No, this blog wont be about a Korean called K.S.A. I dont in fact know, if there is a Korean named like that. It wouldnt surprise me. The K.S.A. I am referring to is the abbreviation for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A long time dream. One that seemed unattainable until three years ago, when suddenly this closed to tourist country went from unable to get a visa, to press a button on the internet and get an in ten seconds! Covid put a spanners in my plan to go there earlier, but here I am at last.
Along with me on the first part of my trip is my mum. I would have liked to have Jenni with me, but she Not that my mum is not good enough, we travel well together, and I am glad she is here with me.
My impression so far of the country is that it is greener than I expected. And I dont mean it is lush, but I guess I thought most of it would be sand dunes, except for the mountains in the west, which I knew would be green. In fact, a lot
of it looks a little like the outback in Australia, perhaps slightly dryer. There are sand dunes of course, however most of the time you see tufts of grass and a few trees and bushes. Its not that often that you dont see any green whatsoever. There are loads of interesting rock formations sculpted by the winds, and mountains in various hues of yellow, red, black and grey. Bare, perhaps, but striking nevertheless and beautiful in their own right. The scenery is never dull.
Another impression is that the cities and towns are spread out over a huge area. As a European from a small country I find it somewhat disconcerting. There often isnt much of an obvious centre. And getting from one place to another is hard, if not impossible, on foot. A 20 minute ride by taxi to get anywhere, is more the norm here. Which brings me to my third observation, travelling around this country is difficult without your own transport. Difficult, I say, but not impossible. There are intercity buses and with apps like Uber and the local version Careem, plus the ubiquitous taxis, it is doable. Once you accept that walking is not an
option, and you need to get a ride, just to go out for dinner, for example (if you dont want to eat in your hotel), it more manageable. Not easy, not convenient, but possible.
We arrived in Riyadh on Thursday evening. My mistake was not to get a Saudi simcard at the airport as soon as I arrived. I say mistake, the problem was there wasnt a simcard provider on our terminal and I had arranged an airport taxi to pick us up. So I let it slide, thinking I would get one in town the next day. Not realising that on Friday shops are closed... And in Saudi Arabia you need a Saudi simcard to arrange anything. But with the help of the friendly receptionist at our hotel we managed to get around a little on Friday, even without a simcard. At four in the afternoon the shops opened and I got the magic card that opens doors in this country. I could buy our train ticket to Hail, our next destination, I could hail Uber and Careem rides, I could do so many things suddenly! Ah, the power of a simple little sim card.
is vast, sprawling, enormous, humongous. You get the picture: it is big! Our hotel was in the centre, but that means nothing, I am not even sure what the centre of Riyadh is. We were in one centre. There wasnt much around us though. We went to Diriyah, old Riyadh, that took 30 minutes by taxi, and when we came it was closed. You could get a ticket via an app, and only via an app. At that time I still didnt have the simcard. So we walked around a little outside and peeked in from a distance. Went to Masmak Fort, it was 20 minutes away. Kingdom Tower 20 minutes away. The train station, 40 minutes away. Most of Riyadh is low, brown and bare, and it would seem a 20 minute ride away.
The train to Hail I like train journeys, so when I could choose between a bus or a train, I obviously went for the train.
