Entertainment & Activities in Saudi Arabia

Entertainment & Activities

Saudi Arabia's not exactly a high adrenaline, thrills 'n' spills destination. Desert drives, or 'wadi bashing', are popular throughout the country. Although Saudi Arabia has plenty of coastline, water sports are pretty much out: it's hard to enjoy a dip when you have to keep covered from neck to ankle.
www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations/middle_east/saudi_arabia/activities.htm

That is his view, but men DO enjoy a lot of scuba diving, spear fishing, deep sea fishing, skiing and riding jet skis, all in a normal to the knee, bathing suit. Foreign women do participate in most of these sports but wearing either stretch shorts and large t-shirt or a full diving suit. My picture at the beach.

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4x4 cars in the desert

Fun Sports: Many 4x4 cars are 'tested' in the desert to see how much it can do. www.geocities.com/Paris/Bistro/1766/jouf.html

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The tow rope earned its keep on this trip. http://www.confluence.org/photo.php?visitid=5059&pic=2

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Internet: The internet is "policed" by the government to restrict content to what they believe is acceptable. Many innocent websites are blocked if not for religious reasons, then for political reasons or just by random choice - who knows? www.saudidiving.com/travel-tips.htm

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Internet Filtering: Saudi-installed filtering systems prevented access to certain requested web pages; the authors tracked 2,038 blocked pages. http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/filtering/saudiarabia/

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NOTE: The telephone company has recently introduced (Feb. 2005) their own internet connections that do not require user names or passwords. I figured out the charges, with a prepaid card (internet user card) for 100 hours costing sr 90 ($24.00) plus the phone charges the cost is sr3.40 per hour ($0.90) Using the phone company's hook up the cost is down to sr3. ($0.80) per hour, we are charged sr 2.50 ($0.67) per hour phone use for the internet. NO such thing yet as 800 numbers for internet connections.

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April, 2006: NEW DSL connections over the normal telephone line is now offered to all users. We are waiting now to have our DSL link connected and can only hope that it's 'close' to what is available in the western world!!!

UPDATE: We now have the DSL internet connection at home, BUT as this cartoon shows... it's s -l-o-w and yet it's much faster than what we did have before.

Cartoon taken from Okaz newspaper for May 9, 2007

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The foreign children and teenagers LOVE living in Saudi, in any of the cities!! There is quite a lot to do for foreign kids through the foreign community. Teens have extra fun because of the amount of partying, outings and gatherings for them. In fact, the teens living abroad will insist to come here for summer vacations where as their parents want to go home for a change!

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Permanent carnivals (amusement parks) have popped up along the coast to entertain children and adults. These carnivals contain go-carts, Ferris wheels, and bumper boats just like an American fair. Some may not be open to women but girls under 12 are usually allowed into any of
them.

www.ils.unc.edu/~lanck/personal.html

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Bumper cars http://exploresaudiarabia.com/factfile/file09.htm

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It might not be much but this is a playground
on the public beach of South Ubhor.

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There been a spring up of health and fitness centers, this is a woman's center in Jeddah taken from the collection of pictures of Tomorrows Angel at virtual tourist

http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/5e2c4/bc1/

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Here is a houses on the way out of Obhor, the bay next to Jeddah where most of the in town beach houses are.

www.silvija.net/2002SaudiMay/diving.html

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Social Life: Like anywhere else in the world, your social life is what you make of it. Saudi Arabia offers diverse terrain and plenty of open space for enjoyment, here a golf course. www.kfshrc.edu.sa/arabian/html/social_life.html

golf course

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a cave in the desert

Exploring desert caves: In 1984, a team of cave explorers were surveying Dahl, Sultan, a maze of passages beneath Saudi Arabia's Dahna Desert. www.saudicaves.com

Some beautiful pictures at this site!!

Caves by candle light www.saudicaves.com/hibashi/index.html

cave in the desert

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The Rolling Hills Country Club inside the Saudi Aramco complex features a golf course of unusual design. It is sand, with oiled sand "greens" and oiled fairways. Golfers play off of a piece of Astroturf that they carry around with them. This provides the proper surface for the ball to be played from. The golfers in the group love it! The ecology-minded think it very clever and wonder why Arizona and the Palm Desert area don't design something like it. www.saudiembassy.net/publications/Magazine-Winter-01/wonders.htm

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Young Saudis skate at the FAL Ice Skating Project, the only ice rink in the kingdom. Society remains strictly segregated, so women are not allowed at the skating rink, which offers half-price admission for top students.
www.sptimes.com/2002/webspecials02/saudiarabia/day4/story2.shtml

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My daughter decided that she wanted a fish tank, we told her it would be ALL her work and money. She has managed to create a very nice 4 foot/ 1.2 mt. tank! There are several places to buy animals and fish but you have to visit several in order to find all the necessary things needed, one store might not carry something while another does and some stores don't even know about the product! This MEANS you have to check each store EVERY time!

my picture

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Fun Time Pizza Center for excitement and pleasure of adventure and challenge lovers. www.alhokair.com/amusements.htm

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The above amusement hall is one of many that have sprung up in Saudi, built with 'family entertainment' in mind, they usually have a large meeting area where women can gather while their children play in air-conditioning. Not to many families consider other forms of entertaining their children, like classes for enrichment, because no such thing exists here. No music lessons, dance classes, painting, or volunteering the child's help. So entertainment for pre-teens is a big thing here and the people DO spend on their kids, if only an ice cream and drink with each outing.

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Hash Run?

Hash Run 1999: These people go off into the desert and run in the middle of the day in the heat. Lots of fun and joking around. http://members.tripod.com/~Bob_Savage/hash_run.htm

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One of the board games played very widely in Saudi, similar to Pool, you shoot disks, using your fingers, into the pockets and the person to get the most disks into the pockets is the winner.

My picture

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About us: JEDDAH EXTREMES is a new group of Motorcycle Riders (freaks) in Jeddah / Saudi Arabia.
www.jeddah-extremes.com/