Waiting...

“You want to go seaside?”

The taxi driver’s response didn’t make sense to me. I look at him, blankly. Bemused.

“You want to go seaside!”

His volume has increased, now. He is displaying more urgency, too. It has become less of a question and more of a statement. He clearly went to an English school. He was taught that if Johnny Foreigner doesn’t initially understand what you say, say it louder; say it bolder. The meaning will strike home in the end.

And this time, to a point, it works.

I take in what he says and – on consideration - I do want to go to the seaside! But, then, I always want to go to the seaside. Don’t you? Rarely a day passes without me wishing and hoping that a trip to the seaside is imminent or inevitable. What can I say; I’m a sucker for an ice cream? Which is why I’ve made a real effort to go seek out the deep blue and the promenade, lately. Several lost days in punch drunk, English coastal towns this summer attest to this. I’ve been left struck dumb at a hell hole ‘fun pub’ in Walton-on-the-Naze, where raucous locals dress up to the nines, ready for bouts of Sunday night Karaoke and petty recrimination. I’ve, inexplicably, burned on a cloudy day exploring Clevedon Pier. I’ve stood for an hour, talking shipping economics with a man watching container ships arrive and depart England’s shores in Portishead. I’ve enjoyed every minute.

So, my answer is yes. I do want to go to the seaside. Right now. At this instant, I want to smell the salt and the seaweed, look at aging, crumbling and boarded up towns while I listen to wave after wave after wave. I want little more.

But, yes is not the answer I give. I say ‘no’, because right now, what I want and what I need and intend to do are entirely different issues. I'm going somewhere else.

I lean into the car and wave my Map App at the driver. He stares at it blankly. He clearly missed his Geography lessons and concentrated on his languages. I speak more slowly, more precisely and - because two can play at his game - I raise the volume.

“No! I want to go to Sadu House. Look. Here!” I point… Again, I wave my phone at the man. Pointless.

“Seaside? Yes?”

And then, a wall of realisation hits me; thick, heavy, and hot in the early evening air. Simultaneously, everything feels both insanely familiar and out of worldly. A mix of real, live, actual memories and déjà vu crash together. Mixed messages reach my mind. A jumbled package of laughter, confusion and sweat soaked cotton shirts.

I’m back in the Middle East.

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It’s a long while since I wrote, so I ought to bring you up to speed.

Since I visited Jerusalem (Clerkenwell) and bumped into a tall man with a bowler and a history of dirty club nights and Adam Ant videos, a lot has happened.

I’ve felt the reverberation of Humming Birds in my chest and been dazzled by electric blue moths in El Salvador; rescued a paper cut out octopus from the floor of a Newcastle bar as a gift for a friend; felt the throb of a Harley Davison through my arse and up my spine for the first time; been isolated and alone on a crumbling and rickety rooftop in Rabat being shaken down for money by a ‘tour guide’; been wooed by Dublin more times than I can remember; arrived in a Valencia Hotel with my hands, legs and face smeared in human blood and calmly asked for my room key; baby sat a bass guitar belonging to a Prog Rock band on a journey from Gatwick to Oslo; been lost in Trance in an Ibiza super club; spoken to two separate medical practitioners about how best to avoid my own death; and some stuff happened one night in Warsaw that should probably stay there.

I’ve been busy.

Which leaves me standing outside a Kuwaiti hotel, with a work colleague, talking pidgin to a taxi driver who is more obsessed with the seaside than me.

Pete tells me to get in the cab and give directions. Pete is my boss, so I do as I am told. Thankfully, Pete didn’t ask me to kill the gentleman; that would have been awkward and may have messed up my hair.

The cab is old and battered but serviceable. The driver is grumpy and seems disbelieving. He swings the car around the wide Corniche road, nonchalantly taking U-turns, maintaining a racing line and claiming any vacant car length space ahead of us with well-practiced ease. This is what he does for ten, eleven, twelve hours a day, six days a week. He doesn’t believe that we wish to go anywhere other than the seaside. He slows for each turning, each junction and each shopping centre slip road expecting me to tell him to pull over and park up alongside the sea to our right. When I eventually ask that he performs a ‘u-ey’ to return us to the old fashioned and traditional building to our left, he asks for assurance. Assurance that he understood me correctly or that assurance that I am not mad. Either? Both?

We arrive, Pete pays the gentleman the equivalent of £2.50 and the driver takes off at a speed that would get him back to 1955 if he were driving a Delorean. Destination successfully found; Pete and I take a look around a museum of traditional weaving techniques. We both agreed that it was quite good.

Dear reader; my life is, officially, more rock n roll than yours.

