Road Trip: Part 2
The road to Dubai from Doha is an interesting novelty for a first time traveler but is probably considered a hassle for the experienced veteran. Your first time through you laugh at the missing roads that are still on the map, comment on the Arab style border towns and truck stops. You want to take a picture with the border guard (that never happened but you think about it) maybe even ask to look at his assault rifle. You laugh at the inspections because even they seem like a new experience. Even the bureaucracy to get a visa makes a good story at least. I wonder if I will enjoy all the little nuances and delays the next time I go.
We’re still driving … aren’t we?
The week before the trip we ran into several obstacles that some might have interpreted as divine intervention pointing us to the airport and not the border. At the beginning of the week Kara and I got into an accident when somebody rear ended us. After enjoying a night in the hospital, some tests and back aches we were cleared to go on our trip. The next day “Big Red” Zach’s LandCruiser was giving him some fits and he had to take it into the shop. We did not know if it would be ready so we started looking for Air Arabia tickets on the web. The day of the trip we still didn’t know if we had a ride and subtle hints were being dropped by all of our co-workers. The way I saw it was if God didn’t want me crossing the border then he was going to make it impossible. He had my attention and I was listening and I just told him that I have a hard head so please make it clear.
At 2:00 the truck was ready to go and we were on our way. We bought some last minute road trip munchies, loaded up “Big Red”, fired up the GPS and did a lot of praying.
But it’s on the map
Within the hour we got to the border which we found to be somewhat unimpressive. It was a couple of plastic barricades and a single soldier with a cammo t-shirt and no visible insignia of what country he belonged to. He was enjoying some tea on a rug in the middle of the road. Interesting. Our conversation went something like this. I put additional explanations in parenthesis because words are only part of the language here.
Us: “As-salaam alaykum” (General greeting meaning peace be with you)
Him: “Wa alaykum as-salaam” (the reply)
Us: “Ma Baraf Arabi” (Literally: I don’t understand Arabic. Translated: As you probably have guessed I have yet to learn the language of your country. Pease compensate for my ignorance/arrogance and speak in my native language which I’m going to assume you know is English. It’s more in the inflection then the words.)
Him: “Where you going”
Us: “Dubai”
Him: “The road has been torn up for 20 years now” (You’re not getting through here)
Us: “But it’s on the map” (You are obviously hiding something and have the power to make the road passable if you want to”
Him: “I know but it’s impassible, you need to go to Salwa” (1. Are you kidding me 2. Of the three of us it is my job to know if this road is passable or not, guess what it’s not 3. Go away)
Us: “You’re serious”
Him: “Yes, people come here all the time and I have to tell them to turn around” (There are a lot of dumb westerners who can’t find their way out of this county.”
Us: “Shokran” (Thank you)
Him: “Goodbye”
Actually the guy was really nice and laughed a lot. I guess when you are stuck out in the middle of a wasteland and your only conversation entails have to tell people they went the wrong way you get a sense of humor about things. So we sent a text message to the girls that we would be a little later then we thought did a U turn and headed to Salwa.
The real border
After another hour of driving we got to the passable border crossing. Our first impression was “Wow this looks big.” Do we go into that line or that one? We ended up going into the right line and learned a new Arabic word. We now know that “mar - key – ah” means that they want to see your license and registration. Going through the border was pretty easy, they just checked our paper work stamped our passport and told us “Good Luck”. Huh, good luck thanks guys … I think.
So Zach and I were excited we had conquered the border without any problem at all. The only problem was we never saw what looked like a Saudi Uniform and we didn’t get an entry stamp for SA just an exit stamp from Qatar. But hey at least we didn’t have to get inspected, the road was nice and the border crossing looked relatively well taken care of woo hoo.
About a mile down the road we realized we were in a no man’s land between the two borders. We hadn’t entered SA we had just left Qatar. Soon enough we saw a building that looked a little more, how would I put it, utilitarian. We got past the first guards who checked our papers next we were pulled over for a full search. They took out most of the things in our vehicle and checked my computer. They did a search for all images and movies. The only thing that caught their attention was a movie I had where two trucks were crashing in the sand dunes. They liked it so they played it a couple of times, laughed and let us through. The only thing I was worried about was some campaign mail from the states that was forwarded to me in Qatar. I had stuffed it in my laptop bag on my way out that day. It had pictures of George Bush and Military personal. Judging by our limited conversation I’m assuming that my new friends wouldn’t be able to read the wording on these flyers so their judgment of them and then me would probably come from those images. So you like this war huh? He didn’t say anything and let us go on our way. After buying a 7 day car insurance policy for SA we were on the road.
This was really SA. Since it was dark by now we really couldn’t see any of the landscape but the torn up roads and 30 years old huge Mercedes semi trucks gave us the feeling that we were not in Qatar anymore. The only interesting thing was the lines on the roads were yellow on the side and white in the middle.
After less then an hour we were at the border again and going through the process in reverse. Getting out of Saudi was easier then getting in and the next stop was UAE. There was the same no man’s land between the two countries and we had to go through another inspection. Seriously though, what could we possibly bring out of SA that wouldn’t be allowed in UAE. UAE is one of the most westernized countries in the Arab world while SA is well SA. I did think of something funny though. Now any border I cross I can always say “Hey, at least it’s not Saudi Arabia.”
