Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. 18th April 2025.

The route to my next destination of Al Baha would take me east to Mecca before turning south. I’d loved to have been able to visit there, just to see what it was all about. But When I checked on the internet it was made clear that it was absolutely forbidden for non Muslims to visit the city, under threat of deportation if found there.
The Google route was going to take me along the outer ring road and I was hoping that would keep me out of trouble. But I needn’t have worried because there was very visible red writing on the signs telling non Muslims to turn off. I followed them and ended up on the ring road anyway.
I passed through a checkpoint with nothing said. Eventually I saw a sign saying “End of Haram Area”, thereby suggesting I had been in a forbidden area. But all I could have done was to follow the signs. All was well anyway.
I stopped for coffee and lunch just before 2pm. The guy looked quite strained at the idea of adding milk to the coffee and only using one shot. Not the way of Arabians, obviously. But it’s how this coffee drinker likes it.
The road went up to 1900M and was nicely twisty going up the hill. A red sports car came up behind me so I let him go by. But then he slowed down and I went past him. He obviously didn’t want to play.
The road went down to about 1450 metres and then climbed right up to 2400M. Nice and cool. The hotel is at 2250M, so I was expecting a cool night. It’s a bit of a shabby place but was mostly OK. No towel available but I did get a kettle, which was far more important.
I walked up the steep hill from the hotel, to a supermarket. Then I went to a restaurant where I broke all the diet rules and had a veggie pizza and a fizzy drink. And very nice it was too.
In the morning I headed off to Al Baha, a regional capital that sits up in the mountains. But on the way I headed out to Thee Ain Village. I had a great ride. 25kms of twisties. I went through a lot of short tunnels as the road cut through the rock. I had a ball.

The village was very good. It has stone houses climbing up the hillside. 1, 2, 3 and 4 stories high. Some of the stone was slate. Below the village was an area where palms, bananas and other fruits were grown. There’s a permanent spring comes out of the mountain which feeds the oasis. They reckon the source is unknown. A bit of magic going on there. It was hard work walking up and down the hillside but worth it.

A couple of guys chatted to me. They’re Canadians of Indian origin, from Gujurat. The older guy said his parents were thrown out of Tanzania in the 70s, same as happened in Uganda. They work in Kuwait. He recently got a small bike and is having fun on it.
From there I went to the Hairpin Bends Viewpoint. Getting there involved riding up the road with the bends. It went up a ridge between two parts of the mountain and looked very different to most roads of that type. I wish I’d taken a photo of it from the bottom.

I had to stop three times on the way up because the overheating warning light was coming on. I just sat there with the ignition on to let the fan run. The road was super steep with lots of really tight bends. But the viewpoint was a bit disappointing. It didn’t give that good a view of the bends I’d just negotiated.
Then I pushed on to Al Baha. When I stopped for coffee I booked a hotel. It was really cheap at only £11 per night. It’s supposed to be serviced apartments but I only got a hotel room. No drinking water supplied and I had to ask for a towel. But there were guys constantly going round cleaning everywhere.
I went out to get supplies. I went to the restaurant just round the corner and had Baba Ghanoush. It’s a mash up of eggplant and some veges. But I was surprised by how small the portion was and that it was served cold. But with the bread it was enough.
In the morning I headed out to see Rijal Alma Village. The road out there got up to almost 3,000M. The road down from there to the village was very twisty and very steep. It was good fun. But when I got to the location of the village there was nothing there.

I remembered seeing a sign on the way down, that might have mentioned the name. So I went back up the hill and, sure enough, there it was. It was referring to the Rijal Alma Museum, but that was also the location of the village. I later worked out that Rijal Alma is an area and when I saved the location Google marked a point in the middle of that area. Which explained everything.
I paid to go in and had a good look around. It has stone built houses of varying heights, one of which is a museum. All it has in it is artifacts and costumes, so not much there really. Very little information in English.

