Pt1 - 3: THE JITTERS IN JEDDAH

 

The figures are necessarily vague but on an educated average the Saudi regime executes, mutilates or flogs between a hundred and a hundred and fifty miscreants a year for crimes as diverse as adultery (females beheaded by the sword), drugs (anything from 200 lashes to death), theft (amputation of one or both hands) and preaching Christianity (70 lashes in a single session and 18 months imprisonment – Riyadh is a Mormon-free zone). From our point of view there were two very scary things about all this: most of these unfortunate souls are foreign nationals and alcohol is outlawed in Saudi.

We were dimly aware of the Saudi’s reputation for repression, but if we’d known the nitty gritty as we planed gracefully across the Najd, the country’s central plateau that from the air looks like nuked sandpaper passing slowly under a microscope, we’d have been far less relaxed about the impending stopover in Jeddah.

We’d been aloft for nine and a half hours and it was 4.30pm local time before the monotony of the Najd at last gave way to a view of Jeddah. As we banked right and swept in from the south the whole of what I’d expected to be a large sprawling city fitted into the small port side window frame. This was our fifteenth straight hour of daylight and the sun, still quite high in the sky, annealed the waters of the Red Sea to the west.

Surrounded by golden sand, the boxy white buildings and white oil storage tanks below suggested we were about to land in a remote company outpost rather than Saudi’s main seaport and reputedly one of the world’s largest air terminals. During the annual week-long Hajj, the pilgrimage all Muslims are required to make at least once in their lifetime if they can, hundreds of thousands of believers pass through Jeddah airport - like Subang, also subtitled King Abdul Aziz – on their way to worship at the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest shrine.

Altogether, more than two million Muslims descend on Mecca to walk seven times around the Kaaba, a large brick box said to have been built by Abraham and his son Ismail and draped in black cloth with Koranic inscriptions splendidly embroidered on it in gold, and kiss the sacred Black Stone embedded in its wall – the most ecstatic thing a Muslim will ever do in their lifetime. But I digress.

Had we left KL last night on schedule we’d have been gazing upon the Nile from our hotel window by now. On the other hand, had we left KL last night on schedule we’d have arrived here about 12 hours ago – 5am – and been anticipating a 7 hour wait for the first flight to Cairo. We hadn’t been able to discover if there was a Golden Wing Lounge here but with all that oil we expected the facilities to be comfortable. As it was, we’d have two hours in the transit lounge then on to Cairo at 7, a bloody good result in the end.

We thought the tarmac bus had brought us to an outbuilding until the doors whooshed open and the three other passengers, two Arabs and a deep dark African who seemed to know their way around, alighted. I’d visualised a post-modern structuralist petro-monument, what we entered instead was an overblown ‘sixties building site office.

It was strictly functional inside; chrome, stainless steel and a bold chessboard of linotiles. We could see the transit lounge through a narrow doorway behind metal barriers to the right. Beside the door was an x-ray gate and a search table manned by security police in navy blue berets and white shirts with machine guns slung from their shoulders. The reality that we were now a universe away from home was captured in the fact there were no English translations for the Arabic signage.

A bit bewildered, we were taking all this in and trying to work out where we were supposed to go and what we were supposed to do when I became aware someone was addressing us.

“Excuse me sir, can I help you please?” I turned to see a short fellow with twinkling eyes and a clipped black moustache beaming up at me. I’m only 5’10” and I guessed by the trajectory of his gaze he would have been about 5’4”. He introduced himself too quickly for his name to register – I’ll call him Abdul Aziz – and explained fluently that his job was to assist foreigners through the immigration formalities. A security pass pinned to the lapel of his stylish green shirt attested to his official status so we happily complied when he asked for our papers. He handed them to the immigration officer and they promptly vanished.

“Come with me please.” Our new friend escorted us to the baggage carousel. The poor fellow’s trousers were way too big for him and didn’t do a thing to enhance any air of authority he may have been trying to project, but we were in a truly foreign country and were grateful for his assistance, even if it was just for a two hour stopover. As we retrieved our packs from the belt he asked if we had any alcohol. Honest Tess immediately admitted she had a bottle of duty-free from Perth in her daypack. She would’ve been a comprehensive failure as a drug mule; I can hear it now: “Are you carrying any drugs madam?” “Why yes officer, I swallowed a dozen condoms full of cocaine before I left Colombia.”

She’d turned up at the Park Royal with this bottle of Cointreau. “I can’t believe it. Another kilo to carry!” I’d said. “Yea, yea, impulse,” she’d explained a little lamely, “I’ll look after it.” As if we weren’t lugging enough already, something like 32 kilos between us.  The Cointreau did eventually prove to be a valuable investment in our mental health, but that was in the future and at the moment it was looming as a problem more pressing than excess baggage.

