In this video we explore AlUla. We are
Kylie, Kasper and Ella, an Aussie Danish family living in Saudi Arabia. Our plan
is to document our travels around this beautiful country. If you would like to
follow us on our journey, make sure to subscribe to our channel and follow us
on Instagram so you don't miss out on any of our adventures. The road trip has begun. It's about a six
hour drive up to AlUla. The landscape is starting to get really nice now.
Beautiful mountains with jagged peaks, then you have these beautiful wadis
with all the green date palms and we've also seen a lot of camels on the side of
the road. So we're just heading along the highway
and we were just starting to get hit by things on the windscreen and we figured
out that it's actually locusts. We have one poor unfortunate soul that's stuck
to the windscreen. That did not help. Oh oh yeah that's heaps worse. We
need to find a petrol station. Oh stop doing that! Oh my God stop! We're almost at our resort now and it's
pouring down. The scenery though it looks really really beautiful. It's been a
really beautiful drive on the way here today. [Music]
in our car it detects like the temperature outside and it went from 35
degrees and then all of a sudden it rained and it went all the way down to
15 degrees. We have the ritual here to say hi to your family member [Music] [Music]
Can still hear all the thunder in the background. I'll be giving you a tour of our
beautiful villa. Near the entrance there is this first living area where I will
be sleeping. The room even has a second living area. There's this beautiful
carpet, beautiful pillows and it's just overall really a cute space here and
here's this massive bed here. Kind of jealous because I'm going to be sleeping
over there but my parents get to sleep in this beautiful huge bed.
And here we have a walk-in closet and a mini bar and here is the bathroom.
So we have the toilet. We have this beautiful shower here and we have his
and her sinks. It actually looks like we have an outdoor shower. Wow that's so cool!
A really amazing feature about this villa is that it's full of glass windows
so you get a panoramic view of the beautiful cliffs and rocks. And here it
has an amazing deck so you have a little living space here, a table and you also
have a little traditional style living area down here. This particular Villa is
very private because it has the rocks in front. So this hotel property is pretty
large but it comes with an electric bike so you can basically use that to scoot
from one location to the other [Music]
Pretty fun. I actually got up to 40 kilometers an hour
[Music] Okay let's go. We're off to our first
stop. We're heading to Maraya which is the famous building with all the mirrors.
it's only about a two minute drive from our resort.
Wow that is so cool! It really looks like the invisible cloak from Harry
Potter has just been thrown over a building. The building really blends in
with the surroundings. [Music]
You need to have a reservation to access this building. However, if you are
staying at Banyan Tree or Habitas you actually have access because it's within
the gated premises. This building is great for Mirror selfies. Maraya actually
means mirror or reflection in Arabic so, I guess this is the perfect name for
this building. It consists of almost 10 000 mirrors so that makes it the
largest mirror building in the world according to the Guinness World Records. [Music] We are now heading to Elephant Rock to
watch the sunset. [Music]
I came to Elephant Rock in 2019 and back then there was absolutely no
infrastructure. There was no car park, no places to get a coffee, you could
basically drive your car straight up to the rock. When I was here I think there
was only another two or three people around so this has completely changed now. It's
really busy, lots of tourists but it it is in fact a really beautiful spot. I'm
really glad that we're here now experiencing Saudi Arabia because in a
few years to come it is going to be overridden with tourists but there are
so many spectacular sites so I completely understand why. I think we're
going to go to one of the cafes and get a coffee. [Music]
It's coffee time! [Music]
It was so nice to sit and have a drink while enjoying the view of the Elephant
Rock especially when it got dark and all of the lanterns turned on.
[Music] Good morning guys, we just woke up from
having a fantastic sleep in our villa. We also just had a delicious breakfast
overlooking the pool. We're ready now to go and explore. Woke up and I'm not
feeling too good. I think I've caught a bit of a cold so hopefully it gets
better throughout the day but yeah if I seem a bit off that's why. Kasper and I
slept well so we might have to take over. Yeah
Okay, just waiting for our car to arrive. I'm a little bit worried about how this
is going to go today. We're going to take you along with us so that you can see
how it all goes. It should be an exciting day though. I feel like I've got like
butterflies in my belly about this. Alright, are you ready guys? Alright,
Let's do this! Hello
[Music] Looks like we're about to go off-road.
I'm just here for the ride. [Music] Okay maybe turn around oh god! Oh I
can't stop here I'm gonna get stuck. Turn around turn around! Oh my God! Oh my
gosh! Oh God oh God oh we're gonna run into a tree
You can't just stop or we'll get stuck. okay Hi Hi
Oh wow! Stuck it's head in. That was so cute I
almost thought I was gonna get a kiss. Wow this drive has been absolutely
spectacular today. It has been so much fun. I'm really glad that we took a risk
and we did the self-drive. We're gonna leave the PIN to this location in the
description. The scenery has just got more and more beautiful with every turn.
