, the fact remained that I had been had major time. I just wasn’t nearly as sharp as I could’ve been. LP suggests that the taxi ride should be about 35 riyals, and the posted sign at the domestic terminals said, in English, that a cart with a porter was 10 riyals.

The contract formally authorizing our project was in fact not signed until Wednesday, March 17. My job manager brought in Arabic speaking consultants for a meeting with them on Monday. I was told that our client’s VP finance complained that we were too expensive. They wanted to cut a piece out of our work to give to a cheaper firm. He brought in some other VP that didn’t like our proposal. Our negotiators thought that it was most likely a ploy and held firm. Sign it or we pack up and go home. On Tuesday, my job manager went to see the VP again. No signature. He said that the guy kept saying that we were too expensive five or six times. Finally, Wednesday, we got the signature.

Is this how the Arabs negotiate? No wonder Middle East peace is so elusive.

Terrence
Riyadh
Thursday, March 18, 1999