This isn’t my first return to the Middle East since I headed back to Blighty, last year. It’s my third. After a false start, I initially returned a year to the day after I first flew home. I’ve now popped back and forth to Kuwait three times. The one GCC state that I didn’t get to see when I was living in Khobar.

And the result is memories. They have been flashing back. Eighteen months immersed in a culture and a way of life leave their mark. Regardless of the whys’ and the wherefores’ of my leaving, I miss the place. I miss my little way of life. I was missing it before I returned, but popping through Kuwait brought it into closer focus. Conversations with Ex-Pats over in Kuwait helped to plant the memory seeds. Travels through the eternal dustbowl construction site that is Kuwait City, nurtured and fed them. Good and bad.

The heat. It was mid-September when I first arrived in Saudi. It was mid-September on my second visit to Kuwait. It was nudging 50C, there wasn’t much shade and the humidity gathered on your brow and in your pits. Three hundred and three miles north of Khobar the humidity was worse than I ever experienced in Saudi. Each breath was dust and heat. Dust and heat.

The construction. Everywhere I visited in the Middle East, regardless of its beauty had a part or parts that were forever under construction. The half built shopping centre near the Heineken Highway, or the twisted tower block being built on the corner of Pepsi-Cola Road in Khobar (you know the place, opposite Circle Café and Red Lobster). The Metro cuttings being carved out of shifting sand in Riyadh, the stadiums in Doha or the World Islands slowly washing away in Dubai. Everything is changing. Kuwait City is slowly drowning in new motorways and cuttings. In the shadows of modern steel and glass towers, concrete apartment blocks and offices rot in the heat. Mirrored glass transposed against yellow/white walls cracked, chipped and stained by water and ancient advertising. Sidewalks and pathways are littered with ill planned utility installations and uneven pavements. Trip hazards abound.

Thanks Allies. And thanks to Pete for the piccie

The night. Fifty two weeks of sunshine is offset by regulated twelve hour nights. Dusk is short lived. The sun sets like a stone. It’s dark by 7pm at the latest, even in mid-June. But the city is alive with artificial light. Not just the choreographed, dancing lights on the new office blocks in Sharq and bursting patterns on Kuwait Towers but – more subtly – in the neon shop signs of the corner shops and mini arcades that trade and hawk late into the night. Over the top but rarely too gaudy. Life starts at dusk.

Light After Dark

Juice

Inflatables

The noise. The eternal traffic. Where the indicator is ignored in favour of the horn. Where, after dark, youths make the most of the floodlit football pitches and sports facilities near the Al-Amiri Hospital. In daylight, the hubbub of traffic remains but is punctuated by the calls to prayer and Laughing Dove, Myna and White Cheeked Bulbul feasting in and around the date palms. 

The driving. The sublime to the ridiculous. A gap is a gap. An inch is an inch. Road markings are a guide. Right lanes, left lanes mean nothing in the rush. Salmon traffic. Aggression isn’t personal. Life is but fate. Beat up and battered Japanese and Korean saloon cars battle it out with Articulated Lorries, coaches, 4x4s, American Pick Up Trucks and Muscle cars. The last to the lights loses. When I left Saudi I had grown used to this nonsense. Returning a year on and I had soon come to ignore and laugh at it once more as colleagues flinched at junctions as they look left to right in disbelief at the chaos.

The food. Aside the grilled meat and endless rice on offer for dinner, breakfast in Kuwait made me question the wisdom of ever returning home. Flat bread. Zatar. Daal. Foul Mudammas (pronounced fool) – mashed fava beans with lemon and garlic, mixed with raw tomato, onion, coriander and chillis. Olives and raw vegetables. Hummus… The perfect start to a day. The shops are still sugar obsessed. Biscuits and sweets. Middle East staples. Pineapple and mango for when you want to eat healthily (ha!).

Staples

The people. I’m not a fool (stop sniggering at the back… I’m not!), I realise that people are people everywhere. When pushed, kindness can be found in any and all corners. Humans are hard wired. But, I have always found Arabs supremely friendly, courteous and helpful. So I did again, in Kuwait. If you take the time to step away from the Western strip malls and restaurants you are rewarded with a far deeper insight into a more traditional way of life. The Fish Market, the spice stores and confectionery shops. The owners seem surprised to find Westerners off the beaten track and – once they find you are not American – bend over backwards to help.

But, regardless of the above, I wouldn’t want to go back to live.

It’s not that I have regrets. I don’t. I had and I took an amazing opportunity. But it was of its time and the time has passed.

