Road to Jazan

 Road to Jazan  

We left Abha and drove to the edge of the plateau and followed a deep wadi off the plateau towards the coast.

There was a lot of impressive civil engineering to get the road down the wadi...

...lots of tunnels and viaducts...

...and the road cut into the edge of the hillside...

...with marvellous views across the valley...

...until we left the edge of the plateau and the ground was just undulating but with enough water for agriculture and scrub or rough pasture.

Then we passed through more mountains to reach Rijal Almaa. It was another heritage village. It used to be free and it was open 24 hours for visitors to wander about. Now it has been swept up in th Vision 2030 to create tourist sights for visitors to boost tourism. Now the buildings have been renovated and is a UNESCO site but there is a SAR20 entrance fee and restrited opening hours. The website says 9am...in reality, it is 4pm.

We weren't the only people affected as other groups arrived, found it shut and moved on.

We were able to see some of the buildings from afar...

...o close up...

...and some buildings not included in the renvation project...

..left to crumble...

...just opposite the tourist site...

...although we went to the coffee bar on the fourth floor of a hotel opposite to get a better view.

Another restored building. I thought UNESCO had rules that only a maximum of 20% of a site could be renovated so as tp preserve the integrity of the original site...although with many of the Saud UNESCO sites, a lot more than 20% has been rebuilt...so what happened to the rules? and how come Saudi can get away with this?

Since we had not been able to enter the heritage village, we had some spare time. We moved on to the local honey refinery. The entrance, complete with a black and white American police car at the entrance although I could think of no link between that and honey.

There was also a wind mill and to the right, partially obscured by lights on poles, is a water wheel.

But the main attraction was the honey refinery. The entrance is on the right and visitors climb three flights of stair to the tasting room and museum on the top floor.

It was a rustic marvel, quirky, lots of wood on show with jars brightly lit showing a whole range of colours, textures and thicknesses of honey from different plants.

Plus the possibility of tasting some...

...in museum like surroundings.