Vanity Fair’s Maureen Dowd traveled to Saudi Arabia to experience first-hand the Arab kingdom’s newly declared commitment to tourism. But apparently she didn’t get the memo—that promise seems to only apply to men. Saudi Arabia! Just the vacation spot for a headstrong, adventure-loving, cocktail-imbibing, fashion-conscious chick. Long averse to non-Muslim curiosity seekers, the Kingdom is [...]
Vanity Fair’s Maureen Dowd traveled to Saudi Arabia to experience first-hand the Arab kingdom’s newly declared commitment to tourism. But apparently she didn’t get the memo—that promise seems to only apply to men.
Saudi Arabia! Just the vacation spot for a headstrong, adventure-loving, cocktail-imbibing, fashion-conscious chick. Long averse to non-Muslim curiosity seekers, the Kingdom is now flirting with tourism, though drinking is forbidden and women can’t drive—or do much of anything—without a man. Armed with moxie and a Burqini, the author confronts the limits of Saudi Arabian hospitality, as well as various male enforcers, learning that, as always, it matters whom you know.Plus: A slide show of Maureen Dowd’s wild Saudi Arabian adventure.
I wanted to know all about Eve.
“Our grandmother Eve?” asked Abdullah Hejazi, my boyish-looking guide in Old Jidda. Under a glowing Arab moon on a hot winter night, Abdullah was showing off the jewels of his city—charming green, blue, and brown houses built on the Red Sea more than a hundred years ago. The houses, empty now, are stretched tall to capture the sea breeze on streets squeezed narrow to capture the shade. The latticed screens on cantilevered verandas were intended to ensure “the privacy and seclusion of the harem,” as the Lebanese writer Ameen Rihani noted in 1930. The preservation of these 500 houses surrounding a souk marks an attempt by the Saudis, whose oil profits turned them into bling addicts, to appreciate the beauty of what they dismissively call “old stuff.”
Jidda means “grandmother” in Arabic, and the city may have gotten its name because tradition holds that the grandmother of all temptresses, the biblical Eve, is buried here—an apt symbol for a country that legally, sexually, and sartorially buries its women alive. (A hard-line Muslim cleric in Iran recently blamed provocatively dressed women for earthquakes, inspiring the New York Post headline SHEIK IT!) According to legend, when Adam and Eve were evicted from the Garden of Eden they went their separate ways, Adam ending up in Mecca and Eve in Jidda, with a single reunion. (Original sin reduced to friends with benefits?) Eve’s cemetery lies behind a weathered green door in Old Jidda.
When I suggested we visit, Abdullah smiled with sweet exasperation. It was a smile I would grow all too accustomed to from Saudi men in the coming days. It translated into “No f—ing way, lady.”
“Women are not allowed to go into cemeteries,” he told me.
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