I spent 18 months adapting to a life that is far from ordinary to an average bloke from North West London. I bit my tongue, I turned a blind eye to the undoubted inequality and racism to others. I adapted my behaviours, my language and (to a degree) my dress, not to fit in but to sit under the radar; to be invisible. And I appreciated the opportunity and thrived on the experience. But – at times – I felt like I was in a prison. An open prison compared to many that I met; colleagues who had their right of exit constrained so that they couldn’t return home when they wanted or were needed; a guy outside a warehouse in Riyadh who tended goats who says that his visa had expired but his sponsor had disappeared with all his paperwork, so he had no way of ever going home. I often felt as if I was the stooge in The Prisoner, acting a role to try and get Number 6 to give something away. Captive, but still a prisoner.

That last analogy is crass.

It’s crass not just because the reality is that Western Ex-Pats have it good and a relatively secluded and sheltered life, but because the reality is probably closer to life in Slade Prison. We were all more like Fletcher and Godber than a foil to Patrick McGoohan.

The above was made clear while on a Piccadilly train heading to Heathrow, en route to Kuwait, and receiving an email from a client I was travelling to see asking whether I would have an opportunity to buy him an egg cup. The email asked if I had any idea what it’s like to eat a soft boiled egg with your hands. And I didn’t and don’t but could empathise with his plight. This was on the back of a conversation I had with him, a week earlier, where he complained that he couldn’t get his hands on Sage and Onion stuffing for love nor money. It made me recall the issues of ‘British’ food in Supermarkets (I miss you LuLu!), where deliveries were inconsistent, so you could never guarantee what you would be able to find from week to week. In September, staff at the business I was working with were sharing rumours of cheap cheese on sale at CarreFour and laughing at those who missed the bargain. You grow used to missing out on and envying others food finds while building a personal hoard of condiments on the off chance you will never see them for sale, again.

Like I say, life in the Middle East is not romantic enough to allow your ideals and morals to lead you to make a stand against any part of the life you distrust or dislike. Through chance or design, such high ground cannot be afforded when your reality is that a heartfelt and genuine desire to eat a decent cheese sandwich means that ‘Branston Pickle’ can be traded as currency.

I bought my client a shot glass at the airport. It was the best I could do. I believe that it is serviceable.

Back to Kuwait. 7:30pm.

Men of distinction, taste and style can only take so much of weaving each day. Our needs satisfied, Pete and I chose to walk back to our hotel. It was only a mile or so and the temperature had dropped to a cool and relaxed 32C.

So, we braved crossing the busy road and we went to look at the sea. The brown sea. Turd brown sea. Flat breads floating at the surface. The sea lapped against the concrete sea defences, as the smell of excrement lapped across our senses. We kept going. We walked on hoping to escape the sensory attack, to find ourselves on a concrete jetty where dishdash clad fishermen targeted the beasts of the shitty sea. Shell fish remains littered the jetty; bait from the fishermen. Stray cats lingered and quick movements at the corner of our eyes alerted us to the roaches. Cockroaches as big as our thumbs scampered across the jetty floor and along the steel, safety railings. Each creeping, crawling movement sending individual shivers down my spine. And around a small arc of sand on the seaward side of the jetty, a family had lain down a blanket and were eating a picnic meal and their children paddled in the sea amid the sour smells, busy insects and putrid fish waste.

Like I say. I may not want to move back but, I really want to keep on visiting!

Flamingo

MY INSTAGRAM FEED...

I posted the picture above to Instagram a few weeks ago. It is a cropped section of a photo that I have used as a Facebook cover photo for a similar length of time.

It got a bit of attention. It’s quite pretty.

Flamingos are one of those birds that – having grown up in Harrow – seem incredibly exotic. They are associated with hot climates and remote settings. I grew up with images of vast flocks filling TV screens while deep, gravelly and authoritative voice overs explained the size and scale of the flocks, the mind blowing distances that they travel on their annual migrations and the food sources that the eat that allows them to develop such a distinctive colour (Hubba Bubba Bubblegum). Away from the TV screens and images of vast salty lakes in Africa, the closest that I could expect to get to them was at a zoo or wildlife park, where a dozen would sit in a large garden pond and prevented from escaping by the clipping of their wings. When I did see them, apparently open to the elements and free to leave I rarely dwelled to look at them because I found it sad that they were effectively imprisoned in the UKs seasonal cycle. They looked sad and forlorn.

Fuchsia pink and a metre tall, they’re pretty hard to miss. Their slow, methodical gait makes them appear graceful and long necks and social instincts make them incredibly photogenic. Which is why – I guess – I took the opportunity to catch a few shots when I found a group close to shore in Khobar.

