I Don’t Trust The Media, So I Came To Saudi Arabia Myself
today is my first day in Riyad Saudi Arabia and I want to find out what this place is really like for many years Saudi Arabia was completely off limits to tourists they started to offer tourist visas only a few years ago and the media often talks about the strict laws here safety concerns and the very conservative culture but is that really true I am here to get an authentic experience I am not paid by the Saudi government I paid for everything myself so I can show you exactly what it's like with no filters we will explore Riot meet the local people try their food and find out if Saudi Arabia is as strict and conservative unwelcoming to tourist or even dangerous as many people think so join me and let's experience Riad Saudi Arabia to be honest at the beginning of the day I wasn't even sure if I'm going to be allowed to openly film everywhere in the city so I was a bit worried about walking around with my camera because I heard there can be quite strict with that but literally after just stepping out of my hotel I already run into a very surprising experience at a local tea shop let's see if I can get something here not sure what type of tea this is I'm hoping for a local tea hello I can get tea here tea can I get one tea yeah this is this with milk right yeah uh no milk please no milk okay how much how much fre fre fre yeah you pay for my tea fre oh sh thank you so much oh he just paid for my tea that was uh very unexpected I have no idea what tea this is I think it's just a black tea let's give it a try good it's good yeah very sweet I think they put a lot of sugar in there reminds me a bit about Turkish black tea which my father used to drink a lot how do you call the tea the name that's black tea right that's what milk I think and he's adding what is this good but you can use here yeah okay no idea what it is looks like some spices I know what they are smelling like but I have no idea what that in English to be honest I don't even know the German name but I have smelled this before it's a type of spice oh that is actually very delicious now wow so this seems to be like the local Tea Corner here standing here for like 2 minutes and already like five six locals came here to get a tea and I'm to be honest I'm a bit overwhelmed that the gentleman just paid for my tea I was not expecting that and it was so fast and quick the next thing on my agenda is to test out the riat Metro system which has only been opened recently so it should be very brand new and modern and on the way to the metro station I will share some first impressions of Riad with you what I noticed everywhere I've been to so far in Riad is that it looks relatively empty and we always have these uh right sidewalks but so so far I haven't seen many people so I'm not sure if I'm just in the wrong area but this is actually quite Central I think this is the city center so I'm not really sure if that's very common here in Riad or just the area where I'm in but yeah I think I don't have to mention how well organized and clean it looks here that is actually very cool it's actually very calm as well not too loud nobody's honking here or not more than usual I would say what I noticed here in RI so far is many many Stray Cats hello you don't need to be scared hello hello I saw so many of them everywhere around the city I'm not sure if that is a a thing all over the city or just in this area where I am at the moment but also around my hotel there's a little park next to the hotel and so many stay cads in that Park what I also really like so far about the city is that you have many areas like this where there's a bench it looks beautiful I mean check out all the trees around here there's even a little Park here and so far I have seen many of these areas and they are really nice to like chill for a while I mean I'm walking a lot here it's uh not really a walkable City so I have to walk a lot actually if I don't want to get a taxi the whole time but you find plenty of places like this where you can just uh chill for a while in a very clean and beautiful environment and that's also something that I really like here in Riad so far the only thing I'm missing now would be like street food like like a vendor selling fresh juices or some snakes you know something that you would find in a surrounding like this in Southeast Asia for example but I don't really think that they have a big street food culture here in Saudi Arabia and of course probably they also don't really want that in order toh keep the area clean okay and in order to get to the next destination I'm going to use the Riad Metro now which only opened recently a few months ago despite being really new the Metro already connects many different parts of the city at the speed of Life yeah I just wanted to mention it goes very slow here seems like life is going a bit slower here in Saudi Arabia doesn't look like a typical Metro station it's not really busy in here I mean there's not a single person around here at the moment there are no shops here selling anything I'm actually curious if this is only because it's so brand new so maybe in the future there will be like some shops opening here or maybe they say they don't want that in order to keep everything clean I mean look at this this is probably the cleanest Metro station I have ever seen in my life definitely not comparable to Metro stations in my country Germany and we have these ticket machines here actually when I arrived here at the airport I already bought a cart which is this one right here so I think I can just top it up actually maybe let me ask here 2 hours 5 okay sounds good so I paid five R now and that allows me to ride the Metro anywhere where I want within the next 2 hours and then we're just tapping the card here this is the first time I saw a Metro System anywhere in the world that has this system where you're paying per time