At ten to 2 I went back down expecting to meet the guy I met last night in the lobby but I saw nobody. I sat down and proceeded to take out the ipad but no sooner had I done that Bandoy came in to get me - turned out they were already in the car along with another man. This man and I chatted on the way to the Al Hoty office about 10 minutes away about what each of us were doing (turns out he's an operator trainer too but based somewhere else) and he's from Romania having just come back from Nigeria.
At the Al Hoty offices we all handed over our passports and I told them I didn't have any passport photos. They said it wouldn't be a problem and they could sort it. I filled out a form for them to reimburse me for the expenses of the medical on Harley Street which they said I would receive in my first months pay. As we sat round I started talking more to the guy who I'd met the night before. His name is John and he's a Welder trainer. He'd been working as a contractor but had decided to give this a go for the money. Turns out he's only about 10 months older than me (yes I know I must be forgetting how old I am) and is from Swansea. To be honest every time he speaks all I can think about is Gavin and Stacey. We we taken to a local clinic about 10 minutes away for our medicals, joined by an Indian engineer also. The car was obviously full despite being another Toyota Land Cruiser and being the smallest I got the middle seat in the back. I wasn't particularly comfortable about the fact that I had no seatbelt and a direct flight path through to the windscreen in the event of an accident (something I thought quite almost inevitable by now!) but the crazy thing was the only one who was wearing one was the driver! Sometimes you wonder...
When we got there I was taken by our driver to a photo studio around the corner for some passport photos. Unfortunately though at the office I was the last to receive my $2000SAR and consequently got given it in $500 bills (asking John who had all his in $100 bills if he'd change one for me didn't work either because he'd already been to the mall and knew how difficult they were to change) so when it came to pay the $15SAR (roughly £2) for the 8 photos the poor guy behind the counter ended up leaving to go find it from another shop. At this point my driver/escort decided to leave me to it and head back to the clinic to continue processing the medical forms for us all and told me to meet them back there once the guy had come back with my change. Sounds trivial enough but this was actually the first time I'd been left alone outside the hotel and now I had about a 200 yard walk back to the clinic. No doubt had the driver had any cause for concern he wouldn't have left me but that walk among all the Saudi, Indian and Philipino men and women pretty much all staring from every direction was no stroll in the park. I'm sure that there was no need to be concerned at all but it just felt that way.
Anyway, I got back to the clinic and was handed a folder with my blank record in and three numbers on the front. The first was the number of the X-ray room I was to go to, the next the lab and the final one the Doctors office. I won't go into too much detail about it all except to say that providing the stool sample, whilst not being the pleasant at the best of times, was particulalry hoorrid given the facility of what I can literally say was a hole in the ground in a room and nothing to support yourself on (after trying to hold onto the sink I soon found out someone had already tried this and pulled it off the wall). The rest was rather straight forward and just as everything so far, required us all to wait with endless patience.
By the time we were don'e it was about 6pm ish and we had to wait for our driver to come and get us. Only at this point did we find out that between the four of us nobody had his number. We rang Bandoy to ring Rick (the driver)) to come and get us and decided to kill a bit of time by having a cup of tea from across the road. Through a hole in a window not unlike a kebab house you might find at two in the morning in a city a man tended to a continuous arrival of customers for cups of tea. At $1 each (16p) it was pretty cheap although it would only have been about 75ml. Obviously I hadn't expected PG tips or Tetleys but what we got was unlike anything I might have guessed at. It was basically condensed milk tea. He was opening the cans and topping up his brew as he was dishing them out. The sweetness just overpowered any taste of tea ansd at first I wasn't enjoying it. Only after a minute or two to let the intensity of the sweetness be overcome did it become better and by the end it wasn't too bad.
Another 20 minutes or so of conversation between the four of us about cars, work, histories etc passed by before eventually Rick turned up. This was pretty much rush hour now and in some parts almost gridlock. I'm not sure whether to amire Rick or shame my head in discust but his ability to navigate it without any regard for traffic laws did the trick. At least now I know for certain I won't be driving myself around Dammam - no matter what!
As we arrived back at the hotel to be dropped off the three of us agreed to dump our bags and head across the street for some food in the mall.
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