On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
arrieve
I submitted several sets of pictures of my trip through the Suez Canal on New Year’s Eve a few weeks ago. The next few sets cover our stops in two Saudi Red Sea ports, Jeddah and Yanbu, before ending the cruise in Aqaba, Jordan. Fortunately, the Red Sea, at least where we were, was calm, although rumor had it that we were being guarded by one or more ships while we sailed.
I had never been to Saudi Arabia, and had never particularly wanted to go there. And I doubt I will ever go back, but I am glad I saw a little of this very strange, but interesting, country.
Our first day in Jeddah I had signed up for an excursion to a desert city called Hegra, built by the same people who built Petra. It was expensive because you had to fly there, but the pictures I saw online were fascinating and I figured, When am I ever going to be in Saudi Arabia again? Unfortunately, but maybe not unsurprisingly, not enough people signed up and it was cancelled. So I found myself taking a last-minute tour of Jeddah’s corniche and shopping district that did turn out to be interesting, though not perhaps in the way the tour guides intended.
After a long drive past a lot of construction sites and a fence behind which we were assured was a Formula One track, we arrived at the corniche, where the main attraction appeared to be this giant sign. I like that I captured one of the locals inside the first “D”.
Speaking of signs, versions of this sign were everywhere. It depicts the founding father and first king of Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz ibn Saud, the current king, Salman, and the Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman. (Lest you forget that Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, and is in fact named for the royal family.)
There were also many signs featuring MBS by himself, celebrating an ambitious plan he is spearheading called Vision 2030. It aims to diversify the economy and transform Saudi Arabia into an investment powerhouse and global hub.
It’s impossible to overstate the amount of money pouring into Jeddah right now. Construction is everywhere—new hotels, museums, public buildings. If you stand with the JEDDAH sign at your back, this is what you see.
Another view from the corniche. That small gray blur of a building on the far left will be the tallest in the world when it’s completed, just over a kilometer in height. You can buy a lot of superlatives if you have enough money. Jeddah also has what is allegedly the largest flag in the world, which we drove past twice, and the tallest fountain in the world, which I saw the night we sailed out.
Nothing remarkable about this picture, but it makes me smile. All of the tour guides in Saudi Arabia were charming, and so eager to show us their country even as they struggled to figure out this whole “tourism” thing. Opening the country to tourism in 2019 was part of Vision 2030, though the infrastructure is obviously not really in place yet. We had to apply for visas online before the trip, and while I didn’t have any problems with that, some of the other people on the ship had their first visa applications denied with no explanation, and had to go through the cruise line to apply again. And some of the tours were a little haphazard, as though they haven’t really decided where tourists will want to go, and what they should say about those places when they get there.
This lovely woman was the guide our first day in Jeddah. She explained that the way she was dressed—black slacks and blouse under an abaya that was just a long loose multicolored jacket, and no hijab—is quite acceptable in Saudi Arabia now.
That may be, but she was the only adult Saudi woman I saw who wasn’t wearing a headscarf, and most of them are still wearing all black. She repeated what I’d been told by women in Egypt—that wearing an abaya and hijab is cultural and not religious. But I’m not sure that’s a useful distinction if you can be shunned or arrested for how you are dressed.
Culture can evolve, of course, but I don’t think anything changes quickly in Saudi Arabia. This is after all a country where women have only been able to drive since 2018.
Fortunately, unlike in Iran, women tourists do not have to wear abayas or hijabs, though we were expected to “dress modestly.” Most of us wore slacks and a long-sleeved blouse, and that was apparently acceptable.
Most of the men I saw in Saudi Arabia weren’t wearing Western-style clothing either. They wear a long robe called a thobe or thawb, usually white but sometimes gray or brown, and some, but not all, of them also wear a head covering, either white or the familiar red and white pattern.
After the corniche we were dropped off in a shopping district. This is one of the many jewelry stores.
Another jewelry store. The small sign in the window advises that they also sell 24K gold bars in addition to gold jewelry. I did not inquire about the prices.
These were some of the abayas in a women’s clothing store. I assume these are for something like a wedding, when you might also wear some of that elaborate gold jewelry. (Or maybe this is clothing for the attendants who have to hold you up while you buckle under the weight of the jewelry.)
I always love to take pictures of reflections. This is a window of a shop reflecting the traffic on a main street in the shopping district.
Next: Al Balad, the old town in Jeddah
Baud
Very cool.
Lots of women in UAE are in full gear, and I’m pretty sure it’s not required there.
eclare
Thank you for the photos and commentary! I love seeing how locals shop. Sometimes in a foreign country I’ll go to a local grocery store to see what’s for sale.
Geminid
@Baud: Turkiye used to be the opposite: women were prohibited from wearing the hijab in schools or govefnment offices. As late as 2002, a college student who wore a headscarf to her final exams got a 6 month jail sentence for disturbing the peace. This hyper-secularism was modifed not long after, and last year when a newly appointed provincial governor showed up in a headscarf, the police saluted her instead of making an arrest.
The Turkish president is scheduled to visit Washington on May , and I am hope Mrs. Erdogan comes along. Last July, at the Nato Summit in Vilnius, they had a dinner for the leasmderrs and their spouses, and Emine Erdogan showed up with blue cat-glasses and a matching hoody!
