12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 3/32 by Dilmuni Couple

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 4/32 by Dilmuni Couple

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 5/32 by Dilmuni Couple — Mecca

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 6/32 by Dilmuni Couple — Mecca

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 7/32 by Dilmuni Couple — Al-Noor Mount

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 8/32 by Dilmuni Couple

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 9/32 by Dilmuni Couple — oly Mosque Architecture Museum

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 10/32 by Dilmuni Couple — Ta’if

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 11/32 by Dilmuni Couple

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 12/32 by Dilmuni Couple — Al Hada mountain road

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 13/32 by Dilmuni Couple

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 14/32 by Dilmuni Couple

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 15/32 by Dilmuni Couple — Jeddah

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 16/32 by Dilmuni Couple

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 17/32 by Dilmuni Couple — Al-Bald

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 18/32 by Dilmuni Couple

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 19/32 by Dilmuni Couple

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 20/32 by Dilmuni Couple — Medina

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 21/32 by Dilmuni Couple — Al-Ula museum

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 22/32 by Dilmuni Couple — Shafa Hurrat Oyred

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 23/32 by Dilmuni Couple — Madain Saleh

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 24/32 by Dilmuni Couple

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 25/32 by Dilmuni Couple

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 26/32 by Dilmuni Couple

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 27/32 by Dilmuni Couple — Madain Saleh

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 28/32 by Dilmuni Couple

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 29/32 by Dilmuni Couple

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 30/32 by Dilmuni Couple — The heritage village in Al-Ula

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 31/32 by Dilmuni Couple — Elephant rock

Photo of 12 days on the road in Saudi Arabia 32/32 by Dilmuni Couple — Khereaba

One of the reasons that led us to choose Saudi Arabia as a travel destination was to challenge the fears within us toward this country. Although Bahrain is only one hour away from Saudi Arabia and both countries have many similarities in customs and cultural habits, but the existing laws in Saudi differ significantly from Bahrain and this is what makes many Bahrainis or people from different nationalities worried about traveling alone to this country. So in addition to all the enthusiasm we have to challenge our fears and discover the unknown, we did a research and found that Saudi Arabia contains one of the historical masterpieces “Mada’in Saleh” and here we planned our road trip to Madain Saleh in Saudi.

It was totally new experience for us, we can say that the trip went smoothly and we are lucky because Saudi Arabia roads are well prepared for road trips. The experience as well was a good preparation for more upcoming road trips maybe in more remote places or countries. The challenge was to go with the plan we set and to come out with photographs in a country that consider photography as prohibited activity where you need a permission to anything you are going to photograph. Though we faced many difficulties in dealing with the country laws and sometimes its people but we saw many beautiful and fascinating places, we made new friends and yes we would do it again and visit Saudi Arabia.

We invite you to do the same, and end your fears! The time you start facing your fears you will realize that most of the fears are created by you and you are the one who should decide to face them.

“The more I traveled the more I realized that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends”

–Shirley Maclaine

Riyadh Province

Riyadh the capital of Saudi was our first stop; we visited Ad-Diriyah (Saudi early capital), which inscribed by UNESCO world heritage. It was the home of the first Saudi rulers, the place has a special architectural style, colorful doors and it is well restored. We couldn’t explore the old Diriyah due to the maintenance and development project that are running there, but we will be coming back to explore it more in the near future!

Mecca

Mecca The holy city of Islam, We consider ourselves lucky because we can visit this holy place. The city is forbidden for non-Muslims, more over it is very difficult to get a visa or permission for the non GCC nationals to visit Mecca. Some of them wait for years only to get the permission. In the contrary we don’t require any visa or permission, and we can visit Mecca easily any time during the year. We did Umrah as a must do when entering Mecca. Apart from the fascinating monument of Kaaba, Mecca city has a sad fact that it has really dirty environment that help in spreading many diseases. More care is needed to handle the huge number of people visiting the place during the year. We took a small tour to the neighborhoods around Kaaba and we witnessed a shocking reality!!

Al Noor Street

Holy Mosque Architecture Museum

Ta'if

Ta’if is only one hour away from Mecca, but surprisingly the weather is totally different, when we left Mecca the temperature was 40 C compared to 23 C in Taif, this is why it is described as the summer capital of Saudi. It was a great escape after spending 2 days in crowded Mecca. We really enjoyed Taif, it has many to offer ,we have seen the rose plantation and visited the oldest rose water factory in town (Gadhi rose factory), we had the chance to see some historical houses in Taif but only from outside as all of them were locked and closed!!.

Al Hada Road

Jeddah

Jeddah has two sides of the story… In one side you can see all the modern and huge shopping malls, luxury houses and clean streets. On the other side you can see very poor community of beggars, homeless people, many immigrant of different nationalities specially Africans.

Al Balad

“Al-Bald” or historical area in Jeddah is one of the main attractions in the city. This place contains lovely Coral Houses, Old Souq, and other historical sites.

Medina

Medina or the city of the prophet is the second holy place in Saudi after Mecca, it stores the prophet mosque that includes prophet Mohammed grave. In an attempt to discover more about the history of the city we started to search for the historical places and we were so disappointed. This city is supposed to tell a lot about the Islamic history, unfortunately most of the historical places have been destroyed except for few old mosques. Old neighborhoods and houses are removed having 5 stars hotels and new roads built instead. A few left to tell about the history of Medina. We had our best meal in Medina; we visited the fish market that is 1 Km from the prophet mosque and where you can have a variety of sea food options. People and tourist are coming from everywhere at lunch time, the fish is being fried in really big pans that is full of oil, after taking out the fish from the pan the cooker takes a bunch of spices and put it over, the taste is really good Yum yummy.

Khyber

Khyber two hours far away from Medina. We were very enthusiastic to discover this ancient place, especially when we read that many pieces found their back to the stone ages!. Unfortunately, our plan did not go as we wanted; While trying to get in the old Khyber area, we have been threatened by civil guy! He realized that we are from Bahrain through our car signage. He was an extremist and started questioning us in weird way asking different questions about religion and politics! (Why we are here?, what we are doing exactly? and what is our religion roots!!?). He was threatening us in many means (like he might attack us or beat us if we disagree with his way of thinking!) at the end we could calm him down and continue our way. We left the place without exploring it.

Al Ula

Al-Ula is one of the best cities that we visited in Saudi. The place is really clean, calm and peaceful. Moreover it is rich of history more than we expected! Farms and palm trees are everywhere. We moved very easily and people were very nice and welcoming. Al-Ula considered as one of the remarkable historical sites in the world, mainly because of the existence of Mada’in Saleh.

Al-Ula museum

This museum contains many antiquites and ancient artifacts that highlight the civilization of the Arabian Peninsula from the Stone Age to the present.

The heritage village in Al-Ula

It exhibits the distinctive patterns of Islamic cities in the past, the village was built in the 7th century.

Elephant rock

Natural rock formation that lock like huge elephant.

Khereaba

This is a rocky frontage which contains lions graves dating back to Al-Lehyania reign.

Shafa Hurrat Oyred

A volcanic mountain bordering Al-Ula city.

Madain Saleh

Madain Saleh … For many people that we met, they dream to visit Petra. So we were very lucky to reach Madain Saleh. Many people don’t know that Madain Saleh exists! Madain Saleh is described as “sister city of Petra” and it’s a UNESCO World Heritage site. We can describe the place as an open museum to explore, the site is amazing and full of wonders, we were amazed with the tombs that are carved into the mountains and how it remains until today despite of erosion, also the desert and the remarkable and unique rock formation. We can talk a lot on how amazing the place is but we invite you to visit it and see it yourself.