Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Road Trip | Saudi Arabia


3 hours inside Saudi borders.
Lost in the middle of nowhere.

One of my Saudi relatives had a surgery so me and my brothers planned to go on a road trip to check in on him and man I wish I never went on that road trip.

We started our journey at 2:30pm and by 3:30pm we were already in Saudi soil. We stopped once for grocery then off on our way to get lost in the middle of nowhere until we reached our destination at 7:30pm. Our other Saudi cousin took us on his van and rushed to the hospital, Aramco Hospital, because visitation ends at 8pm, we managed to reach there at 7:55 and as soon as we got inside and met our patient we heard them asking all visitors to leave.

After that we went to our cousin's house for dinner and as soon as we finished we left heading back to Kuwait. We reached safe land at around 2am.



Heading back to Kuwait.

Now if you think Kuwaiti drivers suck then wait till you see Saudi drivers. We were doing 180kph and those grubby 3agad pass by like thunder. You'd be impressed how fast they can pull in a 4-cylinders Toyota Camry! Their roads suck, their water tastes like rust (not that I know what rust tastes like but that's the only thing I can relate to), no speed limit, and absolutely no traffic rules. Their emergency lane is just another, well, normal lane! A lane for the insane that is.

All that aside, Aramco's place is something different. It doesn't even look like it's in Saudi. It's a city inside a city owned by a company with all its facilities and services. 24 hours security, paved roads, lots of parking lots, grass everywhere... It's just amazing. Not even KNPC can pull all this in Al-Ahmadi if you know what I mean.

I wonder how a government owned corporation can be this good where the surroundings are showing the ugly face of the country.

3 comments:

Intlxpatr said...

I've heard the Aramco compound is a totally different world, and women can drive on the compound. There are also a couple churches there.

Ms Loala said...

El7emdella 3al salama.

All that trouble for a half an hour visit! :\

MacaholiQ8 said...

inoor:
allah esalmich. ;p


intlxpatr:
Yeah it is amazing!


ms loala:
Allah esalmich.
Less than 10 minutes actually. :/