When one lives in the Kingdom, inevitably the day will be planned and focused around the prayer times whether one is a practicing muslim or not. I say this because all shops, businesses and activities will shut down for 30 minutes during the daily prayers. And one has to particularly watch if going out towards the latter part of the day as the last two prayers are an hour apart.
The Saudi weekend continues to be Thursday/Friday. On Thursday it can be pretty much hit and miss as to what will be open during the regular daytime hours. My husband and I learned this the hard way. With both of us working we now have to run many of our errands on the weekend as we usually do not have the energy or interest to go out during the weeknight. We traveled out one Thursday morning to learn many of the businesses we wanted to visit did not open until 3 or 4pm which was after the late-afternoon prayer. And on Friday naturally those businesses that will be open will not open until after the Friday (Juma) prayer at circa 2 pm. As a result, it gives one limited opportunities to run and accomplish errands.
In addition to factoring in the prayer times one must also take into account the locations of where one is going and the Riyadh traffic. The traffic makes an impact as well as to how much one can accomplish during a day. There is nothing more irritating than to get caught up in traffic and arrive at a business to only have it close five minutes after arrival for prayer.
The businesses have adapted to the Saudi culture where people sleep in late and do not usually go out until after the final prayer. For example, one morning I decided to go out early and pay my mobily internet bill. I arrived at the shop at 11:30 only to find that the working hours were from 8 am to 11 am in the morning before the shop closed down for the rest of the day. It would then reopen at 4 pm and remain open until 11 pm. These hours are typical as well as indicative of the lifestyle which has been adapted here.
Filed under: culture, islam, politics, religion, Saudi Arabia, Saudi culture, Saudi customs, travel, Uncategorized
Carol,
This is one of the things I had to get used to again when I came back here.
and with the traffic in Jeddah becoming so crowded which I found that its worse than when I left abroad.. it takes for ever to get to a place.. I try to do everything at night at evening pryers and leave just when it starts so by the time I go to my destination they open.. most of the time I can only do one thing at each outing.. and so that I don’t freak out from the traffic because of the way people drive in Jeddah.. I take my video iPod to get updated with my podcats subscriptions.. yes but I hate that I cant do limited errands at a time..
Bridget
sorry typo mistake.. I meant I can do only few errands at a time..
Gheez; can you pay the bills on the Internet? lol? One less jihad!
Hi Saudi Bridget,
If it is any consolation this is what I hear from so many of my Saudi friends on returning after an extended absence from the Kingdom.
Regards,
Carol
I must say I find this blog very interesting.
Goodinfo2 – your comment was edited as I do not promote advertising of networking/meet up sites so the link was removed from your post. Thank you though for your comment.