I can't believe I just got back 2 weeks ago from Saudi Arabia. It is the most interesting, and confusing place I have ever visited. It is an extremely modern, rich country, but with many ideas that we would find restrictive. It was a privilege for me to be on a Smithsonian trip, which was costly but the only way a single woman like myself could even consider going. I have wanted to go, and twice have been able to look across to Saudi Arabia, but it is like a million miles away as you just cannot go there. Getting to Saudi Arabia isn't easy-it is 5+ hrs. to New York from here then another 13+ hrs. to Jeddah, then another hour and a half to Riyadh, so you leave California at 9 am on Thursday and arrive in Riyadh at 8 pm on Friday! It is incredible how far it is. Not only that, to get our visas, we only got our passports a day before our trip though they had our passports 2 months. Going on this Smithsonian tour, it was unusual for me because I like to go places on my own, but of course in Saudi that's impossible, and you get so many extra things, like waiting at JFK Airport in the executive lounge until our flight, so that was great. We got to meet the other people in our group, which was really interesting because they have been to the most incredible countries, some to Uzbekistan, Iraq, North Korea, West Africa, really exotic places I would like to go someday! It's nice to be with people who love travelling to strange places and don't think I am weird! To understand Saudi Arabia, you need a few basic facts:

It is as large as the United States east of the Mississippi, or most of Western Europe. So the various regions are almost like different countries, in culture and levels of conservatism.

I. You cannot get a visa for tourism there, it doesn't exist.

II. You cannot travel there independently, fly in, rent a car, do what you want. You must have a sponsor, a job, a reason to go there.

III. Now if you happen to be a woman, it is even more restrictive. Women cannot drive, stay in a hotel without a mahram's permission, in some towns cannot walk alone on the street.

IV. To clarify, a mahram is a male relative like a brother, husband, or father.

V. All facilities are separate, every office, restaurant, building, for singles (men) and families (women and families.) In some historic sites, museums, and so on, they have posted hours for families, and some for men only. In some, women can go alone, but in some, it is written, "women without mahram prohibited." The McDonalds are separated into 2 counters, 2 dining rooms, our group was always separated by a wall or screen as we were mixed male and female.

VI. Jobs are separate, so with the thousands of well-educated Saudi women, there are women's hospitals, banks, schools, universities and so on, so women do have employment opportunities, and it is growing, but not every field is open to women, so it is very restrictive. Saudi women do manage it, though, as most have a driver to take them wherever they want to go, and they are making their own businesses, especially at home. Women do own Internet businesses, because they don't have to relate to men except by phone, and work in government offices with meetings by videoconference or phone.

VII. Even when there is no official, posted separation, it is pervasive. In a shopping mall, women will sit in one area and men will sit on the opposite side; in an airport waiting area, it is posted to separate, but our group, being mixed, would sit in a separate area. If one woman sat down, no man would sit in the entire row. Even more amazing, on the airplane, if Saudia mistakenly puts a man next to an unrelated woman, he won't sit next to her. The flight attendants are quite adept at moving the people around to keep the men and women separate. Even in the hotels, a man will not get on an elevator with a woman, and the men and women in our group were separated on different floors-one for men, one for woman, and one for couples.

VIII. There are no movie theatres, and no record stores. No recreation centers or places where people get together. Swimming pools and health clubs in hotels are usually restricted to men, and occasionally there will be a separate time for women.

IX. And crucially, women must wear a black long dress, sort of like a judge's robe, called an abaya. You must always cover your hair with a scarf, no you don't have to cover your face. Saudi women often cover their faces except for their eyes, and in other Islamic countries, you will see women in colorful abayas, and colorful scarves, the only color allowed is black, but we did buy some abayas with a little colored embroidery or design on the buttons, but it is still black. Every woman, whether Saudi, foreign, Muslim or not, must absolutely wear the abaya under her clothes when she goes out. No exceptions. When we went to a beach, we lifted our abayas up to maybe knee level to put our feet in the water, but that was it. We got used to wearing it, as it's like a coat with snaps down the front, and was made of light material, but in the hot areas it was still very hot, and climbing up and down the steps in an archaelogical ruin is not easy in an abaya!

