Friday, December 1, 2017

From ‘Meeting the Middle East. Travels in Arabia’ by Jason Smar




Doha had one of the best skylines in the world.

Aside from its roads, Qatar is one of the safest countries in the world for Westerners to go about their business. …but its not to say the Qatari criminal justice system isn’t busy….the prisons are full to bursting, mainly with inmates from India, Nepal, the Philippines and Pakistan, incarcerated for petty crimes that wouldn’t even warrant a caution in most other countries…

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world to ban women from driving. Saudi law also forb its women from getting inside a car unless they are with their husband or a close male relative. …..Saudi women are not normally allowed to travel on public transport either. If they are permitted, perhaps in a medical emergency, they have to sit in a special rear compartment so as not to offend the male passengers.

….the cheery young Pakistani taxi driver…..Omar….. “Mostly. Western passengers and Filipinos are very respectful. Not Arabs though. Very rude people.”

….Dubai….the least Arabian of all the major Gulf cities, yet the one easiest to enjoy.

Beirut….was a city of contrasts….there were the bullet-ridden buildings and crumbling backstreets, areas that looked war-torn and ragged, and then there was the sparkling affluence of the cornice. I could not recall a city where the contrast was so stark….

“Lebanon has some of the best-preserved fossils on Earth,” the young woman told us…..

Like their counterparts in Beirut, the local women of Istanbul favoured T-shirts, jeans and uncovered hair instead of hijabs and abayas.

Jordan….Amman…… the street got busier and the traffic did too. The beeping was almost on a par with India…..

……Jerusalem… I’d never seen so many soldiers hanging around a city, except for perhaps in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan’s capital…..

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