Medina to Al Ula (Mada'in Salih Vacation)

The last three days have been the best of my Hajj holiday. For the past month all I could think about was going to Mada'in Salih, ancient city of the Nabateans, and we actually made it. We wondered if it would be possible because we needed to obtain permission from the government, flights to and from Medina (and hope for the best we could get on the plane with only a copy of our passports), hotel reservations, and transportation. Fortunately, the hotel was able to do most of that for us. My main worry was if they would let us on the plane (they did) and the funny thing was I felt like it was more of a hassle to get on the train to Dammam last week. From Riyadh to Al Ula, it would have been 13 hours by bus, so flying was definitely the way to go. I was surprised to learn we could actually fly to Medina. It is the second holiest city in all of Islam. It is the location of the prophet's mosque, the place where the prophet is buried. Of course, we were very limited to where we could go in the city. The trip by plane was about an hour and a half. We passed through the very flat and somewhat dusty deserts I'm used to in this part of the country, but when we got nearer to Medina, the landscape became very mountainous. Here is a view of the landscape near Medina from the plane. The blackish blue stuff on the bottom is not water, it must be some kind of volcanic rock or something.

This is the most I will probably ever see of Medina with my own eyes. Luckily Chris got this amazing pic from the air, and I managed to get a number of pics from the ground as we drove through the city.

We were surprised that our hotel arranged a bus for us rather than a van from Medina to Al Ula. Our driver Abdullah was very nice. He was already there waiting for us when we arrived.

It was great to see mountains again! Medina was a beautiful city from what I saw. Above is a sign marking the Haram area, the area that only Muslims could enter, which is a big portion of the city. I'm sure the sight of six white Americans was somewhat unusual in this part of the country. Throughout our trip we had a police escort follow behind our bus or van to keep us safe from danger.

From Medina to Al Ula it was about a 4-5 hour drive. Again, we passed some very nice mountain areas and a fair number of camels. I was extremely surprised when we entered the city of Al Ula. It looks almost identical to Moab Utah, my second home, and for that reason (and soon for many more) it instantly became my favorite city in all of Saudi Arabia. We arrived at the Al Arac Hotel and had a few hours before we left on our tour of the city (Mada'in Salih would be saved for the next two days). We took a badly needed nap since we were up at 3:45am to catch our flight that morning.

Below are our hotel rooms. Since we were pretty sure we weren't going to Mada'in Salih on our first day, we wondered what we would do to keep ourselves busy. I had no idea the city of Al Ula was as awesome as it was. Al Ula is actually a city mentioned very briefly in the Bible (under the name of Dedan) as a city that traded with other more famous cities and in connection with the battle of Gog and Magog that is supposed to take place at the end of the world. The Dedanites lived in the city as early as 600BC and have left tombs behind today. The picture below is a small walled mountain. It used to be the location of a pagan Dedan temple that was destroyed by the Muslim inhabitants 300 years ago. The Muslims then built a city out of mud bricks taken from the ancient tombs of the Dedans. The remains of the city still exist and this was our first stop.Here is the inside of one of the many old homes in the mud city.

Climbing to the top of the city.

Here is a picture of the city 300 years ago compared to the new modern city in the background.

Here is another view of the city. It kind of reminds me of the city that you see in Disney's version of Aladdin.

Here is another view of the old city with the new. I love that red rock in the background.

Before we came here we saw on the itinerary we would see "mud homes". That sounded so lame to us. How wrong were were. Everything about this trip was so much better than I thought it would be. Below is Sam, and I think Jim exploring the city. Currently the city is being restored to look more like it did 300 years ago, which will probably take the people a good amount of time to do. I was happy to see it in its current state.

After the mud city we drove to the other side of the valley to look at the ancient Dedan tombs (the same tombs they build a lot of the mud city from). It was fenced off because they believe that there is still ancient Dedan treasure there.

If you look closely at the picture above you will see some holes in the mountain. Those are the tombs. Below is a close up view.

Nearby this location is a Dedan city that remains underground. They have still not excavated the site (this place is seriously an archeologist's paradise). Afterwards we drove out into the desert to a location known as Elephant Rock. Can you tell why?

Its kind of hard to tell but the little dot there next to the trunk of the elephant is me. This spot seems to be pretty famous for four wheeling. I think it gets a lot of visiters. Below is what they call the Bowling Pin (the hole in the rock)

On the other side of Elephant Rock there was a lot of grafiti in both Arabic and English. Here is Sam climbing all over everything.

Here is our whole group on the other side of Elephant Rock. Below is our security guard patiently waiting in the shadows to finish our visit to the site.

Our last stop for the day was to drive up into the mountains and watch the sunset over Al Ula.

Here is a view from our ascent up the mountain. I couldn't believe how much it was like Moab.

The sunset over the amazing red rocks.

Chris says he imagines this is what Mars looks like.

Here is the city of Al Ula from the top. That was pretty much our day. We went and had some kappsa at a restaurant in town. I have to say the day was far better than I could have dreamed. Our guide was amazing throughout the whole trip. He is one of the best guides I've ever had on a vacation like this. He was very knowledgable about the area and fun to be around. It was extremely interesting to hear his thoughts on Saudi Arabia and the things that happen here.

This was all great to me, but the best part of the trip was yet to come. Mada'in Salih was mind blowing, but I'll end here because this post is already long enough. I feel like I put too many pictures in my posts, but there were too many incredible things to see. I discovered I took 519 pictures when the whole trip was over (which probably isn't surprising to those who know me). I'll post about the rest of the trip in a day or two.