Things have been a little worrying over here, but nothing too serious. I still maintain that I'm more likely to be killed by criminals in South Africa than by terrorists in Saudi Arabia . I am being careful though and keeping a relatively low profile.

The main fighting in Khobar was at Oasis compound, which is quite close to my gym and in the same building where I sometimes have breakfast. They also arrested an Imam for sheltering the terrorists in a mosque right next to the MacDonalds that I sometimes go to.

That brought the whole thing very close to home, but things seem to have settled down now. The city looks like one huge armed camp though and you can't go down virtually any street without seeing army patrols. Having said that you can understand why it's so easy for the terrorists to move around. They have a great big check-point on the way to work, but it is always in exactly the same place, visible from about 500m away, and is immediately AFTER a place where you can turn left without being checked, so anybody not wanting to encounter the police has an easy escape route. The mind boggles.

I also recently went on a 600km trip to Uqayr and Hofuf and didn't go through a single check-point. The number of illegal weapons in this place is also rather scary. At least two of my own students freely admit that they have AK-47s, and the rest of the class all kind of nodded in assent that this is common. (Another spine-chilling revelation by one of my students was that his uncle used to own slaves - hard to imagine that slavery was still legal in parts of the world as late as the 1970's).

There is, however, one small glimmer of hope in this whole mess. It's been amazing how, in general, the attitude of the people has suddenly changed. Many of them are now growing critical of al-qaeda whilst their critisism of the United States has become somewhat muted. There are, of course, the odd extremists who still believe that the whole thing is one giant plot by Israel and the CIA and according to one of my colleagues (a Palestinian who is a member of Hamas), "al-qaeda doesn't kill people".

All of this has been a bit much for Faiyaz, the South African who came over about four months ago. He was already very unhappy with Saudi Arabia even before the trouble started. He's a Muslim and I think that it's been quite hard for him to deal with the twisted interpretation of Islam that is practised here. It's shaken him and made him question his faith. As a result he's resigned and can't wait to get out. I decided to take him around and at least show him something more of the country before he goes, so we hired a car and off we went for the weekend.

I took him to the beach that I usually go to on the Thursday and then down to Uqayr and the huge Al Hasa Oasis and Hofuf on the Friday. All was going well until I managed to get us stuck in the sand. And boy, did I do a good job of it.

We tried all of the usual things that we'd seen the more intrepid perform before, but sans their success. I kept trying to think what my brother-in-law, Rob, would do. He's particularly good in these situations, but all that we ended up with were the two front wheels spinning helplessly over the most enormous holes, with the engine now resting on the sand.

Fortunately we were in the middle of the Al-Hasa Oasis, so Faiyez duly ambled off with his ubiquitous sunshade-umbrella to try to find help, while I dug some more (seemed like a good idea at the time). The surrounding terrain didn't exactly inspire confidence either as there were a number of dead camels in various stages of decomposition scattered about.

Faiyez eventually came back looking most dejected and complaining that the locals were no help at all. Apparently they all took one look at him and gesticulated in such a manner which indicated that, had they been Christian, they would have been using crosses to desperately ward him off as if he were some evil apparition. Who knows why. They obviously don't see many foreigners in those parts, particularly foreigners wondering around the palm trees with an umbrella when it isn't raining.

Anyway, Faiyez suggested that I have a go, but insisted that I take his brolly. I made my way down to the nearest main road and was extremely lucky enough to manage to wave down the perfect truck within minutes, though I must have looked a sight - covered from head to toe in sand and madly waving an umbrella at the traffic.

The driver was a most helpful Saudi, but even he had a bit of a battle to tow us out and nearly got stuck himself. Faiyez soon recovered his sense of humour and now claimed that he was actually pleased that we'd got stuck because at least he'd had a bit of an adventure and had something to talk about.

Last week I had another misadventure. I was waiting to cross King Abdul Aziz Street and had walked to a position behind the parked cars and facing the oncoming traffic when I was knocked over by a car that had decided to reverse up the street. A rather shocking experience I can tell you!! Fortunately the car hadn't been going very fast and I suffered no serious ill effects other than feeling like a complete idiot.

The driver was most apologetic and wanted to rush me off to hospital whilst grasping the hand that he'd just bashed with his boot, but I was fine and sent him on his way with an admonition to bloody-well look where he was reversing in future.

Last weekend I hired another car and went over to Bahrain for a few days. Alex, who used to work with me, has now got himself a job in Bahrain and invited me to stay with him.

Crossing the causeway is something like I would imagine it must have been to cross from East to West Berlin during the cold war. Bahrain is so close, but is so different that it might as well be on another planet. It's just like any modern cosmopolitan city. It even has a Nando's, just like in South Africa. It also has the freedom, but order and good government that comes with a long and close relationship with the United Kingdom. Like Oman, the place is full of British expats. One of my tests to determine whether a place is civilised or not is if you can drink the water out of the taps, and you can in Bahrain.

Alex and I went to the Bahrain National Museum, which was a treat. It's housed in a very modern building and the exhibits are very well presented and extemely interesting. That evening I met some other South Africans in Trader Vic's Bar at the Ritz Carlton Hotel and we had a great time sampling all of their cocktails. The next day we went to Seef Mall, which is the main shopping mall, to have a look at the shops and watch a movie in a cinema (cinemas are illegal in Saudi Arabia).

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