Trip report: Saudi Arabia
Visited in December 2021
On December 13, 2021, I entered a country that until recently was one of the most difficult countries to visit: Saudi Arabia.
Perhaps, it was even the most difficult one. Although Muslims could travel to the country under religious pilgrimages, it was almost impossible for non-Muslims tourists to enter. The reason for that? Well, Saudi Arabia is one of the most conservative countries in the world, a closed society so to speak, which simply did not want tourists. They did not need tourist dollars anyway, as there was more than enough money from oil.
Everything changed in September 2019, though, when the Saudi government announced an evisa for visitors from 49 countries. Suddenly, after being closed for many years, Saudi Arabia became an easily accessible country for many people. Saudi Arabia realized that they need to reduce their dependence on oil and focus on other sources of income. One business that should generate new income is tourism.
Although Saudi Arabia has now opened up to the world, it is and remains a country whose values are diametrically opposed to those of the Western world. To illustrate what kind of country Saudi Arabia is, here are some examples:
- Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy. The country is basically ruled by a (huge) royal family.
- In a ranking published by The Economist a few years ago, Saudi Arabia was listed as one of the 10 most authoritarian countries in the world.
- Wahhabism, an ultra-conservative movement of Sunni Islam, is the predominant religious doctrine in Saudi Arabia. The ideology of the Wahhabis is comparable to that of the Taliban or ISIS.
- In Saudi Arabia, death penalty is imposed for the following offenses, among others: Blasphemy, apostasy (conversion to other religions), homosexuality, witchcraft, adultery, and “taking measures against the king”.
- Alcohol is prohibited.
- Cinemas were banned until 2018.
- Freedom of the press and freedom of speech do not exist.
- During prayer time, which is five times a day, all businesses and shops must close for 15-30 minutes.
- Most Saudi women wear a niqab, so that only their eyes are visible. However, some women also wear an abaya and a hijab. Foreign women don’t have to cover their hair.
- Until 2018, Saudi Arabia was the only country in the world where women were not allowed to drive a car.
- Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries in the world where women do not have the right to vote.
- There is a religious police in Saudi Arabia. Until recently, these police officers were allowed to arbitrarily arrest people they found to be behaving immorally. The fact that practically everyone was allowed to join this police force attracted many sadists and ex-criminals, too.
- If a man approached a woman and she feels bothered by it, she can take a picture of him or his car and send it to the authorities. As a result, the authorities will put the man in jail for two years for sexual harassment.
- Saudi citizens may marry foreign partners only with a special permission. The barriers to marriage with a non-Saudi are high.
- Saudi Arabia is the largest importer of weapons in the world. At the same time, the country does not shy away from using them, as can be seen today in Yemen, for example, or in 2012 during the protests in Bahrain.
- With Mecca and Medina, the two most important cities of Islam are located in Saudi Arabia. Visiting Mecca is strictly forbidden for non-Muslims.
The transformation of Saudi Arabia
Considering all these facts you could also say that Saudi Arabia is quite an anti-utopia. However, there is a big BUT. Saudi Arabia is a country in rapid change. As listed above, some of the super-strict laws have already been eliminated. Others have been modified, for example, the religious police have been stripped of their power and are no longer allowed to arrest anyone themselves.
Besides, the country now wants fun, entertainment and action in other ways. I realized this the first time on my trip on the flight to Bahrain, where the plane made a stopover in the Saudi capital Riyadh. Sitting next to me was a Saudi about my age who had just returned from his trip to Cancun. While we were chatting a bit, he drew my attention to a festival in Riyadh.
The Middle Beast Festival. World-class musicians were going to perform there in the following week. For example David Guetta, DJ Snake, Steve Aoki or even techno greats like Sven Väth or Carl Cox. This is already the second Middle Beast festival, after the predecessor took place in 2019. Five years ago, such an “un-Islamic” event would have been completely unthinkable. For decades, concerts were forbidden in the kingdom.
Sports events are also increasingly taking place in Saudi Arabia. For example, the country has secured the right to host the Spanish Supercup in football as well as a Formula 1 Grand Prix. Furthermore, it became public just recently that Saudi Arabia has bought the English football club Newcastle United, which is now likely to become the richest football club in the world.
The transformation of this country has a name: Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s 36-year-old crown prince. Officially, Salman ibn Abd al-Aziz Al Saud, or simply King Salman, is still the country’s king and leader. However, there are doubts as to whether King Salman is even fit to hold office, as he is suffering from the effects of a stroke and rumors of Alzheimer’s disease also exist. It is an open secret that already today Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MBS, is the real leader of this country.
