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Published: March 20th 2022
After all those years of travel, there we were......on a highway to Ha'il. It was inevitable of course. Not because we lived a lifestyle that would lead us to the fiery depths of Hades, but rather because we were continuing our journey in Saudi and the path was straight to a city in the middle of nowhere really. In a country as large as Saudi Arabia the drives are long from town to town. This part of the country is rather desolate, and it was a bit cloudy to boot. Lacking the sunshine, the desert didn’t have the beauty it had a few days ago. As a matter of fact, it looked a tad ugly.
We’d been told we would have a picnic in a unique place because there weren’t any restaurants in this isolated section of the country. We stopped at a gas station that had a well-stocked mini mart to buy the food for our picnic. We had a great time taking photos of familiar foods. Here on the edge of nowhere thanks to marketing and transportation, you can find Kellog's cereals at a mini-mart. Our guides loaded up on pita, hummus, fresh fruit, cheeses, tomatoes, chips, juices
and soft drinks. We chuckled as we took photos of camels being hauled in a truck. Probably heading to the camel market. The mere fact that we surmise this is what tickles us.
We drove another twenty minutes and pulled into a rather interesting building. As we got out we were informed the large building was a community center where we would meet “The Sheik” of the town and his grandson. Before that though we would dine on the floor of a Bedouin camp. Bedouins were nomadic people from the past, known as dwellers of the open land. It was a beautiful tent with rugs and pillows on the floor. We’ve forgotten to tell you that wherever we go we are greeted with bowls, large bowls of dates and served coffee and tea. Once again, this ritual sprang into action. Daniele and Saad scurried off to wash the foods and asked all of us to assist in opening the packages for our picnic and loading up the plates to be passed around. It was a lovely picnic.
Once we finished lunch, we were invited to visit the community center to talk with and take photos with “The Sheik”.
Father and Daughter
When visiting the GovernorYes, there are still sheiks in Saudi. This gentleman served as somewhat of a trouble shooter, ombudsman and all-around "he's the guys you call" role. He was charming and wanted to tell us about his town. They have a couple of lovely rooms for banquets and weddings. The Sheik gifted us multiple kilos of dates to take with us because the dates of this region are well known and they are proud people. Just down the street we entered another carpeted and pillowed room where we met the Governor of the town who is the brother of the sheik. We all sat around drinking coffee, tea and eating dates. We were allowed to ask questions about the local people and customs. Everyone is gracious and welcoming. Our stop there also included a visit to the old town ruins. Made of mud and straw, these buildings are quite old, but served their purpose back in the day.
Another day found us at a date farm for lunch. After coffee, tea and dates (standard stuff at this point) we were invited to observe how they pull water from the wells with the camels. Without our video it is hard to describe
but the camels walking back and forth pulling pouches that have been lowered into the well. With a system of pulleys, the water is brought to the surface for use. It was an interesting process and all of us enjoyed watching the camels. As we write about this we chuckle because it was far more interesting than our description.
Arriving in the city of Ha’il we visited (what else?) a date market. We are beginning to think Saudi Arabia has more dates than oil. All the oil derricks are located well east of us, but every hotel lobby has bowls of dates sitting around. Each meeting or encounter with local people starts with coffee and dates. Dates, dates, dates … are everywhere. So we visited a date store with about 10 different kinds of dates for us to sample and several kinds of honey and sauces to dip the dates in. There are a line of date stores all selling these delicious little morsels. As Americans, we had no idea the vast variety of dates and the things you can dip them in.
Just across the street, we made a quick visit to the vegetable and fruit market.
They were eager to have us sample their fruits. Several men started peeling and slicing oranges, tangerines, and other fruits for us to sample. They have some amazing citrus fruit in this country. We nearly made a meal out of our fruit samples. We are literally in the desert in a city of about 600,000 and staring at delicious fruit for sale.....amazing.
Next, we headed to the women’s section of the market. Each of the stores and stalls are run by women only—at least they were very visible in these stores. I would imagine the men are behind the scenes, but it was nice seeing women being involved in this business. Most of the stores sell similar clothing, rugs, coffee pots and jewelry. Remember we told you in the beginning that Saudi Arabia has just opened up for tourism. Absent from these shops are trinkets that tourist would want to purchase such as magnets and postcards. There is little doubt that they will figure this out soon and create another revenue stream. We did stop in a shop where you could outfit yourself with tents and camping gear should you want to become a nomad.
We visited the
A'Arif Fort in downtown Ha’il srategically located at the top of a hill. The strategy as always is to build a fort on a hill to defend and protect. It is a well-maintained architecture was a delight since this was constructed in 17th A.D. An ascent to the top of the fort provided us with expansive views of Ha’il. We were not able to enter the
Quishlah Fort but were able to admire it from outside.
As we wander many people want to practice their English and find out where we are from. In Ha’il a car with 3 women drove up to us to talk. They were smiling, waving and saying hello. They allowed us to take photos and it made us happy to see them. Our guide Saad told us that women have had the right to drive for years. Then he clarified and said that women drove until the late 1930’s and then they weren’t allowed to drive “for a while”. As far as we know from reading their right to drive began in 2018. From what we observed few women are driving. Our guide said his wife doesn’t drive yet but she could if she
Woman Driver
They enjoyed taking our photos and talking. wanted to. Observing the women driving allowed us to feel that we are in Saudi at a time to see the changes as they are occurring. We’ve learned that there is much that can be seen and communicated from veiled women. The eyes really are the direct line to communication. It was easy to see the beauty in these women and all of them had big smiles. The women seemed very happy and eager to practice their English on us.
Not far from Ha’il we visited
Jubbah UNESCO site which is famous for its pictographs. As we mentioned earlier the rock art is well preserved in this country. The pictographs are thousands of years old, having been carved in a time when there actually was water around this area and preserved over the millennia by the absence of rain. It is easy to understand why UNESCO has honored this area, given all its history. We spent a couple of hours viewing the different art and discussing the stories being told.
Frequently, our guide Daniele, would ask us if we needed anything. One day we told him we’d like a sandstorm. We all laughed. When you are in the
desert you need to play in the sand so we stopped at the
Barken sand dune. A quick climb to the top provided a great view where we played in the sand and took several photos. The wind was blowing and whipping our hair. The sand was pelting our skin a bit and stung slightly. That was enough of a sandstorm for us. I would imagine a real sandstorm could bloody your skin. Natural dermabrasion.......
In each city we visit we continue to see statues and artwork in the center of the traffic circles. It is very creative and attractive. As a side note, we never saw a statue of a person while in Saudi.....but we're unsure why.....
Where we stayed:
Holiday Villa
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Alistair & Gill Campbell
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Dates!
Really enjoyed your blog. Just planted one of the dates we brought back, hoping to establish Somerset as the UK date capital!! Not sure we're up for 10 varieties though!