They’re not uncommon in Khobar. They’re pretty common down the shallow Arabian Gulf coastline from Jubail to Bahrain. Khobar sits in the middle. I’d seen a few within weeks of arriving and, having not expected to see them, was momentarily excited by it. A few weeks down the line and – you could argue sadly – I had become rather used to them. They were as ubiquitous as the Reef Herons that hang out down the front. But, en masse, I still recognise that they cut a pretty impressive shape, so, having the opportunity to get close to them, I made the most of my limited lens capabilities.

I’m not alone. I follow a number of local photographers on Instagram and have noted over the past few weeks that more and more people are making the most of the seasonal influx in numbers and proximity to the sea front. Several of my Insta-buddies have captured far better shots than I. Here are couple, here:

Pretty Flamingo

Pretty Flamingo Too

And there is romance in these shots.

But, I am now going to let you into a secret.

One of the reasons that I took the shot that I have cropped up and heaved onto social media is that I found the sight far from romantic. It was a busy day while I went for my stroll. The temperature was down around the 20C mark and a breeze from the North made walking a really enjoyable. I walked for about three hours. It was a great day out. That afternoon, The Corniche was buzzing. Families were out in force, walking, playing, roller blading or just kicking back and enjoying the weather. I bumped into a Filipino guy playing a guitar – yeah… music in a public place – and everyone was relaxed. The air smelled of sea food and barbecues.

I’d seen the flock of Flamingo some way off and was pleased that I was able to get quite close to them from the shore and – given that they were sleeping – they didn’t stroll off and keep their distance which is quite common for them. At the closest point, I realised that I would get a fair shot of them. Nothing remarkable, but passable shots of the birds.

But I was really pissed off.

A fisherman with the usual array of rods and kit was systematically ripping up and throwing food and plastic waste into the sea. I watched him for a few minutes, Plastic bags, plastic cups and bread. All was going into the sea. He was just chucking it in.

I asked him what he was doing…

He explained that the coloured plastic and the food attracted the fish.

None of the other fisherman – the dozens of other fisherman – were adopting the same or similar approach, so I assume that the guy is a moron rather than an expert.

You can see, the rubbish he was generating was just sitting on the surface and slowing drifting away.

I always knew that I would need to park my western sensibilities in London while I lived in Saudi.

By and large, I have been successful. I carefully boxed my sensibilities up and left them in a loft in Hanwell, West London. Marking the box; “Do not disturb – Hibernating” and drawing a stylised Blue Peter logo on it, I hoped that if anyone stumbled over it, they would assume that the box contained a Z List TV celebrity tortoise and ignore it.

But, increasingly, I am finding my western sensibilities creeping back. Perhaps it’s because I’ve made the choice to return to the UK and have reached the “counting weeks” stage. I’m no Environmental tree hugger, but I found the fisherman’s actions and waste really illogical and frustrating. Although I bit my tongue and didn’t shout him out, I was quite angry with the inconsiderate, wasteful and stupid fucker of a fisherman. Tongue bitten, I walked on.

Now, I’ve already said that I find London a dirty town.

I bloody well have!

Go back to posts from February last year if you doubt me. I’ve grown to associate it with dog shit. I’m here again, now… as I type… and I still think the same.

Dog Shitty City.

Back in Khobar, though, I have to admit that the cities general dirt and grime is one of the least desirable aspects of my life out there. I don’t live in a compound. I do not have a house with a manicured lawn, I live in an apartment attached to a hotel on the edge of an Indian quarter. It’s real life. It isn’t the richest part of town. I’m comparatively affluent. It’s functional, not pretty. And I knew this when I moved, so the dirty streets were expected. I’ve never been bothered. Even when I have seen roaches the size of my thumb and rats the size of small children in the street. Because I’ve always been a five minute stroll (albeit over two monumentally busy roads) from the Corniche.

So the fisherman polluting the sea with his littering shit, pissed me off. But, stepping back, I have to be realistic. Even my beloved Corniche is far from the litter free utopia that I may have implied. I’ve stated that it gets busy. Families utilising the space to eat and entertain on cool winter afternoons and warm summer evenings. Barbecues abound. And so do cats. Stray cats, in their hundreds. And the cats thrive, demonstrating that there is food to be found. Much as I love the space alongside the sea, I have to admit that the concrete benches and sea walls are all stained by dirt. It can be a struggle to find a place to sit where you won’t be surrounded by the waste of the day before. Meat, fish, rice, bread, paper/card/polystyrene packaging. Although there are bins and there are regularly blue overalled cleaners doing their best to tidy away, the Corniche is a sea of chicken bones on most days. The sea is not the clear blue, dream like sea that you would want, you can see that it is often filled with bloated flat breads and rice portions that the locals have decided not to eat. Algae covers the more sheltered corners in hotter months. At times it can be a little grim.

