In order to obtain a visa for travel to Saudi Arabia you need a letter of invitation from a Saudi company or other entity. In my case, I was contracted by a Saudi firm through an English firm in Scotland to go to the Kingdom so there was some delay in obtaining the invitation which is written in Arabic. Obtaining your letter of invitation allows you to start the process of obtaining a visa. Theoretically you can do most of the paper work on the Internet, but I couldn’t get the Saudi immigration web site to translate from Arabic into English so I went to the embassy in Washington DC (I live in Fredericksburg VA). The embassy was not terribly helpful about the procedure but someone did recommend I go across the street to the Watergate and find the travel agency. I found a travel agent who specialized in Saudi travel, helped me through the process, told me where to go for my visa picture, and helped me with my airline reservations on Saudia airlines. You drop off your visa application on certain days and pick up your visa, now inside your passport, several days later. I was going to Yanbu Industrial City and when I contacted other travel agents who are not knowledgeable about travel to Saudi Arabia they came up with exorbitantly expensive flights through other countries. As it turns out there is a convenient, inexpensive, direct flight from Dulles Airport to Jeddah weekly.
Saudi Arabia requires both an entrance and an exit visa so you want to make sure that you can not only get into the country but out of it. I was traveling on a combined visa so I received both my entrance and exit visa at the same time. I was still somewhat nervous about this arrangement because they look you up on the computer and check you out before you leave -more on this later. You are required to declare your religion on the visa application. I don’t believe there is any issue with main line Christian faiths but I don’t know about other religious traditions. One of the books I reviewed in my summary (my summary is obtainable through the form below) discusses this entry on the visa application in some detail.
Foreigners travel is restricted in Saudi Arabia and I did have to show my invitation several times in the country including when I arrived at my final destination. Make sure you keep track of your papers.
Saudi Currency is pegged to the US dollar but banks always seem to get a better deal than I can so I tend to obtain a small amount of foreign cash and use my credit card where I can. I came equipped with two credit cards and both banks assumed fraud and froze my credit cards when I attempted to use them in Saudi Arabia. I was very concerned because if I couldn’t pay this might have impacted my exit visa and since I was eight hours away from home without a cell phone this might have resulted in an awkward situation. I ended up spending the night at the Jeddah airport because I couldn’t get my credit card to work for a hotel in Jeddah. In follow up conversations with the banks when I got home, they recommended that I contact them before my next trip so that they know I am actually charging things in Saudi Arabia.
If you travel business class on Saudia, the Saudi airline, the seats and cabin service are wonderful, and you can use the first class lounges when you arrive in the Kingdom. It’s an 11 hour flight from Dulles to Jeddah and I found the display console embedded in the seat in front of me to be fascinating. In addition to entertainment, the console offered various map displays including a compass rose with the direction to the nearest city, and the direction to Mecca displayed at all times. Once I got to Jeddah I found that the lounges in the airport have comfortable places to sit between flights with an elaborate buffet on ice including various interesting dishes and lots of different fruit drinks. They also have nice restrooms. In my case the flight from Dulles arrived early in the morning and my connecting flight to Yanbu left early in the evening so I had quite a bit of time to kill. I enjoyed sitting in the first class lounge and I got to network with a variety of business men from all over the Middle East as well as enjoy some interesting food. On leaving the country I waited for my flight in the international first class lounge which was very elaborate with wonderful food and comfortable easy chairs. It’s interesting to note that the only place I found glossy magazines was in the International lounge before I left. Foreign magazines are censored in Saudi Arabia and I guess the hotel didn’t bother to process them.
I am an applications engineer in the chemical instrumentation industry and my work brought me to a large industrial site with many different levels of engineers and technicians from many different countries as well as Saudi’s. English was our common language so there was no problem with communications. People tended to dress in business casual attire with open necked shirts, no jewelry except for a watch and wedding ring, and slacks. Since part of the time we were outside we wore safety shoes. Saudi men wear their Thobes but the rest of us were in western attire.
One of the real quandaries when traveling to Saudi Arabia is what to wear, both on your trip and at your place of business. This is difficult enough for men and I don’t know what the limits are for women. If you are a man no one expects you to dress in Saudi clothes such as a Thobe. I am less clear on when western women are expected to wear an Abayah. One nice exception is that Saudi’s like to wear sandals and don’t mind if you do. On my trip I was working at a large industrial site so I traveled in sandals without socks and wore heavy work boots at my worksite.