From Smithsonian we have a tour leader, Lauren, who is a typical Washington bureaucrat, always checking the embassy situation and security and rift valley fever and malaria (no danger, believe me!), we are as different as 2 people can be, I am used to getting shows on the air, get it done, don't ask questions or go through channels, just do it, take care of it, see the hill, take the hill, that is how I am, where I could imagine she would only go in an organized tour with every possible ramification explored in the most cautious way, I just get on the plane and go but I am fully studied and prepared! We also had a study leader, Gwenn, who is a PhD specialist in Saudi Affairs, she even lived in Saudi Arabia for a year. She has written books about the economy and the people, and gave us several lectures on the country, deeper than even all the research and reading I have done to prepare for the trip. You know me, preparation is the most important thing on a trip like this! We also had a naturalist guide and leader, Barbara, who is from Montana and lives a few blocks from Yellowstone, how cool is that!! She was very nice and kept us organized in a very nice way and was very sympathetic to our concerns and questions and all the things we wanted to do. I would highly recommend the trip, though, and they took great care of us. You can find them online at http://smithsonianstudytours.si.edu/.

Saudia is a very modern airline, no alcohol of course but since I don't drink so that's OK, and lots of individual video channels and movies and great food. They also have a prayer room on the plane and an arrow on the TV screen always showing where Mecca is. People were amazed on the plane, they had never heard of tourists going, in fact we are only the 3rd tourist group to ever visit the Kingdom. They didn't open anything in Customs, which I thought they would, I had heard stories about it so I didn't even bring my Good Housekeeping magazines to read for fear there might be a bra ad or something and they would take it. Any "suggestive" photos or religious things that are not Islamic, of course alcohol or pork, all that is forbidden, even cough syrup with alcohol. But we got through it , and I can't believe we are really here. When we drove in to town, seeing road signs for Saudi cities was incredible, that means we are really here. They are in English and Arabic, and I am trying to practice my reading all the time. They have huge 8-lane freeways and ultra modern dramatic buildings, most built since 1970. The oil boon was incredible, so in 30 years the country has gone from dirt roads, few stores and little contact with the outside world to a technological giant, modern hospitals and shopping malls and a major oil producer. We got to the hotel and ate a little bit and most importantly, got our abayas and scarves which we will be required to wear all the time. It's very warm outside, about 95 (36C), but not humid. I am lucky that I didn't have to pay the single supplement for the trip, too, as my assigned roommate didn't come on the trip so I get to be alone without saving to pay extra! I am really happy about that, since I can use the time and the room to organize my stuff and watch Arabic TV without bothering anyone.

I have been nervous through all this as I have been working on a plan to stay an extra day to go to Mecca, I am fascinated and called to go and see it, and since I have come 8500 miles I need to go the last 40 to get there. I had been emailing with Smithsonian about this from the beginning and talked to them personally since April, and was working with another tour guy in Jeddah to make it happen, he said it would be easy but as of my arrival in Saudi I didn't have any confirmations so I was nervous. However one must learn that everything works on InshAllah, or God Willing, because if you are supposed to do it, you will, so I have to be patient. Smithsonian didn't forbid me to do it but they are very structured and not wanting to make any changes, but if I am turned over from them to another person, I won't be a woman alone, and if I release them from liability and the Saudi guy thinks it is fine, then I cannot understand the problem, This is the continuing saga of trying to get things done here, with the bureaucracy and not being independent to do what you want. My visa is valid and they have all the paperwork but I am not sure, day by day if I can do anything. I spoke to Barbara and Gwenn who see no problem, and to Lauren who is absolutely against it. I had some sleepless hours worrying about it but figured if it is supposed to work out, it will.

The next day we got up and started our sightseeing of the capital city, Riyadh. The founder of modern Saudi Arabia, King Abdul Aziz, brought the two sides together there, as well as his ancestor who brought the religious leaders together with his tribe, which is why the religious leaders and the royal family have a close alliance, even today. They have a check and balance system which lets the royal family rule, but always consulting with the religious leaders on important decisions.

