Engage

Upon my return to the Kingdom, a degree of reintegration was required. A degree of relearning.

Of re-engaging.

Routines and patterns were soon re-established. I’m paid to be here. You do what you do. Get up, go to work, make time for the gym, shop, cook and eat. Easy.

Life.

But something was missing. Something wasn't feeling right.

Not living.

On a Wednesday evening, I realised what it was. I’d stopped exploring. I’d stopped learning about the town that I was living in. I was falling into a rut. It had been so, since earlier in the year. One of the key reasons to make the step over to this part of the World was to see something different, somewhere alien to me. To be excited by it. To learn.

Thankfully, the realisation didn't occur while lying bored, tired, lazy and depressed on my sofa but while strolling into town to go shopping. I’d forgotten how the town changes after dark.

The crowds. The noise. The bustle. The light. The colour.

It’s a different World. People come out to play. The souks, shopping centres and side markets are full. People peruse the lines of shirts that stretch for blocks in the open air. 90% polyester, they crackle and crack as they are pushed, pulled and pawed. Illegal stalls hawk wares from carpets and cloths set out on the roadside. The restaurants – so many restaurants – fill and fight for custom. Traffic fills the street. Mostly static, the sound of horns fills the air and it takes a degree of bravery and/blind stupidity to weave across the roads.

And this is multiplied by ten on a Friday.

And I love it.

As usual, no photos can really do it justice. But I do try…

Coffee

There is a café on The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Road. The night I caught it, there was no-one there. On a night when football is showing, they set up a giant screen in the street behind and lay out plastic patio furniture. It’s never mobbed but always busy. A sea of faces staring at a TV screen that is invisible from the main street.

Bathing in Blue

I stumbled over this residential building bathed in blue light. It called from afar, partially covered and concealed by trees further down the road. As I got close, I realised that it is just a standard block of apartments and that the blue light has nothing to do with it. A hotel/apartment block opposite has blue neon advertising on its roof. The basking blue light on the residential block is just light pollution. All the shutters were closed shut. I’m not surprised. I used to live on Hounslow High Street one Christmas. We had no curtains. The multi-purpose Diwali and Christmas lights were a menace for three months.

Neon Wonderland.
For Sale. Anything. Everything!

Old Concrete

Street lighting is far from ideal. The streets are quite dark. Much of the glow comes from the heavy handed signage carried by many retailers and from lights from private residential blocks. It works. It looks good.

Watch & Light

There is an obsession with watches.

The Souks are full of watch shops and stalls who are always keen to talk to me. I’d suggest that they notice that I never have a watch on my bare arms and see me as a likely customer, but I am a realist. They see me as an American or European with more money than sense, so want me to share.

I’ve worn a watch once since 2006. I was told to in the Spring of 2007. I’d been late for a couple of meetings at work and it was noted that I didn’t have a watch.

I listened to the advice but it stopped. It was a sign. I was vindicated. I never intend to wear a watch again.

Red Light Spells Danger.
Money will be spent here!

The reason I was out on a Wednesday night.

Some people will recall that I have an obsession with stationery items. It’s as if, somewhere deep inside my psyche, there is a teenage girl trapped. Her voice can only be heard in Paperchase or Staples or Rymans.

Jarir Bookstore is just as dangerous.

I may go there to buy computer supplies and stuff, but I will always leave with a new pen… and some colourful post it notes… or something. Anything!

So I have tried to get out and explore, more. Retracing my steps of the evening in daylight on a deathly quiet Friday morning as the population geared up for midday prayers.

American School Buses.
When they are past their "use by" date in the US they are shipped off around the World.
Khobar is full of them. Owned and used to transport labour from accommodation blocks to workplaces.
On a Friday, they rest.

Prince Faisal Bin Fahd Road
From old to new.

Prince Faisal Too...
A view from a colleagues office looking back down toward the old Pepsi Cola factory, The Meridian Hotel and sea beyond.

Flowers and traffic on Prince Turki Street

The road names mean little to me. I know them because they are listed on Google Maps. No-one appears to navigate by road names. Everything is decided by their closeness to landmarks; the older the better. Most people know “Silver Tower”. If they don’t, I drop back to the “Old Pepsi Cola Factory”. It’ll get me on the right road…

Pepsi Cola were one of the first American giants to invest and fund development in the town.
This is the remnants of the advertising on their old factory.
It remains a landmark.

The local Tamimi Market store has a series of old photographs of the town taken over the past thirty or forty years showing Khobar’s humble beginnings as a small fishing town, the addition of King Fahd University (Petroleum & Chemicals) and expansion as a thriving city. I live on the edge of the old town. Few buildings are above four storeys. They are a uniform sandy grey. Most show signs of wear and tear. Steel, breeze block and concrete construction shows its age quite quickly. You can see the original districts, of residential, shopping and industry. As a geographer, the town planning is obvious once you can work out where the boundaries were. But, increasingly, the boundaries are becoming blurred as vacant blocks are turned into whatever can turn a profit.

Old Khobar is slowly being regenerated. Lost. New buildings, better utility provision. New roads, underpasses and bridges. The town feels like a near permanent building site. The old is making way for the new.

Another street dug up and cables being relaid.

Sofitel. Modern out of dust.

The rubble of a demolished building in the old town.
Scrub beginning to take hold.

Fouad Centre
All the food you can eat.

Artificial lake on the Corniche.
Landscaped gardens on the seafront.

Mosque
Gold surrounded by a dusty wasteland and cricket on Friday afternoons.

Municipal Art
Hope. Inspiration and Pride.
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Road

I’m liking the mix. The transition. Khobar feels lived in. Rough around the edges but with a pride and determination to move forwards. To change shape. To grow up. To become a swan.

A couple of weeks ago, I went out to Half Moon Bay. I’d been told about it since I was here back from day one. It offers a chance to take in the “seaside” in a Saudi way.

Obviously, it’s more car heavy than in the Europe. Although some provision is made for parking and for beach huts (concrete shelters where families can keep out of the sun and barbecue meat, most of the beaches are a free for all. Cars are driven to the sea front across the sand. Afterall, it’s where the desert meets the sea.

Yellow, orange, and blue. Ridge and furrow. Light and dark.
Check out the litter, though. It's everywhere.

Salt flats and dunes.
Compacted by the wheels of so many cars.

Way back, I posted some pictures of the desert taken en route to Riyadh. A friend sarcastically noted that they didn’t hold the romance of the Lawrence of Arabia images that they have of the desert. And in the most part, that is a true reflection of what I see. The desert is just that. It is deserted. It is big and bleak and lifeless. No romance. But, I get that there is something magical about the formation of dunes. Far from the biggest in the World, Half Moon Bay does – at least – allow a slightly more romantic version.

The front is loaded with temporary market stalls. Clothing. Food. Anything. Like Khobar, the place bustles. Adults relax next to their cars, wind breaks allow family privacy… Apart from the cars, it all feels familiar to me. Kids play. Pony and Camel rides. Bouncy Castles and quad bikes.

Quad and Bouncy Castles.
It was refreshing to see that girls were included in the driving games... Make the most of it while you can!

A guide supports a child on a pony. The camel carried a parent. I love the composition of this shot.
Simple but effective.

And still, I cannot believe my luck that I live by the sea. Beautiful.

Looking South

Hot Beach Action. A man named Francis contemplates the nature of life, love, happiness and sex.
Mostly, though he was contemplating the art of taxi driving.

OK. Not Half Moon Bay. This is the view toward Bahrain a few nights ago at dusk. I love the water colour textures and near invisible horizon.