These rock formations are just absolutely spectacular. I'm really loving
the way that the light just hits all the rock formations and it's actually been a
really good drive. It hasn't been too dangerous. There's been a really good
track so it's easy to drive and it's easy to follow. It's been so cute
seeing all the camels along the way as well.
Oh! People think this vlogging thing is easy,
but it's not! I'm actually really surprised driving
through AlUla. It's really green. They have so many different date palm plantations
and other agriculture along the road and also within all the rock formations.
It looks really cool. So we're just driving through the AlUla
Oasis at the moment it's a really lovely spot. It looks really cool with the
contrast of the green date palms against the backdrop of the beautiful mountains.
We're currently walking along the Oasis Trail. This part of the trail is called
the Orange Trail. We've just come to a spot where they have these gorgeous
camels and there's a little baby. It's so cute! and I think there's goats up
here but you can see behind me it's so green. All the beautiful date palms there's
a beautiful Breeze. Oh
Just poke a camel? No I mean I think I might have accidentally. Oh
Nearly got my finger. Oh obviously good stuff. It's giving me some intense eye contact
there. It reminds me of Billie Jean my dog.
You're so cute! Yes Ew a little sticky. I need some Dettol wipes now. The animals
here are just so adorable. I love the way the goat was licking on Ella's
fingers. I'm not sure what she had on those fingers that was so tasty. We've
just come across these really cool mud brick homes. So we're gonna go have a
look inside and see what we can find. This is so cool!
So the beams in the roof are actually made out of the date palms. I can see
that they're growing something here. I'm actually not sure what they're growing.
So if you know, drop it down in the comments. These mud brick houses along the
Oasis Trail are just so cool. They look really good the way they are set here in
amongst all they date palms. We pretty much have this whole place to ourselves
It might get busy in the mornings and the afternoons when it's cooler. Yeah me too. This place is like a maze. If you come
through these little doorways you can see they're actually growing some
type of Agriculture through here. It's hard to picture that people used
to live in these dwellings. They're growing some type of cabbage I think
over here. Have a look here, they actually have tomatoes growing on vines. Okay, so
I figured out what this is it's actually green chilies. They're huge! Kind of
fascinating to think that it's not that many decades ago that people actually
used to live in these types of mud brick houses. It's been really beautiful
walking through here today but it's getting pretty hot and we are ready now
for a mint lemonade. After a hot day out it's now time for some
lunch and a nice cool drink. [Music]
How's lunch? It's yummy! Delicious! Really enjoying it. It was good to get something
to eat. I'm getting my lamb on. It's good. It's very good. The setting of this hotel
is absolutely crazy. It is literally surrounded by all these tall rocks. It
just looks absolutely amazing. I didn't actually expect the cliffs to be this
tall. Definitely a beautiful setting for a resort and it's really handy that they
have these golf carts that take you everywhere you want to go. There's some
extraordinary views especially up from the pool and restaurant area where you
can see rocks all around you. Of course, I had to do the famous walk
along the iconic infinity pool. [Music] So we made it up to the Harrat Viewpoint.
It's certainly a stunning view. You can see all the date palms down in the
valley and you can also see the old town and all the mud break houses.
[Music] So we just parked the car in the old
town and we're now walking up to see the old mud brick Village.
[Music] This mud brick village is super cool. It
has small streets and laneways that lead into courtyards and to small houses. Some
of the houses are really well maintained and others look like they're kind of
falling apart. So you have to be a little bit careful going into some of them. This
village is more than 800 years old and it was actually inhabited up until the
1980s. It's kind of crazy to think that people were living here not so long ago. So you have to be a little bit careful
where you walk here. I just walked up to the first level of a building and most
of the ceiling on the first floor was just wooden sticks so if you had stepped
on that you would probably fall straight through. So, you certainly have to keep an
eye on where you actually put your feet. [Music] How are you? It tastes a little bit different to the
lot of the Arabic coffee I have had. This one is almost a little bit stronger.
I think yeah it has more flavor like less cardamom yeah less cardamom.
probably oh yeah yeah. It does taste different. Yeah, it's very nice. [Music]
We stumbled upon this gorgeous boutique hotel located within the restored
mudbrick houses. The owners were kind enough to give us a
tour. [Music] We've had a fun time exploring the
village. We're now off to Hegra. [Music] This rock formation has about 10
different tombs and every single tomb has different carvings on the front and
they all look different on the inside. Some tombs are bigger and some are a
lot smaller. [Music]
So we're told that the bigger the tombs are, the richer the people were. Most of the tombs they date back to
the first century. They only started excavating these tombs here from 1986.