I tried to call my friend Joseph, he is the one from Lebanon but is now working in Riyadh, so I tried all the numbers I had but couldn't reach him. With my limited Arabic I don't really understand what they are saying on the phone, is he just "not here" or does he not live there, I don't know. So I am feeling tired and upset about that and then the phone rang, and it was Joseph! I had written him in April that I was planning to be in Riyadh on this date and sent 2 copies of the letter to him in case one got lost. For all the modern things in Saudi, I have found the mail to be very, very slow. We're getting together tomorrow which will be great.

We saw the downtown area, with the main square which is also called "Chop Chop Square" as that is where they do the public executions after Friday prayers. They don't do it often, but their law is very literal, "eye for an eye" and their constitution is the Islamic Sharia. We visited the old market with carpets, teapots, frankincense and myrrh, spices, lots of things, and the Masmak Fortress where Abdul Aziz unified the Kingdom in 1902. In fact, last year was the 100th Anniversary of modern Saudi Arabia. You may wonder why, since it isn't 100 years yet, but Saudi goes by the Islamic Calendar, called the Hegira so their year has 354 days, 11 less than ours, so it is 100 years Hegira. Everything is so modern but still very different as you can tell. While at the fortress they have a sign that "women without mahram are prohibited" so unaccompanied women couldn't visit even during the family hours. Riyadh is much more conservative than Jeddah or Eastern Province. King Abdul Aziz lived here until his death in 1953 and was a simple, religious man who unified the Bedouins and the city people and brought the country together. His sons have ruled ever since, as the succession passes from brother to brother. Of course the brothers are all getting older, so they will make the grandsons eligible for the throne, but there are many, many grandsons so it will be interesting to see in the future how they choose the future kings. We usually spend lunchtime at the hotel in a screened-off area and always great buffets with more food than I need! One thing I have noticed is that there is only Pepsi, almost no Coca Cola. We then have some free time at the hotel as everyplace is closed in the early afternoon, for lunch and also for prayer times. There are 5 prayers a day and in Saudi it is the law that you must close. So afterwards we visited Diraiyah, the old capital, where the al-Saud family took control of the country and made peace with the religious leaders, so it's an old town, now being restored, with buildings that were homes and offices of the people back then. It was first settled in 1446. We also got to see a video crew taping a television historical drama which was great, they had a Betacam and track and it all looked very familiar to me!

I got together with Joseph, we took his car to McDonalds so I could get tray liners. They have 2 sections, one for singles (men) and one for families so we could sit there; there are 2 counters, 2 dining rooms, and Filipino guys working at the counters. Afterwards we went to a big shopping mall to walk around and see what is in the stores. Since I was properly covered and with him I had no problems. He told me not to worry about the religious police, they aren't out during the week in the malls and they wouldn't bother us, though they can ask any couple for their marriage certificate on demand under penalty of arrest. So I was more free than I thought, I didn't think he and I could go anywhere at all, but of course I could never go to his home or even just sit in the hotel and talk, that would be forbidden, but the mall or McDonalds was fine.

We also went to the grocery store, I love to do that to see how much a chicken is or milk or whatever and he was "absolutely astonished" that I could read a lot of the labels in Arabic. I told him I would, and I told him I would visit him in Saudi, and here I am! He just couldn't believe it, I admit it, I can't believe it!

The next day we visited the Diplomatic Quarter, an area where embassies are located, and also beautiful homes and a special guest house for diplomats called the Qasr Tuwaig-Qasr means castle and it is a beautiful restored building. They have reception rooms and an outdoor garden with this stunning painted glass canopy of sea life which was amazing, and a basketball court, swimming pool and tennis courts, but of course only for men. They also have extra security because a Saudia plane was hijacked last night and is not in Iraq, it was someone who worked at the Jeddah airport who hijacked the plane, and a Prince was on the plane too! So very few flags were flying at the embassies, but we looked at the fancy houses, saw one of the homes King Fah'd built before he was King, a half-size replica of the White House, but he didn't live there as it didn't seem right for the King to live in a copy of the White House, so he gave it to a nephew Prince Salman. It was behind a wall but we could see the top and take pictures from the bus. That is the luxurious thing on a Smithsonian tour, they know where everything is, it is easy, we can arrive exactly when something is open and there is a special guide waiting for us, it is really convenient. Of course as a woman, it would be impossible anyway.