 “We must do something about it. Follow me please,” Abdul said, and, unfurling his baggy daks, set sail for a distant corner of the terminal before we could stop him. Our crazed trolley zigzagged all over the shop, making it difficult to keep up. When we did catch him I asked about our papers. “Do not worry, you will have them,” he smiled, “Over here.” He veered to the right and an armed soldier in fatigues appeared in our slipstream just as we entered a dim maze of pallets stacked with cartons.

When he was satisfied we were far enough away from prying eyes Abdul stopped abruptly and said, “Ok. Put the alcohol in your luggage here,” indicating Tess’s pack on the trolley.

“But we’re only in transit,” Tess said, rather bravely I thought, “We’re not staying in your country.”

“I know. It is silly, but it is our law. You cannot have alcohol on Saudi soil.” He was right, it was silly, but I for one was quite happy to surrender the bottle. He continued, “If they find it they will confiscate it.”

And here was I thinking he was “they”.

”I don’t want it.” Tess tried to hand the Cointreau over but Abdul looked askance and waved it away as though it were a sweaty jockstrap.

“No, no. Put it in your bag. It will be alright,” he insisted.

The soldier chirped up and exchanged a few urgent words with our friend, but he was soon persuaded to sit down on a pallet and watch uneasily as Tess took her toilette bag out of the main pack and slipped the bottle into its place. The dilly bag went into her daypack. While all this was going on I wondered why Abdul was taking so much trouble with us. And where did the soldier fit in? Were they expecting a small consideration perhaps? But there was no suggestion of it and although the soldier was mildly anxious there was no intimidation, no threat. I sidled up to the conclusion that Abdul had rightly figured us for a pair of gormless rubes and was cutting us some genuine charity. I decided I liked him.

The switcheroo accomplished Abdul led us back across the building to the transit lounge security gate. Somewhere along the way the soldier dematerialised with our trolley. As we joined a line of recent arrivals Abdul tried to sneak off. “What about our passports and tickets?” I reminded him.

“Yes, I will get them now,” he said, and strode away towards the immigration booths. It was after 6.

 

*

 

In December 1976, during a peak in the PLO’s hijack campaign, my mate Steve Bastock and I boarded a TWA flight in Athens, destination Tel Aviv. At the time I was a Marxist Philosophy student with a radical image to maintain: frayed jeans, frazzed afro and a black beard halfway to my navel - Tess affectionately called it my arsehole-with-dentures period. Truth be told, I looked like a dunny brush with a hormone problem even on a good day, let alone now after hanging around the airport with Bastock for ten hours waiting for the connection. Maybe it was the black polo neck jumper I wore, but my scruffier-than-usual appearance attracted unforeseen attention.

As we stowed our gear in the overhead locker I noticed a pretty stewardess eyeing me intently. Perhaps she digs the crumpled intellectual look I thought, and began busily calculating my chances of joining the mile high club on the short hop to Israel. I came up with a probability factor of zero, but that didn’t stop me affecting a certain smouldering intensity on the off chance it might cause the fair maiden to swoon into my arms and beg me to take her away from all this.

What it caused her to do instead was retreat behind the galley curtains. She reappeared a few seconds later with the chief cabin steward and led him along the aisle to my seat. For one giddy moment I thought my Rudolph Valentino impression had worked and she was about to tell her boss we were passionately in love and she was eloping to a tropical island with me.

But it was the chief steward who spoke, and he studied me carefully as he said, “Excuse me sir, would you mind identifying your hand luggage please?” in fluent American.

The dream bubble of my new love and I soaking up the gammas on a secluded beach dissolved abruptly as I unbuckled and took my army surplus duffel bag down from the locker. “Is there a problem?”

“Just a routine check sir. Would you mind opening it for me?” I obliged. “May I see the camera please?” I handed it over, uncomfortably aware that all eyes were on me. He inspected it closely then, apparently satisfied it wasn’t stuffed with Semtex – though how he could tell was a mystery – he asked to see my passport.

Things were getting out of hand. “I’ve just been through all this in the terminal,” I said, “Is there something in particular you’re looking for?”

“I am sorry sir,” he said as he compared the passport mugshot with the dishevelled face before him, “It’s just that security here is notoriously lax and we can’t afford to take risks. I’m afraid you fit our Suspicious Persons Profile. I’m sure you understand.”

Unaccountably, Bastock found this highly diverting. I, on the other hand, entirely failed to see the humour in the fact that while I’d been cultivating the Sheik of Arabique I’d actually been taken for Yasser Arafat.

I only mention this now because a pattern had been developing in our security inspections since leaving home that became firmly established here in Jeddah as a precedent which would endure throughout the Middle East. For some reason too obvious for me Tess’s daypack invariably attracted more than usual scrutiny. It was as if her appearance conformed to some sinister profile, maybe all eco-warriors from Venus wear crushed grey Akubras or something. Anyway, if I thought the security check would be a walk-up formality after stashing the contraband I had another think coming.

We surrendered our daypacks for a perfunctory police search and were motioned on through the metal detector. We both beeped.

