The prospect of a 3½ hour drive across the desert is not exciting. The landscape is only endless sand. It stretches to where the horizon meets a sky that is the same shade of yellow.
As we drove away from Riyadh for a weekend in Bahrain someone suggested a game of ‘Count the Camels.’ No one took the offer up. After a long day’s work, I, for one, was keener to sleep.
Our driver, Hasan, was a small man who crouched awkwardly over the Armada’s large steering wheel. His round face, thick glasses and protruding top teeth reminded me of a childhood picture of the three blind mice. Blind indeed. At speeds of 170km he often veered alarmingly across the road. Three speed cameras caught us as we flashed past. Cars, seeing us approach in rear vision mirrors, rapidly moved lanes.
None of us slept.
