Beautiful pictures, (And video!
),
al-Hasani. I am intrigued by the ones showing snow. It's hard to believe their could ever be snow in the Arabian peninsula. I have never been in the western part, however. The pictures with the moon look almost otherworldly. Wonderful!
First of all thank you and you are very welcome.
Well, snowfall is actually something that occurs every single year in parts of the Arabian Peninsula. Mostly in the Northern parts of KSA and especially Tabuk Province.
After all the whole Western and Southern parts of the Arabian Peninsula are mountainous regions especially in Hejaz (Western KSA), Southwestern KSA and Yemen that is known as the Switzerland of the Arab world. Sana'a itself is located at a height of 2250 meter above sea level. In comparison the altitude of Denver is 700 meters lower.
Another example, albeit from KSA, is the city of Ta'if in Hejaz that is located nearly 2000 meters above sea level. Snowfall took place there at the end of March and at the beginning of April this very year. Although the snowfall was not comparable to what you can witness during an American winter, obviously.
The weather in all those areas is pleasant all year long. The Arabian Peninsula is very diverse. Many just don't realize it. The Red Sea for example have the biggest coral reefs anywhere in the world besides the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and the coastlines are several thousand km long and largely untouched. Then you have the Arabian Sea in the South, Gulf in the East etc. All very beautiful waters with unspoiled beaches. Alone in the Tabuk Province there are over 100 islands (Red Sea). Yemen has 200, among them the famous Socotra island that is described as "another world on earth" due to its unique nature, fauna and geography and isolated location.
The Arabian Peninsula is also a place of contradictions. You have a very modern UAE with nightclubs etc. like anywhere in the West and next door you have KSA. At the same time you have Yemen which is still a very traditional country in all matters, especially the architecture and then compare it with Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain and large parts of KSA in terms of architecture and modernity.
Many believe that KSA is just one country without any regional differences in terms of history, culture, religion (in terms of sects - nearly all locals are Muslims obviously) cuisine, dialects, traditions etc. but that is also very wrong. KSA is a very diverse country on many fronts let alone other countries on the Arabian Peninsula.
Sorry for the long posts. I try to avoid any talk here and just post pictures.
Hail City by
D7im Al D7im, on Flickr
Anyway most of the pictures posted on this page (32) are from just one province in KSA - the Ha'il Province, especially the pictures in this post.
Sure!
