Drinking
Drinking is strictly forbidden in the Kingdom, however that doesn't stop expats from getting "turnt." By my fourth month in Saudi I was invited onto the British compound by my flirtatious manager, Mike.
We called Ramu, our Indian friend and beloved taxi, and he took us along with a few other teachers to the compound. After signing in, showing our iqama (Saudi work ID) and passport we were on our way to the center of the British compound. Soccer fields, multi-story apartments, make-shift restaurants all appeared out of no where like a Western oasis.
We sat down for Thai food (owned by a BAE engineer, operated out of the bottom floor of his flat). And ordered some food, beer, and wine.
Now...wine in Saudi is not really wine. It's usually fermented fruit juice and is also a guaranteed hangover. The beer is no better, it's sugary and tastes like Miller lite drained through a trashcan.
But it was alcohol! And I savored every sip.
The British government, being full of hospitable alcoholic countrymen, sent the compound all the necessary equipment to make the alcohol. God save the Queen.
Saudi wine, sold and smuggled from one compound to the next.
Hashish
After a few weekends of this I had a vacation and on the vacation I was forced to layover in Jeddah. There are two airports there so I was also forced to grab a taxi and rush from on to the other. The frantic young driver went at about 100mph and got a ticket that doubled the cost of the fare, though he didn't seem to mind. He also said he frequented Tabuk and so I (seeing that he was an obviously deviant and strange young man) asked him about hashish.
A month later, after returning from my trip I got a message from him on whatsapp. After that all it took was a day of excruciating cat and mouse and strange meetings being driven around the middle of bumbfuck nowhere to arrive on the black gold. Apparently hashish by and large funds terrorist groups (something I didn't learn about until much later) and so obtaining hashish is incredibly frowned upon and punished in the Kingdom. I didn't care though, I was young and invincible.
I invited all of my more green-friendly friends to my villa, and we began heating and rolling the hashish in with tobacco and making cigarettes with them. We smoked, binged on video games and cried over the price gauged $100/.5grams.
Sex
While I only had a few sexual encounters, there was enough Western debauchery to warrant the judgement of the locals. I'm not proud of what I witnessed, but I'm not a liar either, and so I'll tell you the truth and ask for your forgiveness.
The British compound was full of cheating wives, bisexual Masons, and lustful old gents who had long been deprived of young meat. My manager Mike told me he had more sexual encounters in Saudi than in he had in his entire life previous to coming to the Kingdom. My eccentric friend, Pierre, a Chicago native and a fucking enigma who pined over young Asian women, was feeling himself one night on the compound and ended up bedding one of the 20-something year old daughters of a BAE engineer. She was well over 300lbs but your heart becomes less choosey in the great sands.
On my compound there was a married Muslim man, who's wife was in the process of getting her visa to come work for the University. He was the most fervent preacher of Islam and stood at a towering four foot eleven. He was friendly enough, though always a bit aggressive in conversation. On the night I lost my Saudi virginity, Mike confessed that the married man and he had been sleeping together for months. That the married Muslim would always insist on the dominate position and that the onslaught of dick pics never ceased in his inbox.
Sure enough, more of the visitors to our compound had the pleasure of these images. His wife has yet to find out. He has yet to know that we all know, and continues to preach as if all unbelievers are hell-bound.
My wife (who was my second and final sexual encounter in Tabuk) would regale me with stories of going into the bathroom to find her female students bumping uglies in the stalls, we had the same stories on the male campus.
These sexually isolated and deprived teenagers are thought not to be homosexual, but rather so sexually repressed that their exploitative nature manifests of homo-erotic behavior, and this I truly believe.
Crazy story - I'd upvote but I am recharging - So I'll give you a follow instead and I look forward to more stories.
Great to have you! If you enjoyed this, you're in for more treats. Upvote whenever you have the chance, glad you enjoyed.