The Kingdom !

Its Riyadh

Traveling across the length and breadth of this city makes me wonder what mankind is capable of. This was supposed to be a desert, and look at it now. Well with places like Dubai and LA, this stands as a very small example though.

The issues here are complicated as a barbwire, the locals have preserved (If at all its worthy) a culture, that gives you a feeler of what could have been the thought process man kind in stone age. This is a sex driven society. At any grocery store you can walk in and pick any edible, right from coffee to oil, all have some herbs in them to enhance a man’s sexual desire.

No. of Wives are a demonstration of how filthy rich you are. An average Saudi spends around 100K SAR (USD 30K) to get married (A kind of dowry that is given to the bride), and can have a maximum of 4 wives at a given time (Yup, it’s a govt regulation as per the Religion, you got documents, god has no problems) so when the eldest of all wives gets older, he divorces her and gets a new one by spending some more, all in all resulting in 500 divorces a week (This number is only from Court of Justice in Riyadh).

Net result, most of the oldies (A Saudi is called oldie after 60) here are married to 18 yr old girls from Syria (They come cheaper SAR 70K) or Jordon or Sudanese or some even are Filipino. This perhaps also this explains the reasons for those herbs in edible stuff @ grocery store.

PS: Prostitution is a crime here; you are not even allowed to talk. Ironical?
Ok, so you what was said was ironical, how about this. The Govt here permits the local to engage in what is known as a Holiday marriage, in case a Saudi decides to go on a vacation to relieve himself from his herbal hard-ons and wants a ‘Fresh’ (Term used by one of the local) bride, he can marry a girl by paying some money (30K SAR?) and take her along for the vacation. This contract marriage ends with the end of the vacation which is usually 20 or may be 30 Days.

Now that’s nothing less to prostitution, I mean a contract for couple of hours or couple of months, still makes it prostitution.

Alcohol is strictly prohibited in the entire Kingdom, even talking of an alcoholic beverage is considered offensive (Yup I had my moments). Well local law does not allow you to posses any kind of commodity which may have alcohol in it, meaning cough syrup, or even perfumes here should be alcohol free.

PS: All brands of whiskey/ Scotch and other beverages are available in Compound Accommodations.

Now watz that? Ok, with increasing number of expats, its difficult to maintain this rule. So god here permits to sin in closed circle accommodations which are guarded by armed security personnel. Inside these so called compound accommodations, you would see bikny clad women by the pool having some gossip over a beer while few drunk white boys are gazing at them. Makes you feel you are in some part of Amsterdam (if you know what I mean).

Ironical again? Rather lets be honest and say Hypocritical.

So these are few twists and curls of the Barbwire in Dogs own country. Some more to come in my next post.