Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (16.02. - 18.02.2009)

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. When reading various Travel Guides it is often referred to as the forbidden Kingdom, since getting a visa as an individual tourist is hard. Claudia started calling the Saudi embassy in the mid of November but it was nearly impossible to reach anybody. We found out that the reason is the upcoming Hajj. So we decide to visit them late December when the busy time is over. The embassy in Dubai is an impressive complex. We reach it a few minutes before 12 but at a wrong gate. When the guard hears that we are German he calls the visa office and announces us since they close at 12. We will notice again and again that being German makes things easier in this part of the world. After entering the visa department and a 45 minutes wait we talk to one of the office stuff to find out what documents are required. We don’t understand right away what we need to bring so the guy seems to get tired and gives us a telephone number to call for additional information. It turns out to be a visa agent. When visiting their office we are told which documents to bring and that we need to have a Jordan visa before we can apply for the Saudi visa. Moreover, we are informed that the easiest is to get a 3 days transit visa. A tourist visa for a longer time would require an approval from the Ministry of Interior for Claudia and that can take time!! To cut it short, we decide for the transit visa and after a visit to the Jordan embassy and some additional visits to the visa agent we get the visa within 7 days. This is a real relief, since the only other way to get to our next stop Egypt would be through Iran.







So now we are approaching the Saudi border. After being told by friends that it is absolutely forbidden to bring in magazines with indecent dressed people, pork or alcohol and that they ask you to offload the content of the complete car we get prepared. We started the evening before to censor with a black marker our German magazines, and there is a lot to cover, and Thomas even considered emptying his after shave. Like often things that seem complicated are much easier than anticipated; within 45 minutes we have cleared the UAE border and have our Saudi stamp and car insurance. Customs only had a brief look at our cooler. No searching the car. Nothing!!

So - here we come Saudi Arabia. It is cloudy, a flat desert and the first buildings we see, a gas station with some shops, look like from the fifties but not maintained since then. So not the golden streets we expected and fancy buildings. Traffic is little and the highways are well maintained. As we continue our journey the roads get worse, big potholes, and often 2 lanes are closed for rebuilding the street. When we approach Damman traffic increases and we see the industrial backyard of Saudi. Not really a nice sight. As we continue the desert transforms and looks more than a light green savannah with tents of bedouines and their camel and sheep flocks in the background. With the increasing wind and dropping temperature it reminds us of pictures of Mongolia. We find a spot for our tent off the highway before the wind increases even more and thunderstorms with light rain start. Now we understand why they sell woollen galabayyas with a fur inside in the shops we passed. The next morning when we get up after a stormy night the thermometer shows -2 degrees.

The second day around noon a sandstorm starts and the visibility goes down to 100 meter maximum and we have to decrease speed to 80km/h since the automatic goes constantly in kick down mode. Shortly before dawn the wind gets less and we go off the road and set up our tent. We prepare for a windy and cold night. After 10 minutes sand is everywhere in the car as well as in the tent. The temperature drops quickly and at 7 pm we are already in bed. Luckily a little later the wind stops and we have a nice but cold night.

The next morning, we wake up under a blue sky and -2 degrees. We enjoy a coffee without sand for the first time in days and the warm sun.

The last 600 km of our 2000 km journey are covered within 6 hours and we approach the Jordan Border at 4 pm. Procedures are similar to the ones entering Saudi but require a little bit more running around and paperwork on the Jordan side. Due to a lot of cars and the hassle to change money and not to get a bad deal it takes two hours and we are in Jordan. Finally Claudia can change back to the normal dress code.

In the three days in Saudi we drove 1946 km and have seen desert, gas station, desert, gas station …..

By the way, thanks to all of you for your nice comments in our blog and via e-mail. It's always nice to hear from you and it's a big motivation to continue as well. Writing the blog is not as easy as we thought, since during daytime it's too bright for the computer, at night it's too cold or windy. So working on the blog is limited to the few hours we spend in hotels...