As you don your abaya at Jeddah airport, you should cast off your preconceptions. Few things in Saudi Arabia are as they first appear, writes Kathy Sheridan
The differences are becoming apparent barely 20 minutes out of London. A Muslim woman has a young Saudi man ejected from the seat beside her, on the basis that she cannot sit beside an unrelated male. Smart move, we reckon.
By then, westerners are blinking at the message highlighted in red on the Saudi Arabian entry cards: "Warning. Death for drug traffickers." The ejected young man - settled apologetically beside this reporter - remarks that the punishment process is swift, at least. "They speak to you very respectfully, put you in a white dress, a man comes with a big sword and . . . ," he illustrates with a swift, slicing motion across the neck.
Meanwhile, the same westerners are trying not to stare at the large, barefoot passenger clad only in a couple of strategically-placed white towels. Perhaps he is doing the hajj (the pilgrimage to Mecca required of all Muslims at least once), someone suggests; sewn clothes are forbidden to pilgrims as is footwear that covers the whole of the foot. Maybe.
On the video screens, a Saudi woman is reviewing King Kong and Red Eye. A censor's little blurs deal with cleavage, bare legs and alcohol.
As the aircraft begins its descent to Jeddah, cool Saudi teenagers in tight tops and jeans wriggle into slim, black abayas (full-length, sleeveless outer garments) and don veils. We struggle into ours, looking rather pink-skinned and feeling rather silly. We drive through warm, well-lit Jeddah, past monumental street sculptures of suitcases, hot air balloons, boats, cars and lanterns.
The first stop is the media centre in the Jeddah Hilton, where two assumptions are knocked on the head. Young, traditionally dressed men and women happily work together in the one room and the men have no problem firmly shaking the hands of western women. Other expectations stand up. Check out the four well-known beer brands on the menu (all, alas, with zero alcohol). Read up on the impressive Hilton facilities: bowling, swimming, massage and more - for men only.
BUT NEXT MORNING, at the souk in the old town, there is the bizarre sight of stall after stall of bras and knickers for sale by smiling, unpushy men. Our escort from the ministry of culture and information is relaxed and points out such landmarks as McDonald's, Toys'R'Us, Benetton, Pizza Hut, Mango and Debenhams. It's 5pm on a Saturday (their first day of the week), and clusters of heavily-veiled girls and women are being dropped off by their drivers at the malls, to sift through the modest clothing displays in Marks & Spencer, handle the lipsticks, and defer to the male-only retail staff.
In Starbucks, we are politely but firmly directed away from the long, comfortable sofas in the large windows into a dim "family room", where the windows are opaque, for ladies. Over coffee, we meet Yamina, a long-stay Tunisian, whose abaya conceals shorts and a T-shirt and who refuses to wear a veil. Twice in about 10 years she has been accosted by the religious police and their silver-tipped sticks and told to cover up. "I tell them they shouldn't be speaking to me as they are male and not related to me. But you don't see them much in Jeddah. They only come in the evening - like the vampires come at night," she giggles.
In the evening, expensive cars career across three lanes, homicidal drivers smoking and chatting into their mobiles. Officially, there is no gender mixing, and there are no cinemas, theatres or nightclubs. Unofficially, says a young man, he is headed for a beach house party where male and female neighbours have hired a DJ.
AT THE JEDDAH Economic Forum next day, where 600 of the 2,000 delegates are female, wily Saudi businesswomen still glowing from their triumph in the chamber of commerce (see panel) talk about "melting the obstacles" against progress as opposed to "charging at them". President McAleese gets a rousing round of applause for her opening Arabic prayer and triggers a standing ovation from the women's section when she notes that "the first wife of Prophet Muhammad was herself a very successful businesswoman".
The following day's newspaper, Arab News, describes "the stirring speech by the articulate and soft-spoken Irish President" as the "highlight" of the day (and she was up against Cherie Blair, who left before anyone could ask her a question).
At the forum, the women might be veiled and be shielded behind a high, black screen - but they have full sight of the stage and show no timidity about asking questions. These usually concern the role of women in the country of the speaker, who is then asked to draw inferences for the audience. The juggling of work and family is a recurring theme. They look for legislative change, of course, but the biggest change of all, they say, is cultural. "It must come from within."
