A glance at our road trip during the Eid holidays.
Like every time, I would once again say that we enjoy drives and spend fewer hours at the actual destination. Sight-seeings are solely on my demand and so here are the few pictures that are half as good as the real sight! It was breathTaking!
9th September 2016 - Friday
We drove to Baha through Al Jumum and Taif to avoid Makkah as they were redirecting the traffic during these days due to Hajj. At one of the check posts, we were asked to return to Yanbu and not proceed at all! F convinced that security check man that we would not be going through Makkah though we are Muslims, entry was not open to the public this day. We took close to 6 to 7 hours to reach Baha and checked in at the Swiss International Hotel around Maghrib time. We had done all our hotel bookings through Booking.com.
Taif was as promised. Beautiful. Quiet. Serene.
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| Taif |
We got to see too many goats being transported and makes me wonder why it is happening so late. Aren't we supposed to fall in love with the goat before we sacrifice it?
We were welcomed with the first splash of rain in peak summer even before we reached the Hotel! Alhamdulillah!
Hotel Swiss International - nothing international about it. Thankfully we had a couple of Hindi-speaking staff who made it easy to get things done when the desk people hardly understood English. The food was the usual Arabic breakfast and sandwiches etc. Nothing great. Guess I expected something extraordinary! 😀
10th September 2016 - Saturday
Breakfast at the hotel
This is the historical location of Thi Ain Village
A 400 or 600 years old village that houses multi-storeyed stone structures with doors and windows made of wood. There is an entry fee and it is minimal. It is better to wear light clothes and light abayas as we have to do a lot of walking and climbing stairs. Also. a bottle of water would help too. There is no tourist guide, nor did we find any details or information put up for visitors. So all we can do is go around, take a look and imagine how people lived so many years ago.
This spring is the most talked-about spot in Thee Ain Village. We then headed to this huge hill which is a picnic spot.
F is not a picnic person or someone who can sit on the grass and enjoy the sky etc. Nope. But because we had packed a few kinds of stuff to have this time, we sat for less than 5 minutes with a cup of salted corn and off we went back to the room.
11th September 2016 - Sunday
Checked out of the Swiss Hotel and drove towards Abha and stopped over at Muhayil in Aseer province.
The road to Abha from Baha was totally deserted and this camel gave us company! 🙂 We stopped and moved to match its speed. Some fun along the way... At Asir, we checked in at Boudl Hotel.
No breakfast included, yet we had a staycation here. Food had to be ordered from a nearby restaurant.
12th September 2016 - Monday
Staycation
13th September 2016 - Tuesday
Began our drive to Abha City
and checked in at Abha Palace for a night.
This was like - back to civilisation! ;-P
Lunch!
In the evening, we hopped on to the famous cable car ride to the Green Mountain and had an amazing time as it was a Looooong way and had quite a few stops and almost covered the entire city.
One of the cable-car ride stops were all thronged to watch the majestic sunset!
14th September 2016 - Wednesday
Had a sumptuous breakfast from the hotel and got on to the road on our way back to Yanbu. We stopped at Jeddah and shopped for my heart content (groceries) from Lulu and gobbled some chicken biryani sitting in the car and then he drove to our home while I fell asleep.
15th September 2016 - Thursday
It is the day to publish the MENA Cooking Club post and I had not even attempted. Quickly made Khabees as part of Bahrain Cuisine, clicked, drafted and published the post the same day! Phew.. a feat in itself!
Did you make this recipe? Let me know!