The stairs up to the higher levels were steep and I found myself feeling very out of breath, even light headed at one point. It was very hot though. I’d come down from 2900M to 350M and when I checked the weather app it said 38 degrees. So that’s what I’m putting it down to.
All the buildings are rectangular, with the window surrounds painted white. A lot of them are restaurants etc. But as I went further into the village more of it became tumble down. I could see where the water course ran down from the mountain above but it was dry. I couldn’t see any obvious sign of cultivation although it must have been there. Nobody appeared to live there any more.  It was first built nine hundred years ago.

I carried on back up the hill. I had to stop once for the bike to cool down. I headed to Jabal Sawda, which is a 3,000 metre mountain peak. But the road Google wanted to send me on was closed. I guess I was on it anyway because I was up at 2,950M. So I marked than one off as being done.

I was amazed at how green it was around there. Lots of trees and bushes. Loads of stuff being grown. It made a real change from the desert. The advantage of height and clouds, I supposed.
I went to the same restaurant as yesterday and had chicken and veg. I bit peppery but very nice all the same. I had a drink to go with it. The prices there seemed to have come down because on their Google entry it said that dish was 22 SAR but I was only charged 18. I didn’t mind!
One thing that amazed me about that day was that when I was on the that hill I glanced at the fuel consumption reading and it was over 48 Kms/litre, and I watched it climb to 49! The reading was quite jerky and it slowly came back down to a more normal level, closer to 30kms/litre. I’d not long filled up so I don’t know whether that had anything to do with it.
Still in Abha, I went out around midday and headed for Jabal Sawda.. It’s Saudi’s highest peak, at 3015 metres. Google and I struggled to find it but when I did, it was closed. There was a cable car terminal there, and access to a cliff viewing area. It was all locked up
So I carried on to Al Yanfa Archaeological Village. This is another unique place, with strange building techniques. The walls are interspersed with layers of flat rock,protruding from the walls and overlaying each other. Their purpose is to slow the flow of rain down the walls to reduce wear of the mud.

The other major feature is the tunnels that go under the buildings and link various parts of the village. It made it much easier to get around as it’s built on a very steep slope. I know that because my lungs were telling me! The tunnels have wooden beam ceilings which are strong enough to support the floors above. They’re made from silt and mud so will be quite heavy. The tunnels also allow air to circulate around.

The village has been refurbished and people still live there. Fascinating.
A nice ride back to base but with clouds up above. As I was parking the bike there were some spits and spots coming down. I covered it up and headed indoors.
After coffee and a rest I walked down to the town. I was going to go to Shamsan Castle but it was a 45 min walk and involved a steep hill. My lungs said NO!
Next destination was Art Street and on the way I passed Al Bahar historical square. Pretty trees and some large structures – rectangular arches, if that makes sense.

The Art Street didn’t have much art but it did have loads of people, some of whom were artists. Its main feature was the riverside walkway, complete with lovely poplar and Jacaranda trees. Very green and relaxing in the evening sunshine. I always find myself cheered up by seeing people out and about, relaxing. I feel connected.

I got very annoyed at midnight when somebody rang me up, on my Saudi number, saying something about laundry. I just asked him what on earth he was talking about and he eventually rang off. It may have been that the desk jockey didn’t update the system for the extra night and that he was expecting laundry from my room. Possibly.
Following that came quite a long riding day. I left at 10.45 and headed straight out of town. Then I just rode and rode and rode. The weather was warm and actually became quite hot.
My Airhawk cushion lost its air within 30 minutes so the leak has either got worse or there’s another one. PITA, whichever it was.
I stopped for fuel and lunch at about two. The guy in the service station gave me a small bottle of water. I’d bought a can of drink and a little peanut bar anyway.
After that break the sand blown by the wind across the road got worse. It surprised me to see how much of it was kicked up off the road surface by truck wheels, even though it didn’t really look as if there was any there. It was getting in my eyes a bit too.

