Well… we’re leaving Abu Dhabi! We bought our ticket last night and headed to the airport on the airport express in the late morning. It is a long drive, so make sure to leave with plenty of time to make it!

So we didn’t put a location in our title today because we won’t spend much time in either location looking around. In Abu Dhabi we didn’t look around at all, just packed and hopped on the bus to the airport. At our destination it took us quite a while to get to the hotel, so we didn’t get to look around the city either. Either way, we will tell you all about it.

The A1 Airport Express bus to the airport in Abu Dhabi was very direct, and we don’t really see a car taking less time, so what’s the point in paying so so much more? If we remember correctly, it subtracted 4 AED from our Hafilat Card, which leaves us with pretty much zero, which is exactly what you want when you leave a city/country. The bus even passes by the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, so you can get one last look while leaving the city/country.

Once at the airport we were thrown back and forth because no one seemed to know where we should go. Our ticket said Terminal 1, so we went towards that, but we were told that our airline wasn’t at this door but at the other one. Okay, we walk to the other door and go inside. Inside they tell us to go to the first door, that’s where our airline is and that’s where the signs say to go as well. We get there, no counters for our airline. We ask again, nope, wrong terminal. At least it’s not too far to walk and we finally find our airline.

Let’s stop being vague. We’re flying Saudi Airlines to Saudi Arabia! So cool! Just a few years ago we would have never imagined that this was possible/so easy. We will tell you why right now. Saudi Arabia was a “closed” country to pretty much anyone who wasn’t working there or performing Hajj/Umrah for most of its modern history. We grew up knowing that tourists just could not go to Saudi Arabia. However, that all changed in late 2019. The country opened its borders to tourists for the first time ever, we believe that it is part of their Vision 2030 plan where they wish to move away from oil revenue and focus more on tourism and the financial sector. Well, that’s all perfect for us. But what else happened late 2019? That’s right, the global pandemic. So Saudi Arabia closed its borders again pretty quickly (as did the rest of the world), so now that their borders are reopened it really means that tourists have not been able to visit the country very much. Super cool. AND to top it all off, the visa application process was very easy (for us). We did an eVisa application, paid the medical insurance fees (great idea if something goes wrong medically while in the country), and got the visa very, very quickly. Our visa allows multiple entries over a one year period for a combined maximum stay of 90 days. Easy, easy. (As always, this is just our process, please check official government sites for help with your own visa application).

And, back to our regular story.

This eVisa was important because the airline checked our visa before issuing the boarding pass. We could have also gotten a visa on arrival, but since we had originally planned to cross the land border we had contacted the Ministry of Tourism to see about getting the visa and they guided us through the eVisa process instead of ‘on arrival’ at the land border (although it would have been possible). And guess what. Our flight was in Terminal 1. At least the two terminals are connected by a short walkway both inside and outside of security. And we have time to wander. I think my partner visited both terminals a grand total of three times each. He can’t sit still…

So we will begin as we did, in Terminal 2. You walk in and there is the usual Duty Free shops, and on the other side there is this camel.

But that’s all we saw in that terminal. It didn’t seem like there was much more to it. Off to Terminal 1 then! Along the corridor there are many people sitting in the chairs enjoying the view of the airport, and there are these little pods for you to sit and enjoy a good book. There were also many quotes related to reading and to the need of having an educated and knowledgeable population, which is why these pods are available.

And, related to that, in the bottom of Terminal 1 there is a full on library. You can grab the books and enjoy them as you wait for your plane. As you can see, there weren’t many books and no one was taking advantage of this spot, but it’s a good start.

Then we just kept wandering around Terminal 1. This must be the most commonly used terminal (apart from the terminal reserved for Etihad Airways) because it was the fanciest-looking one.

But that was it. We just walked back and forth to not sit at the airport and then sit on the plane. But, eventually, it was time to board!

Now let us tell you about the flight. You can imagine that flying over Abu Dhabi was quick, it took us about 45-60 minutes by bus to cross the entire island, the plane did it in much less time. We went out over the Persian Gulf and when we turned into Saudi Arabia…. look!

NOTHING! There was nothing but desert! We said there was nothing between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, but this is a whole other level of nothing. Just sand. Sand and sand and sand. Incredible. Sometimes there were tiny patches of green with houses and cars seemingly around it, but these were tiny compared to the vast sand dunes that went on and on.