The fisherman that annoyed me is far from alone.

And it is what it is. With western sensibilities safely disguised as a hibernating TV tortoise, I have been able to accept it and make the most of it. And I have. Dirt included, dirt excluded, The Corniche has become my stalwart escape from the bustling city. It still represents freedom. With its relative clean air, its green lawns, shrubs and trees, its wide seascapes and a view of the bridge to Bahrain.

Thinking back, when I first saw Flamingo I noted on Facebook that I had not expected them in a waste filled lagoon next to a building site and a supermarket. Even I if I found rose tinted (fuchsia pink - flamingo tint) glasses in my early days in Saudi, I fear I may be losing them as my departure draws closer.

Time to come home?

John Wayne Is Big Leggy

Back in the 1930’s a British civil servant by the name of Bertram Thomas was the first westerner to make a record of a journey across the heart of The Empty Quarter. He and his team walked between Salalah in Oman and Doha in, what is now, Qatar. His journey is being recreated by a modern day explorer with the less exciting name; Mark Evans.

The Empty Quarter is accepted to be amongst the harshest and most inhospitable areas of sand desert in the World. It’s also the largest. I’ve read that the dunes can reach up to 200 metres tall. Bertram’s efforts were incredible back in the 30’s. Warring tribes, dry watering holes and the risk of other illness or injury made the journey perilous. With no support, any serious mishap would lead to death. Today, the Empty Quarter is far from unconquered. Although Evans and two team members are aiming to walk the majority of the trek, they have a pack of camels to support weary feet and a whole support crew travelling by 4x4 with a few luxury items, things like food and water. Unlike Bertie, who upon reaching Doha had to sail to Manama just to send a telegraph to confirm his success, Evans progress is being tweeted near live and a satellite phone is used to relay daily blog updates to news agencies. It is very different. Bluntly, Evans stands little chance of being defeated by the elements. If he fails, it’ll be because he suddenly remembers he has a dentist appointment or as a result of incredibly bad luck. Evans expedition is essentially a PR stunt to support and celebrate the 45^th Anniversary of Oman’s Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said (another exciting name).

But I don’t care about any of that, none of it makes it less exciting to me.

You see, as unadventurous as I can be, I have always marvelled at the “explorer” spirit. I’ve never got wrapped up in the jingoistic spirit of Empire, but have puzzled at what makes someone push themselves to such extremes at the risk of their life and limbs “just because”. There are true, great adventures to be found in pushing physical boundaries. From my youth, I always read with excitement and horror at the stories of Shackleton and Scott. Anyone who goes out on a limb, on their own and pits themselves against the elements has intrigued, shocked, frightened and inspired me. Even Ellen MacArthur.

So, I have been watching in on Evans progress. I trawl the website and I have the App. I suspect that I will buy the coffee table book that will undoubtedly follow. Like I say, the whole expedition – whilst having noble ideals regarding education, community and raising awareness of a changing continent – is relatively risk free. It is sponsored by the authorities of all three countries that he will cross (Oman, Saudi Arabia and Qatar). Evans will be fine.

Follow his adventure, here;

Mark Evans

But it’s close to home. Well, close(ish). You see, as it has worked out, Evans journey coincides with a renewed need for me to make more regular journeys to Riyadh. So, for the first time in close on twelve months, I am back to making my own odysseys across the desert.

Imagine what Saudi Arabia looks like. Look it up if you want; don’t let me stop you. In the meantime, here is a map on a coffee mug:

OK. Riyadh lies to the right of the centre of Arabia. Closer to the East than West. I live about half way down the Eastern coast (near Dammam), so Riyadh lies a way inland from me. It is some 450km (280 miles) west-south-west of Khobar. It’s about the same distance as Newcastle-Upon-Tyne is from London. Using the direct “Route 40” freeway, upon leaving Dhahran (a city connected to Khobar), the next town you see is Riyadh. To all intents and purposes it is a four to five hour drive across nothingness. So it is a challenge.

I’d been in Saudi for less than a week when I was required to travel over for the first time. Three of us piled into a car. Myself, my predecessor and our office manager. I was excited. It was my first time in the desert and I was bubbling with enthusiasm. Despite the early morning start, I was wide eyed and bushy tailed. I picked up that Stuart was less enthralled. All he offered me, before crashing out in the back seat of the car to sleep was to observe that, when he woke, he would point out his favourite sand dune. I sensed that he was bored of the journey – which he assured me I would be making at least once a week for the next 52 weeks – but still harboured a hope that he did, in fact, have a favourite sand dune and that he would show it to me.

