My travel partner is incapable of relaxing two days in a row, so today we have an actual plan. Let’s make it count!

We leave the hotel and walk straight south through Al Balad. There aren’t many people walking around yet, unless you’re here for your fruits. We guess it wasn’t just a Friday thing. 

At the bottom of Al Balad, just past the Yousuf Mohammad Naghi Mosque you’ll find where all the inner city Saptco busses start their route. 

We guess we could have tried figuring out the route and gone to wait elsewhere… but why bother when literally all of the city busses start here? We got there, asked the attendant what bus to take to our location, but they had no idea where we were going. When we asked him for the number of the bus with the street name, he pointed us in the right direction. 

Here we can talk about the public transit system of Jeddah. To ride busses in Jeddah you need to get a Saptco card, luckily that’s the same card we got when we took the bus from the airport to the main bus station, so we had that. Then you can load your card on the bus itself or with the attendant. On the bus we believe you have to do multiples of 5 SAR while with the attendant you can go as low as 1 SAR. Each trip costs 3.45 SAR (~1.20 dollars). Nice and easy. We load our card with enough money for today’s trip only (there and back) and get on our bus. The museum we’re going to is served by the number 9 bus. 

Not many people were using the bus, but that’s fine. We don’t wait long before taking off. This bus takes a different route than that of the airport, so we see a bit more of the city. Like before, lots of low-rise buildings but A LOT of construction. 

As we drive through there are lots of “little” things on the side of the road to draw your attention as you drive by. 

And 40 minutes later, we arrive to our destination. Well… ish. My partner thought it would be a good idea to skip our stop to explore a bit more. And we have two hours to kill before the museum actually opens (hours are 9 am to noon and 5 pm to 9 pm). So… here we are. In the middle of nowhere. He starts walking in a direction but all we see is construction, so, thankfully, he turns around. Back along the main street to this. 

Please just take a minute to appreciate those pictures above… my partner was pretty proud of them. We’re not far from the Jeddah Airport and planes are landing here around every 3 minutes it seems. So we waited for the above pictures to materialize. Ha. 

Now, it’s hard to understate how hot it is. And we’re going to a museum so my partner is wearing pants. Not the ideal clothing to be walking around a literal desert. But whatever, you didn’t come here to hear him complain, hehe. We continue on to Al Amir Majid Park. A nice little park with a few playgrounds for the kids and other fun activities. We only take this opportunity to hide a bit from the sun. Not even the water fountains are working in this heat. 

We leave the park and head around it to the lower part to start making our way towards the museum. But, my partner’s curiosity gets the better of him once again. What you’re about to see is completely the wrong way from the museum, it’s hot, it’s far, but he just has to go…. Apparently it’s called Engineering Square. Just doing it for the picture. 

Finallyyyy we start walking towards the actual museum. But, we still have time to cross one more piece of art off of our list. This is Al Falak “roundabout”. Not entirely sure if that means anything or has a connection to the art, but here you are. 

But then we cross this busy, busy street as best we can and finally arrive to our location. Welcome to Al Tayebat International City – For Sciences and Knowledge!

So, you will just have to bear with us now because this museum is jam packed with things. So you’ll get a lot of pictures, and maybe not so much text. But before even going in, let’s start with a bunch of pictures from the outside. This incredible museum starts before you even enter its walls. 

As you can see, the museum has a very unique and interesting architecture. It almost seems like a collection of different architectural styles that have been meshed into this one building. And then, at the front corner, there is a mosque that is also built into the complex. Just adding the final touch. 

Alright, we’ve shown you the building from all sides that are accessible to the public and we’ve even highlighted the mosque, time to go in right? Wrong. We’re not done yet!

Still on the outside of the museum they have all of these models built with historically significant buildings. Now… the signage was all in Arabic so we had to rely on technology to translate… so who knows how right it was… but it seems like the majority of these models are of mosques, and mainly from Jeddah, Madinah, and Makkah. However, there were a few other places included as well. The signs also listed 34 different models… we think there are more than 34 models in the above pictures, but maybe we’re wrong, haha. 

