G’day folks! Today’s post continues on from the past few weeks where I have been detailing my explorations in Saudi Arabia earlier this year in February & March. Today I take y’all on a walking tour through Jeddah’s historic district and the oldest part of the city, known as ‘Al-Balad’.

This was the main centre of town many years ago now, and is full of amazing historic wooden buildings – some of which you can enter – a bustling market and so much more. It’s a place that inspires the senses and really does give a glimpse into the history of Saudi Arabia. Much of 2023 Saudi Arabia is new or newish. The 1970s saw an oil boom and from then on cities have been built or rebuilt. Al-Balad became the place were immigrant workers would live at one point, and it was almost forgotten in some respects.

Today though, as Saudi Arabia looks to the rest of the world with open doors for the first time, it is an historic and touristic part of town, and perhaps the best part of Jeddah to explore because it does not feature wide roads and American fast food joints – this part of town has narrow alleys and few vehicles. It’s not busy like the Walled City of Lahore, and you can see much of it is actually residential. A lot of the buildings look to be waiting for restoration and are crumbling. They stand next others that have been restored. The main features are the balconies and lattice work, and the use of wood as the primary building material.

There are also mosques and shops and little markets here and there, I tried to start from the main gate – the Jeddah Old Gate. It’s pretty much been restored, there are remains around of the historic wall around the old city but they are not very visible. In fact they are sort of fenced off and mid-excavation. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole of Al-Balad gets reconstructed as a tourist attraction, so it was really nice to visit before that happens.

Really the highlight of Al Balad is just walking around it. I passed a mosque that wasn’t open, and there was a covered market which I think specialised in textiles, which was interesting. I did visit an historic house – the Matbouli House which is done up I guess as a little museum in some ways. Quite interesting it had several floors all beautifully and traditionally decorated with carpets and the like. For me the highlight was the gramophone, but to be fair, that’s not particularly Saudi, is it?

There are a number of tea houses and places for cool drinks as well dotted around the place. It wasn’t that busy, but when I found my way to a perfume/spices market with a number of places selling both and with beautiful colourful displays which was awesome. This was near the Nassiff House Museum, a house I think owned (now – not sure but definitely previously owned by the Al-Saud’s) which was closed that day in a sort of square. I was exiting at a very different point to where I had entered from, and came out near the Al Ma’amar Mosque. This was busy, it was prayer time. I was doing a bit to camera for my vlog and the girls sitting outside it started a conversation with me, it was really great to have the chance to talk with the locals especially women because I wasn’t expecting to in Saudi Arabia.

The road I was now on was full of gold and jewellery shops, and was some sort of open market/souk I guess. It took me down to the main road, where getting an Uber was a real challenge. The traffic was stuck because it was a one way street, and in the end I found my way to what seemed like a highway behind all the buildings to get an Uber. It took well over an hour, and I had a couple of Ubers drop me, one who must have driven straight past me I think.

But Al-Balad was still a highlight. As bad as that traffic was I still felt the traffic was worse in Riyadh. Definitely a great place to explore and photograph! Don’t miss it if you are in Jeddah! The final piece in the Saudi puzzle comes next Sunday when I go snorkelling from Jeddah in the Red Sea. Thanks for reading today, take care wherever you are in the world, and… May the Journey Never End!