The journey passed by. I was still struggling with Adel’s strong Arabic accent and he was struggling with my flowery English. Communication was limited, but onward we travelled. I sat with my camera poised, taking pictures of everything I could. Cars. Lorries. Sand. Cars. Lorries. Sand. Lorries. Cars. Cars. Lorries. Tarmac. Tarmac. Tarmac. Skid marks. Skid marks. Skid marks. Sand. Sand. Sand.

“Will I see camels?” I had asked. My spirit flying at the prospect.

“Yeah.” Stuart sighed. All excitement dead, gone and buried. I fear my excitement of the desert may have tired him out somewhat. I think that, perhaps, he feigned sleep to avoid talking to me rather than avoid the desert.

But, Stuart was right. I saw camels. Near. Far. Alone. In herds. Being herded. Being ridden. Not being ridden. In the back of trucks. At the side of the road. Behind the protective fence. On the wrong side of the protective fence.

Yes. I saw camels. Loads of them. As Adel would, glumly, say; “too many camels”.

A couple of hours into my first journey, I had tired of it. I understood Stuart and Adel’s quiet reticence at making the journey. It’s not the inspiring, soaring, glowing, majestic and apparently endless maze of dunes found in The Empty Quarter. My desert is litter strewn and rather dull and monotonous. Which explains why the authorities have been able to cut a 450 km swathe through it made of tarmac and allow people to take part in their own version of Wacky Races all the way to Riyadh.

For one reason or another, though, I stopped needing to make the journey on a weekly basis. Soon it was every three to four weeks. Sometimes – having headed the advice of colleagues – I opted for the train. So, although not entirely enamoured with the desert, I have never become utterly jaded and dejected by it like Adel and Stuart.

So, my recent journeys have allowed me to see it from a different perspective. Not one of enjoyment. I cannot, in all honesty, say that I relish the prospect of the journey, but I can appreciate that it’s not such routine as to become a total bore.

In comparison to Mark Evans, Bertram Thomas, Wilfred Thesiger and their ilk’s epic treks of endurance, my hops back and forth pale into insignificance. They lack the edge of the battle of man against the elements where one piece of bad luck – a misdirection, a storm, a lame camel – could leave you without water or food and no hope of rescue or recovery.

Given the abundance of fuel stops with associated shops, cafes, fast food joints, toilets and mosques on Route 40, it would have to be a particularly bad luck journey if you were to die of hunger or thirst. Trust me. It’s easy to get access to the key staple food groups – Pringles, Snickers and Mirinda Citrus – that the human body requires every ten to fifteen minutes. Even if you were caught with no money, judging by the number of beggars (sadly, women and children) in the stops closest to Riyadh, I am sure that you could get by on charity.

To a point, I could stretch a comparison out of the Wacky Races traffic on the road to the risk of death by the natural world. Perhaps a garishly coloured lorry – carrying an uneven load - with the phrase “Go Ravi Go” scrawled on the rear side swiping you as you pass, or the crazy Saud, ignoring all lane markings while and texting a friend, weaving through traffic at 220 kmph before taking you up the rear could count as an equivalent of being bitten by a snake in your sleeping bag. Maybe. But it would be a weak comparison.

But my journeys and their journeys do have one comparable. Like almost all long journeys, they force you to face boredom, fatigue and tiredness. And on Route 40, they can come into their own.

My past few trips exposed me to how I and my colleagues measure distance and time. And it’s stark. As you become used to the journey, you find unofficial way markers set apart from the endless grey road, its skid marks and its bumpy surface that makes that constant, dull “thuck thuck thuck thuck thuck” of rubber on tarmac for four hours.

Some of the markers are natural and obvious. There is a huge Crude Oil depot about an hour from Riyadh. The depots presence can be predicted by the quantity of power lines that shadow the road fifteen or twenty minutes before that. There are a number of Police Check Points en route that force you to slow down but rarely make you stop (the power of white skin and a purple passport). There are intersections with sign posts to small settlements and towns; Goodah, Urayarah and Burqayq. Date plantations and small farmsteads. Outside Riyadh are the crashed car compounds that stretch for miles and the tents and pens containing camel and sheep. There is even a Ferris wheel that stands on a small ridge surrounded by abandoned/incomplete buildings that appears to be part of a past or future – definitely not present – amusement park in the middle of nowhere. They all allow you to track time and progress and give you an idea of when you will arrive back home or in Riyadh.

