The Saudi Diary: The city

The city: Coming from the place (me, Mumbai-ite) where things don’t expand horizontally (well, except maybe one’s waistline), the bird’s eye view, quite literally, of Jeddah was a refreshing change. Things here seemed to be a little, shall I say, stretched. The drive from the airport to the hotel (Hotel Casablanca, no less) assured us that in this largest industrial port city of the kingdom, land was not a scarcity. The other assurance was that all of the humankind has had a common ancestor. Be it Bombay or Jeddah, driving habits are uncannily similar. Although the drivers here have the choice of giving you a mortal scare at 130-140kmph while Mumbai drivers, the unfortunate ones, do that at meager speed of 30-40kmph.