I came to the town of Ranyah, which was nothing more than an overnight stop on the road to Riyadh. I found the hotel I’d marked on the map and it turned out to be a good choice. The room was 120 SAR, which isn’t a bad rate. But I decided to pay in cash and when I handed the guy 2×100 SAR notes he gave me one back. Result! £5 off a room is pretty cool.
I left there just after 10am and rode. And rode. And rode. The route to the main highway 30 had a cross wind blowing from my front quarter, slowing me down. But Route 30 itself was OK. I kind of had the wind behind me. Sand was blowing sometimes but not heavily.
I stopped for fuel at midday and while I was filling up a guy came out of the shop and gave me two bottles of water and two bottles of juice. Wonderfully kind.

Then, having pulled off the pumps, an SUV stopped by me and the two guys were talking to me. So I got off the bike and went to their car window, and shook hands with them. Then I noticed the AK47 sitting on the centre console. I asked them if they were police? No, they said. So I patted the guy on the shoulder, laughed and walked away. How random.
Next stop was at 2pm, at a service station with a coffee shop and some shade. I ate my lunch then checked the chain oiler, having topped it up the day before. It was empty. I topped it up again and put it on a very low setting. When I stopped for fuel again it had hardly moved. I think it may need cleaning out. Along the same lines, I’d probably need a service before I left Saudi.
I got to Sands Hostel at about 6.45 and checked in. It was a nice place and was only a 10 minute walk to a shopping mall with a MASSIVE supermarket. I got the essential supplies I needed. The hostel had a good kitchen. The area was a little India. The supermarket had a whole aisle just stocked with ghee. All the restaurants were Indian, or similar. I ate at a KFC style place just for convenience. It was very average.
When I worked out my daily distance I’d covered less than expected and less than the Google distance. I didn’t understand how that could be but all the odo readings were correct. Maybe the measurement was to the city centre.
I had a rest day. It was very hot in Riyadh, energy sapping, and discouraging much activity. But at least I wasn’t up in the frozen mountains of Iran. Count your blessings!

Dave, the same friend as had talked to me about the aircraft museum in Tehran, also told me about one in Riyadh. Again, he told me of a couple of planes he’d like to have photos of. After a light breakfast I arrived at the museum at 9am. It’s a great place. Lots of planes outside, including Dave’s Tornado and Lightning. There was one of each inside as well.
An English guy had been talking to one of the guides and they opened up a Hercules C130 for him to have a look inside. It had been a gift to the King in the 1950s, The guide told me about it too. It was very interesting to see the cockpit, all the controls and instruments etc. And for a transport plane, it was very well equipped in the rear section. Royal privilege I suppose.

This guy’s name is Johnny and when I told him I lived in Dartford he asked me if I knew the Cressy Arms. I told him it was one of my two locals and I’d drunk a few pints in there. He’s the area manager for the PubCo that owns the Cressy. A real coincidence. He lives at Duxford, Essex, hence the interest in aircraft. There’s a very big aircraft museum there, which includes a Concorde.

There were lots of interesting planes in the collection. Also things such as engines, ground equipment and so on. I took loads of photos, downloaded them onto Flickr and gave Dave the link. He said they were just what he wanted. Mission accomplished!

Some of the many photos I took are below. And this is the flickr link if you want to see any more.

