Well, well, well, where to go today? Let’s try going from the Arabian Gulf to the Red Sea? Sounds like a plan! We take one last look out the window and then head down to our Uber. We couldn’t find any information about public transit to the airport, unfortunately. 

The drive out to the airport is pretty uneventful, and as we have pointed out numerous times in Saudi Arabia… you leave the city limits and it’s just desert. 

But we’re “quickly” at the airport and it’s time to get the usual pictures to commemorate the fact that we’re here. 

Pretty big mosque at the airport. Wouldn’t really expect anything less while in Saudi Arabia. 

And the inside of the airport is pretty nice. From what we read it’s a pretty new airport. There used to be one much closer to the city, but this must be in planning for the uptick in tourism they’d like to see across the country. 

Not only is it “structurally” nice, but it also has a good amount of art in it. Reminds us a bit of the art we saw while getting intimately acquainted with the Muscat airport. 

My partner just aimlessly walks back and forth in the terminal while he waits, and this is as good a time as any to talk about our destinations, Jeddah. 

Why do we bring it up now while we’re still in Dammam? Because, it explains what we see around us. Many, many men are dressed wearing what to us looks like two pieces of white cotton fabric. This is Ihram clothing, and it is what Muslim men must wear when performing their pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca. So, without pictures, let’s explain. 

Muslims must perform a mandatory pilgrimage (if physically and financially able) to Mecca once in their lives, and this is called Hajj. There is a second, non-mandatory, pilgrimage as well called Umrah. We talked a bit about Hajj while at the Bahrain National Museum, but as a refresher, this is a pilgrimage that is tied to the Islamic calendar. So, as such, we know that none of the people here are on Hajj as that’s not until June/July of 2023. So, these must be pilgrims on their way for Umrah. So, why the clothing? Ihram clothing is meant so that everyone performing pilgrimage is equal, “the prince and the pauper”. So men wear two white sheets, one tied to their waist by a belt and the other draped to cover their torso. There are other conditions beyond how they dress that they must also follow, but we’re not experts so we will leave that to you and an internet search if you so wish. And why do we only focus on the men? Because the men are all equal. The women are allowed slight differences between them, and aren’t really expected to wear special clothes to perform either pilgrimage. The only real “expectation” on them is that they don’t cover their face while performing pilgrimage, but it is not mandatory. 

Now, why are they wearing this now? We’re going to Jeddah, not Mecca. Well, Jeddah is the “gateway” to the Holy Cities of Mecca and Madinah, the holiest and second holiest cities of Islam, respectively. I’m sure we will see more once actually in Jeddah and this will make more sense once there.

For now, it’s time to get on the plane and buckle up for our flight across Saudi Arabia. 

And, we sound like broken records, again there’s “nothing” but desert. Which makes sense, we’re pretty much flying directly over the train tracks that brought us from Riyadh to Dammam a few days ago. 

And at a certain point during the flight to Jeddah there was an announcement for all passengers. We’re not sure what it said word-for-word, but it went something like this “dear passengers, please note that we have now crossed miqat* and you should commence your preparations for your pilgrimage. May Allah hear your prayers.” We also believe that they had a separate message that we were entering Haram* and that prayers here were worth more than prayers outside. And, since we’re on the subject of passenger announcements… every flight (from Abu Dhabi to Riyadh and Dammam to Jeddah, and the train from Riyadh to Dammam) begins with the recitation of a prayer that the prophet Mohammed used to say before travelling. Quite interesting. 

[*Some quick definitions for the above paragraph to make more sense to our non-Muslim readers. First, miqat; this is the boundary at which Muslims performing Hajj or Umrah must enter the state of Ihram. There are cities/towns that are stipulated as the boundary, but it also applies through air and is considered more of a geographical boundary in this case. Secondly, Haram. In this case we believe it was referring to the holy boundaries around Mecca. We don’t believe it was the city, as we believe air space is closed directly over Mecca, but it may have been “close” or maybe the province of Mecca. Not 100% sure there.]

And then we start descending into Jeddah. We of course had to take a picture of their stadium! Maybe this is the stadium that hosted the previous Spanish Super Cup in 2020?

As you can see, we’ve arrived on the Red Sea! For such an important city, they’ve built out rather than up, it seems. (For now at least, Jeddah is building the tallest building in the world, but it is currently on pause).

Supposedly we should have noticed more people wearing the white Ihram clothing as they could have changed on the plane before the announcement of entering miqat, but either we’re not too observant or the majority of the people performing Umrah had already changed before leaving the Dammam airport. But this is just a random aside, hehe. 

And then we leave the airport terminal and enter where everyone is asking if we would like to take a taxi or not. Of course, we would not. Luckily we found a post online about a bus that goes from the airport directly to “downtown” Jeddah. We will explain in due time, because first look at this! It’s the world’s biggest airport aquarium!

