Travelling to Saudi Arabia

 

While European citizens often qualify for visa exemptions or visas on arrival, this is certainly not the case for Saudi Arabia. All passengers travelling to the Kingdom require visas prior to their arrival. For me the first surprise was that tourist visas do not exist. The only way one can enter is on a business, work, student, government/family/work visit, or pilgrimage visa. The latter is reserved exclusively for Muslims performing the Hajj or Umrah pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca. Although I entered the country to attend a summer school at a local university, my visa status was “government visitor”. The second surprise was that visa application process does not take place at an embassy but rather at the Visa Facilitation Service (VFS) center, which is authorized by the government to accept visa applications, but no Saudi nationals actually work there. Applications are then mailed by VFS to the embassy, which either approves or rejects them. The paperwork I was required to submit was quite elaborate, and it included a no-objection letter from my home institution and an invitation letter from the Saudi university. If paperwork collection and submission took ages, the visa was ready for collection just two days after submission! 

 

I was advised by my host institution to cover my arms, legs and neck after landing in Jeddah, but I figured putting on an abaya would help me blend in better. But it did not because my sheila kept sliding off my head until I gave up and stored it in my handbag. A local working for KAUST waited for me and handed me over to a friendly Pakistani driver who took me about 80 kilometers north to a small village of Thuwal on the coast of the Red Sea. There, Saudi’s most international university campus opened its doors in 2009. The campus is an enclave of about 6,000 inhabitants where everyone dresses as they choose, there is no religious police, women have been allowed to drive, and there has been a movie theatre since the opening even though the rest of the country only lifted the female driving and cinema bans recently. For scientists and engineers, this is a research paradise in terms of scientific equipment one has access to. Even top world academic institutions generally do not have the kind and the quantity of research facilities one can find at KAUST. The campus, which really feels like a bubble in the desert, has all the facilities one needs in everyday life, including a hospital, supermarkets, a bunch of restaurants, its own bus service and firefighters, numerous sports facilities such as pools, bowling and marine sports center, and education facilities up to high school for the children of the employees. As a short term visitor for about three weeks, I was staying in an on-campus hotel. 

 

Jeddah is the second largest city in Saudi Arabia likewise located on the coast of the Red Sea. Students of both genders at KAUST are discouraged from visiting Jeddah on their own, but many choose to go to malls in groups. Participants of the summer school I was attending had an organized trip to the historical part of the city known as Jeddah al-Balaad, which is protected under UNESCO. Our trip took place in mid-August when evening temperatures reached about 35 degrees with tropical levels of humidity. Covered in an abaya but fortunately with my head fully exposed, I made the first ever attempt to enjoy the traditional architecture in the area, which includes windows fully covered by delicately carved wooden shutters (mashrabiya or rawasheen) and elegant wooden front doors. Most of the buildings are residential, but one can find hidden gems such as traditional bakeries, art galleries or mosques among them. Unlike expected, most of the people we encountered were not locals but foreign men from South Asia who were selling one or other thing: perfumes, scarves, prayer carpets, books, spices, incense or sweets on a per kilo basis. The majority would look at us, a group of 30 something tourists, with curiosity, but few would speak to us. Those not engaged in some form of commerce were kids playing table tennis, men chatting over tea, or passersby. We met a few women and all were fully veiled, showing only their eyes. Although Saudi Arabia has a law that all women must be accompanied by their legal guardians, which in practice means their fathers, brothers, or husbands, we did see some on their own. More than with women, though, the streets were populated with stray cats searching for food in trash cans in the early summer evening of our visit. 

 

 

While the Western perception of the Kingdom is that of a very strict, conservative nation, things are slowly changing even in Saudi Arabia. What I have been told by some residents is that there is a tendency for progression and westernization in modern Saudi society, but religious clerks still have significant power, which makes the process of modernization slower in all areas outside enclaves such as KAUST. Alcohol is strictly illegal and is only served at foreign embassies. The country continues to observe the Sharia law. Segregation of genders does take place to the extent that there are separate queues, school classrooms and public waiting areas. These are the differences that anybody coming from the West should be willing to accept before visiting or moving to the Kingdom.