Well, it wasn’t actually a hoody, but she still looked hip in a modest, matronly way.
evodevo
Society might, sort of, say Western clothing is alright now for women (but who knows if they’ll suddenly change their minds next week/month/who knows), but your fundie father/husband/brother won’t be going along, and you better toe the line. Not enough cultural change to overcome that…
J.
Fascinating. Thank you for sharing your photos and the commentary.
Baud
@Geminid:
Hopefully his goons won’t beat up protestors this time.
Geminid
@Baud: That might have done to impress Trump. He liked that kind of thing.
I don’t expect it will happen this time. Erdogan likes where he stands with this administration. Right now Turkish-American relations are the best since 2003, when Bush turned Iraq into a war zone. The meeting between Erdogan and Biden at last July’s Nato summit seems to have been a turning point.
Miki
Nice narrative and pictures – thanks for both.
My sister traveled to Saudi for a couple of weeks in March 2023. Her traveling companion was another woman, a friend from way back, who makes her living consulting with westerners visiting the Middle East for business. She drove them. She’s been to Saudi many times, and is familiar with both tourism and customs there.
And yes – They both wore abayas, usually black, but also some “fancy” ones.
It is an interesting place ….
Manyakitty
@Geminid: excellent. Baud beat me to my question.
Trivia Man
If you want to see a big flag, Sheboygan Wisconsin brags they have “the largest flag in the free world” or some other qualifier. Yes, it is spectacularly large.
Trivia Man
What a beautiful blue and black dress
Betty
In that mural, MBS looks like a brutal man. I am trying to imagine how much any one of these elaborate gold necklaces would cost. Jeepers!
Geminid
@Manyakitty: Also, Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan wouldn’t stand for such an unprofessional display out of a Turkish embassy. Erdogan used to run Turkish foreign policy out of his hip pocket, but he trusts Fidan and his Foreign Minister wants to “institutionalize” Turkiye’s foreign relationships, not antagonize allies.
Fun Fidan fact: he has a B.A. from the University of Maryland’s Global Campus. Fidan earned it while he was a Turkish Army Sergeant stationed in Germany, on the staff of Nato’s Rapid Reaction Force. Fidan went on to earn a Ph.D. and taught at an Istanbul university before Erdogan tapped him as his personal troubleshooter in 2005.
Trivia Man
never mind, i thought it was a non sequitor from another thread… i was lost
MazeDancer
Fascinating pictures. And narration.
cope
Very interesting and informative pictures, thank you.
We spent 3 or 4 years in the ’50s living in SA. My dad was teaching in an American school in what was/is essentially an American town dropped into the desert (we were in Abqaiq, a gated community near the Persian Gulf). One of my two brothers was actually born there. It was a fascinating place to be a kid and I developed an affection for the Bedu workers who came into town in the morning to work. In the evening, they all had to leave out the front gate. There was no TV, booze was prohibited (everybody bootlegged, my dad specialized in beer) and dogs were banned. Everybody, though, had cats, mostly Persian cats.
Your pictures and story sure show a place very different from my almost 70 years-ago experiences and memories. Thanks again.
Old School
@Trivia Man:
“The World’s Tallest Symbol of Freedom”
arrieve
@cope: One thing I found interesting with regards to alcohol: while we were docked in Jeddah and Yanbu (and sailing between them) no alcohol could be consumed on the ship. That included in our staterooms. The evening before we docked in Jeddah, the stewards visited every room and removed all the wine and beer from the mini-fridges.
StringOnAStick
Your tour guide is a lovely older woman, what a nice smile! I love her jacket. Local your guides have been the best part of tour -based trips we’ve done; you learn so much from them.
bookworm1398
Interesting pictures. Were your tour guides locals? Almost everyone working on our desert safari from Dubai a few years ago was an expat.
way2blue
@Baud:
My niece lived in Dubai for a few years, not too long ago, and as a foreigner didn’t wear their traditional clothing. I got the sense that parts of the city were more westernized than others.
way2blue
arrieve—I have a friend who grew up in Saudi Arabia in the late 50-60s (Aramco kid). She would disguise as a boy in order to ride her horse into the desert and hope not to get caught. And so it goes…
cain
It used to be that you could not enter SA if you had Israel stamp on your passport.
The other thing to watch out for is that poppy will give you the death sentence. So absolutely no poppy seed cake or anything like that
Manyakitty
@Geminid: he sounds like a smart, measured, impressive guy.
arrieve
@bookworm1398: Yes, the tour guides were all Saudi locals. And charming, though inexperienced.
Geminid
@Manyakitty: Fidan is an interesting character and a powerful one. He headed up M.I.T., Turkiye’s intelligence agency, for 11 years before Erdogan made him Foreign Minister last June. He was well known among the region’s governments.
People speculate that Fidan might be Erdogan’s successor when the old man retires. That would be interesting because Fidan’s father is Kurdish. Fidan is often described as an intellectual, but he looks more like a retired NFL Tight End.
Manyakitty
@Geminid: here’s hoping for a rational, steady influence and continued improving relations with Turkiye.