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Vacation in Saudi Arabia

By Daniel Kennett

July 4^th, 2020

I'm not usually one to post my holiday pictures publicly, since, well… who cares? However, my trip to Saudi Arabia was so unlike any trip I've done before, and so unlike what other people told me it would be like, I thought I'd share.

Since this trip was mainly organised by my wife, I didn't actually have much in the way of expectations going in. I'm aware of the country's recent political scandals, but, to be frank, if I never visited a country that didn't have political scandals of that nature I'd be pretty much stateless.

What really caused this post, though, were the people around me. Comments like "You're going there voluntarily?" were so common and so out of touch with what I actually encountered that I thought it'd be interesting to share the experience I had.

So, off to the airport we went to catch the bus to Saudi Arabia. After a 6 hour flight in a ratty British Airways 777 and a little shimmy around Jordan and Israel, we arrived in Riyadh (pronounced Ree-yad). Unfortunately, our flights both in and out of the country were at night, so all we could see were the lights of scattered towns down below.

Come daylight, what was incredibly striking was that this is a country mixing the old and the new together in a way I haven't really seen before. My two favourite photographs showing this are above: on the left, a modern bridge leading to Al-Turaif district, one of the oldest parts of the city. On the right, the modern Diriyah municipality government building is built around and over an older structure.

What was also striking was how much like the USA the modern parts of the city felt like, with grid layouts, strip malls and many familiar stores making things very familiar. We used Uber to get around, using exactly the same app you'd use anywhere else.

The Edge of the World

Our first touristy thing to do was to visit The Edge of the World, a natural landmark where an ancient sea bed meets cliffs some 300 metres high.

An important piece of context to this trip is that Saudi Arabia only started issuing tourist visas at the end of September 2019 — less than six months before we went on our trip. This is not a place with established tourist infrastructure.

Once we leave the paved road, it quickly becomes apparent what this means. The Edge of the World is one of the largest attractions around here, and it simply isn't a place you'll be visiting in your rental Corolla. Once we leave asphalt, the journey takes us along desert plains and through dried-out river beds, up and down climbs that I'm certain I'd fail at with the best offroad vehicle on the planet.

"You've done this before!" I say to our friend in the driver's seat as he coaxes his Nissan Patrol Super Safari up the side of a dry riverbank, the view out front nothing but sky. "Once or twice!", he replies with a glint in his eye, before explaining that if you're a teenager into cars out here there's not much more to do than come out to the desert and muck about.

About 2/3 of the way along the rocky desert roads, we stop at a small camp next to a cave known for "Saudi diamonds", a kind of quartz that can be cut into a diamond-like gem. Just like everything else so far today, this isn't a tourist-friendly attraction lined with concrete paths, safety rails, and lamps — the entrance/exit is a ladder into a hole in the ground, then you're on your own after that.

After groping around in the dark in a (successful!) search for Saudi diamonds, we have another 30 minutes of driving along rocky tracks before arriving at The Edge of the World. Photos cannot even begin to capture the scale of this place — it really was a sight to behold.

I declined to walk right to the top of the columns mainly out of cowardice (again, no guard rails here!), instead enjoying watching a family drive right up to the cliff edge and set up the most luxurious picnic furniture I've ever seen.

At 4pm it was time to leave — we had an hour's drive through the desert before we hit asphalt, and our friend (quite understandably) didn't want to try navigating "roads" like these in the dark. We did get to see camels on the way back, though!

Classic Car Show

After attempting to visit the Al-Turaif District in Old Riyadh and finding that it was closed for renovation (it's been there since the 15th century, what are the chances?) we walked around for a bit and stumbled upon the biggest surprise of the trip for me — a classic car show.

The show itself wasn't surprising, but rather what I found within. When I think of the Middle East, teeny-tiny convertible Beetles and Mini low-loaders definitely aren't what come to mind!

