Entries about saudi arabia

Off out into the desert again, this time to Faisal's Point (or Finger). A well known attraction just south of Riyadh. Failsal's Finger is part of the escarpment, often called the End of the World, about a 30min off road drive. Failsal's Point is, at a guess, 200m high and a very impressive sight. We decided to see the point from the top of the escarpment, you can drive round at see it from the base as well and it seems a popular picnic and camping spot.

5 of us set out, 3 Saudis and 2 expats and stopped at several point along the way.

Another Saudi Lizard was found despite the impressive camoflage

We found our very own crystal cave, a strange find, looked like some animal had burrowed it out. Spread out outside of it was a load of quartz crystals - often called Saudi Diamonds I think - they can be cut and polished and certainly look impressive on jewellery.

First sighting of the finger, it's hard to do it justice with a picture. Not easy to get a sense of scale with the photos. The point is approximately 200m high. Often people think it's blue skies all the way in Saudi but in reality it's more often very Hazy and this makes photography a little difficult.

You can see the cars down at the bottom left of this photo to give a sense of the massive scale.

Here's a panoramic video I took showing the marvelous vista we had.

Many, many thanks to Wail, Amr, Fahad and John for a memorable trip. Expect to see some shots from the bottom in future.

As some of you know driving in some parts of the world is, how shall we say, challenging! Well Saudi is no different, not too many rules adhered to, freestyle type driving. So what better way to help me cope as an Expat than the Saudi Arabian driving test.

I have 15 years of relatively safe driving behind me on the UK roads, but in order to drive the company pool car I needed to take the test.
Cue a visit to the Dallah Driving School in Riyadh. After photos, blood type, a letter from the company, a medical report it was down town with a broker. 30 minutes of hanging around and 2 windows that stamped documents it was off to the test room.

So we were sat there with my friend Darren looking out the single door at the really beat up Toyota Cressida, off it sets with a Student. 30 seconds later "That's the same car" " Can't be" "It is I'm sure". So we get to the front of the queue - and here's the test....

We were in the crescent shaped building in the middle - the car was outside. The examiner just told me to drive - "Where?" "Round the roundabout" And that was the test - round the artificial roundabout, 20 seconds later just come to a stop where you started.

30 mins and 2 windows later I had my driving licence :-)