Wow! What an amazing trip it was. After slogging for the past 7 months, finally got a break : Bakrid or Eid Al Adha vacation. We planned for an impromptu road trip to Abha, the southernmost city in Saudi Arabia which is the summer resort of Gulf-ites. 4 families on a Hyundai H1 on a 2650 KM round trip in 3 days.. you could call us crazy.. but whats life without a bit of craziness??
We started out on a pretty cold day at 8:00 AM from Riyadh, hoping to reach Abha by day end. Little did we know that it would take us 15 hours to do so! The trip started in high spirits with rousing cries of “Ganapati Bapa Moriya” coupled with a cued cry from Anusha, a toddler.
We ate, sang, slept and finally reached the city before Abha at 9:15 PM. Much to our dismay, all the shops were closed owing to Eid. Finally, found a hotel called Delicia.. and with high spirits wandered in. Turned out to be a Malayali hotel. Blessed are these people who will not shy from setting up a tea stall on Moon. Happily I spoke my way through setting up a special table for the 19 of us (Oh.. 7 bachelors were in a separate vehicle) and ate our way to glory.. imagine running up a bill of SAR 335 for 19 ppl when a modest breakfast for 2 types of Parathas, chicken lollypop and tea/coffee for 60 ppl @ a get together had cost us a little around SAR 900 :D Ahem… lesser said about food .. the better..
The Road to Neverland :)
Finally we reached the place we were to stay.
It was no Hotel California but what the locals here call as “Shiga Mohfrusha” (Arabic for Furnished apartments). Honestly, I don’t know the name of the apartment where we stayed during our road trip to Abha. But it was decent enough.
Plonked on the bed and went to sleep with expectations of sight-seeing the next day. Actually, both of us wanted to see if we could really use the leather jacket and Harini’s jacket in Abha :D and not to forget the sweaters!
To be frank.. yeah it was cold.. so the jackets did come handy!
Next day… next blog.
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