Qatif and Tarut

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I’ve just spend the morning visiting two fascinating places: Qatif and Tarut. As I write this, it is 109 degrees outside and it is HOT.

A bunch of us went to explore these two ancient towns with Hal, an Aramco person who lives here. We took Hal’s Land Rover and rented a taxi for the morning.

The first stop was Qatif, where we took a tour of the town to find the market. Fortunately, the taxi driver figured out where it was and we explored it for an hour or so. The first part was the live animal market. This included mostly pigeons, parakeets, parrots and other birds, but it also included a goat, bunnies, and a monkey. I’m not making it up and I have the photos to prove it. The monkey could be yours for only 500 Riyals ($150). I was tempted, but wasn’t sure how customs would feel about bringing monkeys back. I also thought of ways to expense the monkey and thought it would be worth it to see what PDI would say. My plan was to tell them that I could buy a new hard drive for the center, but it came with a monkey. In the end, I decided it was best to pass on the monkey.

I was tempted by an old dial phone that was in Arabic and had a crank handle. It was made of Bakelite, which is an ironic name because it weighs a ton. However, the asking price of 400 Riyals ($100 to $125) was almost as much as the monkey and wasn’t as cute, so I passed on that too.

The market also contained bulk spices, incense, nuts, hand made baskets, wreaths made of basil leaves, and Indian, aka Native American plastic dolls. There were tons of DVD’s that I’m sure are legitimate copies of films, clothes, drinks, rugs, and tobacco pipes.

We then headed for Tarut, which contains a 15th Century Portuguese-built fort that is built on top of a fort from 300 BC. Tarut, which is an island, was a trading city and port for more than 7000 years, but the harbor now is full of silt and not used.

We ducked under the barbed wire fence, probably risking a 30 year jail term, for a closer look. We also explored an abandoned house that was one of the original mud-built houses.

For lunch we found this great little place (two tables) that served chicken and rice. The menu was quite varied because you could get grilled chicken or barbeque chicken. There may have also been a choice between white and yellow rice. But it was amazingly good. We each got a half a chicken, a plateful of rice, rocket parsley and a kind of salsa, and a bottle of water. No silverware, but we did have a plastic spoon for the rice. The price was 104 Riyals, which is about $30. That was for EIGHT of us!!

It was really great that Hal offered to take us, because this was somewhere off the Aramco bus line, so not normally accessible. What a great experience! All in all it was a wonderful day. Please enjoy the photos. Be sure to scroll through the extra photos. You can click on a photo to see enlarge it and then you can navigate through all of the photos by using the buttons at the top of the enlarged page page.

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