The Royal Treatment

This past week we ventured up north about six hours to the Red Sea town of Al Wejh and a little more inland to the city of Al Ula and Madain Saleh. It was a very interesting drive that I’ll write about later. We arrived in Al Wejh on Tuesday evening, checked into our hotel, and headed to the beach. In Saudi Arabia just because a beach is public doesn’t mean it will be populated as many people don’t don swim attire. We found a nice beach, parked and began to play. Not long after, a policeman drove by and signaled to Dano to come talk. I was worried that perhaps they didn’t want us on the beach. He checked Dano’s iqama (Saudi resident ID card) and Dano came back to playing. A few minutes later another policeman drove up. He also checked Dano’s iqama and inquired about our plans in Al Wejh. Dano again came back but the policeman stayed parked. As we ventured up the beach to find somewhere to watch the sunset, the policeman stayed parked, watching. As we reached a small mountainous hill, we climbed it and enjoyed the beautiful sunset. As we began making our way back to our car, we saw our policeman friend, still watching. Dano stopped to help some local men out of the sand…he’d pushed many cars stuck in the snow but never any stuck in the sand. (These same men had earlier asked us to join them at their picnic.) Our policeman friend watched. As we got in the car we waved and drove off. To our surprise he followed us…all the way back to our hotel. He waited until we were in the hotel and left. We laughed about our escort and thought nothing more of it. When we woke up the next morning to leave, our escort was outside waiting for us. We were escorted all the way out of town. As we laughed about it again, Dano explained to me that our security advisor had told him that if any harm were to come to us while the police knew we were in their town, they could be held accountable and could subsequently lose their life. That made it a little more surreal and we appreciated his faithful watch over us.

We entered the city of Al Ula Wednesday afternoon. We met up with our guide and enjoyed a wonderful afternoon in Al Ula. The next day as we met our guide we were also met by the local police who again queried Dano about our plans in Al Ula. We were escorted all the way to Madain Saleh with our guide in front and our policeman in back…a regular entourage. We had become such a spectacle in this small city! When we left Madain Saleh our friendly policeman (Khalid) was there at the gate to escort us back to our hotel. Once again, they asked about our plans for our stay. When we went out the next morning to explore, it was not long before our escort caught up with us. I couldn’t figure out how he knew where we were. He followed us around everywhere we wanted to go that morning. When we ventured out to explore that afternoon we made it all the way to the end of town without finding what we were looking for. We asked the policeman at the edge of town (there is always one parked there) where the old train station was. He didn’t really understand English. We headed back into town and eventually happened upon it. While we were taking pictures, lo and behold up drives Khalid. I really wondered how in the world he knew we were out driving around and where to find us! They must be so networked in following us. He escorted us back to the hotel. He was very friendly and patient through everything. I thought for sure we must be an inconvenience for him. When we finished our hike up the mountain outside the hotel we were met by the manager of police. He asked Dano for his detailed plans to leave. Dano told him our route for the next day. He kept asking “Medina?” to which Dano kept telling him, “No, Jeddah.”

Meanwhile Abby had her own little entourage growing. All the Filipino hotel workers adored her. They pushed her around on the luggage cart and took turns passing each other’s cameras to take a picture with her. By the time we checked out they all knew her by name and she loved them. We had also met a small group of men in Madain Saleh who were from Tabuk who also happened to be staying at our hotel. (They were there celebrating their friend’s taking of his fourth wife! In case you didn’t know polygamy is allowed in the Muslim culture.) We met them in the hotel lobby one afternoon when we were coming back. They hollered over to Dano to come join them. They were smoking and drinking fancy coffee. Dano had a good time visiting with them and they loved talking with an American. Ethan joined them. They even invited me, but in a society where men and women don’t intermingle, I think they were just being polite and kindly declined and sat in the dining room until they were finished. They exchanged business cards and asked us to notify them if we were ever in Tabuk (which may come in handy since one of them is the advisor to the prince).

In Madain Saleh, after a long day of driving and climbing Erin’s poor legs were hurting again and she and I opted to stay in the car at the last tomb. We were doing Brainquests when soon about ten Saudi girls beset our car door. Half of them wore an abaya with the hijab so only their eyes were showing. The other half was little girls, ages five to twelve. They all giggled as we greeted them. A couple of them just sighed and said, “You’re so beautiful.” It was probably that they may never have seen blue eyes or maybe even a Westerner, but what person given that compliment would it not make their day?!! Humbly flattered I returned the complement only to catch myself thinking, ”They’re going to think that’s dumb. I can’t even see them!” So I quickly changed it to “beautiful eyes.” We talked the best we could for a while, finding out about each others’ lives. I gave them each a penny to keep as a token of remembrance. One of them ran to their car to get a riyal to give to me. When Kennedy and Abigail walk over they swarmed them and rubbed Abby’s head and pinched and kissed her cheeks. Really, Abby has been treated like a celebrity. They asked me if Kennedy went to school. When I told them she did, they asked, “Why?” The veiled girls were young teenagers, thirteen to fifteen years old I’m guessing. None of them were still in school. I got bold and asked if any of them were married. They didn’t understand and their families were coming back before I could expound. Regardless, I look back on our meeting with great fondness and am glad my girls had an opportunity to have that exchange.

When we set out for home the next morning, the police manager was waiting for us. Another police officer arrived and they went back and forth across the language barrier with Dano about our trip home. “Medina?” “No, Jeddah.” Finally, via a hotel worker’s translation, we learned that they were trying to get us to go the Medina route because the route we had chosen, though shorter, is believed to have Yemenis of questionable intentions…even the federal authorities don’t drive in that area. Sold! We’ll go by way of Medina. Dano could even sense the tension in their voices just speaking of that area . We were escorted to the edge of town where we thought we’d thank them and continue on. Nope. We were escorted for another hour whereupon we met up with another policeman. They were given the copies of our iqamas (which we still don’t know how they got), signed papers, and transferred duty of us. We continued on, enjoying our drive, sure the escort would only take us to Medina to make sure we didn’t enter Medina (only Muslims are allowed), and would let us on our way. Nope. We were transferred between assigned officers all the way across the desert, switching escorts ten times before reaching Jeddah! That was eight hours of driving with an escort. Fortunately one of them asked us if we wanted to stop to eat, motioning with his fingers to his mouth. “Yes, yes!” we nodded. That was the only stop we got. However, Dano didn’t mind the fact that these escorts were flying…reaching speeds across the desert of 100 mph…sometimes we travelled with the police lights on, sometimes just lights flashing, sometimes no lights at all. I still cannot figure how they so quickly organized all of that since our departure that very morning. We decided we didn’t envy anyone whose life is encircled by an entourage, who can’t travel unknown, who can have no personal, private agendas. That said, we were so grateful for all of our kind escorts who went to great extremes to ensure our safety. After several days of what to us was royal treatment, we were happy to arrive home (alone) at our compound and enter our villa unaware and sneak back into our simple life.