But, the more you travel, the more you notice and the more the personal, informal way markers take hold.

You grow to recognise different sets of oil pipelines.

You notice the roads to nowhere on the edge of Riyadh and Dhahran, Roads that are fully metalled and made of tarmac. Streetlights are installed and are illuminated at night. The roads are fully paved. But there are no homes, no factories and no utility buildings on them. They do not join the freeway, they are thoroughly suburban. They just stop short of the embankment. Settlements of good ideas and intention. But stark and barren in delivery.

You notice the “Desert Access” signs. My favourites are about an hour out of Khobar on the return trek. About five in a short space advertise “Dessert Access”. When you are tired and hungry, they get you thinking about a whole different opportunity.

The unmarked Civil Defence or Military base with radio towers and barbed wire covered perimeter walls. My colleague Ken recalls a time – until quite recently – when the base was openly sign posted “Secret Police Station” or some such. Everybody, close your eyes. Look the other way. Shhhh!

And then there are the burned out vehicles that you learn to distinguish from one another as they are slowly swallowed by sand and time. Some, jack knifed and burned out close to the side of the road with dancing figure of eight trail of skid marks leading off road to the tragic, stopping point. Others are crashed up or beyond the wire fences keeping the camels away. Some just appeared parked up. As if the driver popped out for a pee. But they are slowly being enveloped in sand. Yet more sleep are on their sides or roofs.

The list becomes your own and goes on and on.

So you find yourself, when in company, talking and talking to keep the tiredness from becoming lethargy or worse. I guess, where Thesiger, Thomas and – now – Evans will be losing themselves in reflective contemplation. While they will have stared simple survival in the face each day, I find myself drifting between setting the World to right, contemplating either the horrors of Riyadh that are yet to come, thinking about which restaurant I will visit as a reward and happy nostalgia. Which is how, a few weeks ago, myself and Ken entertained ourselves by compiling imaginary 80’s music playlists that complemented and/or bettered the three CD set he had in the car.

For hours, we sang along to Men at Work, Bros, Flock of Seagulls, Adam & The Ants, Cyndi Lauper, Survivor and Thpmpson Twins while lamenting that the set could be improved by Duran Duran, Soft Cell, Heaven 17, Jona Lewie and The Cult. The CDs and the suggested improvements were as endless as the featureless road back to Khobar.

John Wayne is Big Leggy

I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper

It started in reception.

I was waiting on a lift. My driver was running late.

So I took in a map that is adjacent to the door. I’d taken cursory glances at it before but never looked at the detail. The map is of Khobar. It is several years old and – as a result – significantly out of date. I noted that the Corniche was still a work in progress but that all the key roads were present. Landmarks such as key hotels and the pepsi cola factory were all marked.

So I looked at the junction close to Silver Tower; close to where I work. And that is when I saw it.

The map contained line graphics of some of the key sites and – sitting at Silver Tower – was a picture of a space shuttle attached to it’s three fuel tanks.

Map

I asked my driver about it but my question was lost in translation somewhere.

And I forgot about it.

Except that, on occasion, something would stir it back to the front of my mind. The slow dawning that the “Space Travel Agency” – a disappointingly normal travel agent – that is still close to the cross roads may not have just been an obscure name choice but be based on a landmark that has now gone.

Those countless occasions where I would wake with that Sarah Brightman/Hot Gossip song as an incurable ear worm.

I have lost track of the number of taxi drivers I have asked about this mythical space shuttle marked on the map.

No one could answer me.

But then I stumbled on something online. A photograph taken of Silver Tower back in the mid noughties. In front of it was a sculpture. A sculpture of a space shuttle.

I was excited.

Before I go on, I need to provide some perspective. Some background. I need to explain why I had this obsession with this detail on a map.

As a kid, I loved the idea of space travel.

Didn’t we all?

I was brought up in an era of Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Dr Who, Blakes 7 and Mork & Mindy. Space travel was in my blood. Popular culture seemed to obsess with it. The moon landings and Apollo missions had created this fervour for space. For the opportunity. It seemed that the Western World had become utterly obsessed. Anything and everything looked for the space angle. Even James Bond was going there.

Dr Who was a staple, but I was one of the millions that was hooked and dragged uncomplaining into the Star Wars franchise. It was bigger. It was bolder. The sets didn’t wobble as much. It always felt like I was like looking into the future. A future where two powers both believing that they were right and the other wrong fought for supremacy.

Like the cold war.

In the days pre-video and before the films had had their UK TV premier, I was lost in the books, magazines, sticker albums, merchandise and figurines that allowed the re-enactment of the battles and key scenes. More. The lack of exposure to the movie content, it all encouraged the use of imagination to create new story lines, new epic battles and new chapters of my own each day.

