Jeddah in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Jeddah, with its population of 4 million, is the second-largest city in the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia, and is located on the eastern shore of the Red Sea, it is also the country’s commercial centre.
Originally a city of 2kms square it was buried in water right up to the Old Town and the remainder is now on reclaimed land. It was the major port for Indian Ocean trade routes starting in the 7th Century and the port is the second-busiest seaport in the Middle East. It is also an historically important gateway for Muslim pilgrims arriving by sea on their journey to the holy cities of Mecca, 65 kms to the east and Medina, the second holiest city, 360 kms to the north. The city boasts 2,300 mosques and the historic Old Town is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
It is not known when Jeddah was founded but its prominence grew in 647 when the Caliph Uthman made it a travel hub serving the Muslim travellers going on their annual pilgrimage to the Hajj – the “House of Allah”- in the sacred city of Mecca. This is one of the Five pillars of Islam and it is a mandatory religious duty for Muslim men who are physically and financially capable of undertaking the journey and supporting their family during their absence, to make this pilgrimage at least once in their lifetime. The pilgrimage cleanses their souls of all worldly sins and lasts over five to six days during the last month of the Islamic calendar.
Saturday 13 May – we had a City tour booked for today and with the very strict Saudi Arabian rules in place ie women covered from head to toe and men to wear long-sleeved shirts and trousers, we were Jeddah-ready and made our way on to the shuttle buses en route to Immigration. It was strict, not like other places where we have just been given a land pass, this was passports, covid documents and visas. When we finally got through we boarded our coach and off we went. A drive up and down the Corniche was first up on the tour. I must say, I had always thought Jeddah would be full of very modern skyscrapers and perfectly manicured gardens constantly being irrigated, but was surprised to see it wasn’t like that at all. Some beautiful low-rise homes lined the corniche, interspersed with small sets of shops and businesses and a lot less skyscrapers than I imagined. To be fair our guide was not particularly forthcoming with information so it was a quiet bus that drove us around. Some points of interest – it has the second-highest flag pole in the world which the guide told us about, but we didn’t see, and also the highest fountain in the world at 260 metres. Donated by, and named after King Fahd, it was launched in 1985 and the water reaches a speed of 375kph and its airborne mass can exceed 16 tonnes. It uses saltwater taken from the Red Sea and has over 500 LED spotlights to illuminate it at night (we can vouch for this as although we didn’t see it on the tour, we did see it from the window of Manfredi’s Italian Restaurant as we ate dinner on our sail out of the city.
The highlight of the tour was our tour of Jeddah’s old town – Al-Balad - “The Town”. In order to preserve the old structures within Al-Balad, the Historical Area Preservation Department was established in 1990 hoping to promote cultural tourism, the Saudi Crown Prince, Muhammad bin Salman pledged $13.3 million to restore the old city where there were 56 buildings in urgent need of repair.
We entered though the Punt Gate, originally on water’s edge, it was the place the pilgrims disembarked from their boats and walked through the old town and out through the Jeddah Gate 2kms away, on their journey to Mecca. Unfortunately, the timing of our tour was when most of the shops in the Souk were closed until later in the afternoon (when our tour finished!) so not many were open for us to see. We did pass many jewellery shops with their gaudy 18 – 24 carat elaborate gold necklaces in the window (in a previous life when I lived in Cyprus and was in the Middle East a lot, I was gifted quite a bit of this, far too full-on and bright they look fake and were too much for me and I don’t own them anymore!). Some rug and frankincense merchants were also open as well.
We made our way to the Nasseef House on the main street Suq al-Alawi, built in 1872 and finished by 1881 for Omar Nasseef Efendi, a member of a wealthy merchant family and Governor of Jeddah. It is known as “The House with the Tree” because it was the only house in Balad that had one. It’s a Neem tree which is part of the mahogany family and it was brought over from Indonesia because growing a tree was obviously difficult in Jeddah due to the scarcity of water. It is a very valued tree as its leaves are used for many medicinal purposes and it is also an organic pesticide.
The house has 106 rooms in an irregular plan and the design is said to be Ottoman Turkish. We were only able to see a small section of the house. The ground floor is raised because of cisterns underneath it that store rainwater and keep the lower floor cooler. We climbed up the steep stone steps and saw four floors. The large bay windows are called rawashin, a Persian word for their design which lets in plenty of light and breeze on the upper floor. Unfortunately, we didn’t see the main part of the house which apparently has wide, flat stone steps to enable the camels to climb up to the kitchen on the 5th floor bearing the provisions! The house is typical of Hejazi architecture and requires an expert of exquisite tase and vast experience to undertake the wood-woks, skylights and jalousies of this old style. Inside we sat on beautifully adorned settees on the first floor and enjoyed a cardamon tea and some delicious fresh dates, whilst the fragrance of frankincense wafted about us.
Free time followed after this and because it was 36 degrees and we were clothed head to toe, Geoff and I managed to find a building whose front door was ajar, and sat in a couple of seats and enjoyed ten minutes of air conditioning! We walked around the old town and heard the familiar sound of the Muezzin and watched all the men taking off their shoes and entering the Al-Shafei Mosque, built by King al-Muzaffar Sulayman of Yemen in 1250. He was from the Ayyub dynasty in Yemen and followed the Shafi’i school of law after which the Mosque was named. It was made of coral stone “bricks” from the sea which measure between 25cms and 30cms wide, commonly used to build in the old town because the coral stone is warm in winter and cool in summer. By the time we reached one end of the street, many of the shops were starting to open their shutters which was a shame as it started to get quite lively then and a lot more interesting as the locals began to congregate and it was time for us to leave!
En route back to our meeting point at Nasseef House we did stop in at a store that had an array of the most tasty fresh dates and nuts and bought a bagful to take back and enjoy on the ship.
We were meant to be departing at 5pm but when we arrived back on the ship they were still refuelling. Not quite sure what was happening as time was moving on and we were still docked…..cocktail hour arrived and this was a bit of a disaster – a party had been planned to start at 6pm – bubbles, dancing and music around the pool – to coincide with us then being 12 nautical miles out to sea and in international waters and the bars then being opened. Islamic Law prohibits the manufacture, sale, possession and consumption of alcohol in Saudi Arabia and is punishable by public flogging, fines or lengthy imprisonment. Due to this, not only were the bars and restaurants not serving alcohol throughout the day, but the bottles all had to be removed and locked in cupboards and inspected by the Saudi authorities whilst we were in port. The party ended up going ahead with a variety of mocktails being served instead! With the delay, by the time we were 12 nautical miles out it was 9.30pm before the bars were open, and we were on our last course at dinner but we did manage to squeeze in one glass of wine!!!!
And we’re off! Next port Aqaba in Jordan!