Great post. When I flew into Riyadh a few years ago, they have ARRIVING passengers at the airport put their bags through the x-ray machine. I had a bottle of wine that I'd bought in the Beka'a Valley of Lebanon. They asked whose bag this was? I said mine. They asked for my passport and then had me follow a guy to a room where there was another guy with a sidearm sitting behind a desk doing paperwork. He didn't even look up. After a little bit, a few more Saudi military types came in and one of them spoke broken english. He was asking me what his superior was telling him to ask him. Where did I get the bottle? Why did I bring it into the country? I explained that it was a souvenir from Lebanon. (I make no excuses, though. They have laws in their country. No alcohol. I brought it in. I was wrong. And I told them that. But I was trying to salvage the wine lol). I then asked them if I could pour out the wine and keep the bottle. This struck them as particularly curious. They started looking at the bottle. Then the main guy had the translator ask me, "What's so special about this bottle?" LOL I knew this wasn't going to turn out in my favor. I told them it was a souvenir, but i knew it would fall on deaf ears (and understandably so. They were just doing their job). Also in their defense, no voices were raised, no guilt trips, no talking down to. It was pure professionalism. Anyway, long story short...I paid a $37 USD fine (the wine cost me $11 LOL), and they "wrote me up". I have a copy of my "wrong doing" or whatever they call it. It's all in arabic. It makes for a good story. They were cool, actually. Bottom line: I broke their law.