Not so scared white guy

Monday, 23 April 2007

Well that's it. I'm calling it a day with this site.

My lack of free and easy access to the net has caused this inevitable downfall. Thanks to all for the messages and the laughs.

Cheers..

bn

Wednesday, 28 February 2007

Location: Khobar, Saudi Arabia

Wow so much to write about and so little time to do so. First trip to Bahrain, party at the US consulate, compound life etc etc. But it's all going to have to wait. Currently I'm working 7 days a week.

I've got 50-60 new pictures to upload but work has now clamped down on foreign media (CD, USB drives) being used on the company network. So I enquired about internet at the compound. A$1800 odd for a year's net! They can have it. Guess the photos will have to wait along with the plans of writing more about these crazy adventures taking place over here.

Monday, 12 February 2007

Location: Saudi Arabia

Ok I know many of you received this one already but it was once again burning a hole in my inbox and therefore needs to be shown.

I was forwarded this email from a guy at work.... I now sit back resigned to the fact that Saudi is changing, but do scratch my chin as to whether that change is for the better or not!?!?

Majlis shoura has advised the Court of Majlis of Ministers regarding women driving in Saudi Arabia.

Rules and regulations regarding women driving vehicles.

1– atleast 30 years of age.

2- permission from her guardian (husband or father or brother………)

3- have driving license from women driving school.

4- should be modest in clothing and not have makeup on while driving.

5- should be driving inside the city if alone. For outside the city driving must have a guardian with her.

6- must be within the hours 7AM to 8PM from Saturday to Wednesday. On Thursday and Friday from 2PM till 8PM.

7- must have a cell phone with her in case of emergency.

8- In case of car break down or accident, she should call Women Police Service to take her call.

9- will pay a certain amount of money (credit on her driving license) which will be used by Women Police for her Tire Puncture Repair or other maintenance.

Responsible Areas.

1- creation of Women Police who will be specialized in multiple fields like driving, taking calls with companies to repair cars, rent cars, and also issue traffic violation tickets.

2- Creation of free women police center for emergency call.

3- Opening Islamic propagation center in the Women Police department inside the cities.

4- Renewal of driving license every year.

Violations

(in general)

1- for those drivers who chase women drivers, if caught or proved, will be jailed for minimum 8 months with fine.

2- For those drivers who try to stop women drivers by any ways like making their way narrow will be jailed for 1 day with fine.

3- If any driver hurt the women drivers will be jailed for 1 month with fine.

(for women)

1- Those women drivers who do not follow Islamic Behavior their license will be suspended for minimum 6 months with 500-1000 riyals fine.

2- Their guardian will be notified in written by the Heaia Amr Bil Maaroof…

Thursday, 01 February 2007

Location: Tulip Inn, Saudi Arabia

Happy freaking b'day

Really was a pretty shit day only briefly made better by receiving my first pay. I adjourned back to my hotel after work just to find some old fashion Arabian hoe down going on in the room next to mine. By 12.20am I’d had enough of the shit house karaoke and music from the great voice whirling artist DJ Al-Ghazi Al-Gosaibi and his funky bunch not to mention the dancing and hours of constant screaming. The air-conditioning vent in my bedroom near fell out due to vibration from the bass bin, which must have been mounted on the opposite side of my bedroom wall. Here’s me all the while laying in the lounge room sporadically banging my fist on the wall also trying to combat the noise with my TV turned up to max. It was all to no avail. I couldn’t hear my TV. This was seen to be the final straw. I’d put up with this shit for far too long. So I had to do the only thing left to do, phone reception.
I near caused the start of the next West vs East international ruckus. All viewed through the peephole in my door. The bellman knocked on the offending apartment’s door for 4 or so minutes before someone finally heard the banging and answered. After a little time there were three guys and the bellman all pointing at my door yelling and screaming it was obvious that the bellman had said I’d requested the action as I could hear him saying that I’d been living here for a month.
Two of the three guys stormed back into their party refusing to down the music while the third was still pleading with the bellman. I heard the bellman threaten this last guy with not sign something, I couldn’t understand what. So the bellman departs leaving the dude outside his room. Funny the dude must not have had his key on him as he also had to knock on the door for 4 or so minutes before giving up and finding it much more efficient to just ring one of the party goes inside.
The music was finally turned down to an extent where the AC vent in the ceiling stopped vibrating but it was still unbearable. I end up having to shift bedrooms to one at the opposite end of the hotel suite. So today I’ve locked myself inside the hotel room to avoid any confrontations in the foyer.
So that was my exciting b’day locked up inside Saudi Arabia.

