SAUDI ARABIA UNVEILED

As recently as 1998, tourism to this insular kingdom simply did not exist. But the Saudis want new sources of foreign income besides oil, so they are experimenting with tourism.

When I discovered that the American Museum of Natural History in New York City was sponsoring a trip to Saudi Arabia early last year, I jumped at the opportunity.

I am a docent at the museum, and my friends are used to my going off on unusual museum-sponsored travels. This time they questioned whether it was appropriate for me, an American Jewish woman, to pioneer tourism to a country of medieval values that was aligned against Israel.

Was I supposed to feel masochistic, disloyal or just plain stupid? I didn’t. My curiosity won out--that, and my belief that there’s no substitute for personal observation of places that have kindled one’s imagination.

To get along in Saudi Arabia, a land of taboos, we were briefed on the behavior expected of us. Our first encounter with local custom happened when we arrived at the airport outside Riyadh, the capital: The 12 women in our group received ankle-length cloaks--abayas--and head scarves, with the mandate that the cloaks be worn at all times, even in our hotel.

No one complained. The cover-up was a price we were willing to pay for this rare glimpse into a land long hidden from Western eyes. One doesn’t just get a visa and hop a plane to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis don’t issue tourist visas. One must go as part of a group that has the government’s approval. So far, these groups are few, limited to educational organizations, and are small and expensive.

Our group of 22 was well traveled and enthusiastic, mostly professional people from across the U.S. We were escorted by an associate of Peter Voll, a Californian who specializes in academic tours and is the Saudis’ key U.S. contact on their fledgling tourism effort. Japanese and European tour groups also are coming in.

Our fidgeting with the abayas and the consequent entanglement of camera straps and purses abated on the drive through Riyadh (pronounced Ree-yahd). My main impression was of an Orwellian starkness, a futuristic city--it was built from scratch, starting in the 1930s--devoid of vitality and activity. The only people out and about were men driving cars; we saw few pedestrians and no women or children. (Women are forbidden to drive or to be seen in public unless accompanied by a husband or male relative. We were told there was one exception: They can go to the market or shopping mall unescorted.)

We also saw familiar signs--Toys R Us and McDonald’s--and lots of gas stations, but no bicycles or motorcycles, public buses or taxis, no interesting billboards, no entertainment spots, such as restaurants, movies, clubs or theaters. Apart from traffic, there was no street noise. And no litter.

For two weeks we traveled as a unit, by plane and on chartered luxury buses, and met Saudis by arrangement, occasionally in their homes. We had a wide assortment of international foods, and fruit drinks and artificial beer in place of alcoholic beverages, which are forbidden. Because medical and sanitation standards are high in this wealthy land, we didn’t experience the usual American fear of foreign water and food; we ate whatever we pleased.

The sterility of Riyadh was forgotten in our visit to Diriyah, just outside the city. The former seat of power is a ruin of winding streets and deserted palaces, the baked-mud architecture occasionally relieved by beautiful painted doors. This is where the kingdom was born, in 1902, when a powerful clan leader, Abdulaziz ibn Saud, recaptured the city from the Ottoman Turks. By 1932, he had unified most of the Arabian peninsula and proclaimed the kingdom of Saudi Arabia with himself as monarch.

The discovery and exploitation of oil in those years catapulted the country from tribal culture to international prominence. Our hosts often mentioned this rapid change in explaining their society. We heard frequent demurrers about the country’s conservatism being cultural, related to desert tribal norms, and not religious.

Yet signs of religious influence were everywhere. At the National Museum, for instance, a natural history and geology exhibit depicted the Muslim version of evolution, starting with the Big Bang and subsequent facets of the universe as created by Allah. The information was shown on elaborate, brightly colored panels displaying familiar terrain: deserts, oases, mountains, the Red Sea, rocks and fossils, marine life and mammals. Vast, uncrowded spaces abounded in the museum. One long hallway lined with magnificent mosaics was empty but for three men prone on the marble floor, praying.

Riyadh is in the center of the Arabian peninsula, a sparsely populated swath of desert that lies between the Red Sea and the Arabian (or Persian) Gulf. Our first trip outside the capital was to Dhahran, 250 miles east, on the gulf.

Dhahran is the oil capital, built for business, not charm. It also is home to a huge U.S. military base. Vast expanses of flat sand, oil fields and gas storage tanks define the landscape.

We were there to learn about oil and were bowled over by the excellent museum in the headquarters of Aramco, the state-owned oil enterprise.

Equally amazing was the residential compound for foreigners. Aramco was developed with British and U.S. partnerships, and the company town looked like an American suburb transported whole, with green lawns, bicycles, matchbox houses, swimming pools and basketball hoops above garage doors. We even saw women and children in full view. It was one of many excursions that felt like a science-fiction ride: One turn down the street, and we had gone from Bedouin desert to Pleasantville, U.S.A.

Our next excursion took us in reverse, to Al Hofuf, a few miles outside Dhahran. This is one of the world’s largest oases, where vast groves of vegetables, fruit and palm trees fed by natural springs have sustained the people since time immemorial.

In Al Hofuf we met an American woman married to a Saudi. We were surprised that she had largely mastered the art of controlling her own life.

Another day, we went north to Al Jawf, an ancient center of civilization in a province south of the Jordanian and Iraqi borders. We stayed in a hotel decorated with carpets and antiques from the area. Two oases nearby marked the junction of major ancient trade routes between India and the Mediterranean.