not per station and I actually really like this system I think it's more easy because then you can just drive wherever you want want especially as a tourist where you maybe not know exactly where you want to go how many stations you need you know and do you know what I notic here there are no security checks to enter the station and I think that's something good because usually in countries where you have to go through security checks to enter Metro stations these are usually countries where something happened before inside these stations you know and yeah this is actually insane look at this station here this is the cleanest Metro station I have ever seen in my life and there are also many staff people around here so the people with the green rests they are here to help us because yeah this very new here so not only me as a tourist I need to figure out everything the locals probably as well down yes down this way okay thank you so much welcome byebye and as you can see the the lines are stretching all over the city already this is the airport here the yellow line and then yeah you can reach all corners of the city okay here we go so we have first class here as well but I think that is not in use yet because there was no option to buy a first class ticket or a regular ticket and then yeah we have family sections and the single section so no section for example just for women which to be honest I actually would have expected here in Saudi Arabia and there is the train coming oh first thing I noticed uh it's air conditioned in here and then we have the stations up here so now in Arabic but I guess it will change to English in a few seconds and also the announcement is first in Arabic and then afterwards in English so I no problem as a tourist here to figure out where you're going to from Alman oh thank you so much and yeah it looks like we are under the ground now but when I first took the Metro after arriving at the airport many parts were also above the ground so I think it's a mixed Metro like some parts are above and some are under the ground and we have arrived oh this escalator is only going down but I don't mind I can walk so I can't really tell you how much I paid for it right now because yeah it's not pation it's per time but I think five whe only which is like $130 I think for 2 hours of being allowed to drive anywhere you want in the city I think that is actually quite affordable and that was a very convenient experience here in theia Metro okay and here we are at another part of the city I am now on the way to a very traditional Saudi restaurant that has been highly recommended to me and on the way we are going to see what a very local neighborhood outside of the modern city center is like actually there's a gas station here and I'm still very curious how much you have to pay here for gas we have 99 5 and 91 it's 2118 real for 91 and 233 for 95 so that is only around 60 cents us per liter of gasoline this seems to be a bit more of a local aere but also very interesting to see this side of RI I always enjoy exploring local neighborhoods especially and yeah since I am traveling fulltime for more than 5 years already people often ask me about traveling tips and today I would like to share one of my best traveling tips with you and that is learning the local language of the country you are visiting and I don't mean that you have to learn it like super fluently but if you can just say a few words like Hello thank you or other food in the language then I really 100% guarantee you that the locals will really appreciate that and in the past 12 month I have visited more than 10 different countries and to be honest I have became a bit lazy with learning all these new languages but one of my goals for this year is to get into that more again and I actually started to use an app to help me with that and that app is called Rosetta Stone and what I really like about Rosetta Stone is that they not just giving you long list of vocabulary to learn it is very interactive and the app actually makes you speak the language out loud Raj their voice recognition tool really helps to properly learn the right way to pronounce words which is important as in many languages saying something the wrong way can totally change its meaning this is especially great because it uses audio from native speakers and gives you feedback on your pronunciation so you know if you're saying everything correctly I also like that there lessons are divided into different categories and some of them are pretty short so I can squeeze in a quick lesson whenever I'm having some time to spare here and there for example while waiting at the airport or on Long bus or train rides and I will continue to use Rosetta Stone to prepare for my future trips they offer 25 different languages and if you would like to check them out as well you can click the link in the description or the pin comment or just scan the QR code here on the screen and currently you can get 60% off their lifetime subscription that means you only pay once and you have lifetime access to the app personally I really think that's a great deal so feel free to check it out I think they also have a pretty good bus system here I saw plenty of buses going around the city and I think you can also reach pretty much every corner of the city with these buses so I think I could have also taken the bus to get here yeah I could imagine that the bus system is running way longer here in the city than the Metro System so probably before the Metro was here everyone relied heavily on the bus system so I would imagine that the bus system is actually quite good here standing here at the traffic light and I noticed that already quite a few times that the locals don't really uh follow the the traffic lights the pedestrians I saw that many times that uh some of the locals just cross when there are still a red light but I as a tourist I feel like especially