We also went to the National Museum, which is incredible, has interactive displays and video screens and RF headsets in different languages so as you walk around with an earphone you can hear about the exhibit. It is also interesting, because the earliest history is in a dark room, then you go up the stairs and with the beginning of Islam you go into the light, literally it gets brighter! They have exhibits on Jesus and Moses and the prophets, which Islam believes in, artifacts from various ruins around Saudi, an entire area with replicas of the holy mosques in Medina and Mecca (they spell it Makkah but you know it as Mecca better)

And Hajj displays, it was just incredible. The only problem is that we don't have enough time to see everything, it is a superb museum. We also visited the Murabba Palace where King Abdul Aziz had his offices and meeting rooms, and modern things like a 1940s radio which was great! This is when there was nothing modern in Saudi, a really tribal lifestyle, and they only had airplane flights since the mid 1940s. There are also photos of his meetings with Roosevelt and Churchill and making oil deals in the early 1940s, and his personal mosque. In fact, Roosevelt gave him a DC-3 in 1942 which was the beginning of Saudia Airlines. Here in Saudi there is a mosque on every corner and to hear the calls to prayer is just wonderful, magical. We also ate at a traditional Saudi restaurant on the floor with great food, all kinds, amazing types of bread, vegetables, we even tried camel meat which was OK but a little strong for me!

Then we flew to Dhahran, which is in the Eastern Province, so we are near Kuwait and Bahrain here. At the airport, the women go through a separate screening with Saudi security ladies in short-sleeved uniforms, but we are behind 2 levels of curtains in a room with big signs near the curtains, "no men allowed." This has also happened in other countries, but every time we are screened in a Saudi airport the women are separated. On the domestic flights they always have a prayer to protect us on the loudspeaker at the beginning of the trip, and always the arrow pointing to Mecca on the TV screen, and of course we always wear our abayas and scarves on the plane. Since 1985 there is a causeway, a long bridge linking Bahrain and Saudi. In fact, scud missiles landed in this area during the 1991Gulf War. When I was in Bahrain in 1984, I was it being built and got a photo through the fence, dreaming of visiting Saudi, and now here I am, looking over at Bahrain, it is incredible! They say it is easy to get a visa to go over there but you cannot get back into Saudi if you go to Bahrain! Saudi people go, of course, as easily as we cross into Mexico, some people live in Bahrain and commute or vice versa. For this reason, Eastern Province is much more modern and more liberal, so we don't have to wear our scarves as often but we always wear our abayas, there is never a place so liberal that we don't need our abayas! In fact, when we went to the beach to put our feet in the water, we still had to wear our abayas and just pull them up above our ankles! Many people also like to live in Bahrain because it is much more liberal than anywhere in Saudi, they permit alcohol and have movie theatres and music on the radio and women can drive! It is also very modern, and you don't have to wear an abaya (of course you must dress conservatively but black abayas not required!) I would like to go back there and see how it has changed in 15 years.

We are very lucky to have wonderful Saudi guides with us on the entire trip-there is a new Ministry of Tourism and the Prince in charge of it is the Saudi astronaut that flew in the Space Shuttle. I guess he has been further away than anybody!! Our Saudi guides are great, one is Sa'ad, in his 40s, his family is Bedouin and they are from Al Jouf, he's married to an American woman from Louisiana and he went to college in Arizona. They live half the year in Saudi when he is working here and the rest in the States, so he knows both sides very well and can explain it all to us. Our other guide is young, he is training, his name is Samer and he is from Jeddah, his parents were killed in a car accident and he is very sweet. It is interesting to talk to a young Saudi guy, he loves to wear traditional clothes and he looks like the cover of a desert brochure! His father was in the religious police, so he knows about strictly following Islam but he also loves Britney Spears!

