People around me on the way to the plane in Jeddah

There’s the Frenchie - there’s always a Frenchie - most probably a junior consultant of sorts, wearing a buttoned up polo shirt and the tasteless sports sunglasses he got for Christmas;

there’s the Indonesian family of pilgrims, going from junior playing motoracing on his PSP, big brother in the football jersey, to executive dad barking order in a mix of Indonesian and English into his roaming phone, to old old grandpa, who is enjoying every second of this trip that he had waited his whole life for, and smiling warmly to everyone around as if they had all come for his very own going-away party.

There’s the fat Englishman, sitting in business class with a novel from Borders with a round sticker that says “3 for £18!” and which he will never read because he will fall asleep with his head back and his mouth open. The kind of guy making his money from being in the country that he will openly diss and insult whenever he gets the chance. The ‘Syriana’ type of guy, you know?

There’s the elderly gentleman, 70 years old or so, all white hair and light beard, wearing a suit and a tie because he believes that travel is an activity you dress up for, and is accompanied by his wife. Syrian, I would say. The man who stands up, at his age, offering his seat to women of all ages on the bus - because, naturally, this is what a gentleman does.

There’s a Somali woman with her beautiful 6-month old and a large backpack, her baby tied to her chest with a printed cloth, and who will candidly ask the person standing next to hold the baby while she gets something out of the backpack.

There are the three Saudi guys leaving on holidays, already in their shorts and ugly fake denim t-shirts -- joking out loud, both annoying and amusing the people around them.

And there's the annoying chap who's trying to take a photo of them so he can blog about them the next day. :)