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After
24 hours in Arabian sand, Jeddah feels refreshing. I am in the middle
of a six-month land trip with my boyfriend through the Middle East. We've
been warned that Saudi Arabia won't be a sightseeing stop, that the uniform
might put me out, but it only makes us more curious about the kingdom.
Besides, heading from Jordan to Yemen, we have no choice but to cross
it.
We spent a night in the Wadi Rum dunes, followed by a 16-hour desert border
passage. The sun beat down and the heat thumped through the windows into
the thick black silk of my abaya. There was little sign of life apart
from the odd man by a petrol hub. No shade or water for miles around.
To arrive, then, at a Balinese-style house built around indoor ponds and
full of Evian-stocked fridges is a dream. The house overlooks a bay criss-crossed
by women in bikinis riding jet skis: away from the public gaze, women
are free to behave in Saudi Arabia as they would anywhere. Across the
water are several residence complexes constructed in white concrete. We
might be in St.Tropez.
I am invited to a ladies' lunch. It all sounds terribly civilised. I shower
and pick an outfit, then remember I'll have to cover up. I slip the long-sleeved,
ankle-length abaya over my summer dress and pull a black lycra snood over
my head until my face shows through. Over this I wind a loose black veil,
securing it with a diamante hairpin. At the restaurant, a dark, air-conditioned,
fusion-food sort of place, I can 't see my hostess. She is the mother
of a male friend who is lunching with my boyfriend. So far, I have seen
her only in private, and therefore abaya-free. If it had not been for
her glasses, I might never have spotted her in her deep purple veil, seated
with two other ladies. One of them moved here from London a year ago when
she married a Saudi Arabian. The other friend is a photographer, a bold
choice of career in a land which all but bans her art form.
Inspired, I dig my own camera out of my suitcase for a visit to Old Jeddah.
It is spectacular - a far cry from the modern installations and sprawling
neon malls that line the highways of the modern town. Many of the houses
seem to glow as the sunset lights up their green lacquered walls. We have
tea on a rooftop overlooking old mosques and houses with carved over-hanging
balconies. I avoid photographing people but the buildings are hard to
resist.
We meet up with a university friend who is now a psychotherapist. She
is trying to set up her own practice here, one of the strictest countries
in the Islamic world. We agree that therapy is unlikely to complement
the Koran, but she is keen to introduce it anyway. 'The clients who do
come to see me will probably come in secret, especially the women.' When
I ask her about the laws concerning veils and the driving ban for women,
she says that attitudes are becoming more relaxed, yet many women would
rather stick to what they find familiar.
I witness this myself. Assuming underwater life in the Red Sea will be
as wonderful here as it is in Sharm el Sheikh, we arrange a scuba-diving
expedition. The female diving instructor and I go to the bathroom to put
on our wetsuits. Since the swing doors don't shut I can see her snood
is still in place when half her wetsuit is on. She also wears a little
black skirt, like a petticoat, over her thighs. I assume she knows she
can be seen and is preserving her modesty while changing. When I am ready
I go outside to find my tank. Moments later, tank on back, I nearly keel
over. The instructor has kept on her snood and petticoat over her wetsuit
and tank. She is going to dive like that.
She takes us to a jetty by a patch of bulldozed reef: 'A minister is building
a new beach home.' Beneath the surface of the water, the visibility is
poor and the fish nowhere near, but the instructor, with all her gills
and fins, is discovery enough for one dive.
We have a taste of real Red Sea fish the night before leaving for Yemen.
We meet friends at a popular roadside restaurant, a car park with private
concrete cabins. Inside one, cross-legged on the floor, girls and boys
together, we feast with our hands. Najil, a Saudi grouper, is the last
surprise of the kingdom: it is the best fish I have ever eaten.
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