Stuck in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Afternoon all,

I guess it had to happen sooner or later, I missed a flight. I flew from Heathrow to Jeddah on tuesday with BMI. That was an ace flight. There were only 25 people on board a 300 seater plane. So I had a row of 4 seats to myself and finally got some sleep on a flight...

On wednesday, today, I was supossed to fly from Jeddah to Arar in the north of Saudi near the Iraq border. Unfortunately the traffic to the airport was diabolical due to a car crash so I got to the airport 15 minutes before the flight. As the flight was already closed they could not get me on. So when I got to the Saudia Airlines ticket desk to change my flight to a later one today I was rather suprised to hear that there were no other flights to either Arar or Turaif till friday.... Wonderful... not!

I tried getting a bus to the north but that would have taken me till friday morning to get there so that was not an option either. (Its about 1500 km from here...) So in the end I admitted defeat and went back to Jeddah. I informed the office that I would not be arriving at the agreed time in Arar and they got hold of the customer for me. The chinese customer called me a bit later and sorted out my pick up for the friday.

So now I have another full day doing nothing in a dry country... No booze here... At least I am in a decent hotel with loadsa restaurants so not all is bad... www.moevenpick-jeddah.com .

More later,

Alex.