It goes without saying that not all Saudis like this rapid change. Even moderate Saudis say that it just feels like sitting in the back seat of a car speeding down the highway at 200 km/h without being able to see out the front window. However, one thing is clear, Saudi Arabia will be a different country in a few years. While people say you should visit Cuba now because it will be completely different in the near future (it won’t!), Saudi Arabia is indeed such a country. It is very likely that in 10 years the Saudi Arabia of today will no longer exist.
For me, it was therefore the perfect time for a visit, as I wanted to see the country before it changed. For this reason, Saudi was not a usual trip where I tried to see as many places as possible in a short time, but I traveled to the country with the aim to meet people, to learn about their lives and how they experience the rapid change of the country.
Nevertheless, as I mentioned, this transformation is still far from being completed. I noticed shortly after entering the country what the real Saudi Arabia was like. I took a bus from Bahrain to Dammam in eastern Saudi Arabia and then caught a train to Riyadh.
When I entered the train car, I saw a man and about ten women wearing a niqab sitting there. One of them was sitting next to the seat I had booked.
Quiz question, how do you react in such a situation in Saudi Arabia?
A: you choose another seat
B: you sit down on your seat next to the woman
C: you sit down on your seat next to the woman and to break the ice you greet her by saying “hello sugar doll, how was your day today?”
If you answered with C, then Saudi Arabia is definitely not a destination for you. I chose option A and sat down next to the only man in the car. Shortly after, another woman entered and I quickly realized that I was on her seat. Luckily, the conductor came by at that moment and asked to see my ticket. When he saw that there was a woman sitting next to my seat, he told me to stay seated and sent the other woman to the seat I booked.
There was also a rather large carpet rolled out in my train car that people were using to pray. Also something I had never seen before in any of my 125 countries. For me, it was already clear after a few hours that Saudi Arabia is a country like no other. I was curious to see what would await me here in the next week.
I arrived in Riyadh in the evening and my first impression was that Saudi Arabia is fucking cold. My display showed 12°C and I thought that Saudi was one of the hottest countries in the world!?! However, the country consists of 95% desert and the capital is basically in the middle of the desert. This means that it can cool down considerably during the night.
My hotel was in the center of Riyadh, a few minutes walk from the city’s most famous building, the Kingdom Tower. I could tell you a lot of things about hotels in Saudi Arabia. Budget accommodation seems to be almost non-existent. Instead, the hotels cater mainly to business travelers, who were the only target group until two years ago. For a more or less decent hotel in Saudi Arabia you have to expect to pay $100 per night or more. At the same time, most of the hotels on Booking.com have miserable reviews and I couldn’t find many with a rating above 8/10. Are Saudi travelers too demanding?
Sightseeing in Riyadh
But my hotel was good all in all and I didn’t want to spend much time in it anyway. As already mentioned, I wanted to meet people. The problem, however, was that people didn’t seem to want to meet me. At least not in Riyadh. In Jeddah, the second city I would visit, I got many replies on Couchsurfing and Showaround. In Riyadh, very few responded and those who did seemed to have no time to meet on my first full day in Saudi Arabia. That was okay for me, because I still had to do some things anyway, for example organize a SIM card and change money. Besides, Riyadh also has a few sights that I wanted to visit.
So, what kind of city is Riyadh? First of all, the city is pretty damn big. Almost 8 million people live here. Consequently, you need cabs (Uber or Careem are the preferred cab services) to get around. Apart from the size of the city, Riyadh is not really pedestrian-friendly anyway. Many streets can only be crossed by looking for a gap between the passing cars. The locals do this routinely, but I found it quite challenging sometimes. Some roads cannot be crossed at all. You have to take an Uber that drives you to the other side. That means, a 20-second walk can become a 7-minute ride sometimes.
Otherwise, Riyadh is an impressive, but not really beautiful city. Skyscrapers line up here, at least in the city center. Green spaces are few and far between. Instead, there is a lot of dust and the sky looks foggy because of the sand in the air.
Before I left the hotel, I asked at the reception in what way the daily five prayer times would affect me. Whether I could still order an Uber and whether all stores do close. I got the answer that Uber is available 24/7 and that five months ago MBS allowed the store owners to decide for themselves if they want to close their store during prayer time or not. Again, five years ago something like that would have been unthinkable.
My first stop was Fort Masmak, where I briefly visited the museum, and the infamous Deera Square. Deera Square is notorious because until recently this was the place where public executions happened. Usually people were beheaded, which earned the place the nickname “Chop-chop square”. Everyone could attend the executions and eat popcorn that some small stores next to the square sold. Only filming was strictly prohibited.
