It is early morning in the Eastern Province. The sun has barely cleared the horizon. We are driving north on a highway running parallel to the Gulf coast. A light mist shrouds the grey, barren plains. A herd of grazing camels appears from the gloom. We pass by them in a flash.
Driving at a moderate speed on this highway is not a safe option. We are bunkered down in the middle lane. An endless procession of dust-coated trucks passes to our right, their windscreens decorated with colorful adornments by their Indian drivers. One of the trucks begins to creep into our lane. I hit the horn to alert the driver to my presence. He creeps back into the truck lane. I step on the accelerator to put some distance between us.
A vehicle flashes past me on my left at an incredible rate of knots. I catch a glimpse of the driver, one hand on the wheel, the other hand texting furiously. He must be traveling at twice my speed. I watch as he comes up hard on the car in front. He flashes his lights repeatedly. The driver of the car in front concedes the lane. He begins to pull into the middle, but the driver of the angry guided missile coming up behind him is determined not to touch his brakes.
There’s not enough space to overtake. The rapidly approaching driver veers into the left-hand breakdown lane for the satisfaction of going around the dawdler at the maximum possible speed. He manages to squeeze between the car and the thick concrete crash barrier, with an inch or two to spare on either side. Inshallah. We’ve seen this game of near-miss bumper cars repeated at least a dozen times in the past hour. The fast lane is not for the faint-hearted.
The driver in front of me winds down his window. He flings some rubbish from the car. An abandoned drink can bounces across the highway lanes. It comes to rest in a ditch; one more addition to the endless line of discarded bottles, cans and food packets that line the highway.
A strong breeze pushes in from the western desert. Lines of thick dust snake across the highway. The cars flash through the dust snakes, sending them spiraling gracefully into the air. To the east, a massive oil refinery emerges in the misty dawn light. It appears to be the size of a small town. The refinery lies at the centre of a vast, intricate web of oil pipelines. They crisscross the sandy plains around us, connecting oil wells across the province.
Oncoming cars on the other side of the highway flash their lights; a warning that we’re approaching a speed camera. Everyone steps on the brakes. Moments later, we see a stationary police car ahead of us. It’s heavily armored, to protect the occupants from attacks by enraged drivers who have been pinged for speeding, a not uncommon occurrence here. We fly past the police car. Everyone hits their accelerators to resume the frenzied highway chase as the car disappears into the distance behind us.
