Dec 27 - In my original plan for this phase of the trip, we would have gone from Jordan to Saudi Arabia overland, with a combination of taxis and buses, perhaps from Ma’an to Tabuk. I was excited about this because it was well outside of the normal backpacker route. However, the snag was that Saudi Arabian tourist visas are issued only to those flying in certain airports, or driving across the bridge from Bahrain. Hence today’s flight, a seemingly unnecessary expense just to fulfill the requirement. I suppose I should be happy to even have the visa. Prior to 2019, it was nearly impossible to get here without a special reason (family, work, Hajj), and then for 2020 and part of 2021 it was all shut down again for COVID. This year is probably the first year to really see significant numbers of people coming in, like us, just touring around on our own.
The Saudi tourist visa process was painless, but only because I had already planned so far ahead. The flights were booked and a number of hotels reserved when I applied (late November), so there were no last-minute arrangements to be made. It took less than ten minutes to be approved online and get the printable copy.
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Fairly cursory immigration procedures here, and no one seemed to be targeted for customs inspection. I’d read that taxis can really overcharge from the airport, so stop at the nearest taxi reservation desk I see and book one for 125 riyals (about US $33).
Jeddah is a sprawling array of buildings and intervening empty lots. The construction is blocky and has no architectural consistency, with wide highways running everywhere. The few pedestrian overpasses look very recently built (probably done in accordance with the Saudi Vision 2030* goals of making the city more livable). There are also large areas, sometimes very large, where whatever buildings existed have been completely demolished, the empty terrain now piled high with broken concrete and metal. Dust fills the sky from the army of front end loaders and dump trucks slowly moving around all this urban detritus. I ask our taxi driver about this and he confirms that they are doing this a lot, but says he doesn’t know what the plan is.
Our hotel is in an unremarkable part of town, central to nothing but then I couldn’t get a feel for any center in the first place. At any rate it was a cheaper option.
*So, Saudi Vision 2030 is a blanket term covering a myriad of schemes to transform the country from an self-isolated and extremely rich oil producer to a forward-looking and diverse country. The vision is rather lofty and assumes that the KSA can diversity its economy, bring prosperity to all its citizens, and build innovative, futuristic infrastructure. It sees itself as a geographical pivot between Asia, Europe, and Africa, with the financial means to pour billions into achieving what sort of looks like a vision of eutopia. One in which the government proposes to be more transparent and efficient than it is now. Physically, there are many stand-out pieces to the vison, one of which is Red Sea Global (already mentioned). Another is NEOM, a ‘smart’ city to be built near Tabuk, which will be basically one long line of ‘city’, narrow but extending for 170 km. The budget for it is $500 billion.
A quick walk around the neighborhood suggests that not a lot of thought is given to business fronts. Glass store fronts are unwashed, parking chaotic, sidewalks tiles are poorly placed, and garbage is stuffed into narrow alleys between buildings. Everything has a layer of dust on it. Get some money from an ATM but it doesn’t offer a statement of commission or exchange rate before spitting out the cash (no receipt either). Get some food supplies for the room from a small supermarket. Find a nearby restaurant that looks closed but door opens so I ask what they have (fish). It is more like a place to just sell fresh fish, but they have tables so I struggle along to order up something in Arabic and we sit. Everyone working her is male, as are all the people who come and go buying fish. The big screen TV on the wall shows a live cam of the Ka’aba Stone, with pilgrims slowly performing their ritual of seven circumambulations. An audio track drones off passages of the Qur’an. It all certainly has the feel of something different, even having been in the Middle East now for over three months.
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