Riyadh - Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom Tower (left) and The Al Faisaliah Tower (right)

Our little compound view from top of the water tower in the center of it.

Some shots from atop a large tower we have situated in the middle of our little compound in the Northern Suburbs of Riyadh. Pretty sketchy ladder climb up this thing, I'm hardly comfortable in high places but even my boss Phil said he was checking his pants after the climb down. From up there you can see into the center of downtown Riyadh. The Kingdom Tower (the one that looks like a bottle opener) and the Al Faisaliah Tower (the ballpoint pen) are the two prominent buildings you can see in the pictures.
Riyadh has SOME pretty impressive architecture but thank goodness this place is not built on a fault line! (There is also a lot of extremely tacky architecture, they seem to be stuck in a bit of an 80's early 90's glitz and glamour themed state). If you could see the construction of some of these buildings you would know that one earthquake here and the whole city would literally fall apart. The brick work holding some of these buildings together is a little unnerving...
Our compound I have called home for the last 7 months pales in comparison to others the Americans and Brits have built for themselves here, their compounds are actual towns of their own surround by prison style walls and armored cars, guards and metal detectors. Set foot in them and you walk into another country, a little piece of the western world sticking out like a thorn in the side of surrounding Saudi's, part of life in Saudi.