Hmm… we’ve had a few busy days in a row, so let’s take it a little slower today. What really happens is that we’ve been wasting our day by sitting in the hotel, doing some laundry, and looking up some beaches to go to and swim. That last part has been unsuccessful… There seems to be beaches all around Jeddah, but they’re all like the ones we’ve already visited, and you can’t swim. We could take a taxi to a potential beach… but we struggle to find information if a lone male would be fine to swim there. Better play it safe and just have a calm day around Al Balad.
We take off from the hotel, and walk through a new part of Historic Jeddah where there is construction happening. It will be amazing to come back after Vision 2030 has been completed to see what Jeddah (and the rest of Saudi Arabia) has become!
Our first stop is Eve’s Tomb. There are a bunch of women seated at the entrance of the graveyard. How come? We don’t know. So… my partner awkwardly stands on the other side of the street looking at the entrance not knowing what to do… and then he finally decides to cross the street and approach the entrance. We couldn’t take any pictures, because there are signs saying that it’s not permitted, but believe us that we were there. We approach the entrance and try speaking to the women, only one of them speaks perfect English. We ask if we’re allowed in, and at that moment a worker comes towards us. She asks the worker if we’re allowed to enter (we assume, they spoke in Arabic), and then turns to us and asks if we are Muslims. We tell them that we are not, and so she says that we cannot enter. That’s okay. They invite us to look from the entrance with them. We stand there for a minute as we look inside, but then feel like we should continue walking.
So, something we didn’t clarify before (because we didn’t know) is that you can walk from Eve’s Tomb to Makkah Gate by walking along the edge of a neighbourhood. This means that on our righthand side we’ve got a neighbourhood, and on the left we’ve got construction. Remember that we mentioned it while at the Makkah Gate yesterday? Well… these pictures really tell the full story.
Imagine what must have been there beforehand! And what might they be planning! It’s pretty crazy to just see so much open space and then just a lone building off in the distance and an abandoned building right at the edge. We’ve said it before, but we will say it again, we should really come back and see what gets constructed here.
As we walked between Eve’s Tomb and Makkah Gate we came up to a little market of fruits and things. It must be a regular occurrence as there are quite a few people coming and going. Or, it may be a regular Friday occurrence as today is the start of the weekend in the Muslim world. That seems most likely. But, a few more steps and we arrive at the Makkah Gate. Still huge, still impressive.
My partner decides that this would be the perfect moment to film the Historical Hajj route. So we walk the entirety of the historical route throughout Al Balad without stopping for any selfies of me. So rude. But, hopefully you enjoy the video once it’s uploaded on YouTube. There seems to be more people around than past days, again, this makes sense with the start of the weekend. And, to further demonstrate exactly what we mean, we see many, many people entering the Yousuf Mohammad Naghi Mosque for the Friday prayers.
What else is there to do on an early Friday afternoon? Go shopping! We’ve talked a bit about the shops around Al Balad (malls, shops, food, clothing, carpets, and more) but on Fridays there are also sidewalk sales and “farmer’s market” style stalls as well. And they’re all very busy. We didn’t need anything, so we didn’t buy anything (and it probably wouldn’t fit in our travel bag anyway), so we can’t tell you what type of deals were up for sale. Walking around the food stalls was very tight, SO many people. But, pretty interesting as well.
Alright, enough of all of the people. We said we were going to relax today and all I’ve made my partner do is walk. Let’s go back towards the Jeddah Lake and actually sit and relax. We’re there in no time at all and my travel partner finally relaxes. What a nice spot to just sit and read. While we’re there we observe many people (families, men, women) all enjoying themselves as well. Always nice to have such beautiful green spaces.
I promise that I tried to have my partner just stay until we were done for the day, but he had other plans. He got up and started his random route away from the hotel. Yes, away from the hotel… But, might as well explore! You’ll at least get to enjoy the pictures of the Jaffali Mosque and the sunset.
But this time instead of doing the loop around Jeddah Lake, he keeps going north. What is he thinking? He doesn’t tell me. He just keeps walking. Around here you can also see signs of the huge construction projects (we think) that are going on all throughout Saudi Arabia.
Still doesn’t make it any less weird seeing so much open space and abandoned buildings in a city as important as Jeddah. But we felt the same thing in Riyadh, and to a lesser extent in Dammam. (Ooooo so fancy naming Saudi cities as if we know what’s going on). But, what do we know? All I know is that my partner continues north and we see this strange little piece of art at an intersection.
Alright, he finally stops going north and turns left towards the Sea. And now he really doesn’t know what he’s doing because he just starts looking at the map to see if he can salvage something out of walking in this direction. We can walk back towards where we were on Day 1 and see if we can find another “beach”. Let’s go!
I feel like a broken record at this point… but we are both actually continuously blown away by the amount of empty space in these Saudi cities. And not empty as in an open field, no, as in “this was something and it has been demolished to clear space for some upcoming thing”. Once again, a huge open space. A plus is that it’s late enough that we can see the King Fahd Fountain off in the distance and the Saudi Arabian flag has already been lowered for the day.
Imagine this; we’re 3.7 kilometres away from the fountain and we can still clearly see it. That’s how absolutely huge it is. Incredible. It’s too far for my partner to walk to now, so instead he just crosses this open area towards the “beach” area. We make it to Youth Lake (again, not a true lake as it is an inlet of the Red Sea) and it’s beautiful.
And, we’re not alone. There are quite a few people also enjoying their Friday evening. Again, we see plenty of families, but there are also lots of people doing exercise by walking around the edge of the “lake”. And there are a few people trying to fish. There must be a lot of them because every so often we can hear them jump out of the water. Again… what must be underneath the water..? Hmm…. But get a look at this beauty.
As you can tell, it’s getting late, so we start walking back towards Al Balad. We just stop long enough for me to get my last picture at Youth Lake with the fountain and flagpole in the background.
Back in Al Balad you can see lots of people walking around getting their shopping done. Not only are there a lot of shops, there’s also a lot of beauty
So, what can you buy in Al Balad? The simple answer, everything. You’ve seen a few shops through various pictures and you can see many more in the video we shot (once on YouTube) but we will list a few here. The market is sorted into various sections. The malls have your usual stores, so we will avoid those, but you can also get leather work (sandals, belts, etc.), keffiyehs, carpets, shoes, toys for kids, dresses, candy, nuts, clothing, baskets, art, souvenirs, and perfumes. Literally whatever you’d like. This is just one example inside of a store. We got lucky that the owners had left for the evening prayer so it wasn’t weird to take the picture. We’re not 100% sure what this is… but we can tell you that many, many stores had this for sale. We think it’s a type on incense. If we’re wrong, please let us know!
And with that, we’re done! Not an extreme day… but maybe more than what you’d expect for a “rest day,” hehe. Either way, we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. We’re really enjoying Jeddah! Good night from Jeddah!