We are fleeing the heat and the noise of the city. We don’t mind spending the night in parking lots from time to time, but now we want to get out into the countryside. On our way through the city and into the south of Saud Arabia is the National Museum. National Museum, that sounds impressive and interests us. So we drive there.
Out of the city
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National Museum
The museum is located in a green oasis. Wonderful. However, the parking lots are mostly full, but not of museum visitors. The building and the entrance hall are gigantic. The exhibition rooms are also large. The exhibitions are appealing, but could do with a revamp. The multimedia presentations in particular could do with a refresh. However, Saudi Arabia is currently busy with many mega-projects, so a museum like this could “go under”. But who knows? Perhaps things will be different again in a year’s time? The exhibition tour begins with a meteorite that was found in the Rub al-Khali desert – and you can touch it.
Outside
Although we are outside Riyadh, it takes a while for things to calm down around us. We find a nice place to stop for lunch in a small canyon.
Ammar
On our way south lies the historic clay town of Ammar. Some of the buildings, including the old mosque, are still standing or have been restored. The rest have fallen into disrepair. And as Ammar was probably of no importance, the decay will continue.
But we used the place for an overnight stay and a morning walk.
This is how we imagine Camping
We drive two or three kilometers away from the main road and set up in a secluded spot in the countryside. That’s how we imagine camping. But whether it’s in the middle of the desert, in a parking lot in the city, at a petrol station or anywhere else, we are always equipped with our MAN, as long as the water tank and fridge are full.
Encounters on the roadside
Most Arabs are very friendly, not shy and curious. They always want to know where we come from. This is usually followed by an invitation to have tea and a meal. Even if we are not invited here, we still owe them a hearty chat and a few pictures. And as you can see again and again – we are mainly in a male society in Saudi Arabia.
Qaryat al-Faw
The National Museum described Qaryat al-Faw as one of the most important excavation sites and a World Heritage Site. But the fence is closed and there is no one in the visitor center. Good again. You want to learn more about culture and are prevented from doing so. As we couldn’t get in, I had to buy a picture on the internet to see anything at all. Qaryat al-Faw is the former capital of the first “Kingdom of Kinda” in Arabia. The ancient ruins were excavated and archaeologically examined from the 1970s onwards. Temple and palace complexes, residential buildings and streets, 17 wells and sophisticated irrigation systems for the fields in front of the city, catacomb-like cemeteries in the rocks of the high plateau and a souq with an adjoining caravanserai enclosed from the city by a wall were found. The souq is a square surrounded by presumably two-storey houses and is particularly well preserved. Stores and warehouses with large mortars in front of each entrance were found. An unfinished stele was discovered sunk in a deep well in the middle of the souq. The motif of the stele was presumably an image of a god. The “Kinda” were a tribal community from the period between 100 and 600 AD. Well-known personalities – such as “Osama bin Laden” – trace their ancestry back to the Kinda.