Highlights around Al Jawf were the 7th century Mosque of Omar, believed to be the first in Arabia, and prehistoric rock carvings of dancing figures.

From there we flew 350 miles south to Medina, Islam’s second holiest city (after Mecca), and the first place to accept the Prophet Muhammad’s teaching.

Faithful Muslims pray at designated hours five times a day, facing Mecca. So all Saudi planes have prayer spaces set aside, and the video monitors indicate the direction of Mecca. Nothing is more disconcerting than hearing the pilots praying over the P.A. system as the aircraft taxis down the runway.

Medina, like Mecca, is off-limits to non-Muslims. We were not allowed to leave our hotel on foot. And although the mosque in which Muhammad is buried can be seen from the hotel, the very sight of it is forbidden to “infidels” like us. To ensure that, our room terraces were blocked with 6-foot concrete walls. Instead of being annoyed, I was intrigued by this manifestation of protecting one’s faith.

Medina was the departure point for Mada in Salih, the preeminent archeological site in Arabia. It was second only to Petra, in today’s Jordan, to the Nabateans (400 BC to 106) who governed the caravan route between Syria and the ports of Yemen to the south. Much like Petra, Mada in Salih has tombs--150 have been counted--carved in the sides of spectacular natural sandstone rock formations. They are inscribed with Arabic writing, eagles and snakes--and a curse against anyone who dares to intrude on the dead.

To me, the scenery here was the most beautiful in Saudi Arabia. Broad expanses of sand tufted with grasses dotted mountainsides in the background. Below, Bedouin camps and roaming camels speckled the desert floor.

Mada in Salih was worth the 10 hours on the bus, during which we saw few other vehicles on the impeccably paved, multilane highway. The notable exception was a fleet of military trucks whose officers stopped and searched our bus to be sure we hadn’t vandalized the tombs.

Leaving Medina, we crossed paths at the airport with men from Malaysia en route to Mecca. The pilgrims wore sandals and white cotton shifts that left one shoulder bare. We stared in wonder, knowing that this would be the closest we would get to the mesmerizing experience of the Hajj (pilgrimage), which 3 million of the faithful undertake each year.

The old city of Jidda, Mecca’s port on the Red Sea, is a mosaic of winding streets and tightly packed little shops with colored glass, brassware, tablecloths, exotic souvenirs and gold jewelry at amazingly low prices.

While in Jidda, I had a singular experience. Through a friend in the U.S., I was invited to a private dinner party. When I arrived, I was relieved of my abaya and escorted across a magnificent sculpture garden illuminated by a large pool. At the far side sat my host, wearing Arab garb and headdress. He greeted me cordially but did not stand. It was I who remained standing, abiding carefully by my rule book on Saudi manners.

There were 50 guests. All the men but one were dressed in the Arab style, but the women were thoroughly European in appearance, wearing designer fashions and cosmetics. I spoke with several who had been educated in the U.S. or whose husbands maintained homes there.

It was at this party that I most acutely felt my Jewishness. My dinner partner was a former Saudi official who astounded me by asserting that Israel had “territorial intentions” in Syria’s interior. I said, as tactfully as possible, that this was absurd and expressed my faith in the peace talks.

“I hope they will succeed,” he said. “After all, the Jews are our cousins,” referring to the Arabs’ being a Semitic people, like the ancient Hebrews.

“That’s good,” I said, “since you’re looking at one of them.”

He smiled and said jovially: “It’s good being Jewish. So are my lawyer and doctor.”

That night, as I sorted out my conflicted feelings, I wondered how long it would take a Westerner to fully understand the Saudis. Theirs is a country of such vivid contradictions--high-tech industry, free education and health care for all, an elite class that has been educated in the West, Bedouins living as they always have in the desert.

Inadvertently, we had a glimpse of a widely criticized (in the West) aspect of Saudi culture: criminals being punished in a public square. We saw them brought in by trucks and beaten lightly with branch-like whips. Their public humiliation, we were told, shortens their prison sentences and acts as a disincentive to minor crimes. While this was benign compared with public executions, we were aghast.

I took out my camera, planning only to photograph the crowd, and was instantly surrounded by a squad of the religious police. We had been warned that they often arrest visitors for violating even trivial (to us) rules, such as the one forbidding the use of lipstick. A few of these men encircled me, sternly warning me not to take photos. Not speaking a word of Arabic, I bobbed my head up and down, waving my hands frantically in an effort to prove my cooperation with their wishes. Words can’t describe my relief when they moved on.

This was just one occasion among several in our two-week journey around the country that reminded me how much I was not seeing. Our days were fascinating and the whole experience rewarding. But we were shown only part of Saudi Arabia. I wonder if the day will come when the exchange is more open.

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GUIDEBOOK

Delving Into the Hidden Kingdom

Getting there: Individuals are not admitted as tourists to Saudi Arabia. Group trips are sponsored for their members by many U.S. museums and university alumni associations.

Most of these trips are arranged by Peter Voll Associates in San Francisco; telephone (800) 795-5700, Internet https://www.pvatravel.com.

Lindblad Expeditions puts together groups of unaffiliated travelers. 720 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10019; tel. (800) 397-3348, Internet https://www.lindblad.com.

A 14-day all-inclusive tour, with round-trip air fare from New York to Riyadh, costs $7,800, double occupancy.

The trips are in October, November, January and February.

For more information: Embassy of Saudi Arabia, 601 New Hampshire Ave. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20037; tel. (202) 337-4076, Internet https://www.saudiembassy.net.

--TIMES STAFF