After that I went to Old Timer Motorcycle shop, which Google suggested stocked a lot of accessories. What a fantastic place. The guy running it is called Zain and he’s originally from Yemen. So I showed him Itchy Boots’ You Tube channel and he was quite delighted to see her exploring his country, and visiting places in Yemen he’d never been to.
He had some bread and honey, which he insisted I share. The bread was the same as I had last night. He said it’s a typical Yemeni dish. He fed me three cups of black coffee too. Then another couple of guys came in and they were telling me of places to visit. All very useful information.
I managed to get some Rok luggage straps. Very expensive at £35, but I needed them, having broken one of mine. They didn’t sell Airhawk seat cushions or Shark crash helmets (Remember Romania?). He got the guy in the workshop to check the Airhawk for me and it was leaking at the previous repair. It was going down within a few minutes.
The shop sells loads of stuff, especially Klim and Alpine Stars clothing. Arai helmets and various leathers. Plenty of accessories and tools as well.
I expressed my surprise that a shop such as his existed because I’d only seen 2/3 bikes since I arrived in Saudi. He said the bike season was over until the Autumn and then it will get busy. I commented that as they have an F1 racing circuit, what they needed was a bike circuit, to increase interest. He said they’ve just built one which will open in 2026.
Zain had to go out then so I took the opportunity to leave. It was a really nice visit and very informative.

I went a long way down the other side of the city to a foam supplier I’d located on Google. They very efficiently supplied a piece of foam and cut it down to size. I squashed it into the Airhawk cover and, after a bit of trimming, it’s doing a perfect job.
After a lazy morning, and waiting for the sun to move around the corner, I went out to do some maintenance on the bike. I checked the chain and the tyre pressures – all OK.
The main job was to sort out the chain oiler. I took it off and cleaned it out with petrol. The big puzzle was why the oil seemed to be just running out of it. Having reassembled and replaced it, I then discovered why. When I turned the spigot even a little bit, the oil just dripped out. Then I read the label on the bottle and discovered it wasn’t oil after all. It’s a cleaning and salt removing fluid that’s also made by Scottoiler. I hadn’t bothered to read the label before I packed it and had assumed it was oil.
That meant I now had no lube. Some of that stuff was on the chain but I didn’t think it had done it any harm. But what to do for lube? Tutoro, who make my chain oiler, recommend hydraulic machine oil as being the best substitute. I searched Google for hydraulic oil outlets and there were lots of them around. I marked a couple of them but when I went there they only had 4 litre bottles available. I wasn’t all that surprised, but I needed 1 litre. Hmm. What to do?
I considered staying another day but there was no bed in the hostel so I had to go. I’d messaged Zain about oil for chains, which he didn’t have, but I went over there to get some spray-on chain lube. I gave him the Scottoiler stuff. The chain actually looks OK.
On the way there I ran out of fuel and had to use the spare fuel in the can. The 4L in there seemed to have shrunk to 3L and that was borne out by the gauge going onto red fairly quickly after leaving town. I identified a service station en route but it didn’t have any petrol. The next one shown on the map was 35kms further on. I really wasn’t sure I’d have got there.
Fortunately I found one before that. The bike took 12.07L, meaning there was 0.5L remaining. It would not have been enough. Although there seemed to be no shortage of fuel stations in Saudi, there were definitely some long stretches without any.
After that I pushed on. It was hot! I removed the front protector from my riding top to help with airflow. It was hard to know what improvement it made, but it definitely didn’t make things worse.

I got to the Ushaiqer Heritage Village at about 1pm. I had a stroll around. There were mud houses, many in tumbledown condition, but with some restored. Restoration is continuing on others. There’s a trail that goes out of the village and across the countryside to another village. Five hours walk. No thanks! There’s passageways between the houses but the floors above go across them. Very handy for getting about.

I saw some European guys getting out of a car and they asked me about the bike and my travels. A nice conversation ensued. But I forgot to ask them where they were from and why, as happens too often. A bad habit of mine which I need to change.
The village had a drinking water station. It was nice and cold. And very thoughtful. So I sat and ate lunch before carrying on.
I had been planning to go to the museum there but time was getting on and I’d probably seen all the artifacts I needed to.
I carried on to Buraydah, and to the apartment I’d booked. It was well equipped. There was a place to eat not very far away. There almost always is.
Next morning I set off to ride to Ha’il, via Jubbah, a town which had a Unesco heritage site nearby. Soon after leaving the town I glanced down at the phone and maps was saying “Carry straight on for 324kms”. I thought, my word, when have I ever seen an instruction like that?
At about 1.30 I stopped under a motorway bridge for a rest, shade and some food. At that point I decided to go straight to Ha’il, book for two days and go to Jubbah the next day. A friendly copper interrupted my lunch. He’d just stopped to say Hello, really.

