As the plane banked over the airport it looked like we were landing on Mars. Brown—pretty much what I had anticipated. Welcome to Saudi Arabia. Connie was here with the Air Force twenty-five years ago but this is a new country for me, #173.On the ground at King Khalid International Airport we zipped through immigration, gathered our luggage and met our driver without a hitch.
Only recently has Saudi Arabia begun courting tourists and our visit was pretty much on a whim. I knew little about the country and had even fewer expectations. Actually, little of note had taken place on the Arabian Peninsula from Paleolithic times until the advent of Islam in 610 AD when Mecca became a major pilgrimage destination. The First Saudi State, founded by King Muhammed bin Saud in 1727, lasted less than 100 years and it wasn’t until 1932 that modern unified Kingdom was proclaimed. Saudi Arabia didn’t become globally significant until the discovery of oil in 1938 and it has become an economic force to be reckoned with.
As if the long driving time between sites wasn’t enough, one look at the traffic in Riyadh reenforced our decision that an organized trip is the only sane way to see Saudi Arabia. Tour leader, Yannis, is actually French but speaks excellent English and passable Arabic he says he learned from bus drivers. The fifteen of us have an entire tour bus so we have plenty of room to spread out. Other than Connie’s friend Lynn, who flew directly from a tour in the Philippines to join us, the only folks whose names I remember are the few I like and those I alredy find annoying.
Thamer, our local guide, walked us from the hotel to Al Masmak Fort where he told us some the history. Slightly more than half of the population are Saudis and nearly all wear traditional robes—“thobe” for men and “abaya” for women. They cut us men some slack—long trousers and shirts are OK—but Western women are required to wear the abaya and a head covering in certain areas, especially Mecca. So we made a stop at “Abayas 'R' Us” where Lynn picked a gray abaya and Connie’s is green.
With a population of seven million, Riyadh is a burgeoning architect’s dream canvas and we had plenty of time to admire the buildings as our bus inched through the traffic. While most of the Saudi homes are boxy structures there is none of the Bauhaus “form follows function” nonsense here, Riyadh’s skyline is pure whimsy. Taking the project from the architect’s concept, through blueprints, structural engineering and final construction boggles the mind. From the helix of Al Majdoul to the Al Faisalih Tower with its globe at the top to the undulating KAFD Metro station, a drive through Riyadh is a trip into the future.
All this is in contrast to the mud-brick buildings of Diriyah, Saudia Arabia’s first capital, and the UNESCO World Heritage Site of At-Turaif Historical District where we were forced to follow Thamer’s scripted history of Saudi Arabia which had little to do with my agenda. There was too much “Now we go this way” and way, way, way too much basic Islam. If he said “The Prophet Mohammed, Peace Be Upon Him” one more time I thought I would scream. Even the signage which I would have preferred to read if we hadn’t been force-marched along, began abbreviating “PBUH.”
We finished the long day with a trip to Skybridge at the top of of the 99-story Kingdom Tower. With its reflective glass and inverted parabolic arch it is probably the most iconic building in Riyadh. We missed the sunset but the nighttime views of of the city more than made up for it. It was a little disconcerting to see the elevator operator fingering his worry beads but at least he didn’t get lost. After viewing the traffic mess 303 meters below us, we were all glad that we voted to dismiss the bus and take the metro back to our hotel.