I had lunch in between and this is how many Saudi restaurants work: first, they have two different entrances, one for “singles” and another for “families”. Singles basically means men without female companionship. Families is the rest. So if a group of nine men and one woman wants to go to a restaurant, they would sit in the family sector. Single women, of course, also go to families.
Second, a wall divides the interior of these restaurants. So you hear female voices coming from the family section, but you don’t see the women. It’s a crazy experience. Even in American fast food chains, and there are countless of them in Saudi Arabia, they strictly separate the genders inside.
My highlight in Riyadh happened in the late afternoon. I visited the Sky Bridge of the Kingdom Tower, where you have a 360° view over Riyadh and can see how gigantic this city is. This place is undoubtedly the main attraction of the city and a must do when in Riyadh.
There was not enough time to do more. On the one hand, because I wasted a lot of time trying to change money (without success) and on the other hand, because Riyadh does not have so many other attractions either. I could have visited Diriyya, the old Riyadh, but I read online that a large part of this district was not accessible due to construction. Therefore, I skipped it.
I must also admit that Riyadh exhausted me. Not only because of the traffic and the language barrier I often encountered but also because of some of the people. In my six days in Saudi Arabia, I got a mixed picture of the locals. I’ll leave the Courchsurfing community out of it. They are mostly young, educated and open-minded people and therefore not a representative sample of society.
Of the average Saudis I met on the street, some were very warm and nice, while others were quite unfriendly. I never had a bad situation, but on the other hand I sometimes missed the kindness of the locals. This also applies to the hotel employees, shopkeepers and cab drivers I met. I would even go so far as to say that I felt more like an outsider in Riyadh, which is actually quite rare when I travel.
Fortunately, someone contacted me on Couchsurfing during the day. A man my age, who calls himself Mohd, thus the English short version of his real name Mohammed. We arranged to meet in the evening and visit Riyadh Season, a festival (not the Middle Beast) spread throughout the city.
Saudis are night people and the cities only become alive after sunset. You can’t blame them because of the usually high temperatures during the day. Anyway, it’s also common in Saudi Arabia to eat dinner at midnight, and if Saudis don’t have to work the next day, they sometimes stay out until the early morning hours.
Tours in Saudi Arabia & Inshallah Air
My host would have liked to turn the night into day, but at midnight I said goodbye, because I had plans for the next day. I wanted to take a tour into the Saudi desert, which was not an easy undertaking, as it turned out….
Although Saudi Arabia has been open to tourists for two years – apart from the interruption due to the pandemic – the country is not really ready for tourism yet. So it’s not like you can find various flyers and brochures of activities to book in hotel lobbies. You can’t find many tour agencies online either.
For the Edge of the World tour, I contacted the three tour operators I found. However, two of them specialize in group tours on weekends and only one agreed to take me to the desert on a Wednesday. Then, when I asked about the meeting place on that Wednesday, my guide called off sick. If I hadn’t asked, he probably wouldn’t have contacted me at all. So I rebooked my flight to Jeddah, so that I could fly to my second city already in the afternoon instead of the evening.
I spent the last hours in Riyadh in a mall or more precisely in a food court. Malls or food courts serve the Saudis as places for social gatherings. Malls have two other purposes: first, to offer the locals a place to cool off in the hot summer, and second, to satisfy the people’ enormous desire to consume.
At The Zone, the food court I visited, I witnessed a disturbing scene. Two local women entered a restaurant with a young Asian woman in tow, pushing a wheelchair in front of her. The two locals took seats at a long table and the Asian woman, I would guess Filipina, sat down at the other end of the table. While the Saudi women chatted and ordered something, the Asian woman stared into her cell phone with a facial expression as if she would like to throw herself off a bridge.
Many Arabs, not only in Saudi Arabia, hire a maid who is responsible for the household. These maids come mainly from Southeast Asia, but sometimes also from North Africa or other regions. In many cases, these young women are kept like slaves, sometimes physically and sexually abused, or offered for resale online.
The Uber driver who later drove me to the airport was at this point the first driver to speak English. Or at least a little. Basically, this would not have been a problem, but the man had a tremendous need to talk. So he told me that he likes pigeon meat, which many Saudis consider as a “natural” viagra. Furthermore, he told me that he likes the United States but dislikes Iran and Israel. “Do you like Palestine instead?” I asked. “No!”