Abdul miraculously materialised and I was relieved to see our papers in his hand. “Please, your belt,” he said to me. I unzipped my bum bag and showed him the deadly Taiwanese Swiss Army knife with the concealed toothpick. He took it, turned it over a few times then passed it across to the armed guard who weighed it for a second, unfolded the blade and ran his thumb across it, shrugged his shoulders and handed it back to me.

It was nearly 6.30.

Then the guard produced Tess’s camping utensils. We each had a set of those nifty little jobs where the knife, fork and spoon all click neatly into a can-opener clip. In a triumph of lateral thinking Tess had packed hers into her toiletries bag which, as we have seen, ended up in her daypack to make way for the Cointreau. The guard was unhappy.

He withdrew the offending items from their sheath and separated the pieces, apparently impressed with the engineering. He flashed the bread and butter knife at Abdul and there ensued a brief but intense conversation. The guard wanted to confiscate it, Abdul said this was not necessary, it was clearly not a weapon and surely the guard could see we were just a pair of harmless dorks. It was a battle of wills, and the guard won.

“Keep it.” Tess agreed. But what she really meant was, “What the fuck do you think I’m going to do with it, stab the bloody pilot?” The irony that the fork was actually the more lethal weapon was lost on everyone, including me at the time. I needed a nice cup of tea and a little lie down.

Even after the guard had asserted himself a vigorous discussion continued between he and Abdul, who still held our papers.

I interrupted them, “Can we have our documents please?” I insisted, one eye on the time and over all the nonsense.

“He says your wife must be searched,” Abdul said. I decided I didn’t like him anymore.

 “Are you serious?” I said, my patience spent. “You know this is silly. Our plane leaves in less than 30 minutes…”

“Yes,” he interrupted, “Yes, and you will be on it believe me. It will only take a minute. He will not let you pass until it is done. It is procedure. Please wait here.” He scurried off again.

The guard escorted Tess across to a door, opened it, handed her over to someone inside and returned to his post. Sure enough, within two minutes she was back out and we were at last admitted to the transit lounge, still sans papers. It had taken us 90 minutes to travel 20 meters.

It was a sad little space; the same tacky lino, the same flickering flouros, rows of plastic chairs screwed on to metal frames and bolted to the floor, plate glass frontage. It felt like the sort of place they used to sit and watch nuclear blasts in the ‘fifties. We thought of the seven hours we might have spent here if everything had gone according to Plan A and regretted not having more appreciated the luxuries of the Nikko.

Tess seemed to be off with the pixies. “What happened in there?” I asked as we took a couple of seats next to a Chinese businessman in a natty suit.

“Two huge black women felt me up,” she said flatly, “It was bloody ridiculous. This place is bizarre.”

Just then Abdul strode around the corner and presented our documents at last. He was genuinely apologetic. “…Have a good flight,” he finished, and left us.

The Chinese businessman tried to engage us in conversation but it was hopeless, his English was as good as our Chinese. We did, however, manage to glean that he was fully expecting to sit here for the next three days before he could fly on to Khartoum. In the end, defeated on all fronts, he said, “You Awstrayans spik funny,” and resumed gazing vacantly into the middle distance.

If the all-Arabic signage inside the terminal made us feel like foreigners, then aboard Egyptair MS762 to Cairo we were positively aliens. The only Caucasians in the cabin, we tuned in to the fact that for the very first time in our brief travels no-one else wore western clothes or spoke our language. I liked that.

The plane was packed, and not just with bodies. There was so much freight you’d be forgiven for thinking we’d ended up in the cargo hold by mistake. It’s amazing what passes for hand luggage in the Arab world. There were electrical appliances; TVs, stereos, microwaves. We watched an old guy across the aisle from us try to stuff an air conditioner into his overhead locker and weep with frustration when it wouldn’t fit. He finally plonked it down in the aisle in disgust and there it remained for the duration. There were rolls of carpet and massive shopping bags crammed to bursting with consumer loot. This was the 7pm bus back to Cairo for those Egyptians wealthy enough for a spending orgy in Jeddah. In the light of subsequent experience, these may have been the only Egyptians wealthy enough for a shopping orgy in Jeddah.

 It was mayhem. Kids raced up and down the aisle, screaming and hurdling whitegoods as they went. The adults yelled at them. The only thing missing was the squawking poultry. The whole thing felt like the last plane out of Saigon. Dead tired and half stupefied, Tess and I sat quietly in our rearward seats while the madness raged around us.

Our hostess had her work cut out to calm things down. She eventually established a kind of order, no mean feat without a machine gun, and maintained it by patrolling the aisle and bawling out anyone who even looked like moving.

“…Cover your nose and mouse and breeze normally…” I didn’t pay much attention to the safety demo as we taxied for take-off. I gazed out the window into the gathering darkness and thought: this is the end of the beginning - in two hours we'll touch down in Cairo.

Next Time: Extremely Cairo...