I can confidently say that I never thought in a million years that I would travel to Saudi Arabia. In fact, after watching the documentary “The Dissident” I told my good friend, Kate, that I would “never” visit her in Saudi. This is one more example of why we should not use the word “never.” It makes a liar out of most of us, and it’s why I won’t say that I will “never marry again” despite being confident that I won’t use that script a fourth time in this life.
During our two week semester break (late January) I didn’t want to be away from the cats for too long (having adopted a second cat–post on that is forthcoming) because they were in the process of integrating. I did have a roommate at the time–a young American woman studying Turkish–but didn’t want to overwhelm her with too much cat-sitting. Therefore, I took two short trips in late January/early February–the first to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to visit Kate and to experience what the “heartland” of Islam looks and feels like.
For whatever reason traveling to the Middle East always seems to involve flights in the middle of the night. It was true of when I visited the UAE back in 2019, and it remains true today. My flights to and from Riyadh had me arriving AND taking off between 1 and 2 in the morning. I’m not sure why this is. Perhaps to avoid the heat of the day? Or because I purchase the cheapest plane tickets available? Anyway, it can make arrival tough, but it does allow one to maximize their time on the ground. We enjoyed a nice full day together before I went to the airport around midnight on my last day. Unfortunately there is not a direct flight from Izmir to Riyadh–it required a connection through Istanbul (NOT my favorite airport).
What did I find in Riyadh?
A city in the middle of a desert! The buildings are, for the most part, the color of the desert. The city of over 7M is littered with malls, restaurants, and coffee shops. So. Many. Coffee. Shops. As well as a lot of construction taking place everywhere. One will spend a good bit of time in traffic moving around the city as it seems everyone has a vehicle and as I was told–gas is cheap! We usually spent 45+ minutes driving to dinner (usually 10-20 km distance), and usually less than that on the return trip, thank goodness.
Thankfully in January it is not too hot in Saudi, in the upper 70s or lower 80s. On the first day Kate made sure I got my Mexican food fix per my primary request for the visit. We did this after visiting the Kingdom Tower. From that structure I took the picture above. It provides a 360 view of the sprawling city. While there are some skyscrapers, overwhelmingly the city is filled with shorter buildings and a great many single family homes all of which have walls and gates around them.
After our dinner out we visited one of the primary entertainment venues in the city–Boulevard Riyadh City. It is an open air “theme park” of sorts with shops, restaurants, and entertainment venues. We took a tour around the “city” on one of go cart like vehicles. We did not make it to the Boulevard World–the other boulevard venue–which apparently has food and entertainment from various countries around the world (think “it’s a small world” type of idea).
Kate and I, since meeting and working together in Mongolia, have made the time and effort to visit one another in our professional worlds since then. She visited me in Turkey in 2018; I visited her in Abu Dhabi in 2019. Then of course we had the pandemic which stopped travel for a couple of years. She came to see me again in Turkey this past fall and I made my first trip to Saudi in January (and have since visited for a long weekend).
She toured my campus and library here, and I had the pleasure of touring her school in Riyadh (as I did the one in Abu Dhabi previously). Her current school is large and because of the segregation of male and female students after a certain age, there are three libraries on her campus. I enjoyed touring the campus, observing students and teachers, and strolling through the libraries. Before you ask, yes I did have to wear an abaya over my clothing when I visited the male campuses. No, I did not have to cover my hair or face at all.
I found the Saudi citizens working with Kate to be very friendly and hard working. They are proud of their Kingdom and school, and a number of the women shared how progressive the Kingdom has become since when they were young. They also shared that they hope and believe the Kingdom will continue to progress and advance, all for the better.
Out in public it is different to observe men and women adorned in their Islamic threads–the men often wearing thobes and semaghs, and women in abayas, some with head coverings or niqabs, others without. In Türkiye I see women who cover, but as we are a secular nation (as of yet), there is a lot more diversity of clothing here. That said, the malls were filled with designer clothing brands as well as everyday brands that foreigners would know and even “brands for less” which is like a Ross or Marshalls in U.S.
It is always good to spend time with Kate, and I quickly hit it off with one of her colleagues, making a new international educator friend as we often do in our field. The city, as mentioned before, is filled with malls, stores, restaurants, and coffee shops. There is every kind of cuisine imaginable–I’ve enjoyed Mexican, Italian, Armenian, Lebanese, and even good old McDonald’s (egg McMuffin made with chicken sausage–still very delicious). I was also able to find some of my favorite American products that I can’t buy in Türkiye (example–A1 Steak Sauce). And when I went back for the long weekend, I did some clothing and shoe shopping as well. They have larger “superstores” where it is easy to find many sizes available for items. Having larger feet (it seems) I have struggled to find comfortable shoes here.
All in all I can say that I am glad I have visited “the Kingdom” as they all call it. It was informative and interesting to visit a more visibly Islamic country. I think some people in the U.S. mistakenly envision that Türkiye looks more like how I found Saudi.
Of course the biggest difference is that alcohol and pork products are illegal and therefore not available in Saudi Arabia. It seemed that where I would go out with friends for drinks and dinner, in Saudi you just go out for dinner and have conversations about what cuisine you want to try next! You can purchase alcohol free beer or wine–I of course tried it. I can’t say it’s noteworthy. So if you go, go for the food and the shopping!
Very interesting reading Heather. So different to when I lived in the middle East many many years ago.