But then we started landing in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia! The arrival was extremely quick and easy. We showed our eVisa, no problems, in we go. And the first thing we notice? The airport has nothing (that we saw) greeting tourists! Usually we expect a big “Welcome” sign or a huge “Riyadh” sign or something, but we saw nothing at all. Not sure why, we were on an international flight, so we arrived at the international side… maybe this is just the side of Saudi Arabia that still shows that they aren’t receiving thaaaat many tourists, or we’re blind. From our last few entries in Abu Dhabi, it could be that we are blind. We still got a construction sign with “Riyadh” though! So we’re not lying!

But, it does look very clean, like nothing that isn’t needed is there.

And then it was on to find our way to the hotel. We ask information how to get on the metro, cause there are signs everywhere for it. No metro yet, still under construction. We expected this because we had read about it online beforehand. Okay, bus? No bus. We can only take a private car. We go there and ask how to take a car downtown. There are three booths set up, one for the Green Taxis (newer to Saudi Arabia with meters), a VIP car company, and then Shift. When we approach the three booths and ask about going downtown neither the Green Taxi nor the VIP car company guys even look at us or acknowledge that we exist, only the SHIFT guy talks to us. We ask if it’s the same price for all of them, he says yes, again the other two don’t even look like they’re paying attention. So we agree to go with SHIFT for 141 Saudi riyals (~50 dollars). We had asked our hotel how to get from the airport to the hotel because they offered free airport transfers… but they replied that they could get a taxi for us instead… so that’s no help. Either way, we’re off!

Now let us tell you our “welcome to Saudi driving” moment. First, the internet showed that the drive should take between 40-60 minutes by car… nope. Took us two hours. Not sure if that’s because our driver missed several turns or if the internet didn’t take into account the crazy traffic. And it was crazy. The cars were all over the place. Three lanes marked on the road? Let’s try to fit 4 or 5 cars wide. SO much honking. Honking to tell people where you are, when they’ve cut you off, and when you’re mad. And ESPECIALLY the second the light turns green on a traffic light, it doesn’t matter if you’re second in line or 32nd. And our driver kept checking social media, making calls, etc. etc. (maybe that’s why he missed all those turns?). We were not ready for this. We just sat at the back checking the map every once in a while to try to identify what we were passing and that we were still going in the right direction. We saw the entrance to a huge Islamic University and the sunsetting over Riyadh.

And we also saw a loooooot of construction. This will be a recurring theme in Riyadh. There is construction absolutely everywhere. And much of it is to do with this (it’s a metro station). Remember that we’re in a moving vehicle, so the pictures aren’t great.

But the metro looks like it will look amazing, and the more stations we saw the more we think that it will be a game changer in the city. We know we would have preferred to take the metro, but then again, we love public transit no matter where we are in the world.

And then we reached peak “crazy driving”. We were all waiting in a line of cars waiting to turn onto a busy street/highway. It was backed up, and the cars were honking a lot. What does one Range Rover do? It just turns, drives up and over the divider between lanes, drives against traffic (no traffic was coming at that moment), gets to the front of the line, and turns onto the street/highway. We were blown away! Never had we seen anything like that before, haha. Just for reference, this is the divider. It’s not the exact location where the car drove over it, but it’s just a bit further back, so it gives you the right idea. You can kind of see the leaves for trees that are planted along the divider…

The only places we’ve been with driving like this would be Nepal or Mongolia. The driving there was also very similar to here. I guess that’s what happens when there isn’t a metro system yet and, according to the locals, the busses are terrible. And you’re a growing city of 8 million people and everyone has to get around by car. Crazy. But, we get to our hotel! We check in and they ask us how much we paid to get to the hotel. We tell them. All three of the front desk staff burst out laughing when we tell them we paid 141 SAR… they said that it should never have been more than 70 SAR. And they are absolutely shocked that it took us two hours…. Whatever, no point in getting annoyed now, we can’t change it and we had no other way to get to the hotel. We go up to our room, drop our stuff off, and get going. We just did a small walk today around the literal block, and then went to the mall on the corner to buy some groceries. A nice little mall that we would visit a lot on our stay here to get groceries at the hypermarket.

Well, welcome to Saudi Arabia and goodnight from Riyadh!