Sunday, 21 January 2007

Well it was only a matter of time I guess. Driving in this city is a death wish at the best of times. I’m assuming it’s not a question of have you had an accident it’s one of how many seconds ago was your last. I got my first car crash out the way last night. Driving home from work I broke for a cat strolling across the road. Next thing I know I got a taxi ramming into my ass. If your in an accident over here and there’s damage to the car you have to call the police so they can issue you a certificate you'll need to get the car repairer. No certificate no repair. Here’s me asking the Taxi driver to call the police but he seems pretty adamant to do so. His got 4 passengers in his car. What a pain in the ass and to top it all off he could speak a whole of two words of English. Other taxi drivers start pulling up. Peak hour traffic. All for a freaking cat. I end up having to ring one of the Saudi H.R managers so he could speak with this taxi driver. All the while old mate (taxi drivers, taxi mate) is trying to get me to agreed to taking the car down to his workshop so he could sort it all out. I’ve got two poor photos of the scene in the photos section. This story goes on and on so I’ll point form the rest.
• Phone calls back and forth between my HR manager the taxi driver the police and the taxi driver’s taxi mate.
• HR manager sends out a possy of WorleyPetrocon Government Affairs guys to meet me.
• They role up, police also role up, all this shit goes down. I got no idea what’s doing
• I’ve only got an Australian Licence, which seems to be an issue.
• We all have to go down to the station (local circus / mad house).
• 7 people not including myself get into this crazy shit fight over what happened. There’s hands and pieces of paper flying round everwhere.
• The police guy starts yelling just after he was in fits of laugher. All the while I’m standing round looking like a right tit.
• Approximatly 15 phone calls between the Government Affairs possy and god only knows who.
• Three or four office storm-outs by each party involved (police, Worley possy, the Taxi driver and his mate)

Holy Shit.

After we were let go with the repair authority in hand I asked one of the possy what the hell was going down back there. All he said was the police were inquiring to how the accident happened. In which the taxi driver spoke of the cat. That’s what all the bastards were laughing at to start with i think. It may have just been quicker and easier to rid the streets of a shabby ass cat. I'll know next time.

All the nights crazy affairs were all sorted out by what must be one of the greatest eating experiences I’ve had over here more photos attached all of $10.

Saturday, 20 January 2007

Location: Tulip Inn Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia

Monsoon Hotel.

I’m still living at the hotel, which after 4 weeks is starting to drive me insane. Only the day before all hell broke lose I’d emailed the guy at work to request he expedite my relocation into a compound, only to receive an out of office reply as his gone on a convenient 2 week holiday.
Don’t get me wrong it’s quite a fine hotel just my room has no cooking facilities not even a god dam kettle. So it’s slowly doing me in, both in the health and financial departments.
So I downed my head for the night, just to be woken round 3am to the sound of extremely heavy rain. I guess I found this very relaxing till I come to my senses a little more. ‘Monsoon style rains in Saudi, ha, I don’t believe it’,’ hold up it doesn’t rain like this over here’ within seconds I’d turned on the light and jumped out of bed to find my bathroom and ¼ of my bedroom flooded with water (hot water) gushing from the ceiling. HOLYSHIT. Action stations, let me just thank that bird shit I wasn’t electrocuted in my attempts to turn the water off.
Next come the long dealings with the hotel staff in the early hours of the morning in which I was trying to make them understand I needed a functional bathroom so I could get ready for work, I finally got another room key. After more back and forth about why I was going back to the flood zone to sleep and that I would not be moving rooms at that hour of the morning I was left in peace to go and gather any remainding sleep I could.
So I said goodbye to my old room in the morning and shuffled off to my new one. They’d upgrade my ass into one of the ‘Tulip Suites’ this thing is bigger then most houses in Australia. 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, large lounge, kitchen, balcony etc. I mean it’s that large there’s more rooms than I got shit to spread round.
So I really think this bird shit thing is working out for me. What next?

Wednesday, 10 January 2007

Location: Down town Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia

Part II. A Poo in the hair is worth two in the bush. My NCL Worley mate Steve and his wife Jo took me down to the local souk (shopping markets) to have a look round the other night. Little did I know that I’d end up on the wrong side of what I believe to be an ill temped mutated pelican shit. You can view the pic of this one in the photos section. While walking along I thought some bastard had thrown some sort of nut at my head. Only due to a small piece of shat that ricochet down onto my hand did I become suspicious that I had remnants left on my upper body, hence the reason for the photo. The best part of this after the initial cleanup we carried on walking down the street when I had this bad feeling that I may still have been covered in poo I asked Jo to check the top of my ear, her reaction said it all. I had a nice little buildup still sitting on top of my ear. I’m led to believe that getting shat on (by a bird) is lucky. Well from the size and texture of this one I got nothing to worry about in my life ever again.

Sunday, 07 January 2007

Location: Khobar, Saudi Arabia

Well it come down to this for my first entry sorry for those of you eating right now but the story must go on. The food over here seemed to be going ok up untill yesertday when at work I suffered from a bone wrenching stomach ache, Ohh good lord. Thank god himself I was able to hold it till I got back to the hotel to unleash the beast within. This must have been the most powerfully explosive session of diarrhoea ( Noun: Diarrhoea, 1. Frequent and watery bowel movements; can be a symptom of infection or food poisoning or colitis or a gastrointestinal tumour) I've ever had. Holyshit! It's nearly 24hours after the fact now and shit my stomach is still feeling it. More poo stories to come.....