1996, on our return trip from a holiday on the Seychelles and in Yemen to our then home in Iran, we passed through Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. My wife’s Saudi visa was quite clear: Entry to and exit from Saudi Arabia may only happen in the presence of her husband. My wife was not amused.

 Many things, more bad than good, have happened in the Middle East until I came back to Saudi Arabia more than 20 years later. When I was touching down at Riyadh international airport in 2017, it really felt that history was in the making. From my fancy hotel which looked like a paper clip and offered amazong views over the city and the engulfing desert, I embarked almost on evening walks through the side streets of central Riyadh. I loved to listen to the electronic voices of dozens of muezzins announcing that it was time for evening prayers. But something new was in the air. MBS, as the Crown Prince was affectionately called by his subordinates had just announced that he wanted to catapult Saudi Arabia into the modern age. So far Saudi women were only allowed to leave their home in the company of a male relative. Every restaurant, including teh fantastic Yemeni food joint I went with an Yemenite friend, had to offer a male and a family section. Where guidance police once strictly enforced obedience, cinemas would soon open. Saudi women chatted with me in a café, dressed in chic black but without any hijab. On supermarket parking lots I saw women clandestinely moving the Porsche while the husband was advising from the co-driver’s seat.

How I loved this anything-goes-atmosphere. Soon thousands of drivers would need to apply for unemployment benefits since MBS had announced that Saudi women would soon be allowed to steer their own car! In Jeddah my favorite Brazilian churrasceria had just opened its first branch. Unfortunately so far there were only virgin caipirinhas available. But even without a caipi I was thrilled to unexpectedly see a familiar face: A senior waiter from my favorite churrasceria in Rio had been sent to Jeddah to train local employyees. He immediately recognizes his former regular. Small world. 

Think big! thought MBS and had announced NEOM, a gigantic development project in the north-west of Saudi Arabia consisting of futuristic cities, floating industrial parks, marine landscapes in the Red Sea with incredible coral reefs for snorkeling, and tourist facilities in desert landscapes with remains from the Nabataean Kingdom, all powered by renewable energy. I had to see it with my own eyes and flew to Al Ula. The magnificence of the desert landscapes was hard to believe. With a four-wheeler we raced through canyons of sands and stone, with walls on both sides towering as high as the skyscrapers of Manhattan. I felt like the first tourist but simultaneously, I had arrived at a kind of luxury Klondyke. The Nabataean sights in Al Ulla were as impressive as in Petra in neighbouring Jordan, but without any other tourist in sight. Hotels with the most incredible architecture were in the making. I immeditaley knew that I needed to come back. Amidst all the tourist-infrastructure-building frenzy of NEOM, I started to wonder how long it would take until the last bastion will fall: Mecca!  So far when I was driving out of Jeddah towards Mecca, as a non-muslim, I had to turn right, unfortunately not being allowed to follow my curiosity and enter the heart of Islam.

At the time of my last voyage to Saudi Arabia dozems of princes of the Saudi royal family were obviously still doubtful about MBS‘ path to modernity. Consequently mBS let them put under hourse arrest in a Riyadh luxury hotel. On another evening walk through a balmy desert night in Riyadh I accidentally get into a meeting of the Harley-Davidson-club. I ask the bikers what they thought about the ideas of MBS. I got lots of thumbs up, as in each of my encounters with young Saudis. MBS was their hero: Everything would bei fine. Insh Allah.