Author archive
31 December 2023
Our Saudia A330 landed in Jeddah around 1730. With a lengthy walk and waiting for our luggage, we didn’t get into a car till 45 mins after landing. Traffic was heavy and it took about 35 mins to get to the Touq Balad Hotel near Jeddah’s historic district. Perhaps it was the traffic or maybe […]
31 December 2023
Rijal Alma We have time today to explore the sights west of Abha before flying out to Jeddah in the afternoon. My calculations suggested that we would have some buffer time to return the car and get to our flight if we left after 0800. After a breakfast of oats, rusk and cheese (again), we […]
30 December 2023
Al Jahamah I’m adapting to local time better and woke at 0430, then getting out of bed at 0630. After a breakfast of oats and milk, and cheese on rusk, we departed around 0900 for Abha with two stops planned, namely Al Jahamah historical village and Al Habla viewpoint. After about 1h40 on the road, […]
29 December 2023
Mud houses After a breakfast of muesli which I had brought along from Kuching, we headed out for a drive around 0830. We went on in search of some nice traditional mud houses and found some good ones south of Wadi Najran. Text continues after this gallery. Unfortunately, the Al Ukhdud archaeological area but […]
28 December 2023
I’m adjusting to local time still and woke at 0330. I managed to doze till 0700 to prepare breakfast of leftover curries, steamed in the motel’s pot. We hit the road at 0915 on our way to Najran with via Wadi Lajab. The road got windier as we headed inland and we reached Wadi Lajab […]
27 December 2023
Getting to Farasan Having retired around 1900 and with 5h difference with Malaysian time in my body clock, I woke at 0100. I managed to doze till the alarm at 0400. We had been advised verbally to have the car join the ferry queue at 0430 (but officially 0530 report time on the ticket) for […]
26 December 2023
Flying to Jizan I woke at 0230 after 5h30 of sleep that wasn’t very deep. I tried to doze some more but gave up at 0330, opting to stay up. At around 0620 I summoned a ride to the airport. The driver, had trouble locating me at first and it got a little stressful. Fortunately, […]
25 December 2023
Standby flight Having slept around 2200 last night, I stirred around 0400 and got out of bed around 0630, an hour before my alarm. I made it to the 0800 from KL Sentral which got me to Kuala Lumpur International Airport Terminal 1 at 0900 (it got to Terminal 2 at 0845). When things go […]
24 December 2023
I had only booked today’s 1120 flight to Kuala Lumpur a few days ago, after reviewing my plans and opting not to travel with Saudia to Spain. I opted for a nightstop to avoid an early start on Christmas day and to de-risk the plan. I got to the airport about 3h before the flight, […]
17 December 2023
Background When I planned my Saudi Arabia trip back in Feb this year, I realised that I fares to Saudi were over NZD200 more than to some European destinations with a stopover in Saudi. So, I booked an itinerary to Spain (into Madrid, then Valencia, Andorra and finally out of Barcelona) with a 3 week […]