I as a tourist should follow the rules and now I have a green light and also I see many construction sites around the city actually so I think they are currently investing a lot of money to a build here in the city you can really see that and yeah I also heard that uh most of the workers working on these construction sites are foreign workers most of them that's what I heard are from countries like India Pakistan Bangladesh pretty similar I guess like in the other countries in this region also in Dubai or in Oman where I also have been previously most of the workers like construction workers but also like Raiders and restaurants taxi drivers they're all usually foreigners and I think that's my impression so far at least it's the same here all right and I am now in front of a highly recommended traditional Saudi restaurant called na nagit Village not sure how to pronounce it and yeah when my Uber driver saw the destination where I'm heading to he started to recommend so many dishes that I need to try here and he said oh this is such a good restaurant I'm so happy that you're going there to try our food so let's do exactly that first of all it already looks very traditional like typical Saudi style oh look at the entrance here that looks beautiful already what the entrance to a restaurant and oh we even have some old pictures here maybe some famous persons who ate here before I see many westerners on the pictures actually but also some uh some local Saudis just here yes so it looks like you're taking off your shoes here and then you enter this area here that in this case I'm having all for myself I would guess that typical the traditional way to eat here in Saudi Arabia is not on your own I guess eating here is usually like a social thing as well okay I order with the food and I'm really excited for this dish that is coming I never tried it before but yeah before the food is here let me tell you that I actually really really like the atmosphere here I also like that everyone gets basically separated little box here like a private cabin basically and I can really imagine this being a very cozy place to sit together with your family or your friends I think you can easily fit like five six people in here so this is actually a really nice atmosphere here but I'm wondering how do I actually going to eat it maybe I can put the plate right here and then yeah I'm guessing that I'm going to be using my hands so uh let's figure that out once my food has arrived oh that's my food already yes oh so quick that was only like 10 minutes waiting not even oh that looks good okay do people normally use their hands to eat this no problem can you gloves you have gloves yes yeah maybe give me gloves okay thank you so much sir okay thank you very much okay this is the food I order with and what's special about this is that this is camel meat and I actually never tried camel meat in my life I heard it's very popular to eat here in Saudi Arabia so I'm actually very excited to try it and my tea has arrived as well okay shukran thank you very much I order it a ginger tea with saffron okay my guess was that the plate is going to be placed here but yeah because he placed this met on the floor I think that's not what you're supposed to do actually I still remember when I was in Malaysia where eating with the hands is also very common people told me that if you eat with the hands the food actually tastes better I'm not sure if I also think that way here in Saudi Arabia maybe I should not use the gloves then actually yeah I actually also brought me a fork and a spoon maybe that's just because I'm a foreigner I'm not sure if a local person would also get this and yeah this dish is called camel capsa it's a traditional Saudi Arabian dish made with tender camel slow cooked in aromatic spices and served over flavorful bisti rice and yeah as far as I know capsa is also known as the national dish of Saudi Arabia and it is often served for special occasions for example at weddings or big events so we have a mix here of white and yellow rice and then with we have the the camel meat here first time in my life trying camel meat first impression it looks very similar to beef let's see how the taste is it's actually very soft and tender and the first thought was oh this tastes almost similar to beef to be honest if I would not know this is chamel meat I would probably believe it is beef and we also have the the fatty Parts here they are a bit tough tough to eat but these pure meat pieces they are very very delicious I also have a lemon here so I think you're supposed to squeeze it over some squeezing it over the the camel meat here and then let's take a bite maybe with some rice on top M oh this is delicious this is definitely one of the best meals I had so far in 2025 and actually when I told my Uber driver that I'm going to try camel meat here he told me something very interesting he said that if you are a Muslim and you're eating camel meat then before you go praying for the next time you actually have to wash yourself he said camel meat is halal but you have to do the special washing after consuming it I'm not 100% sure if I understood everything correctly because his English wasn't 100% good so if you know more about it please let us know in the comment section 82 total price okay thank you that was very delicious thank you very see thank you so much that was a really great food experience Not only was the food tasting really good but also the whole atmosphere here in this restaurant was really great and next we are going to visit the most famous building of the country the Kingdom tower in central rard one of the most iconic Towers in the Middle East a place you definitely can't miss when you are visiting weat and here it is the iconic Kingdom Center Tower and yeah we can go up there to the sky bridge and that is what I want to do now yeah it is sunset time in about half an hour so I