Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

October 24, 2008

Arriving in a New Land

Part One:

It starts almost immediately on the plane while the doors are still open. The universal sign of Arabic hospitality. An aromatic scent, clear, precise and something my travel partner is unfamiliar with. It is cardamom. At first it appears as what the flight attendant calls “coffee” but resembles more a cloudy green tea. It’s sweet, light and served in a tiny porcelain cup about the size of a shot glass. Alongside it, a Persian date. Almost wet in its glistening sweetness. Greg my business partner passes me his date and asks the flight attendant for a larger cup for his al-qahwah al-'arabiyyah. He likes the flavor even through its unfamiliarity but would prefer this Arabian treat in an American quantity.

Surprisingly this spice, associated so closely with the Middle East, is sourced from a small region in Guatemala. The Cardamom plant provides work for several hundred thousand people picking, sorting, drying and packaging its green pods for people halfway around the globe. Offering Cardamom to your guests is a sign of traditional hospitality, but also a show of affluence. It’s very expensive, in the same league as saffron.

After the dates and the cardamom coffee the food comes in waves.

We’re in first class, upgraded from business class by our new friend Savahn at Saudi Airlines in JFK. She took care of the discrepancy between the name on my ticket and the one on my passport. Bill vs. William isn’t a big deal in everyday practice, but throw the TSA into the mix and the names might as well be in different languages.

After the first wave of food we’re given our first class gift bags. Huge shopping bags full of Saudi Airlines swag to make the 14 hour flight a bit easier. Among the treasures: slippers, eye mask, ear plugs, an entire designer dopkit, and most amazingly a sweatsuit! The dreaded airport sweatsuit. I’m stunned. Not longer than a month ago I’d asked my friend Torie to promise to shoot me if she ever saw me wearing one of these while walking through an airport. Now I know where they come from!

Another stunning realization about the gift bag is that buried in that dopkit is nothing less than a shaving kit with a razor! A razor! Meanwhile the TSA made me give up my 3 ounce bottle of expensive cologne and my foldable golf putter. But here in first class, they hand out razor blades! Maybe they trust us more in the cushy seats.

The food on the rest of the flight addresses a middle ground between western tastes and eastern tradition. Familiar items like pasta, steak, chicken, and roasted veggies are balanced with rice, hummus, olives, lamb, pita, and curries. Its refreshing to have a choice of food with actual flavor on an airline. And of course each meal is followed by green tea. If cardamom coffee is the aperitif, then green tea is the digestif. It's served piping hot in tall slender glasses, usually with fresh sprigs of mint on the side. Sometimes they ask, “with mint or without?” And the last thing we get is a small dishful of anise seeds. We chew them as a breath freshener so as not to offend anyone with the dread “coffee breath.”

As morning rises through the windows of the 747B, the city of Jeddah (also spelled "Jiddah",) comes into view in the distance. This coastal city of the Saudi peninsula is a flat expanse of desert with some mountains in the distance. Much like Egypt the color scheme is all tan; shades of the sand blowing on the horizon. For the most part the buildings are short and blend into the vista. There is one exception, and the only building that truly catches our attention as we circle for our landing. It’s a worldwide icon and seems a bit out of place here. The massive structure is blueish-purple and has large yellow letters that spell out IKEA easily readable from the plane. Jeddah is the most western of Saudi Arabian cities. It is clear that they are pushing to diversify Jeddah’s economy from its historical base of oil.

Customs in Jeddah is surprisingly quick. It did come with one caveat which was reinforced from the earliest contact with our Visa documents. In big letters on every immigration doc, it reads “Drug trafficking = Death!” No messing around here. On the far side of security our driver finds us immediately and takes us to our home for the next week, The Sunset Hotel, in the heart of downtown Jeddah. Greg and I settle in for some downtime and sleep, then it’s off to tomorrow’s venue to set up.

After the subtle culinary introduction to Middle Eastern food on the plane, our hosts decide to take us to a local fixture that is apparently purely Jeddah. The place is called Al Baik.

And to our chagrin it is the number one competitor in Saudi Arabia to none other than KFC. The stores and the menu are almost indistinguishable from one another, and often are found side by side. The clear difference, and one that immediately lets westerners know we’re “not in Kansas anymore,” is the lack of women in the restaurants. Each restaurant, in fact, has a separate window declaring itself the “women’s window,” on the outside of the building.

Our trip comes not without some very recent historical context. Not far from our hotel sits the US Consulate compound. On December 7, 2004 it was attacked by highly organized militants apparently connected to Al Qaeda. No Americans were killed, but 8 foreign security guards and some attackers died. Most Americans and other foreigners living for any length of time in Jeddah must live in highly fortified compounds with tall concrete walls with armed guards and often tanks in the streets behind. As I said to my partners in preparation for the trip, “We’re not going to Disneyland guys!”