Travel Tips

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The Gateway to the Red Sea

To an inexperienced Asian, European, or American, Jeddah can seem a bit rough at first.

After living here for a while, and talking to other Westerners, you would learn that there are many modern conveniences here that have yet to hit other Middle Eastern cities like Damascus or Cairo. There are more than five big indoor shopping malls, plenty of very spacious supermarkets, and a small but good selection of bookstores. There are lots of computer and computer Software & Hardware stores here too!

You may have heard about some of the drawbacks of living here -- women are, despite the rhetoric, discriminated against. Saudi women (and all female nationalities) are not allowed to drive, and cannot work in most jobs where they interface with men. Saudi women don't even have identification cards! Because of this discrimination, many Western contracting companies try to compensate their Western employees with very generous salaries and free housing and sometimes free cars.

According to The Lonely Planet’s guide to the Middle East, “Jeddah was once a modest port living mostly off the pilgrim trade [to Mecca, about 30 miles inland], the city has evolved into one of the Arab world’s most important commercial centers. Within its [old city] walls, Jeddah occupied about one square kilometer of land. [These walls were demolished in 1949 but one can identify the old city because it still exists, although in varying stages of disrepair, and rises above the street-level shops of the old market (souq) where so many Arab goods are available.

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Large portions of the old town of Jeddah have been destroyed and new functional quarters have been built on the same location. For example this modern suq, in Qabel Street is copying the old structures of the traditional suqs (roof covering the street, arcades, small shops) but modern facilities have been added: electric lights, paved street, cleaning of the pavement by a motorized machine.

I discovered that the Jeddah souq offers far fewer “tourist-y” things such as carved camels and Pakistani-made trinkets. Abayas, veils, scarves, saris, men’s thobes and red-checkered tablecloths and the fan belts which anchor them abound in every souq. Look hard and you can find a woman’s prayer garment—a total body cocoon held in place by thumb loops and a small opening for the face. A woman must be modest when presenting herself to God in prayer.