Dammam

Well, this is my second blunder for attempting to escape Saudi Arabia for the weekend.  For whatever reason only certain cars on Eskan can leave the country, Spencer’s is not one of them.  Everyone told us that it was easy to go to Bahrain, so we assumed it was just a ‘get in the car and go’ kind of deal.
We learned a week before we wanted to go that you had to get approval, and some written thing letting you drive over to Bahrain.  I didn’t want to fly, I wanted to sightsee, taxi all over the island would be expensive, you to rent a car there you have to have an International Driver’s license. I didn’t just want to shop and sit on the beach either.  In the end we had to bag the trip and go somewhere else.  Spencer did have 10 days off of work because of Saudi's Eid so sitting around didn’t seem like a good idea, and I changed schedules to get these days off so I wanted to go somewhere.

We ended up picking Dammam which is near the Causeway that leads over to Bahrain.  I had picked out a few things, museums, oil exhibit, parks and such that looked interesting to visit.  But we neither had directions or a map to get us to any of the places I wanted to see.

On the drive to Dammam we saw 3 accidents.  One of them I saw the driver on the ground; he had apparently opened his door and rolled onto the ground.  I could see blood all over his arms.  Saudi’s have no patience when it comes to driving.  They behave like children on the road, and have no regard to theirs or their fellow driver’s lives.  Why don’t they have driver’s education, pass laws that prohibit children from driving, and enforce the laws?  They are good at enforcing other laws, like wearing an abaya, and other ridiculous thing non-life threatening things so why can’t they do this?

Double decker!

We went out to eat in the evening to some Italian place, and afterwards walked along the Corniche and pedestrian walkway park along the Coast.  It was much more humid then I thought it would be, being October.  People were sitting out enjoying their company along the Corniche.

We visited Half-Moon Bay which was ridiculous unless you wanted to pay to go to a private beach.  The locals would drive their vehicles on the sand, which compacted the sand so much it wasn’t really a beach anymore.  And the particular beach access we visited had cement alcoves that had a table inside.  It was basically to protect people from the sun, and the women from other people’s eyes.  No, women can’t swim unless they hop in the water with their Abaya.

This dude got stuck in the sand.

Camel or Carriage ride anyone?

The next day, I talked with the hotel staff about a few places I wanted to visit. They spend at least 15 minutes with me on the maps helping me to find the Aramco Oil Exhibit, and various museums in Dammam.  But the other places I gave up on because on the internet I didn’t get directions and I spent so much time trying to find out where two places were.  I was frustrated. 

We did make it to Aramco but the wrong gate. The guard told us in very broken English, meaning a few words and lots of hand gestures where we needed to go.  When we did eventually get there, I laughed and shook my head; the place was closed for renovation.  Did anyone think to tell us that it was closed?  Why else would we want to drive there?

The next place we attempted to visit was the in the heart of Dammam.  We drove around for a while, good thing Spencer is patient and cool as a cucumber while driving.  We located both Museums and stopped at the Heritage Museum, which looked closed. Aha, it was Eid, everything is closed for like 5 days of the holiday. People really don’t work around here as I said before.  So we just took pictures from the outside.

After that we stopped by a mall to look for a dress for me to wear at the Marine Corp Ball coming up the end of November.  I wanted to go because I heard the Marine Corp balls are the best and this was also located in the Embassy which would be cool.  I hadn’t been to any Embassy yet to any parties.  I didn’t find a dress that would suit that occasion.

A big poster of a no-face woman. No public adverts or anything can have a women's face on it.

I was ready to head home, tired that not only did I not get to go to Bahrain but everything I wanted to see in Damman we couldn’t find or was closed.  Very disappointing!  We did stop along the road in some sand dunes and took a walk around. That was probably the best thing we did during this trip.