So, nooooow we can say we’re ready to enter. We still have 30 minutes to wait though… luckily for us the security guard realized that we were there for the museum and told us to enter. We paid our entrance fee (80 SAR = ~25 CAD) and then we were told that the museum itself would open at 5, but we could walk around the courtyard in the mean time. And wow. Show up early so that you get this same treatment! 

As you may have guessed, although we don’t know anything technical about architecture, we enjoy the beauty of it. This was a perfect place for us. 

We just calmly walked around the area looking up towards all of these beautiful buildings and facades. 

We almost had the place to ourselves. There were only two other tourists that also entered early to take pictures. One hundred percent recommend. Then it was five o’clock and the security guard came around to open the door and told us that we could enter. If you thought this was already a long post, just wait till we get inside!

Wow. Wow. Wow. Just inside the door you can already tell that the museum is ABSOLUTELY PACKED! How oh how will we absorb it all? And then pass it on to you, dear reader? We have our work cut out for us…

So. We will try our best. The way the museum seems designed is that the hallways are the main exhibit explaining the history of Jeddah and Saudi Arabia and Islam, while the rooms off of the hallways are just themed to whatever they’d like. At least that’s the first floor. Oh, did we forget to mention that this museum has multiple floors?! Let’s go!

We will show you one sign so that you can really appreciate our mammoth task. This is just one of about 10 big signs with all kinds of information, on this floor alone. 

Let’s start at the beginning, with the nomadic tribes. We’ve already learned a bit about these from the other museums in the region, so we will try to stick to new information. In Saudi Arabia it seems like there were three “types” of nomads, which they call the Bedouins. The first seem to be mainly centred around camels. This allows them to move over great distances as the camels can go for long periods of time without access to water. The second are herders, mainly of sheep. These can’t go as far because they cannot travel far from a known water source. Finally are the hunter gatherers. These do a lot of tracking of animals and hunt them using falcons and grey hounds, they also raise Arabian horses. Of course, you don’t have to be exclusively one and many “types” mixed. Interestingly, the Bedouin were able to secure lands that were tied to their tribes for their uses. These were called Al Dirah and are still recognized to this day by the other tribes and the King. Finally, the Bedouin trackers are so well regarded for their expertise that their testimony holds up in court, the sign likens it to a fingerprint expert. Very interesting.

But at the same time as the Bedouins, there were people living sedentary lifestyles throughout Saudi Arabia as well. These people established the first cities and it is where the Bedouins would come to market. While the Bedouin relied heavily on their livestock, the people of the cities were more dependent on agriculture. The people of the cities mainly relied on date plantations, and these would be readily available at the market (and still are everywhere in Jeddah). As we know from our other travels… dates are very important in the Arab world and have been used for centuries and centuries. To be able to live these sedentary lifestyles building practices that matched their climates had to be established as we have seen that the climate varies greatly from the interior of Saudi Arabia to both of its coasts. (We would get further lessons about these differences on the other floors of the museum). And finally, the family structure was the same as we had seen described in the Bahrain National Museum where the head of the family is the grandfather, then the father, then the eldest son. Therefore decisions that affect the family in all aspects of life were handed down following this structure. The only thing that they pointed out is that this structure is affected when it reaches people with siblings that are still under the same roof. At this point, you only need to follow the instruction of your brother when it is a large family matter that affects everyone in the household. However, from what we have read about Saudi Arabia it seems that this tight family structure may be loosening a bit in more recent years. 