It is much more humid here, over 100 degrees (40C) and so we are really warm all the time. They have a new airport in Jubail in the northern area then we drove to Al Khobar to the Meridien Hotel which was absolutely stunning. This is a major date-producing area and the center for Saudi Aramco, the huge oil company and ultramodern interactive museum on the oil industry in Saudi. They have incredible exhibits that appeal from junior high students to advanced scientists, with displays and a booth where you go in and with video and motion, it takes you down into an oil well where you can see it being mined, so it looks real out your "window", of course it is just a video screen but it is very real! It is too bad that every 4th grade class can't go there, it is so interesting and educational and well-done. The public relations person met us and took us around, she is a Saudi woman and covered her hair and was in a long skirt and jacket but not an abaya. Her husband works on the compound at the hospital and her father worked for Aramco so they have always lived on the compound. There are many, many Americans who work there, in fact on the compound only, within the gates, women can drive! They have a Wendy's hamburgers and a school and everything, and a golf course made from oil and sand, with different colors for the greens, fairways etc. The golf club was the only place we ever saw any kind of shirts for sale with Saudi Arabia on them and we bought out the store. We also saw the famous pump #7, the first place oil was drilled from in 1938, which of course started the entire Saudi economy. There is a famous petroleum university here, and we saw Tornado jets flying over from the Air Force base nearby. There are a lot of American solders in Saudi.

We also got to spend the day with an American lady who married a Saudi and moved here 17 years ago. She has learned to manage the restrictions with the benefits, and shared her life with us, from sending her daughters to Saudi school contrasted with the American school she teaches in. The girls dress in their abayas for Saudi school then go to Girl Scouts afterwards, so they really do have both worlds. We saw a bunch of schoolgirls going home for lunch, black ones for elementary school, gray for junior high and brown for high school, and you have to start covering your face after your first period, so if you start at 10 or 11 you don't tell because you'll be relegated to the veil that much sooner. There are no income taxes but fees are increasing for residence permits, drivers licenses etc.

There's a beautiful Corniche, 150 km long with stores and hotels and you can walk along it, even as a woman! They have a great bookstore where we all bought a lot of books and a very nice mall with abayas in one store and a Body Shop and Warner Brothers store next door! It is another of the Saudi contradictions, the blending of modern vs. traditional. In the same way, Saudi TV has 2 channels and they are news on what the royal family is doing, prayer time, Qu'ran readings, and interview shows with men, and maybe some kind of drama series, but now people have satellite dishes so CNN, MTV, and everything in between is available. There is still some control, for example European TV commercials where they show a woman in the shower (in the States the glass would be foggy, not so in Europe!), they make the video fuzzy on the soap commercial, but there is a lot more freedom than I thought. Many people have fences around their satellite dishes because the religious police used to throw rocks at them. We had a barbecue lunch at a date farm, they just hang off the trees. We went to an upscale store called Arab Heritage with beautiful clothes and furniture and all sorts of things, I bought a couple little cloth dolls which were girls but only their eyes show, they are quite unique and not too expensive, but of course everything else I saw that I wanted was at least $800 so I left it all there!!

I also got to actually go to the post office to buy stamps, people don't understand that when you are a stamp collector it is fun to look so I wanted to see for myself, but a woman cannot go to the post office, Joseph said in his 35 years he had never, ever seen a woman in a post office, so one of the guys from the group who also collected stamps wanted to go, they looked at us strangely but knew we were foreigners so they gave him stamps, I let him talk in our fractured Arabic then we divided up the goodies at the hotel. Still, though, there are only about 5 kinds of stamps, everything is metered, so it is very tough, and in our other attempts at the post office we also never found more than 5 kinds, usually about the same, whether it be the airport or a small town! I would get tired of not being able to do things myself, but Sabrina has a driver who does things and of course drives her and the kids everywhere, so she doesn't feel restricted. She is also very independent so has learned to adapt, I think in some ways I could, in some ways not, like I could only work at an all-female TV channel, so I would have to start one!

After this, we flew to Al Jouf via Riyadh, but we didn't have to wait in the airport, they arranged for us to go to the camel market to see the different kinds of camels and how they can cost thousands of dollars, we also went past the farms of some royalty, had a very nice lunch then back on the plane. Al Jouf is in the far north of the country, almost to Jordan or Iraq which is just 200 km away (125 miles)! There is also an air base in Al Jouf with planes that patrol the neighboring area, so I hear. It is hard to imagine how big Saudi is and how you can be bordering Bahrain in the morning and Jordan in the afternoon. We were going to stay in the hotel there, but they had a problem and it was full so the Prince offered to have us stay at his compound. Of course we had to be separated, couples, single men, single women, so we were in 3 separate buildings. Of course we walked all around and took pictures everywhere. We were supposed to have a meeting with him but he cancelled, oh well! We had a house for we 3 women, separate bedrooms but a living room and 2 bathrooms and a dressing room and full kitchen, we were living very well! I preferred it to the hotel anyway-we ate at the hotel but I enjoyed staying in the compound.

