Part 1 - Landing

We arrived at King Khaled International Airport, Riyadh, with fluttering hearts. Unlike other places, where you get to see the city landscape as you land, Riyadh has little to offer. There is the unending desert stamped with gigantic circles. What are they? I was later told they are soils of freshly harvested crops. Circular crops? I still dont understand. Then there are the unending roads as well. They just disappear into the distance and seem to go on forever. But what a pleasant change from the usual.

Circles

Roads

Desert

As soon as the plane landed, I saw papa from the window. There he was in full Turbanator mode. The door opened and he popped inside. A quick hug later, he grabbed our bags and galloped in the opposide direction. Thats how it always happens. He is otherwise the laziest sloth on earth, but as soon as the turban is on his head, he zooms around like the roadrunner. As we sped after him, I turned my head in every direction to absorb all the scenes. There was not a woman in sight. Even in the plane, there was just one lady with her two little children. The men all swarmed like bees towards the Immigration counter and papa quickened his pace. We literally ran our way through it.

We lone women!

After the necessary formalities were done, we seated ourselves near the exit. It was a large area with those connected chairs to sit on. Papa had gone back inside to attend to the very plane that had brought us. It was then that I got the first taste of being in Saudi Arabia. A couple of men, all Indian, were also sitting besides us. After sometime, a Saudi airport security man came and started yelling his head off at them. He came closer, swinging his baton in the air. I was shit scared. Here we were, not even a couple of minutes in a foreign country, and already in trouble. To my relief, the Indian men got up and went away and the Saudi went away too and sat down at his desk. It was then that I noticed a small sign plastered over the seating area, "Women and Family only".

The waiting area. See the classic architecture.

Then I saw another sign, "No Smoking". Smoking is something that most religions look down upon. But there they were, the Saudis, puffing away to glory. Not one baton swung in that direction.

Coming up next -

The beauty of their Airport

(click on the pics to enlarge them)