DHAHRAN: It took Riyadh-resident Amal Sghaier nearly 22 hours and several detours to return home from her vacation in South Korea this week.
Airport closures due to recent unrest meant her original journey was not possible, so she entered the Kingdom by car via King Fahd Causeway.
While she enjoyed her first trip to Seoul, she was adamant she would not extend her eight-day trip. Despite pleas from loved ones to divert to her native Tunisia or elsewhere; she wanted to return to Saudi Arabia.
“I want to go home,” she told anyone who suggested she should delay her trip until things were more settled.
Her employer in Riyadh was aware of her predicament and told her to prioritize her safety and take her time, but Sghaier was eager to get back to the capital, where she has lived for over two years.
“My original flight was actually cancelled less than 24 hours before I was supposed to travel, so I started looking for a nearby country in the GCC that I could fly to and then cross into Saudi by land,” she told Arab News.
“I ended up choosing Bahrain with a transit in Dubai via Emirates. They gave me a visa on arrival and were really welcoming. I found a taxi right outside the Bahrain airport that took me straight to Khobar, which took about 1.5 hours to my chosen location, then my friend came to pick me up from Khobar and we drove back to Riyadh, which took four hours. Honestly, everything went so smoothly,” she said.
“The road was completely safe and I’m really happy to be back home. I always feel safe here in Riyadh and in Saudi Arabia. It’s really good to be back home.”
Rania Abdulrahman, from Riyadh, was in Kuwait and faced a similar experience.
“We were all set to go, but then we got an email cancelling the flight from Kuwait to Riyadh,” she said.
She contacted the Saudi embassy and was told to report to a meeting point the following day, where a bus would transport her and others back to Riyadh. The embassy collected copies of everyone’s identification documents and checked they had somewhere to stay.
“They were very cooperative and didn’t leave us on our own for a single minute,” Abdulrahman told Arab News, who made the trip home entirely by road. No embassy staff traveled with the group, but meals were handed out.
“It was a strange feeling, and I felt happy,” she said of finally arriving home. “Every time someone said to me ‘Alhamdulillah ala salamtik,’ (thank God for your safe return), I truly felt what it meant.”
The 12-hour journey left everyone exhausted, she said, but she was thankful to have made it back. Expressing gratitude for the government’s efforts, she added; “A thousand thanks to the Saudi Embassy.”