In the morning I headed out to Jubbah, a 120Km ride. I went into the visitor centre and a guy showed me through some displays and a couple of videos about the area. Than I went for a wander round.
There were lots of petroglyphs, of various types and ages. He told me to walk along the paths that went around the two main rock outcrops. Initially I made the mistake of wearing my sun glasses and it wasn’t until I took them off that I could see them.

Some up above the ground, some were down at ground level. Evidence of occupation and artifact finds go back 100,000 years, although the drawings ‘only’ go back to 10,000 years. One of the rocks has some big carvings on it but I didn’t find those. He did mention about another site 4kms away, but I couldn’t be bothered to go there. Just too hot. So I let myself down a bit I suppose.

An easy ride back to the hotel and I fueled up again, ready for the next day’s ride. I really did want to get away early. It was going to be a 625km ride back to Riyadh, and likely to take 8 hours. I’d booked back into the Sands Hostel again. I just needed to get there.
I was up at 6.30am, left at 8.15 and rode for about 4 hours. The fuel gauge was on the last bar and I found a service station that also had a proper coffee shop on site. I was very naughty and had two cakes. The fuel consumption was over 30kms/L. It isn’t usually that good on long runs so I probably had the wind behind me.

Then I rode for another 1.5 hours by which time the heat was getting to me. So I stopped at another service station which had a big shop. I bought 600ml of cold water and drank it all while wandering round the air conditioned shop, cooling down.
As I got close to Riyadh the gauge went down to red so I filled up again. I’d been riding into the wind since the last fill up so the consumption had gone up a bit.
I made it to the hostel where I drank cold water and made tea. The desk jockey was asleep. I was in the same room with a different bed and was paying less. Pretty good.

I went out to LuLa shopping centre for food. First I went up to the food court and had some chicken bits with sour chives flavoured chips. Then I went to the supermarket, which was manic. Stuffed full of Friday shoppers. But I got everything I needed, including some Chinese food for the next day. It’s the kind of place that sells pre-cooked food. Perfect for the traveller. Job done, time to relax.
Zain wasn’t able fit me in for the service next day. So instead he booked me in with a KTM shop that he knows. I needed to make a list of jobs to be done. I didn’t know if they could supply an oil filter so I planned take one of my spares.
A lazy morning as the bike shop didn’t open until 3.30pm. I took the panniers off because I wanted to get the bike washed. I left at 1.30 to go and see Zain for lunch. He very kindly bought us some doughnuts, two of which I ate. Naughty. His female colleague is from Lebanon so we were chatting about my time there and in Syria.
I left at about 3.15 and made my way to the bike shop. I talked them through the jobs. I’d fitted a foam air filter and I explained to them that the foam snorkel would need removing and cleaning. It very much acts as a first line of defence. I found the inner part was now dirty enough to need cleaning for the first time. But only just! That’s something that amazes me, how the snorkel almost completely protects it from dirt. I also asked them to check the coolant level, following my overheating episodes. It did need a bit. The total cost was 315 SAR – £63. I was very happy with that. They’d done a good job.

There were quite a lot of bikes stored ib the shop and I wondered if the owners left them there until the riding season started.

