The Midwest meets Mecca

I've successfully survived my third roundtrip from Kuala Lumpur to Chicago this year. As wonderful as it is to go home, there is quite simply nothing pleasant about the journey. Going east or west it's obscenely long and the 13 hour time change is painful for even the most well-adjusted traveller.

Two wonderful weddings aside, I couldn't have picked a better time to go home. With the exception of two wet, blustery days, Illinois was enjoying a truly splendid early autumn.

It's just possible that in the 22 years I spent growing up in the Midwest that I may have taken for granted just how lovely it can be at certain times of the year.

In any event, all good things must come to an end and on Monday I began my epic return journey. I'm well into my 7th year of living abroad and coming and going from home never gets any easier. The stress and anticipation going and the stress and sadness of leaving never change. Although coming from Malaysia rather than the UK adds a completely different dimension - there is of course the distance (the only way for me to get further from home is to move south) but the disorientation that comes with such a drastic and immediate cultural and environmental transition.

The long layovers in Abu Dhabi or Dubai only enhance the disorientation. Wandering Abu Dhabi airport in the wee hours of Wednesday morning there were two flights boarding for Saudi Arabia - one for Riyadh, one to Jeddah.

The Riyadh flight was 100% male and I would hazard 90% of the flight was new or returning migrant workers - mostly poor Bangladeshis and Indonesians. The other 10% seemed (at least in my mind) to be large, swaggering Saudis returning home from business.

The Jeddah flight was nearly 100% full of pilgrims embarking on the Hadj bound for nearby Mecca. There were large delegations (at least 50 people each) from Kazakhstan and Malaysia, all in matching outfits and roughly equal numbers of men and women. There was another large delegation of entirely men - I couldn't tell from where, but I would guess another gulf state.

The Kazaks looked old, tired and poor; the Malays diminuitive in both size and disposition. The all-male delegation, wrapped entirely in loose, open white robes were laughing, smiling and snapping photos to the point where they were in danger of missing their flight - if you didn't know better you could have sworn they were all off for a stag weekend.

Watching these flights board, I struggled to think of any two groups of people with which I had less in common. I would go just about anywhere given the opportunity, but Saudi Arabia isn't one of them.

Finally my turn came to board and I ended up sitting next to a friendly, middle-aged man who asked me in good English, where I was from and what I was doing in Malaysia. I explained and asked in turn what he was doing - he said he was visiting his son who is a student and wants to send his other son to study in Malaysia as well.

I asked if he was from the UAE, he said, 'No, I work in Abu Dhabi.' He hesitated a moment then told me he was from Yemen. He added, 'There is a civil war now, I want to get my younger son out of Yemen. The situation is very bad.' The conversation faltered, what do you say to someone who tells you they are from Yemen?

I dozed and watched the Pirates of the Caribbean III for the rest of the flight. As we began our descent there was a bit of rain, my Yemeni friend said, 'Oh, I love the rain.'