Perhaps this answer was also due to the language barrier, since I had to repeat each sentence four times until he had a rough idea of what I was saying. I find such discussions, which by the way do not only take place in Saudi Arabia, about as exhausting as an eight-hour hike. Consequently, I looked at Google Maps every minute and hoped that the 30-minute drive would soon be over.
There are three airlines in Saudi Arabia, the national airline Saudia and the two low-cost carriers Flynas and Flyadeal. Airfares are basically pretty cheap and I always paid around $100 for the flight when I booked on the day before departure. There are also an estimated 50 flights per day between Riyadh and Jeddah, so you can find an available seat even on short notice.
I did both of my domestic flights with Flyadeal. The Saudis turn up their noses when they hear the name of this airline. The departure board at the airport also showed me why. Virtually every Flyadeal flight had a delay of at least two hours. Since I already knew this when booking, I studied the punctuality of the flight numbers and chose those that had no or hardly any delays in the past. This worked out well, because both of my flights were on time.
Nevertheless, I wanted to be on the safe side beforehand and asked at check-in if the flight would depart on time. “Inshallah” was the answer. Inshallah, which means “if God wills”, is one of the most common expressions in Arabic or Muslim countries in general. People use this expression for almost anything. For example, “hopefully,” “probably yes,” “maybe,” “rather not,” or the most accurate translation, “I have absolutely no idea.”
At the gate, I was then a bit surprised to see many men with a bath towel wrapped around them, often revealing their naked upper body. In Saudi Arabia, almost all men and women wear more or less the same dress for their respective gender. Showing so much skin seemed therefore unusual to me. But then, of course, it clicked. It was the typical clothing worn by Mecca pilgrims for the Umrah. After all, I was on my way to Jeddah, the gateway to Islam’s holiest site.
The flight finally started with a triple “Allahu akbar” and was uneventful except for one incident. Namely, what occurred was what I had been afraid of the whole flight: an airpod fell out of my ear onto the ground. Actually, something that happens to me regularly on flights. But unlike, say, a Lufthansa flight, where I would have spent minutes digging under my seat with my hand, touching the legs of three different people, this situation in Saudi Arabia seemed like the worst that could happen. After a few seconds of pure desperation, I handed over the responsibility to the male flight attendant, who then went in search of it and returned my earplug to me after a few minutes. Phew, what a flight…
Jeddah
Jeddah is the more modern and less conservative city than Riyadh, which on the one hand is historically caused by the fact that the city has been a melting pot of cultures for centuries. On the other hand, a very large number of expats live in Jeddah.
That Jeddah is more modern than Riyadh is already noticeable when you look at the people. I saw fewer niqab-wearing women in Jeddah than in Riyadh, and some of them were even wearing a lot of makeup. Also that my Couchsurfing host picked me up in shorts from the airport, I could not have imagined in Riyadh. My red chino pants even made people there laugh at me on the streets.
I spent the next two days with people from Couchsurfing, visiting the sights of Jeddah. Jeddah is a city that runs on a strip from north to south. Apart from the corniche and al-Balad, the city’s historic district, Jeddah is not a walkable city either and you cover countless kilometers in a car every day. Still, Jeddah was all in all the city that appealed to me more than Riyadh.
After getting to know my Couchsurfing contacts a little better, I also asked what they thought of the royal family. I expected the answers to be about the same as if you had asked the average Iraqi twenty years ago what he thought of Saddam Hussein.
To my surprise, every Saudi I asked replied that the royal family is very popular among people. And I believe that these answers were always sincere and not made out of fear, because one must not speak badly about the king. People consider the royals as generous. For example, King Abdullah, who died in 2015, ordered a few years before his death that all companies should double the salaries of their employees and the government will pay it. Even foreigners suddenly received 50% more salary.
However, while King Abdullah and King Salman always wanted to satisfy the Wahhabi elite, MBS is now in power and has zero regard for either the clergy or his own royal family and is uncompromisingly pushing the opening of the country. “That’s the good thing about a dictatorship,” one of my Couchsurfing hosts commented. “If you want to change something, people just have to accept it or they go to jail if they resist.”
MBS has arrested over 200 people as part of an anti-corruption campaign, including 11 princes, four acting ministers and other former government members. Saudi Arabia has long been a country in which nepotism was a big issue. Those who knew someone in the military or the authorities had better job prospects than others and could perhaps also carry out the one or other violation of the law unpunished. Now there is a climate of fear because of MBS, which reduces corruption and the young Saudis are grateful for it.
