Old Jeddah

Thursday morning we headed for the souks in old Jeddah. The old part of Jeddah is distinctive for its old housing with shuttered wooden windows. The shutters allowed for ventilation and for privacy for the women. We broke up into groups and I went with the group to the gold souks. Unfortunately, gold is very expensive and I didn’t find anything that I liked enough to buy. I did find some silver that is very nice. Then we headed for the other souks- When you find something – you ask the price – when they give it, you bargain. Of course, for us, the bargaining is harder. We don’t know Arabic and we don’t do well with the bargaining game. We divided up our group into smaller groups with one of our Aramco guides. They would then bargain for us. We were quite conspicuous. There certainly are no other tourists. We had divided up the items that several of us wanted (spices, abayas, lanterns, etc) and one group shopped for some of those those things. I shopped for spices and that was fun – but challenging.(picture of mryrh on right) When we finished, we were truly beasts of burden. It was boiling hot – and I found out what a joy it is to carry it all through the market with your abaya and head scarf. We stopped in the Nasief House – an old home that is being remodeled. It historically belonged to a large mercantile family – and thus had a very significant place in the shopping district. When the first king of Saudi Arabia conquered the city (1925?) he claimed the house until a suitable home could be built. It has ramps that allow camels to go to the top floor to deliver messengers.

After this time, we went to a beautiful waterfront restaurant for lunch. These lunches last a few hours. There is usually a host who gives a speech. They are important folks. Yesterday was a man whose family owns one of the big shipping yards in SA. He is also on the Board of the Chamber of Commerce and loves Jeddah. (He says anyone who stays in Jeddah more than two days is Jeddahwe. We talked about the millions of people who come annually for the Haj(pilgrimage) and the problems with people who do not leave whcn the Haj ends. They basically become the “illegals” of Saudi Arabia. It is hard to imagine 3 million people arriving for the Haj – They camp in big fields.

After the luncheon we went back to our hotel briefly. A friend and I divided up all the spices for those who we had bought them for. When that was over, my room smelled like myrrh and frankincense as well as cardamom.

Then we left for an evening at the Fal Resort. This is a large private resort about 600 rooms. Once inside the compound, abayas can be ditched. Many Saudi women still wear their abayas. But little children run around and families have fun. First we went to the marina and watched the sun set. Then our Aramco host took us to the gym – where men and women can exercise, play racquetball, pool, get a massage, steam room, sauna, etc.
Then we walked back to the marina which had been transformed by couches, Persian rugs, and a wonderful folk music group performing traditional music for us. (I was pleased because I thought it odd that no one had performed music for us yet. We danced one dance-(which I think surprised the Saudi men) and then only the men could dance the rest of the evening. Women had henna tattoos put on our arms and legs. Then we had another magical dinner at poolside. To the right you can see the picture of our midwest group. Nick (North Dakota), Dwayne (Minnesota), Solomon (Minnesota) and I have been in email contact since we found out we were selected. You can see that they got to party a bit more than we women. We left after 11 p.m. and arrived home at 12. Then all of the people came to my room to get their spices. At 1 a.m. I gave up and went to bed – without completing my blog.