Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Why Saudi Arabia hates tourists...

Draped in a long black abaya, French tourist Virginie de Tinguy gingerly picks her way up a majestic stone staircase, careful to lift the heavy folds of fabric out of the way of her feet, lest she stumble on steps made smooth by centuries of use. The perilous climb to the top of a 13th century citadel is rewarded with a breathtaking view. Below her sprawls the ancient walled city of Al Ula, a labyrinthine warren of stone houses built so closely together that the second-floor balconies practically kiss, casting the alleys below into perpetual shade. Gray-green date-palm orchards lap at the city walls; beyond them a jagged red rock massif looms, tinting the horizon a dusty rose. “This is exceptional,” de Tinguy utters in rapturous French to her husband. “I never would have guessed there were places so beautiful in Saudi Arabia.” As if on cue, the call to prayer curls through the deserted alleys, beckoning long-departed residents to the recently restored 630-year-old mosque nearby. All that’s missing from this 1,001 Nights tableau is a flying carpet or a mustachioed genie.

Not 20 minutes away by car, another extraordinary scene can be found: the carved stone tombs of the 1st century Nabataean trading center, Mada’in Saleh, now classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site — Saudi Arabia’s first. In between Al Ula and Mada’in Saleh lies a vast gathering of surreal rock formations, magenta and gold spires and tortured, wind-carved sandstone escarpments rising out of the dunes. It’s as if the Parthenon, the Grand Canyon and Colorado’s Garden of the Gods were all crammed together in an area not much larger than Manhattan. If it were anywhere else in the world, the sites would be crammed with camera-toting tourists. Instead, de Tinguy and her husband have the entire place to themselves, alone with their voluble and informed Saudi guide, who is in the process of explaining the mechanics of a primitive sundial that alerted local farmers when it was time to plant crops. “I could just spend days exploring this place,” says de Tinguy. “I would tell all my friends back home to visit.” Full story...

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