Luthan Spa

Ladies! I went to the Luthan Spa for the first time this week and it was more fabulous than I thought it would be and just had to share. I went with a very dear girlfriend of mine, which made it a lot of fun because we got to dissect the experience as it happened. Ok, so the first remark I have to make is that this spa was very nice. It had that mmmmm spa smell and it was decently decorated.


Here is the locker room where we took off our clothes and took pictures of each other. Now now, we had robes on. I know this might sound ridiculous to some of you, but my friend and I had a discussion on how much clothing we thought we should wear under our robes. In the end, it was no different than any other spa in the West.


The photo snapping came to an abrupt halt in the lounge area after we were told to put our cameras away, which I suppose should have been obvious. Due to my deep commitment to this blog and to you, my dear readers, I secretly took pictures anyway ha ha ha suckers. Check out the relaxation room! It had individual water beds where you could rest from all the hard spa work!


We got a tour of the facilities and there was an impressive collection of specialized treatment rooms for an array of therapies, like Ayurvedic treatments, Balinese massages, and Mermaid MRI. Ok, it wasn't a Mermaid MRI, it was a heated waterbed massage thingy, but the full body machine was in the shape of sparkly shell. I swear it on my life. They also had quite a selection of steam and sauna rooms in the pool area with different themes, like a Moroccan Hammam and an herbal sauna that smelled like heaven. None of the treatment rooms were set up for more than one person, so that's something to keep in mind if you go with a friend. You ain't gonna be yapping through your mud wraps unless you make good conversation with walls and ceilings (I admit this happens at home sometimes). You will also want to book in advance if you are getting a package done because even though the spa looked pretty dang empty when we got there, they insisted it was a busy day.

Anywho I had a wonderful massage there, a hair treatment, a facial, and a back mud wrap. They were all very nice, barring the painful bits during the facial, and it really was a wonderful day, made even better by the company I had with me!

Luthan Spa website

the curious case of cryptic closures

Crazy caption?

I'm talking about this strange phenomenon in Riyadh where we find stores, restaurants, and retailers in general closed for no apparent reason. Y'all know what I'm talking about? With the exception of the 'safety' hours between 10am - 12pm, and 4pm - 6pm, I often feel I am rolling the dice in attempting to visit a retail space. I say this because even when you have the exact prayer times in front of you, sometimes you can arrive at a place to find it closed, and you will not have the luxury of an explanation.

Take for instance last night. Hubster and I came out of an appointment downtown at 7:45pm. We got into our driver's car and decided to head somewhere to eat. In the car we checked the prayer times on the internet, the next one being at 8:17pm. Perfect, we had just enough time to get settled and order somewhere. At a traffic light, we saw Tony Roma's and decided we wanted to eat there. So we jumped out of the car and raced across the street to it only to find that at 8:00pm all the lights were off, the curtains were drawn, the place was closed. We called our driver to make a U-turn and hopped back in the car confused. So we had the wrong prayer time?? Nope. Hubster double checked, it was 8:17pm, Tony Roma's just decided to close for god only knows what reason. At this point our choices were to eat an expensive meal at a hotel where prayer is not observed, eat cheap garbage quickly at a mall food court, or go home. So we went home.

We once visited a mattress store on three separate occasions deliberately trying different days and different hours to see if it would be open, but it never was. The last time we went, there was a single light on, taunting us, as if to say, 'wouldn't you like to know who turned this one light on? well he is in a place called Not Here.'

Well anyways, one reason why some stores are closed in the afternoon is because many retailers choose to have split hours that run from 9am - 12pm and then 4pm till 8pm-ish. The other closures I just chalk up to randomness. Coming from Canada where hours are clearly marked on doors and websites, and employees answer phones when you call them, I just can't describe the level of confusion I felt when I first moved here and began encountering this regularly. On the whole it just means you need to put some planning into eating out or visiting certain stores in the evening, but some days I miss the spontaneity of just being able to wing it and have simple things work out. One respite is that all the major grocery stores appear to be exempt from this random closure thing, so I am at least uber thankful for that.

You would think we should be used to sidestepping prayer by now. True, we've gotten much better, but as you can see, we are not always successful - even after a year and a half!

Riyadh Recipe for Spectacle

Whisk together in a large bowl:
1 cup waiting for hubster to finish work
1 cup driving through heavy traffic to pick up hubster
2 cups hunger
2 TBSP waiting for hubster to come out of office
1/4 cup driving to wrong restaurant
2 cups walking to right restaurant
5 cups simmering Saudi heat

Pour mixture into large pot & place on stove on high heat. Then pour in:
1 TSP miscalculation of prayer time
3 TBSP staring at closed restaurant
1/4 cup of restaurant remaining closed while everything else opens

Bring mixture to a boil. Pour out onto sidewalk.

If you have followed the recipe correctly, you should see a woman loudly and repeatedly knocking on the glass door of a dark restaurant with shades drawn, with hubster standing a ways back holding inner counsel on whether intervention is worthwhile or hazardous. Next, you should see the shades slowly pull up, watch the door unlock, and see the woman walk into a room full of quiet restaurant employees staring at her while she pretends nothing has happened.

You may wish to garnish this dish with hubster's chuckling.

You call that a mall?

Ontario's newest mall called "Vaughn Mills" opened out in suburbia a few years ago and at the time we were all quite excited about it. We hadn't had a new mall in ten plus years, and the pre-eminent mall experience was a toss up between Yorkdale and Eaton Center. We were thrilled with the 200 odd stores in it, a lot of them being outlet style stores of my favourite brands, it just seemed like a bit of heaven. Tsk tsk. I was so young and naive.

