Riyadh - 2006

Riyadh
Capital City of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
January 2006: A 2-day trip - An unexpected nice Experience

[German Version - please klick]

After I have made dozens of trips to the southern gulf area (Oman, UAE- you may have seen the photos I posted in the net) time has come to make a totally new experience: Saudi Arabia.

Believe it or not: The trip started with the impressions probably most first time visitors of this country are having: Getting information from press and Internet and being warned to go there. The trip ended with very positive impressions, professional people and - what none of us expected: on the way to make new friends.

Some impressions from the city center of Riyadh: These are the only sky scrapers. Outside of this area there are 2 story houses.

A Remarkable Architecture. By the way, Riyadh is spreading in an area of approximately 40 km square and has a population of over 4 Mio.

View from the Interconti Hotel at night.

The evening before our flight back we have been invited to one of the summer houses of Sheikh A. After you enter the area you are overwhelmed by the impressions of a green garden with ponds, bridges and green grass - all of this in the middle of the desert.

Some impressions of this beautiful garden and the buildings.

My collegues and our host AB.

Inside of the building typical oriental style rooms - really impressing for us.

This is a photo in one of the rooms - I think it gives a nice impression of this exotic country.

A very special dinner: Mandhy.

B. can´t wait to start ...

I try to recall how this delicious meal has been prepared: A whole young goat is put into a hole in the soil together with charcoal and rice. Everything is covered by palm leafs and kept humid. After appr. 1,5 hrs it is ready. Absolutely delicious, the meat was very tender and tasted very well, even the rice has been very tasty because it has been cooked together with the meat.

Normally this meal is consumed sitting on the floor and everyone takes the meat directly from the plate. However after I pointed out that I may need a medical assistance for getting up again after the meal our hosts accepted sitting at a table. H. cut the goat into pieces and AB now introduced us into the secrets how to eat without dangerous European Tools.

As you can see, it worked well and we had a lot of fun.

Finally we got some special gifts from our host AB: A beautiful Abaya for each of us.

Thank you so much Sheikh A. and AB for the unforgettable hospitality, we will for sure keep this in our memories and we are looking forward to visiting you again.
I hope we soon will have a chance to host you in our country.

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