Mada'in Saleh

We spent a long weekend (6-8 February) visiting one of the historical sites in Saudi Arabia. The area is known as Mada’in Saleh (it is a Nabateean site) and the trip was run by the Saudi Arabian Natural History Society. We flew to Medinah (second holiest site in Islam) and then rode a bus for six hours to the town.

This is the setting for the town and hotel. The Bedouin tents belong to the hotel and you can rent them and stay in them (if you want!). Look closely and you will see the built-in air conditioner! The sandstone escarpment hangs all around the town.

This is what we went to see. The tombs! The people at the base and standing on top will give you an idea of the size of the rocks. Notice the honeycomb effect where the sandstone has been worn away. They weren’t carving granite!

This is Jim’s favorite shot. The coloring just came out looking really cool. This is the single largest tomb. Don’t be fooled, though. The rock is really large, but the interior is one, unfinished, very small room.

This is Train Station No. 21. The Turks used to run the area and ran a train from Istanbul to Riyadh (current capital of Saudi Arabia). During WWI, Lawrence of Arabia managed to wreck the tracks (watch the movie!). This is where the train came through and the wrecked train is still out in the desert. We didn’t get to go visit it, but hear it has been picked clean by souvenir hunters.

This is the actual station. The light poles are new, but the rest of the place is original from the Turks. Apparently, someone wanted to do some tourism, but got no further than some light poles! Saudi Arabia still only issues about 500 tourist visas per year for the country.

This is THE industry around Mada’in Saleh. Date palms. Except for a (very) few tourists, there is nothing else here.

In the foreground, you can see the original old town. Yes, it is mud, logs and palm leaves. Between 30 and 40 years ago, the Saudi government built an entire new city for the inhabitants and they abandoned the old town. Forty years of neglect and the mud is still standing. Not a lot of rain. Along the new city, you can see why the date palms grow here. Fog brings in a significant amount of moisture. You can’t see it, but along the bases of the date palms is evidence of actual water on the surface. The city actually has some serious storm ditches. When it rains, they get some real gully washers thundering down from the hills.

Great shot of Alonda down in the middle of the old town. Part of it is being renovated with an eye to tourism in the future.

“The Bowling Pin” gives you an idea of how the sandstone can be worn away into just about any shape you can imagine. “Elephant Rock” takes little imagination. Notice our bus and the car. A LOT of sandstone has been worn away in this area.

Our guide managed to look good no matter where he was standing. The “campfire” represented about 15 minutes of fuel gathering. Not a lot grows out there.

Sunset. The next day we rode the bus for four hours and flew home.