The Last Post
Mary nicely summed up our Saudi Arabia experience as "Expect the unexpected". Put simply, we had some preconceived expectations, based in part on media reports and in part on comments made by friends on learning where we were going. None of those preconceived expectations matched our reality. Since 2016, Saudi Arabia has gone through an amazing transformation as part of the Crown Prince's 'Vision 2030' . Nowhere is this more evident than in Riyadh. Riyadh is still very hot and very dry, but pretty much everything else has changed. Hospitality is a core value, taken very seriously. For example, after a wonderful dinner in the Diriyah complex, we wandered around relatively aimlessly which attracted the notice of a guide. He personally escorted around the area, then picked up a specialist guide for a tour of the Salwa Palace. We quietly asked our dinner host about how much to tip the guides and were advised it was part of the ethos of Diriyah, and offer...