June 24, 2008 8:34AM

Jeddah and burgers go together so well

By Ashley Webster

The Jeddah Energy Meeting may not have generated any surprises, at least not the kind that woud cool down prices on the oil markets, but the city itself is surprising for a reporter who is visiting Saudi Arabia for the first time.
To be honest it reminded me of Phoenix, there’s certainly not as much fake greenery and swimming pools, but like Phoenix there’s lots of desert brown, heat and strip malls. Of course Jeddah sits on the Red Sea so the heat has some humidity thrown in as well but bottomline this Saudi City is more westernized than I had imagined. How westernized? Can you believe Chuck E. Cheese? Baskin-Robbins? Burger King and of course McDonald’s? I was amazed to see some of these great American gastronomic exports in a country so culturally different to the United States.
It is heartening to know that with so much conflict in the world we can speak the same language… namely the love of cheeseburgers and fries. Jeddah is one of the more liberal and westernized cities in Saudi Arabia, strict religious laws are slighly looser here and the local population seem to enjoy the contact with western tourists and businessman. I was stopped on several occasions and told that the Saudi people are not all bad and are not all terrorists as the western media would have everyone believe. It was a common theme and the people I talked to wanted to make sure they made that point.
As I head back to London and the cool, rainy weather I will remember both the warmth of the desert and of the people who live there. There may not be enough oil to go around but I’m happy in the knowledge that there’s a never-ending supply of cheeseburgers.