This is a very nicely decorated tomb from the outside. The facade looks
really nice and it's very big so I assume these families here they would
have been very rich. Hegra was the second largest city for the Nabataean
people with the largest one being Petra in Jordan. [Music] There is a statue of an eagle above every
single tomb which represents the god the Nabataean kingdom were worshiping at the
time. I noticed that the head of the eagle has been removed from every single tomb. So
very interesting. I'm not quite sure why if you know why, drop it down in the
comments. Some of the tombs consist of mainly one grave. Other tombs have
shelves where there are lots of people buried. These tombs behind me absolutely
spectacular. Something I'm noticing though with these ones is it actually
looks like bullet holes above the entrance to the tomb. So just talked to our
guide about the bullet holes you could see in some of the facades. He just said
that it might be stemming back from the Ottoman Empire, but who knows really.
Beautiful landscape and then these tombs are just really spectacular. Definitely
worth a visit. There's a number of different ways that you can get around
Hegra. You can actually take a vintage jeep tour which was
unfortunately sold out for this trip for us or you could do a bus tour which is
what we are on. Usually we don't do bus tours but it actually hasn't been too
bad. It's only a small group and the good thing about it is it's only been one bus
per site so there hasn't been too many people and we've been able to get some
really nice photos and videos without way too many people in front of it.
[Music] Wow that was such a great tour.
Definitely recommend it if you're coming to AlUla. What do you reckon guys? Yeah it
was really cool yeah. Okay, so we're gonna head into the old town now. We're gonna
have a look around the shops and see if we can grab a bite to eat.
It's really handy that they have shuttle buses from the parking lot to take you
to the old city. We actually caught a miniature double decker bus and it was
so cute. So it had two levels. We sat on the top and we got a beautiful view of
the old mud brick city and yeah it was very cute to take and very handy.
Oh my gosh the main street of the old town is super cute. It's certainly been
restored very well. It has a really cool atmosphere here. There's loads of cafes
and different restaurants and cute little boutique shops. What do you think
Ella? Yeah, it's really nice. There's definitely a mix between the
traditional touches but then I have the shops and restaurants that are quite modern
looking as well. I also like the fact that it's located
right next to the old town with all the mus brick houses. It creates a
nice rustic atmosphere having those right next to this main street with all
the shops. It's also beautiful with the mountains that are surrounding the
village as well and some of the cliffs are actually lit up which is really
beautiful. This cafe! I just love it with all the
colored cushions and you can see the mud brick village behind it's really cute.
There's so many nice cafes here. It's going to be really hard to choose. I wish
I knew which one had the best coffee because that could really be the
determining factor. [Music]
No way! It's a date museum. That's so cute. It has signs with the date benefits.
That's so cute. I literally want to go over and lift up all the little displays
and try them all. They look so good so interesting. Some are like so big and
then some are really small. Such a cute little date museum. They have some
really nice shops on this main street. I'm just admiring all the beautiful
bottles that they have here. They're so colorful. It's so funny how they have all
these rustic cute shops and then they have a Dunkin Donuts in between.
This is such a cute walking street. It has a great atmosphere and there's so
many cute lights, restaurants, shops yeah. Overall a very nice place. But I think
it's time now to go and have some food. I'm getting pretty hungry. We saw a
really nice Lebanese restaurant so we're gonna try that in a moment let's have
some food. Nice and comfy. Thank you very much. I'm eating vine leaves
stuffed with rice and spices and it's really good. This is the best falafel I
have ever had. It's so crispy and golden on the outside and gooey on the inside.
It's so good. And some lamb chops.
Okay well I'll try the halloumi with the tomatoes and it has some olive oil and I
think some sesame seeds on top. So let's try it.
Mmm Very nice.
So good. But there's some
black stuff on the cheese and I feel like it's all my teeth. Yep
This meal should come with a toothbrush! That was so much fun! I want one! We've had such an amazing
time here in AlUla. We hope that we've inspired you to come and explore this
beautiful place too. That's it for this video, see you next time on Living the
Jo life! I keep looking over it Kasper and I
keep getting distracted by his little unicorn hair sticking out from his
eyebrow. It's very distracting. We'll get the
tweezers out tonight. People think this vlogging thing is easy
but it's not. If you want to make an entertaining video,
yeah. it's not that easy. So this is like take number 20. It's a wrap
It's a wrap for you baby