And now that we have everyone set up and how they live… we move on to the next part. We hope that with our travels so far we’ve been able to impress upon you how important written works seem to be in the Arab world where every museum has had a section for Qurans/texts/books. Well, this is obviously not by mistake. Here we learned that the origins of Arabic calligraphy before Islam are not certain, but the spread of Islam and Arabs lead to the widespread use of Arab calligraphy. This art form always had a high standing in Arab society because it was how the Quran, scientific texts, and poetry was spread throughout their world. As we’ve shown, there are many, many famous Arab scholars that helped develop our understanding of the world as we now know it. And, we now understand just how important poetry is for the Arab world, where it is said that reading beautiful calligraphy aloud is an art in itself. But why was calligraphy turned into such an art form? Many believe that it is because Islam banned the depiction of living creatures. Therefore, they had to make calligraphy be beautiful enough to adorn their homes, palaces, and mosques. Very interesting. This also allows us to talk about the two main scripts in Arabic, Kufic and Naskh script. During our visits to museums and mosques they always point out which is Kufic and which is Naskh script. From our understanding Kufic is more angular in shape and has been used extensively for decoration as well as transcription of literary works, including the Quran. Naskh script is more rounded and is supposed to be easier to read, so it has been mainly used in transcribing texts that are meant to be widely read, including the Quran.

Well… now that’s enough information. They also had plaques on Umrah, Hajj, and the history of Riyadh, but we think we’ve already covered those in past posts. So instead we will start dumping pictures for you to realize just how much information and “things” are present for us to see and pass on to you, dear reader. 

So all of the information so far has been from this main hallway. In this hallway they had different models of buildings and mosques from around the world. They had Masjid Al Haram (the holiest mosque in Makkah), Al Masjid An Nabawi (the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah, second holiest mosque in Islam), and many of the Islamic buildings in Spain from their Islamic rule. All very interesting and beautiful. 

At this point we will introduce our “guide”. The museum had a few workers that would walk around the museum and were available to you to ask any questions you may have. The one we interacted with was a woman from Jeddah. We got talking to her and she had studied dentistry and then hated it, so she went back and studied history. She gave us a lot of information throughout our visit (which we will work into this post) and was very knowledgeable. Unfortunately for the museum, she was waiting to get a teaching position in a school, so she is likely already gone. But we bring it up here because she very proudly told us that she had been to some of the mosques (now churches) in Spain. She’s also the one that gave us permission to take pictures of everything, even if there were signs not to, hehe. So we have permission! But… we didn’t go back and take the pictures of each individual building on display, which we really should have…

Anyway, enough lamenting. Now for the photo dump to begin! First stop? Space!

We make a special highlight of Yuri Gagarin, the first human in outer space. And someone we searched for (and found) all over Russia four years ago in various space-related museums.

Another few little spaces. Please note how crammed they are with information and displays. This room was titled “Hall contains a wide range of scientific information”. The information? As you can see above there are mammals, healthy eating habits, and dinosaurs. 

And now pictures for pictures’ sake. Each room had their own little themes, but we don’t remember them all at this point. You can see that they explore architecture, porcelain/pottery, and ivory from the East Asian/Chinese areas. 

Beyond that (still on the first floor) we see different art forms from around the Arab/Persian world. Including paintings, metal work, and handmade carpets. 

This final room nicely moves us into a Persian themed set of rooms where they had first art on handmade carpets and then paintings of Persian literature and stories. 

Our last little room on the first floor is that of Northern Africa. 

A beautiful room. On the little description they described how Northern Africa took part in a give-and-take between themselves and the Andalucía region of Spain when they were also part of the Islamic empire. Art and creativity freely flowed across the Mediterranean, and both regions were improved because of it. However, when Andalucía was taken back by the Christians many of these Muslim artisans (and their talents) came to Northern Africa where they continue to flourish to this day. 

And then just before continuing on, we couldn’t not take a picture of this great message. 

So, we take one final picture of the first floor hallway to again highlight the models, the information, and that there are people here as well. Although there weren’t many while we were here (and they did the “whole” museum much, much faster than us) we weren’t alone. 

The information and displays didn’t become any less thorough on the second floor. On this floor there were lots of works of art made with metal, but check out the sizes of the green signs.

Every space on those signs is filled with information. In Arabic though, so we can’t pass it all on.

Our first little room is of jewelry. A lot, a lot of jewelry. And what goes well with jewelry? Art, we guess. From our recollection it seems to be artwork from Persia/Iran. 