I was a sucker for the space ships.

I “wowed” at the weaponry.

And Carrie Fisher made me feel funny inside… Even more than Suzi Quatro or the blonde one from Abba did. Utterly smitten.

Suzi. The Blonde One. Carrie.

Dressed in white with the silly hair ringlets, dressed for the winter exploits in The Empire Strikes Back or – obviously – the bikini scene in Return of the Jedi. I’d have done anything for her.

And then, in real world, came the Space Shuttle. The first reusable space craft. It was new. It was sleek*. It was sexy**.

Back in 1981, my family foreshortened a holiday outing so that we could get home in time to watch the Shuttle’s initial launch. We gathered around a TV in the lounge of a small hotel in Uckfield in Sussex with several other holidaying families to watch history being created. Looking back at the footage today, it all seems a bit tame. A big lump of metal being strapped to a load of inflammable material, pointed at the sky and someone chucking a half smoked cigarette into the mix to create ignition.

In 1981, it was bloody magic. It tapped into all my fantasies of travelling the universe with improbable space hardware and weaponry saving planets and getting the girl. It felt as if all the Science Fiction that I was buying in to really could be the future. Everything felt slightly tangible.

Alongside my plastic Star Wars models, suddenly models of the space shuttle were being introduced into the mix.

And, whilst my fascination with the shuttle and space travel may have waned over the years, for a while I wanted to know everything about the missions. Who was on them? What they were carrying? How the future was being shaped.

But, back to Khobar. Khobar in 2015.

It got me thinking. Why would a statue/model of a space shuttle be constructed in Khobar and – having gone to the trouble of doing so – where is it now?

The “why?” answer is simple to find. Google and Wikipedia quickly explain the cultural reference, so I won’t dwell on it. National pride.

In 1985, Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, a Saudi Arabian Air Force pilot and member of the Royal Family flew on STS-51-G. A real life Saudi astronaut.

Sultan bin Salman Al Saud

It also led me to references that show that the statue still exists and that it has just been moved. Which led to me having an adventure to relive part of my childhood, a few weeks ago.

It started on a Thursday evening as I wound down for the weekend and got chatting with a friend – Marian – online. Aside general chit chat and catch ups and Bugsy Malone, I explained that my plan for the weekend was to go searching for the lost space shuttle. It was my mission to find it. Bless her, Marian wouldn’t be drawn. Even when I started to explain that I was going to dress as Han Solo to conduct my mission, she wouldn’t rise.

I guess she liked Luke Skywalker more.

On the Friday, the sun beat down and I couldn’t face the walk the length of the Corniche from home to reach my goal. OK, the white shirt could cope with the sun but my choice of a dark waistcoat, tight, tight black military twill trousers with a red trim and black boots was not conducive to the climate.

So I flagged a cab.

The cab driver was hairy. Not just the de rigour “taxi cab beard”, but really, really hairy. Our communication was limited. The driver’s English was not good and I found that our interactions became foreshortened, direct and punctuated with gestures for directions. And guttural barks. Somehow we grew to understand each other.

We reached our destination. A traffic island just behind the main Corniche road. The space shuttle stands forlorn and slightly grubby surrounded by Date Palms.

I instructed the cab driver to pull over and wait at the roadside while I jumped out and snapped some photographs. Traffic was scarce. The roads were deserted. But the cab driver was nervous. Twitchy. He feared what would happen if the Police arrived and challenged me or him while I was isolated in no man’s land. But I was mission bound; I oozed confidence. I assured him that we wouldn’t hang around to be challenged. I knew that his white Hyundi maybe old, maybe past it’s prime, may have a few scratches, dents and war wounds but I knew that the crate could out run any other car on Khobar’s roads that day. We were safe. Invincible.

Disappointingly plastic and weather beaten. Its logos are faded and peeling. A plaque that presumably explained its significance has been stolen leaving a sad looking semi-pillar of concrete as its lonely companion.

Pleased to find it, it seems a shame that the national pride that must have influenced its commission has been allowed to fade and decay. But, still, the shuttle is there. Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud's achievements are still remembered.

Out of the way, but not out of mind.

Thankfully, my faith in the speed of the cab was never put to the test and my taxi driver drove me back home without incident.

By chance, it was only when I returned home that I stumbled over the news that Sarah Brightman's voyage into space to sing has been postponed… Hey. Such a shame... She deserves it...

Here is my ear worm...

Notes:

* OK. Not as sleek as the sports shoe shaped reality drive craft described in Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but sleek none the less.

** Ditto