Whether you like it or not, sooner or later, the plane lands and you have to go through immigration and customs. On the Jeddah flight we received our immigration card about one half hour before landing. Again you are confronted with the question about religion in the immigration form. The only frank discussion of this entry that I have found is in one of the books that I review in my summary (fill out the form below on this web page and I’ll email you a copy of my summary). Although most individuals in the Saudi bureaucracy are very polite as individuals there is no way a foreigner can fathom the system. The only people in Saudi Arabia who don’t seem to speak English are the men who tell you which passport line to get into. It only gets worse as you go through immigration. After much jockeying in different lines I ended up at a station where I added my passport to the pile. The immigration officer is supposed to review your passport and visa and photograph your face and fingerprints by having you press your fingers on a glass panel and taking a photograph in a light box beneath. Right in the middle of this process the immigration officer told me to sit down, kissed the next immigration officer over, and went off on break holding hands. Affection between men is quite different in Saudi Arabia. Again several of the books in the summary address this. I was very worried about my passport which turned up at one of the other stations about six stations down. This immigration officer seemed to be a bit perturbed with me but, all of a sudden, relented, stamped my passport, and waved me through.
Once I got through immigration I had to find my luggage. There was an Asian “guest worker” there who served as a porter and was quite helpful with my baggage. In my case, which I believe is quite rare, all they did was X-ray my baggage. Some of the books in my summary go into great depth on what you can and cannot get through customs and apparently some customs officials are quite thorough. Another issue is exactly what items such as books are banned and what constitutes pornography. I have not found a definitive discussion. The guest worker got me through to the ticketing aisle for my local flight to Yanbu and was extremely helpful. I gave him a $20 tip which truly made his day but my immigration experience and then my relatively easy passage through Customs with his help had made mine.
In a country with so many guest workers from so many countries you need a way to communicate and English seems to be the language of choice. I had no trouble getting around, networking with businessmen from all over the Middle East, and doing my job at my work site, all in English. All of the work signs at my work site were in both Arabic and English.
This should be an easy one but it’s not. I stayed in a large international motel and all of the electrical outlets were 220 VAC 50 Hz with a European plug. The large plant where I was working used the North American system 110 VAC 60 Hz with a North American plug so I ended up charging my laptop at work. You might bring a set of adaptors and make sure that your laptop power supply, etc will run on both power sources. According to one of the books in my summary there are no real building codes in Saudi Arabia so I don’t know how the system is worked out. If you look on the Internet you seem to get various answers, none of which I actually found to be true.
Food is excellent and relatively inexpensive. There is lots of lamb, beef, and fish in various forms including salads. Vegetables and fruits are plentiful. Beware North Americans fish is served with the bones intact and the head on it. Shrimp are served with their heads on.
I never understood the significance of my invitation, which was in Arabic, until I got home and read about Saudi Arabia. Travel by foreigners in restricted and your invitation tells officials where you are going. It is your travel document inside the country. Many of the foreign engineers where I worked traveled within the country for pleasure, such as going scuba diving, so I’m sure they had a way of working that out. Mecca and Medina are off limits to non-Moslems.
You can rent a car in Saudi Arabia but I chose not to and in retrospect I’m glad I didn’t. Cars with drivers are cheap and there are insurance issues in Saudi Arabia. Saudi’s have a peculiar way of driving and insurance is frowned upon so driving is a risky adventure, especially for the short term business traveler. There are lots of stories in the books described in my summary.
Bathrooms are different in the Kingdom than they are in the US. There were no urinals, I guess because it would be hard to use one with a Thobe, Saudi men’s clothing, and they had health faucets although most bathrooms also have toilet paper. You can check this out on the internet.
You have to have an exit visa to leave the country. There are many stories, especially of domestic workers, who due to a dispute with their employer were not allowed to leave the country. I was given a combined visa with an entrance visa and an exit visa when I applied at the embassy. You will want to check on your visa when you receive it.
Saudi Arabia works Saturday through Wednesday with the weekend being Thursday and Friday the Sabbath. Saudi’s work a 40 hour week but guest workers work a 48 hour or greater week.
I spent the night before my trip back home in the Jeddah airport. I am very glad I did because the place truly comes alive at night. Bedouins tend to sleep during the hot days and stay up at night. There were flights all night long from exotic places in Africa and Asia and there was a wonderful mix of people. I ended up having an extended chat with a Syrian couple. People were very friendly.
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