Once an exclusive club for the chosen few, such as pilgrims bound for Mecca, oil sheiks from Texas, contract workers from Texas, contract workers from everywhere else, and the odd asylum-seeking dictator, Saudi Arabia now welcomes visitors on special visas. The cost is stiff, the restrictions intimidating, but the thrill of just being there is unbeatable. Delights for the intrepid, moneyed traveler include ancient souks in urban landscapes, antiquities half-buried in the desert, a biblical sea and the heady taste of Arabian hospitality.
November to February
Exploring the spectacular rock tombs of Medain Salah Witnessing the sword dance ardha Sculpture-spotting along Jeddah’s cornice Judging the camel beauty contest near Hafar al Batin Sighting dugongs in the Red Sea around the Farasan lslands Visiting the ancient Masmak Fortress in Riyadh
Read Sandstorms, Days and Nights in Arabia, Theroux’s memoir of the Middle East, or the delightful coffee-table book The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Listen to Arabian Masters, featuring Umm kolthum, Fairouz, Abdel Halim Hafez, in Jordan) but many similarities
Eat with your fingers (but never with the left hand). Try a boiled young camel on steming rice.
Drink cardamom-flavoured coffe
ls-salaam’ alaykum (Peace be upon you )
Old souqs and camel makket; Aramco (Arabian American Oil Company); dates and carpets; millions of expatriate workers in thousands of construction sites and camp; bearded men in robes greeting one another with hugs and kisses; Mecca and Medina
Stumbling onto a back lot in Jeddah where, according to the locals, one will find the tomb of Eve; for women, wearing an all-encompassing abaya is essential for visiting Saudi Arabia
The most romanticized group of Arabs is no doubt the Bedouin (also called Bedu).While not an ethnic group, they are the archetypal Arabs- the camel-herding nomads who travel all over the deserts and semideserts in search of food for their cattle. From among their ranks came the warriors who spred lslam to North Africa and Persia 14 centuries ago.