By the way, one of my hosts introduced me to one of his expat friends. Expats in Saudi Arabia live in so-called compounds. These are fenced-in blocks that form a kind of city within the city. In these compounds, Western rules apply. Depending on the size of the compound, there are restaurants, gyms and bars that serve alcohol. Somehow, the government has to keep the needed expats happy.
We spent the evenings in places that are, so to speak, the Saudi nightlife spots. Often these are places where several restaurants and cafes are next to each other. “Hunting areas,” as my host put it. While in the past virtually all weddings in Saudi Arabia were arranged, that is also loosening up a bit. The family still has to give their blessing for the wedding, though parents also know that in this age of social media and video calls, they have less and less control over their children and have to accommodate them in some way. Therefore, it is more common nowadays that young people get to know each other in these nightlife spots.
“Do you think in the context of opening up the country, alcohol will be allowed soon?” I asked one of my hosts. “Oh, definitely. It might take a little while in Jeddah, though. Each area of Saudi Arabia is administered by a prince, and the one in charge of Mecca and Jeddah is old and considered conservative.” I pictured how in a few years punch-drunk young men celebrating a bachelor party and the bath-towel-carrying pilgrims would arrive at the airport in Jeddah at the same time.
I liked my stay in Jeddah all in all more than in Riyadh. But for my last day, I returned to the Saudi capital once again, because I still wanted to do the desert tour.
The Edge of the World
The Edge of the World, one of Saudi’s most important tourist sites, was something I really wanted to see. However, until an hour before the tour started, I didn’t know if was part of the tour or not. The guy who signed off sick a few days before didn’t answer me anymore and the other two group tour operators weren’t very responsive either.
Only when I called one hour before the tour started, they confirmed that I could join and told me where to meet. Once at the meeting place, I waited half an hour before someone showed up and put me on a bus. The guide told me that I was on the tour together with five ladies. All the ladies were loaded into a car and I had a bus with over 20 seats to myself.
I also noticed a few weeks before my trip that the real Edge of the World was not possible to visit due to an accident. As I heard later, a group of people in a car drove down the cliff. After five days of seeing people drive in Riyadh and Jeddah beforehand, such an incident was honestly not surprising to me either.
Instead, we went to Second Edge, another cliff in the desert. One of the five ladies showed up wearing a hijab, but immediately took it off when we reached the desert. Far away from the family, the desert seems to be suitable for enjoying some freedoms that you don’t have at home.
The tour was so-so in the end. The guide barely spoke and the “hike” was over after about an hour. Neverttheless, the other people on the tour were nice and the barren desert landscape was still spectacular. When we finished the “hike” there was a picnic that consisted of apples, bananas, mandarins and Turkish biscuits.
Even though the tour was by no means up to the standard of tours in other countries, the (second) Edge of the World is a must-see when in Riyadh. In any case, it was a worthy end to my Saudi Arabia-trip and I was glad to have seen something of the country’s nature besides Riyadh and Jeddah.
Would I recommend Saudi Arabia to other travelers?
So, what is the conclusion after six days in Saudi Arabia? The trip was definitely interesting, as Saudi Arabia is a country like no other. It was sometimes exhausting, especially when I was doing things alone, but I had a good time all in all. Ultimately, I wanted to see this country at the beginning of change, meet people and hear their stories. And I achieved that. Therefore, I was okay with missing some of the main sights of the country (e.g. the attractions of al-Ula).
Would I recommend Saudi Arabia to others? That depends very much on to whom. As mentioned before, despite opening up, the country is not really ready for tourism and will not be for at least five to ten years. Thus, I would definitely not recommend Saudi Arabia to those who normally spend their vacation in Dubai or Egypt, unless they have a great frustration tolerance and can help themselves if something does not go as it should.
I didn’t really find Saudi Arabia to be a budget-friendly destination either. Hotels are rather expensive, food prices are on a high European level and although cabs are basically cheap, you need several trips a day, which eventually adds up quite a bit. There are definitely countries with a better value for money than Saudi Arabia.
However, for those who are passionate about Arab cultures or interested in politics and world affairs, Saudi Arabia is certainly an exciting and not-so-common travel destination. I would absolutely recommend Saudi Arabia to this type of traveler, and I would advise to visit the country now before its transmission into the “new” Saudi Arabia is completed. And it will be in a few years.
Will I ever return to Saudi Arabia? As a Saudi, I would probably answer “Inshallah” to that question. No seriously, it was my plan to visit Saudi Arabia now and maybe again in ten years or so. Then I could also visit the historical places I had not had time for on this trip. Besides, I would then see a new country that I did exist yet in 2021.
Super interesting Philippe!