Here it is much cooler and we are relieved, the guys just don't understand how hot it is! In the evening we went over to Sa'ad's family home, which is a huge tent compound, not like our tents, I mean gorgeous with beautiful carpets and TV and VCR and air conditioning. They brought all sorts of food for us and it was great. It was like a dream, sitting on pillows on the
floor in a Bedouin tent, really incredible, drinking tea. His sisters didn't mind for us to take pictures of them, which was great as we are strictly prohibited from photographing Saudi women, you just don't do it, even another woman! The family has a lot of land in this area, all around us, and the women make carpets and I took pictures, even with her face fully covered she can see through it to weave these rugs, I can't believe it! I looked through one of the veils and you can see through it but I am glad we don't have to do that!

The highlight of this area is an archeological site, Domat al Jandal. It looks like Arizona or New Mexico, very Southwestern USA, and cooler. There are ruins called Rajajil, which are standing stones something like Stonehenge. No one knows what they are for but have markings traced back to 4000 BC. Domat al Jandal is a town with houses and a tower and old ruins from various periods, some from Nabatean (about 100BC-100AD) and some even older, it is said Ishmael stayed here, the colors and the rocks are just beautiful. We had a local archeologist walk around with us, and of course walking up and down in our abayas is even slower, he patiently waited for us and I remarked, "it is not easy in an abaya" and he said he had never thought of that before. We also visited Masjid Umar, the mosque built by Umar, the Second Caliph, basically the second leader after Mohamed's death, built in about 638 AD. Just incredible, and we were particularly fortunate as it is still in use but we could visit since there is no one there praying, otherwise it is absolutely forbidden to take photos in a mosque.

We also visited the Al-Jouf Water Factory, with clean bathrooms and to see how they bottle the water. I was amazed and we could see how they puff up the bottles which start as little tubes and how they check the water-we could stand very close and watch everything, much more than you could here where they worry about liability and lawsuits! We met the guys who work there who were fascinated by us, I could speak to one who is a Tunisian and
we could speak French and he explained it all to me and I told the others. Most of the guys here were from other Arab countries, our bus driver is from Syria so I was able to tell him I had been there and it was nice, of course my sentences sound like a 3 year old but I am trying!

We also visited a falcon training place, the guys have falcons for sport and hunting and just showing off, the way British guys have dogs I guess, but falconry is a very Arab guy thing, so it was cool to see them.

We also visited some Nabatean wells and other areas, to the shops there, I got a cute little teapot very cheaply, but there are no tourist things to buy as they don't have tourists. So no tshirts and very few postcards, we are truly pioneers. This morning I drank some mango juice that didn't agree with me, I think because it was on an empty stomach as I had drunk mango juice every day in Saudi, but it was really bothering me. I am so frustrated as every day we are sightseeing from 8 am to 9 pm or so and there are fantastic things to see and do everywhere and I cannot do anything, I can barely hold anything down. This was a lucky day for me, though, as they had a lot of First Class tickets which they rotated among the group, and today I got to fly up front! So I can be all the more chic as I get ill in the First Class bathroom! They change some of the flights around which is hard for us because our tour plans are dependent on being at the airport at a certain time and seeing things on a schedule. We didn't know if we would fly to Medina directly, or even through Riyadh, no one knew, but when we got in the air it was non-stop to Medina. I am really upset because I am in the holy city of Medina and my stomach feels terrible, I am hot and faint and feel nasty.

Samer said he would take me into town, there are some places I want to see, but I feel terrible. He had shopping to do in town and said I could come along. I have to get the strength to go; I ate some rice and tried not to be sick, I took Pepto, Rolaids, Ginger, we had a very nice doctor and he gave me some medicine but I felt awful, and he was so nice, I just cried because people were so nice and I felt terrible.

Saudi Arabia Page 2

Photos by Cristy Trembly