In the capital of Saudi Arabia, the deeply conservative Riyadh, two warm, laughing thirtysomething women, Fatima and Nawal, explain how life for an unprotected working woman in Saudi is "like a comedy film". Fatima is a photographer with limited training who is trying to learn from the internet and catalogues. "If I were a man," she says wistfully, "I could travel to learn more. They are free to go and study anywhere. I need papers from my father, or husband or brother. If my husband says no, I can't - not like Ireland women, thank God," she says, patting me fondly. "Some of men, they like this because they like power."
Nawal is a journalist and both are hobbled by the driving ban on women. They own cars but - like nearly all women - have to employ a driver, usually from India, the Philippines, Pakistan or Indonesia, at a cost of about €225 a month, an expense they can ill-afford. "It's too much funny," repeats Fatima, "like a comedy."
They reckon the perception has been deliberately put about that driving alone would expose women to male assault. The real problem, they say, is that such attackers are not punished; the view would be that the "silly" woman had it coming. On the other hand, there is great joy over the 10-year sentence imposed on five men who attacked two girls recently and took phone photos of them. That's new.
Meeting clients or interviewees or even chatting to a man is a fraught business in Riyadh, where female friends of theirs have got long jail sentences for sitting in a coffee shop with an unrelated man. Yet, in another of those Saudi contradictions, Nawal produces a newsletter for a mixed golf club in which she and other women pose happily beside men.
Both are in arranged marriages. Nawal is very unhappy but staying for the sake of their four children. They say that women have no impediment to divorce and that judges are even-handed in child custody matters. They also claim the same about homicide cases and heartily agree that it's only right that a man should be beheaded for a premeditated murder or attacking a child. If it's manslaughter, the courts accept this, and he pays compensation to the victim's family.
Still, Fatima talks yearningly about "freedom". She would wear her abaya out of choice - "out of a feeling inside of me, not because I am told"; she would vote and drive, and travel for her job and to learn. But they have great hopes for the new king, King Abdullah, and believe he doesn't know about the busy, bullying, self-appointed religious police.
Like every woman we meet, Fatima and Nawal are passionate about the need for western women to travel to Saudi so they can see "the truth" of Saudi women's lives, both good and bad. Many Saudis now have satellite dishes, internet access and mobile phones and are aware of the relentlessly negative portrayal of their lives and country. Isolation is the last thing they want or need.
LATER, THE IRISH presidential delegation takes a walk through Riyadh's souk. Nearly all our group are in western clothes. The only ones to stop and look are two veiled women.
Later, flying into Jordan, with its well-loved royal family, 23 universities, no segregation, no restrictions on women working or travelling, plenty of alcohol and an extraordinarily easy, friendly people is like being catapulted 20 years ahead. The president's Jordanian aide for the visit, 38-year-old Kaharman Pers, an army colonel and Muslim, is in a knee-length skirt.
Another professional woman in a knee-length skirt gives her Jordanian view of veils, cover-ups and the Koran. "People will not say this but what the Koran says is if you are very, very, very beautiful and every man sees you and cannot stop looking, that is not good, and you have to cover your face so only your eyes are seen. But that is the only time. And how many women are like that? Maybe one in a thousand - three at most," she says, rolling her eyes in exasperation at the foolish Saudis who cover up because their men order them to. "Those women behind their veils? You should see them here. The way they cast off their veils and the way they behave."
Next day, in a moving moment on the east bank of the river Jordan, in a Biblical landscape near where Jesus was said to have been baptised, with an Israeli watchtower a few hundred yards away, three Greek Orthodox priests in traditional robes with crucifix and olive branch perform the ancient Blessing of the River Jordan on the President and Dr McAleese. Afterwards the bearded Father Ikonomos wonders tentatively if we can forward some pictures to him. How will we do that? We can e-mail him at hotmail.com, he replies.
Kathy Sheridan travelled with the Irish presidential delegation through Saudi Arabia and on a State visit to Jordan