Halfway through my time there, as I was rummaging through a stall mostly selling various 1960's-era radiator grilles, I realised I've been to this exact car show many times before. Granted, it was usually in a rainy field outside Matlock (in the UK), and the cars were cordoned off with plastic chains rather than velvet-effect ropes on gold posts, but I've definitely been here before.

This car show was actually my biggest culture shock of the trip. After thinking and wondering about all of the differences I'd find in my time here, I was completely unprepared to find myself in a situation and around people so familiar. I could easily picture my father standing next to me, haggling on the price of a 1967 Mustang radiator grille.

Deerah Souq

The souq (an indoor marketplace) was the promise of the "real" Saudi Arabia — a district filled with tiny stores that opens up in the evening, each filled to the ceiling with goods. Some were reasonably neat — stacks of robes or carpets carefully piled high.

Others were more chaotic, with piles of unrelated trinkets and old technology mixed in with old wooden doors and an oddly large number of mechanical record players.

"Never pay full price, you should always haggle. They don't respect you if you don't haggle!" my sister-in-law instructed as she marched confidently into a jeweller's to get our Saudi diamond from the previous day's trip cut and set into a necklace.

As a memento of my trip, I wanted to try some traditional dress. After confirming with multiple people that it's not offensive for an outsider to wear, we visited a store that sold bisht — a traditional cloak worn for formal occasions. After sizing me up and teaching me how to wear it (and some more skillful bartering from my sister-in-law), the seller disappeared off to another store around the corner to have it resized to fit me perfectly.

We witnessed this a couple of times during our time in the souq — the businesses here use each other where possible instead of competing, it seems.

Our final task of the evening was finding a traditionally painted door to be converted into a coffee table for my sister-in-law, which ended up being a display of a true product sourcing and negotiation professional at work.

Trying to cram the door/table into the back of an Uber, perhaps less so.

Red Sand Dunes

On our final day, we drove south of Riyadh for 45 minutes to visit the red sand dunes, another attraction near the city. To get there, you just sort of stop by the side of the motorway and hike up the sand. This place had the most tourist-y setup I encountered on the trip — lines of quad bikes were ready to rent, along with several merchants eager to convince you that their quad bikes were the best.

TripAdvisor had too many stories of injuries and lax safety — again, a sign of the undeveloped tourist industry here — so we skipped the quad bikes this time.

Final Thoughts

My few days in and around Riyadh ended up being the best trip I've had in years, and I found that the lack of infrastructure for tourism — and the lack of, well, tourists — opened up a far more educational and joyful experience than fighting through the crowds in any particular tourist hotspot would.

My entire life I’ve been used to hearing phrases like “oppressive regime” when talking about Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia. This conjures images of a downtrodden populace trudging through life the best they can, accompanied by a desaturation filter and downbeat music for extra effect.

What I was greeted with was instead almost always the opposite; people happy to show off their country and culture, sometimes even showing joy at the novelty of a Western tourist. The cars at the show were decorated with velvet ropes and placed on beautiful carpets, their owners eager to show them off and have us follow them on their car’s Instagram accounts. One day we went for brunch at a nearby cafe, and the place was filled to the brim with families and groups of friends — both male and female — laughing and sharing stories together. These experiences were entirely normal, and entirely outside of my expectations.

I’m struggling to come up with a conclusion that doesn’t sound like a cheesy “turns out, we’re all just the same” TV special. My wife and I are English, and we moved over to Sweden nearly ten years ago now. During that time, we were given “advice” from friends who never left their birth town absolutely flummoxed as to why we’d abandon our homes, and from people with such wide world experience that moving from England to Sweden seemed like moving to the next town down the road. The most accurate thing I was ever told came from my father-in-law: “No matter where you go, people just want to provide for their families and laugh with their friends”, and this trip really drove that home.

I experienced a country at the beginning of a path towards a very large amount of change, in terms of both its capacity for tourism and something far more foundational within its government.