Then a ride in the gathering dusk, back to the hostel. When I’d left earlier the bike felt very odd, having no luggage on it. The front wheel felt out of shape but, once again, it seemed to be the road more than anything else. It felt OK coming back. Traffic was quite heavy in places but having no panniers meant I could go for smaller gaps.
At one point I felt the front wheel slide a bit when going round a corner on a flyover. The road surfaces here look very polished sometimes. I was speculating whether the extreme heat requires a different kind of asphalt, which was naturally more slippery.
Back at base I remounted the panniers and the other bits. The chicken meal I’d bought the day before went down very well.
The next day was all about writing and I did very well. By the evening I had another blog ready to publish. But the day still managed to kick me in the backside.
I went out to the bike to check the tyres and the rear needed some air. I attached my cordless pump to it but after about two seconds it stopped. Then wisps of smoke started to come out. I was worried that battery was going to catch fire. It didn’t, but neither did it work again. I was now faced with having to find a new one.

I had planned to leave the next morning but I woke up feeling terrible, as if I had a head cold. So I booked another night.
I slept in a bit. Then, after breakfast, I opened my emails and had a very nice surprise. Someone had contacted me, via the blog, who turned out to be the mother of the helicopter pilot who’d winched me out of the Jardine River, in Australia, way back in July 2015. It seemed the subject had come up at a family gathering and she wanted to check if it was me. Micha, her son, had commented on my blog and she wanted to follow it up. How amazing!

I emailed her back and gave her the blog link, also telling her how brilliant everyone thought her son was. She replied, telling me that he was now married with two little kids and had been promoted to Assistant Chief Pilot at the Search And Rescue unit. That was brilliant news and well deserved. A very delightful surprise.

Later on I went looking for a pump and the only place I could find the one was at Decathlon. Just an ordinary hand pump but it would have to do. I needed to have something.
Next morning I was up at 7am and was actually on the bike and rolling by 9am. The traffic was heavy getting out of the city but once clear it was just a case of riding until I needed to refuel.
I carried on but when I turned off onto a road towards my destination of Al Hofuf I was riding in a sandstorm. Not a blinding one but bad enough. I stopped for a coffee. A guy offered me water, which I turned down, but he paid for my coffee instead. As I was leaving there I had a nice chat with a guy who videoed me too.
I gave up any idea of visiting either of the two places I’d marked there. All I wanted to do was to get out of the wind and sand.

In the morning I went to see them. First was the Ibrahim Palace. A very white building, with a low key style. It had cloisters around the edge of a large courtyard. There was a mosque in one corner. Some of the rooms off the cloisters had photos in, a few of which were quite interesting.
I decided I had time to go to Al Qara Hill. When I got there I couldn’t find a way in and thought it was closed. But somebody showed me the entrance. I thought hard about whether to pay 100 SAR for a guide and decided to in the end. But the woman wasn’t very good. She had a very lacklustre and offhand approach and her English wasn’t great. As well as paying her, I also had to pay the entry fee, which was listed as 57 SAR. But the guy asked for ID and then dropped the price down to 17.50 SAR. I’m guessing that was age related.

Basically the hill is a big pile of limestone rock, with some interesting caves in it and some rocks that looked a bit like animals. From the pictures on Google, I’d thought there were houses there, but it was just the shape of the rocks. The photos tell the story.

She walked me through some of the caves, pointing out various features. Once we’d gone all the way in we met up with another group. Their guide was much more engaging, had better English and wasn’t wearing a burka. So I stayed listening to her while my guide sidled off.

I went into the café, seeking coffee. One of the guides also wanted coffee and as she’d been in London briefly, she decided to sit down with me. She wasn’t really sure where she’d been so she showed me her photos and I identified the places for her. We had a good chat about various things.
Then she decided she wanted a photo with me so we went outside. A guy took some for me but she’d put her burka on so all that could be seen was her eyes. Absolutely pointless, albeit hilarious.

That was Saudi Arabia pretty much done and dusted. I’d been there a month and I’d enjoyed it very much. The people were great and there were far more places to visit than I’d imagined. One thing that struck me was the variety of building methods in the heritage villages. Mostly to do with available materials I would think. But it’s still mostly rock and sand!