think we will be able to see a phenomenal Sunset View up there and wow this Tower just looks so Majestic I mean it is called the Kingdom tower and I think the name really fits wow I'm really curious to go up there now also the design it's very uh iconic it almost looks like a bottle opener actually a very similar design to one of the towers I saw in Shanghai China maybe I can show you a short clip of the Shanghai Skyline now then you maybe know which Tower I mean I actually think that there's also a mold connected to the Tower and here we are already inside the building oh that looks very Posh really cool first impression here oh but look at the trees here I think these are not real trees no P palm trees here but they look really beautiful I have a question uh I want to go up to the tower you have to go straight straight after the glass there are stairs going up to the first FL there you will find Sky bridge in front of you there's a boat and there you have to buy a ticket and then they will SC thank you so much shr thank you and yeah this is the mall here looks also very luxurious right oh there's even an H&M over there familiar shop between all these unfamiliar Arabic shops here you know what I notice here the people are all very well dressed like everyone or most of the people here are wearing like a traditional dress the man and the woman but not only the people that are wearing these traditional clothes also the the regular dressed people everyone here seems to be so well-dressed so I think the people here they really like to take care of themselves and I'm not having that impression only here in this fancy Mall also when I'm walking outside ah yeah here Sky Bridge Sky Bridge experience okay 69 reels gives you the entrance ticket and now I think we're going to take the elevator okay and here we are on the 77th floor oh there's even a mosque up here maybe this is the highest mosque in Saudi Arabia okay and we took a second elevator now we are on the 99th floor know I'm having even like pressure on my ears like similar when you take a plane but yeah we have this Sky Bridge here and you can even see the the bridge is bent like this so you have to walk up a bit here but yeah check out the incredible view over the whole city basically that looks phenomenal but yeah unfortunately I do think we are not able to see the sunset from here because the Sun is setting there and I'm only having a view to this side or to that side and yeah the total height of the tower is 302 M and the construction started in 1999 and the building was officially opened in 2002 so for over 20 years now this building is already the most iconic building on the skyline here in Riad you what's really interesting to see here is that the city actually stretches really right but there's this one line in the the center where you can see all the skyscrapers and except of this one line you don't see skyscrapers basically in the rest of the city so this is the line I'm talking about and I think this is probably one of the main roads and on this side as well and only here in the middle we have the skyscrapers and if I'm walking to the other side then yeah here we also have a lot of construction SES still so I guess in a few years there will be way more skyscrapers here but the line basically continues here but yeah as you can see the rest of the city basically more skyscrapers but yeah what I really like here in RI so far and you can really see that pretty well from up here is that basically all the houses are designed in what I would call a very traditional Arabian style it's all in like brownish or right color and for me maybe that's a bit stereotype but for me that looks like typical Arabian style and it really seems like they maintain this style here throughout the whole city except of the skyscrapers but I guess all these buildings here for example these are all residential buildings and as you sit down here right next to the edge oh that is that is actually pretty scary looking down 300 M here oh but this glass seems to be very solid and thick and yeah in total there are about 7 million people living here in RI about 10 million in the whole metro area and that makes it one of the largest cities in the Middle East and yeah that's the view by night now I always find it interesting to see the daylight view first and then see the city turning into the night view so that's why I waited here for like half an hour now to see both of the views the daylight and the after Sunset View and now there's one very interesting place to visit before the end of the day and there I'm also going to share some final Thoughts with you about my day here in Riad since I arrived here in Riad I asked several locals about which places they can recommend me to visit here and every single one I asked said you need to come to this place which is called the boulevard it's a really new built area it's like an event /f/ shopping area I'm not 100% sure what this area is all about but let's explore let's have a look around honestly this feels like the Time Square this seems to be the Time Square of Riad Saudi Arabia I've never been to the Time Square in New York before but of course we all know the pictures from the Time Square and I think this is how I imagined the Time Square to look like actually wow so many lights here so colorful nice music in the background and I can also say so far already since I arrived here in riot there was not a single situation where I felt like oh I'm not allowed to film here I should turn my camera off everywhere I went there was no problem with the camera nobody came up to me told me hey you cannot film here so that was a concern that I had a little bit before coming here but so far that concern was totally for nothing I mean w this almost looks like a really cool theme part and there was no entrance fee here so over there in the The Time Square Street there were many shops shopping