We’re not sure exactly what you’ll be able to make out… but there are A LOT of fish, some rays, and some sharks. Crazy to see. But, thankfully, this makes explaining the next part easy. When you leave the terminal, just go to the bottom of the aquarium (impossible to miss) and that’s where you will see signs for the bus to Jeddah. And you can ask anyone that works for the airport about it and they will direct you as well. It seems like the tourist information people here are great and the tourism infrastructure is also top notch. Must be because this has been the only place that has always received people from around the world in Saudi Arabia for both pilgrimages. 

But, after waiting a little while we’re ready to go to Jeddah!

The bus is very easy. You must buy a transit card at the Saptco booth and the trip costs 15 SAR to go straight from the airport to Jeddah. As Jeddah is very spread out, the bus specifically goes to the Saptco bus terminal that is located in Old Jeddah. Luckily for us, that’s where our hotel is. So, a tip, stay in Old Jeddah so that this bus is useful to you. It doesn’t seem like there are other non-taxi options for Jeddah. You can easily go from the airport to Mecca or Madinah though! 

The bus ride was fine. The traffic wasn’t too bad, but there’s not much to see from the bus. It’s mainly low rise buildings that you see.

But then we made it to the bus station. From here you can connect to anywhere you want in Saudi Arabia.

And, like in Dammam, it’s literally packed with people just outside of the gates yelling where they’d like to take you. The majority are driving to Mecca or Madinah, but other destinations were also available. We kindly said we were staying in Jeddah and everyone left us alone and welcomed us to their city.

My partner decided to walk to the hotel because it was “close”. What he didn’t count on was the fact that Old Jeddah has winding streets and that Jeddah is WAY hotter than Riyadh or Dammam were. Much, much hotter. So the 15 minute walk was tiring. But whatever. We’re at the hotel, get changed, and off we go to explore. No rest for us! And our room has a great view of Old Jeddah, so it gives us extra energy to go out. 

Forgive us for not knowing much as it is our first few hours here (not that we know too much regularly, hehe) but we will give you the quick walking tour of what is close to us in Historic Jeddah. 

First off, we will start with the Old Jeddah Gate. 

As far as we can tell, Jeddah used to be a walled city, so this was likely one of the main gates into the city. However, we’re a bit curious because about 2 or 3 metres in front of it we see this. 

These are the remains of the fortifications of Jeddah. The earliest mention of these walls date back to the 10th century CE, with a better description being given in the 13th century CE where the walls were two parallel walls of differing heights. These were reinforced in 1506, but eventually demolished in 1947 to allow the city to expand being it’s historical limits. Why we’re curious is that the wall doesn’t line up with the gate. So, were there two gates here or was the gate a bit setback from the wall? Hmmm.

Right in front of the gate/wall is this monument, we’re not 100% sure what the monument is, but it clearly reminds us of minarets from a mosque. 

The rest of the pictures are from us wandering through Old Jeddah. (For locals this is actually called Al Balad neighbourhood.) The historic buildings here are all in different states of being maintained, but it is beautiful. We can’t wait to explore more of this neighbourhood!

And, of course, no neighbourhood would be complete without it’s local mosque. 

But that’s it for the exact neighbourhood. Let’s venture a liiiiiittle bit outside. So, as we told you, we have no idea what we’re doing. So we aimlessly walk. And then we see this. My partner’s family tells him he’s next to a historic site, so we take this picture. Hmm… not much to it?

But no. We are mistaken once again. We turn the corner trying to investigate a bit more and then we see the sign. 

The sign translates to Eve’s Cemetery. Like, Adam and Eve. It is a small unassuming cemetery on the outskirts of Al Balad. Very interesting that we just happened to walk by it. Luckily the map had it marked that this was a site of historical significance!

We continue. Now we have a bit of an idea of where to go next because it’s starting to get a bit dark. We look at the map and make our way to the Jaffali Mosque. It’s absolutely beautiful with the setting sun and the lights. 

It is supposed to be one of the best known mosques in Saudi Arabia (besides the holiest mosques, of course) because of its location and its beauty. Not only is it beautiful, it is also located beside Lake Arbaeen. 

Although not actually a lake because it is a little inlet of the Red Sea, it is beautiful nonetheless. And a very happening place in the evenings. It is absolutely filled with families enjoying themselves in the green areas around the mosque. We obviously didn’t take pictures of them, but this gives you an idea. 

Not only that, there’s also a bunch of art installations in the parks surround the mosque. We can see why it’s so popular! 

But with that it’s time to head back and start looking for food. We go into some of the little malls around, but we don’t find any restaurants. We get some groceries, and a picture of a sign. 

Then it’s time to head back towards the hotel. The shops remind you that you are in the gateway to two of the holiest sites in Islam as you walk around the city. 

And then it’s back to the hotel, with a picture of the another mosque close to the “centre” of Al Balad to finish our day. Good night from Jeddah!