I'm afraid coming to the middle east has forever ruined my expectations of what constitutes a mall. The bar has been raised so incredibly high that it's such a let down to visit the old shopping haunts in Toronto. In Bahrain, the City Centre mall has a waterpark, brand spanking new cinemas and 350 stores. The Dubai Mall in Dubai has a full sized skating rink, a giant aquarium, a three storey waterfall, a full cinema, and a thousand plus stores. A THOUSAND. Brands carried in the Kingdom Mall here in Riyadh include places like Tiffany's and Burberry - stuff you would only see on the ritziest parts of Bay & Bloor in Toronto. Most of the malls in Riyadh are attached to full sized grocery stores too! It's effing brilliant! While the mix of stuff you find in the middle east clothing wise is not always to my taste, the malls are really incredible here and they are a huge relief for Western women. I myself am very grateful for having so many to choose from in Riyadh.

And by the way ladies, NOW is the time to shop till you drop. The summer sales are on and I know once you get into a mall and see those 50% off signs, the part of your brain that normally gives you the willpower to show restraint in purchases will completely shut down. Go go go!

Date me

I have a sweet tooth and I absolutely slobber when I see dates. It is the one of the few middle eastern treats that I adore devouring.


If you've never had a date, maybe you should try deodourant. har har har. I couldn't resist. Eating a date is like biting into a giant raisin, except instead of the grape taste, you taste something akin to maple syrup. They are delectable little things, though they are very high in sugar content. The locals will sometimes tell you it's a 'healthy sugar', which is probably baloney, but don't argue, just chew. If you argue, you might not get another one! Quick how many can you stuff into your purse while no one's looking? On our last trip to Dubai they kept an unlimited supply at the front desk of the hotel and I routinely made up excuses to walk by and grab them. I usually eat four or five of them at a time and typically stop one date short of feeling completely sick.

I should probably write something cultural about where they come from, about date factories and such and such, but then I don't really care - I only care about where to get more of them. The softer the better. Any suggestions out there?

exit re-entry visa. argh.

You've finally made it here, and now you can't wait to get out, so you've got two tickets to Istanbul and a big smile on your face. Not so fast buster. In order to exit the Magic Kingdom and to re-enter post vacay, you will need to shell out either 200SAR for a single exit re-entry visa where you are allowed to exit once and re-enter once, or 500SAR for the "multiple six month exit re-entry visa" where you may exit and re-enter freely within a six month period starting from the date of your first departure. If it sounds like it's straightforward, rest assured that there are many things that can go wrong.

Typically the office 'runner' will be the man in charge of handling the visa for you, and he will collect your passports, money, your sponsor's scribbly wibbly (i.e. written permission), and sometimes when the mood strikes him, passport pictures. In theory, the paperwork should only take a day or so to complete, but getting anything done quickly in the Kingdom is like putting a stick in the Red Sea and expecting it to part. If your name isn't Moses, then you better plan ahead.

The most important thing to remember after you get your exit re-entry visa is to bring it with you to the airport. That sounds simple enough, but the fact that the visa is typically a loose sheet of dot matrix A4 paper makes it easy to confuse the document, with say, a receipt, or to leave it behind with your airline ticket at the check-in counter, or for your well meaning maid to throw out for you.

Let's explore a hypothetical. Let's say you are now on your way back to Riyadh from a nice trip to Germany. As you are lining up to get onto the plane bound for Riyadh, you notice the flight staff checking visas. Has it been six months since you first used it?? Gee you've had so many Worsteiners you can't remember. You examine your visa, but can't read the dates on any of the stamps because they are in arabic(!), and not only are they in arabic, but they utilize the arabic calendar (!!!). The staff denies your entry on the flight to Riyadh (!!!!!).

Now what? Well remember all those documents you had to collect before you came to Riyadh in the first place? Yup. Resubmission time. Not to worry, your exile should only last a few weeks since the paperwork is already in place and all that needs to be done is for your runner to submit everything again along with the ever important letter from the sponsor. But as we have covered, you are not Moses, so expect there to be mistakes and delays.

happy travelling all!

burning skin vs. frozen spine

So what would you rather live in? A country that is dismal and chillingly cold for about six months (Oct-Mar) out of the year with a three month summer, or a country that is summer all the time with about four months (Jun-Sep) of suffocating heat? We've reached the mid-forties celsius in Riyadh and the air is just right for whining. Going outside in Riyadh during this time of year is like getting a hug from a sumo wrestler, except the sumo wrestler is made of fire. Is it possible for your eyeballs to feel sweaty? I say yes!

Well I tell ya, even so, I like the heat and all the beautiful sunny days in Riyadh, and I do *not* miss the weather in Canada. You would think I might long for a white Christmas and skating and snowball fights, but the truth is that after coming here, I can't understand how I survived Toronto. Seriously there were times back then when I counted a full two weeks without seeing the sun! Canadians: now that it's summer, you can all congratulate yourselves for not committing suicide back in February when you were seriously considering it.

In Riyadh, things get hot, sure. And on certain days you really might be able to fry an egg on your car, sure. But the nice thing is that every enclosed space you encounter has proper air conditioning, and lots of it. I will take burning skin over frozen spine any day, because the reality is that your skin will only burn for the 30 seconds between a car and a door, but I found my frozen spine would last all day in Canada, and the heating systems were always too much or too little. It is also mean and unfair to make a woman choose between looking good and being warm.

How did I manage to complain about both countries in one post? It's a special Canadian skill. But Riyadh still wins hands down for me, weather wise.