opportunities here I think it looks more like a restaurant area there's KFC even over there in Burger King reminds me a bit about BGC in the Philippines also a very upscale modern area right next to Manila but yeah BGC is literally a small City and here this is not a city it's just an an area within RI and yeah another big stereotype that many people in the west have about Saudi Arabia is that they have very strict laws here when it comes to clothings especially for females and so I am wearing this jacket now and I have long pants and I didn't feel like this was inappropriate definitely not I'm not 100% sure if I would feel comfortable wearing short pants here I would at the moment I would say maybe 50/50 because I literally see nobody wearing short pants but that's maybe also because of the time of the year it's not that warm here so maybe it's a bit different here in the summer I'm not sure and I can also say that yes the majority of the females here is completely cover it but not all of them and yet a stereotype that many people in the west have about Saudi Arabia is that the women here are forced to cover everything and that is required by law and I think because not all the women here are covered that is a sign that it is not required by law because if it would be a law then all the women here would be covered right but yeah I know that can be a bit of a sensitive topic so I'm not really comfortable to completely judge that after just a few days here but I think this might be a case of something that people in the west get a bit wrong about Saudi Arabia it looks like they're filming a commercial here Saudi TV show yes yeah that is the programs so any famous actors here yeah yeah we have two famous this one this guy name suan the guy yeah and the girls name so if you're watching this from Saudi Arabia maybe you have seen these persons before actually very interesting to see a professional TV set like this oh shout out and yeah do I have the feeling that people here are not welcoming to tourists that Saudi Arabia is a tourist unfriendly country absolutely not I think you could see it throughout the whole video and if you watch my previous video where I went to the stadium here to see Cristiano Ronaldo in that video I think you could also clearly see that I am as a foreigner as a tourist are really welcomed here the hospitality of the people here has been absolutely great so far so I think that is another common stereotype or common misconception about the country proved wrong I even have the boulevard studios here which reminds me about Universal Studios and I can't believe that all of this is free to enter I'm a bit surprised that I didn't have to pay entrance fee I think if you want to do activities in here like for example here you can throw balls to win something you can do photo shootings there's go-kart racing over there all of that of course cost money but just to enter here there was no entrance fee I can imagine that this place is a very popular place on the weekends today is a week day that that's why it's probably a bit less crowded than usual I mean look at this this looks gigantic here it doesn't end so yeah it's r a very conservative City with very strict laws to be honest I can't really judge the laws here after being here as a tourist for a few days but to be honest I don't have the feeling that this is a very strict city or country and I also don't think that it's super conservative here my Impressions here are that the city is very modern also very clean and very well organized I also saw couples holding hands on the streets so seems like that's also not a problem here I saw no trash on the streets there are no Beggars or homeless people here no people trying to scam you as a tourist you also have many Western restaurants here many Western Brands so you can almost say it's getting westernized even so I think what we saw throughout the whole day here and also in my previous two videos is very different from what many people at least in the west think of Saudi Arabia and also regarding safety concerns I felt very very safe throughout the day here even after Sunset if I'm walking around the area near my hotel but yeah sometimes a city feels very safe during the day but then once the sun has set it's a different story but I can say that I also feel safe here after Sunset I'm currently walking to a restaurant that has been recommended to me it's about a 10 15 minutes walk from my hotel and I have absolutely zero safety concerns walking here now if I would not feel safe and comfortable then I would just take a taxi but yeah because I feel okay to walk even after Sunset I actually enjoy walking instead instead of taking the taxi I think the stricter the laws in the country are and yes they may be have strict laws here but I think the stricter the laws the more safe you can feel especially as a tourist because usually the more strict the country the lower the crime rates which I think from a tourist perspective is something very good because I like to visit countries where I can completely feel 100% safe so maybe they have some harsh laws here that we don't really have in the rest but I can definitely say it leads to a very safe environment and I can feel very safe as a tourist so I consider that as something good any yeah let me know in the comments if you have been surprised by what you saw about Riad in this video today I would be very curious to know your opinions as well and yeah exploring Ria today even made me more curious to see more corners of the country so stay tuned for more videos from Saudi Arabia in which we will explore different cities and if you haven't seen my previous video where I went to the stadium here to watch Cristiano Ronaldo where I also experiened some great Hospitality already then check out the video right here stay healthy stay positive and then see in the next episode from Saudi Arabia ciao guys
2025-02-18 00:59
