Mike's Saudi (22) Trip to Najran and back

A modern mountain road in Saudi Arabia, can you imagine how it was in 1979 though the mountains were the same? Photograph by Nick Shields from Wikimedia common images.

At 6000feet the climate in Khamis was very pleasant in the summer it was agreeably warm and in the winter although it rained and on one occasion snowed it didn’t last long and there was the assurance that the weather would be fine all the next summer. Syb, Karen and I were invited by a Dutch couple to spend a weekend with them in Najran. It was a town near the Yemen boarder on the edge of the Rub’ al Khali a dessert the size of France generally known as the Empty Quarter at sea level and very hot.

We left on a Wednesday after work in a beaten up old Datsun on a road little more than a tarmac covered drovers trail, gradually dropping through the mountains to nearer sea level. I had been before and knew their house so when we arrived at our destination I drove along their road to the start of the desert marked by a sign across it and where I believed their house was. Strangely I couldn’t find their house though we looked around for ages but with no success, the only option was to return home. Later on I found that we had been with in yards of their place it was in fact just on the edge of the desert. By this time it was getting dark and of course there were no road markings, as we climbed steadily up wards from Najran through the mountains it started to rain. The rain turned into a thunder storm in other circumstances it would have been most impressive, like being in the movie of a Dracula film. To add to our dilemma the rain was washing rocks the size of tennis balls across the road we were fortunate not to be hit. When we got home our relief was tempered by the fact that we had left the gas oven on.