Cabs in KSA

In Saudi Arabia, you get cab drivers coming from all nationalities, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, etc. Most of them do not speak English.. Unless we are well arm in Arabic, we will find little conversation between us and them.

There are some really mean cab drivers who refused to use the meters and even threaten to U-Turn back to a further place if we do not want to pay him the fees he wants. In the end, we pay him what he demanded and oh well, everything ends well.

And also there was one cab driver with really serious Parkinson disease, we caught him in the middle of having his lunch, but he still agreed to send us to our destination. When he drives, his hand were shaking so much. I don't know how long he can hold on to the steering and also the gear lever. His response is much slower, during acceleration. Hopefully during braking, his response is pretty fast. Or else I won't be here anymore. Probably the cab driver should retire or something, pretty dangerous to drive with this kind of illness.

During one of my previous trip, there was one cab driver, while driving me to the airport, he just stopped by the roadside, and points towards his pelvic area and mumbling something in Arabic. My Arabic level is not up to that level yet, so he just gave up and walk to somewhere further on an open land and treat that as his personal toilet, with just a piece of paper in front of him. After like 20 minutes, he came back and told me that he is unfit to drive me to the airport anymore. I thought I'm going to miss the flight for sure. But hopefully, there's another cab passing by and I managed to catch the flight, even though he stopped me at the wrong terminal and I have to walk all the way from one terminal to another. Phew, what a walk that was, with less than 30 minutes to close of check-in counter.

Seems like I still have plenty of trips to KSA.. Possibly more adventure awaits.

Travelling.. is a very tiring thing

Contrary to what most people think, it is a very tiring thing to travel every now and then. Just one week ago I came back from Iraq, and tomorrow I’ll be leaving to Saudi Arabic (KSA) again for business trip.

Adapting to the time difference, adapting to the cultural difference, adapting to the food and adjusting my appetite, adapting to the weather difference, and adapting to the working life there.

After doing all that, then it’s time to return to M’sia again, and we will need to adapt ourselves all over again. But coming back here seems to be an easier process compare to going there.

Sigh.