And then at the end of the hallway is a little room where you can rest. The museum guide told us that these were typical rooms where you could be welcomed in a home around Jeddah. We’ve seen similar setups at different restaurants and places like that as well on our travels. 

In the background you can see the cushions for you to sit on the floor during social gatherings, and food could be brought directly to you here as well. 

Then came some typical dress of the region. (This isn’t us jumping around, we’re trying to stick to the order we saw things in as faithfully as possible).

All of the pictured outfits are used in weddings. From the pink to the green dress are worn by female guests. They are all free fitting and the pink veil is removed once at the wedding to show off the embroidery underneath. The purple dress is worn by brides on Laylat Al-Ghumra (Henna Night) where the brides are covered in gold and henna is painted on her hands and feet. The blue dress is worn on her wedding day, with special features of a crown with gems and a veil of pearls. Pretty fancy!

Next we will do some “rapid fire” as we walked through the central part of the museum’s second floor. It almost feels like a labyrinth with each room showing something different. 

You can see some different cultures here. The first was “European”, then Iranian/Persian, then two from the Arab world. 

And in between them all was this one:

But, we wanted to show it on their own as these are the two holiest mosques in Islam; the first is Al-Masjid Al-Harām (the Grand Mosque in Makkah) and the second slightly further in the room is Al-Masjid Al-Nabawi (the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah). Just look at how huge they are! And in both you can see pilgrims for scale. Incredible. 

And, like we have mentioned in all of our museums so far, no museum in the Middle East seems to be complete without a section of texts and Qurans. Al Tayebat International City is no different. First the pages of the Quran, of course. With a shoutout to an art form we saw back in the Qatari museums for the first time. 

And then come the other texts. These (in order) are of astronomy, medicine, and the Arabic language. 

By this point my travel partner is actually starting to get tired. It’s just soooo much information and new things to see. We’re often the only tourist on the whole floor. Some people come and go quickly, no way they’re able to take in even 20% of what’s on display. And the guide keeps popping by to give us information here and there about what we’re looking at. It’s almost as if we could benefit from this rest area. 

 But if we rest now… we may never get up! We continue, seeing some intricate furniture and rugs. This rug is from Afghanistan. A country many of us have heard about for only wrong reasons. 

Then we start seeing more customs and traditions from the Middle East. A very interesting thing is the clothing. There is a looooot of clothing spread out over the entire museum. It’s all so intricate and beautiful. 

The first dresses are worn by the bride on their wedding day in Morocco. The second picture has two different tribal dresses from north of Jeddah. The third picture has two separate dresses that would have been worn at weddings in the 1960s, on the left by an attendee and on the right by the bride. They had these “old school” clothing examples all over the museum tucked away in different places. Just look at all of these pieces of clothing all the way down the hallway. 

And then, just for a bit more context, they have entire rooms dedicated to let you look inside of traditional life in Saudi Arabia. 

At the risk of looking foolish and being wrong… we believe that these colourful rooms belong to the southern part of Saudi Arabia, closer to the border with Yemen. But! Please don’t fully believe us. We could be completely wrong and will gladly correct this if we are. There was just too much information, haha. But, in our defense… it was right beside this room. 

And we know for a fact that this is showing the South Western part of Saudi Arabia. It’s depicting the Sarawat mountains, the plains, and the different types of buildings that are used (depending on the elevation). So.. we think we’re right that those rooms corresponded to Southern Saudi Arabia.

Alright, big jump again. This time we jump to a wedding in the western portion of Saudi Arabia (Al Hijaz region) which contains Jeddah.

Here we can see Al-Rieka, the place where the procession is held. A little complicated to explain from the sign… but we know that sitting in the middle are the bride and groom. Behind the bride in the middle is the Mahniya (the woman in charge of the henna) and on either side of her are the Zaffafahs (no clue what role they play, but that was the name on the sign).

And then we (think) have another example of wedding clothes in the same Jeddah area. But, once again, we could be wrong. 