The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful. I made a friend at the country fried chicken place who was from Egypt. He seemed to take it as a real compliment when I told him that we have places just like this in Texas. We are all not so different after all.
We’re still driving … aren’t we?
The week before the trip we ran into several obstacles that some might have interpreted as divine intervention pointing us to the airport and not the border. At the beginning of the week Kara and I got into an accident when somebody rear ended us. After enjoying a night in the hospital, some tests and back aches we were cleared to go on our trip. The next day “Big Red” Zach’s LandCruiser was giving him some fits and he had to take it into the shop. We did not know if it would be ready so we started looking for Air Arabia tickets on the web. The day of the trip we still didn’t know if we had a ride and subtle hints were being dropped by all of our co-workers. The way I saw it was if God didn’t want me crossing the border then he was going to make it impossible. He had my attention and I was listening and I just told him that I have a hard head so please make it clear.
At 2:00 the truck was ready to go and we were on our way. We bought some last minute road trip munchies, loaded up “Big Red”, fired up the GPS and did a lot of praying.
But it’s on the map
Within the hour we got to the border which we found to be somewhat unimpressive. It was a couple of plastic barricades and a single soldier with a cammo t-shirt and no visible insignia of what country he belonged to. He was enjoying some tea on a rug in the middle of the road. Interesting. Our conversation went something like this. I put additional explanations in parenthesis because words are only part of the language here.
Us: “As-salaam alaykum” (General greeting meaning peace be with you)
Him: “Wa alaykum as-salaam” (the reply)
Us: “Ma Baraf Arabi” (Literally: I don’t understand Arabic. Translated: As you probably have guessed I have yet to learn the language of your country. Pease compensate for my ignorance/arrogance and speak in my native language which I’m going to assume you know is English. It’s more in the inflection then the words.)
Him: “Where you going”
Us: “Dubai”
Him: “The road has been torn up for 20 years now” (You’re not getting through here)
Us: “But it’s on the map” (You are obviously hiding something and have the power to make the road passable if you want to”
Him: “I know but it’s impassible, you need to go to Salwa” (1. Are you kidding me 2. Of the three of us it is my job to know if this road is passable or not, guess what it’s not 3. Go away)
Us: “You’re serious”
Him: “Yes, people come here all the time and I have to tell them to turn around” (There are a lot of dumb westerners who can’t find their way out of this county.”
Us: “Shokran” (Thank you)
Him: “Goodbye”
Actually the guy was really nice and laughed a lot. I guess when you are stuck out in the middle of a wasteland and your only conversation entails have to tell people they went the wrong way you get a sense of humor about things. So we sent a text message to the girls that we would be a little later then we thought did a U turn and headed to Salwa.
The real border
After another hour of driving we got to the passable border crossing. Our first impression was “Wow this looks big.” Do we go into that line or that one? We ended up going into the right line and learned a new Arabic word. We now know that “mar - key – ah” means that they want to see your license and registration. Going through the border was pretty easy, they just checked our paper work stamped our passport and told us “Good Luck”. Huh, good luck thanks guys … I think.
So Zach and I were excited we had conquered the border without any problem at all. The only problem was we never saw what looked like a Saudi Uniform and we didn’t get an entry stamp for SA just an exit stamp from Qatar. But hey at least we didn’t have to get inspected, the road was nice and the border crossing looked relatively well taken care of woo hoo.
About a mile down the road we realized we were in a no man’s land between the two borders. We hadn’t entered SA we had just left Qatar. Soon enough we saw a building that looked a little more, how would I put it, utilitarian. We got past the first guards who checked our papers next we were pulled over for a full search. They took out most of the things in our vehicle and checked my computer. They did a search for all images and movies. The only thing that caught their attention was a movie I had where two trucks were crashing in the sand dunes. They liked it so they played it a couple of times, laughed and let us through. The only thing I was worried about was some campaign mail from the states that was forwarded to me in Qatar. I had stuffed it in my laptop bag on my way out that day. It had pictures of George Bush and Military personal. Judging by our limited conversation I’m assuming that my new friends wouldn’t be able to read the wording on these flyers so their judgment of them and then me would probably come from those images. So you like this war huh? He didn’t say anything and let us go on our way. After buying a 7 day car insurance policy for SA we were on the road.
This was really SA. Since it was dark by now we really couldn’t see any of the landscape but the torn up roads and 30 years old huge Mercedes semi trucks gave us the feeling that we were not in Qatar anymore. The only interesting thing was the lines on the roads were yellow on the side and white in the middle.
After less then an hour we were at the border again and going through the process in reverse. Getting out of Saudi was easier then getting in and the next stop was UAE. There was the same no man’s land between the two countries and we had to go through another inspection. Seriously though, what could we possibly bring out of SA that wouldn’t be allowed in UAE. UAE is one of the most westernized countries in the Arab world while SA is well SA. I did think of something funny though. Now any border I cross I can always say “Hey, at least it’s not Saudi Arabia.”
The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful. I made a friend at the country fried chicken place who was from Egypt. He seemed to take it as a real compliment when I told him that we have places just like this in Texas. We are all not so different after all.
posted by Russell at
5:50 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home