Author archive
15 January 2024
Saying goodbye E leaves today for Riyadh for some time with friends before returning home. We ate the buffet breakfast together early before I ordered him a car to the airport. This trip, I’ve been lucky to have found three great travel companions: first the two schoolfriends while in Japan and E in Saudi. E […]
14 January 2024
After several hours out in the car outside of Jeddah, we returned to the hotel to use hotel’s pool and sauna facility. It was a waste of time as the former was cold and the latter lukewarm. The showers were cold too. We gave up pretty quickly to chill in the room instead. Returning the car […]
13 January 2024
Back to Jeddah Today we return the car after 11 days back to Medina Station and take the train to Jeddah where we finish our trip together. This is the beginning of the end. This rental, our second in Saudi, had taken us 3119 km. We commenced the day with one of our rare hotel […]
12 January 2024
Navigational tiff We left packed up from our home of three days at Al Ula and departed at 1000, first filling up with petrol. Things went downhill soon after with some navigational disagreements between E and myself. I had the route planned towards Medina (Al-Madinah al-Munawwarah) on the most direct route. For a number of […]
11 January 2024
Visiting Dadan Today we have excursions booked for Dadan and Ikmah. We left the accommodation at 0845 for Winter Park in plenty of time to catch the tour bus leaving there at 0945. First up was Dadan. After being treated with light snacks and drinks, we our guide took us behind the visitor centre to […]
10 January 2024
Visiting Hegra Today we had an excursion to Hegra booked as it is not possible visit the site independely. We departed our accommodation at 0845 after a breakfast of rusk and cheese, getting to Winter Park in time for the 0930 bus departure to Hegra. At Hegra, we started with hospitality of snacks and water […]
9 January 2024
We walked to the nearby Keralan restaurant for a breakfast of dosai before departing Tayma around 1030, driving towards Al Ula. I had marked Naslaa Rock as a possible stop but it appeared to be a bit off-road and I had my doubts as to whether it was reachable in a normal car or even […]
8 January 2024
After a breakfast of rusk and fresh cheese (for a change rather than processed cheese), we departed around 0940. The day’s drive to Tayma is around 3h and I drove for 1h45 of that. That has got to break my record for my share of driving for the day! Getting to Tayma’s museum, it looked […]
7 January 2024
Driving to Tabuk We wanted to give the Al Jouf Regional Museum one more chance, as it looked impressive from the outside. We turned up at 0730, the time indicated on Google Maps to find it completely dead. So, we returned to the hotel and once fed and checked-out, we gave it one final shot […]
6 January 2024
Marid Castle The Al Farhan hotel came with a good buffet breakfast on the top floor. After a leisurely start, we left at 0945 to the Al Jouf Regional Museum, which was closed, and its adjoining outdoor area which was Marid Castle. The construction technique at Marid Castle walls comprised of rock bottom with mud […]