And now let’s stay with these sorts of models. Calling these “elaborate” is quite the understatement. The rooms you’re about to see were typically quite big, allowing you to fully enter them and walk into various rooms. They were mostly set up as homes for you to look at the different rooms. We sound like a broken record… but again there was just too much to convey. At the end of the museum we were a little pressed for time and so didn’t picture all of the rooms, so maybe you’ll want to go and check them out for yourself? How did we choose the rooms to show you? They’re where we’ve been in Saudi Arabia so far! But, onto the rooms! 

This is room is from the Makkah region. 

These two rooms are from the Riyadh region. 

And these three are from the Dammam region. 

And then a small example of a market. It seems similar to the example we saw in the Bahrain National Museum. 

And just to throw a bit of a wrench in everything… two other exhibits that were modelled for our pleasure. 

And then, for the cherry on top, we had a little walk “through Jeddah”. Various rooms were designed to mimic Al Balad. We only took one picture to be able to share some history which we had missed while walking through the Old City. This is Nassif House (on the left). 

We showed you some pictures here before as we walked through the Old Town, but the museum was closed, so we couldn’t enter. Here they once again highlight the different arquitectural designs that allowed the building to be excellent for the Jeddah weather. You can see the different methods of keeping the building cool, and here you can also see the four floors. The first was to receive guests, the second where guests could sleep, the third was the Nassif residence, and the fourth was where they would live in the hot summer months. Want to top that? The Nassif family is a very important family in the Western part of Saudi Arabia. So much so that King Abdul Aziz himself used to stay in the house when he visited Jeddah and the western part of Saudi Arabia. He would even receive foreign delegates here. He continued doing so until his Khumaz Palace was built in Jeddah. Hopefully we will be able to figure out how to enter the museum before it’s time to leave this city! 

Alright, we’re approaching the end. My partner is really quite tired. We see halls and halls of dresses. All kinds and colours. But… way too many to take pictures of, so you’ll just have to wait until those go on Instagram for you to see the sheer quantity of dresses. And, mentioning that app lets us nicely move into the final portion of the museum. How so? Because we can’t really figure out a theme. It’s just everything that couldn’t fit on the below floors all at once. So that’s how we will show it. 

We will just highlight two things above. Number one… of course we had to include paintings of football since that is still the reason we keep touring this region of the world. Number two… we include the picture from Egypt because we reeeeeally hope to be able to make it to Egypt while in the Middle East! Only time will tell. 

Okay, we know it’s not “nice” to celebrate finishing a museum… but that felt like an overload and we’re happy that we feel like we saw it all and took in as much information as we possibly could! One last look inside, and we’re outta here!

And now our final looks at the building itself. What a marathon. 

We literally got into the museum the second it opened and we left 5 minutes before closing as they turned the lights off. A success? We think so. There’s just so much to learn, and we think you know that we love museums! 

Now what? Now we have to make our way back to our hotel. It’s 9 pm and we don’t know how to predict when the bus will come. What to do, what to do… We do the only thing we can do… we start walking back along King Fahd Road. Well… we all know my travel partner is a little crazy, especially with walking… but our hotel is 12 kilometres away, it’s 9 pm, and walking will take over 2 and a half hours…. What is he thinking…? He keeps looking back to see if there is a bus or not, but nothing. And like in Riyadh… the road sometimes goes above where we’re walking… how do we know when the bus goes above and when below? Please, please, please don’t let us miss it. We try asking some people walking, but they don’t understand our question. Then… we see it off in the distance. We hurry to the bus stop. The bus isn’t on that branch of the road… we run to the main road hoping the bus sees us and stops, who knows when the next one is coming. Luckily it stops and we get on. My partner only walked 1.5 out of the 12 km, hehe.  

The bus “quickly” takes us back to Al Balad and we do our nightly routine of getting groceries, getting something to drink, and getting a couple shawarmas. What a day, we will both sleep soundly tonight. Good night from Jeddah!