Back in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia: Hoping for love at third sight
Two years have passed since I first set foot in Tabuk. Back then, I spent four weeks in a city in north-west Saudi Arabia. It was my first taste of the Middle East, a region that had never been on my travel radar. Then my boyfriend, now fiancé, got a job offer in the region. Suddenly we found ourselves in Tabuk. The city has around 600,000 inhabitants; it has served as an industrial center for decades and is sometimes smiled at affectionately even by locals: remote, conservative, dry as dust.
Search for the town on Instagram and you'll find pictures of people happily posing next to "I love Tabuk" signs. Perhaps the writing is meant to evoke a Hollywood feel. However, it wasn't love at first or second sight for me. I spent the month in Tabuk - apart from wonderful weekend trips to nearby oases and the Red Sea - mainly in our dark, overpriced AirBnb. The Covid pandemic was raging outside, and the foreign culture intimidated me more than I cared to admit.
Yet here I am, back in Tabuk. I hear a lot has changed in Saudi Arabia in the meantime. I want to get closer to the city again, or at least try to. Tabuk does not make it easy for me. In my first week, I visit a bookshop. I'm leafing through Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables" when I notice a young man standing beside me, looking at me curiously. Soon, he disappears and I hear the giggles of teenagers who are still children. Then the next boy stands beside me. And the next. Finally, the last one clears his throat and points to his mobile phone - photo? Now the whole group is around me, laughing brightly into the camera, and I laugh along with them out of sheer exuberance.
Saudi Arabia is opening up and changing fast. Tourists are pouring into Riyadh airport, and the supermarket in Tabuk is piling up with imported goods. Yet the scene in the bookshop - harmless as it may be - makes me feel exactly as I did two years ago. Like a foreign body. Maybe that's part of immersing yourself in other cultures - after all, we don't travel the world to meet the same people and buy the same products. It's a privilege, I keep telling myself, and I believe it. Still, the question remains: Where and how do I find my place? I have three months ahead of me in the northwest of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In my dream scenario, I'm standing next to the "I love Tabuk" sign on the last day, smiling brightly into the camera. Not overwhelmed. But grateful for the encounters, the experiences, maybe even the love the second attempt brought.
