Riyadh Transportation

The opposite is true for limousines in residential areas. It can be quite difficult to spot one on the residential streets.

Car rental agencies are quite numerous in some areas like Sulimania.
I am not an expert on this but I bet you can find great deals of great cars to rent for few days, weeks or months.

So the best solution especially for women is to buy a car and hire a driver, if not, probably wait for your husband or dad to drive you around.

Owning a car in Riyadh is much cheaper compared to Philippines due to free-taxes and status. There are range of choices from a second-hand car to an extremely luxurious typed vehicles. Yihey to the tax-free city!

By the way, single women getting a ride from people who are not married couple or no presence of family are not allowed. If inspected and no family papers could be shown, everybody in the vehicle could be thrown into jail for days, months and get deported, depends on your connection.

As everybody already knows, I will again repeat.
"Women are not allowed to drive in Riyadh."

Saudi women in push for 2008 driving breakthrough

Pick wisely:

Only those who know how to speak English.
--Better those who are recommended by friends you already know very well.

Only when you are already familiar with the place you are going.

Be sure that your cellphone or any communication devices are fully loaded, battery and card.

Inside the taxi, take the license number in case of trouble.

If you are feeling suspicious slightly open the window for fresh air,
deep breath and ring somebody you know for support.

It is always best to know few words and numbers in Arabic before going out in public without a male company.

If you decided to go down just say ‘heena kalas’ meaning ‘here’ and ‘it is finish’. Go down quickly and leave a payment to stop him from harassing you.

*Photo taken from internet*

Taxi within city center is not really hard to find.

Usually a lot of vacant ones on non-peak hours and they are the ones who come running and looking for passengers on most times. So do not be afraid to bargain and offer a fixed deal. 10 SR is usually the deal for any location within the city areas and 5 SR on streets that are closer.

If driver seems to complain I usually say ‘mafi pulus’ meaning ‘no money’ and add that gasoline prices are lowered so it is a good deal. Otherwise, rely on the meter reading if you do not want to haggle and be sure to know the place you are going or you might get a ‘long way’ to your destination which could reflect on your meter price.

On my experience, spotting you from a far, a taxi would have a quick hand wave to call your attention, somehow asking you to wait for him. If competition is tight you can see taxis speeding up to acquire passengers first.

For women, you have to be very cautious, there are a lot of rumors of maniac drivers who tortured and raped women to death and dumped them in unknown dessert deserted areas. As much as possible do not travel alone. Also note that women are only allowed to stay in back seat. Sometimes this experience is also true for men passengers.

In some cases, passengers are not only tortured by these monsters, internal body parts are also sold in the black market. So in case you are not that confident with few martial arts skills, better be safe than have your heart on someone’s body. Scary!

*Photo taken from internet*

When taking taxi's in riyadh, unless you know:

A: Where you're going (exact building)
B: Exactly how to get there

I would recommend that you take a hotel taxi and ask them to come back for you when your meeting are finished.

Unless you are going to Al-Faisalish or Kingdom tower or some other well known landmark in Riyadh (there aren't really that many) then sometimes local taxis can be problematic..

Not all the taxi-drivers will speak good english (same a I don't speak good arabic), most of the time the Taxi drivers are
from Pakistan / Bangladesh so they speak poor engligh AND arabic, in addition the taxi companies don't really look after their taxis and a lot of them are very dirty and sound like they are about to break down!

As women are not allowed to drive in the Kingdom, I am sure its widely known by now abouyt Saudi Arabia as the only country in this globe not allowing women to drive their own cars. well that a sad truth.
So women may only sit in the back seat of taxis. A married woman can only ride in the front seat of a car if the driver is her husband or a male relative.
Women still drive in suburban areas and deserts where they have to do their errands by them selves.
(Women driving) comes to the top as hot issue from time to time, since tens of them took their husbands' cars and drove in capital streets some 15 years ago.

Regular bus fare regardless of distance is 2 saudi riyal. Public bus originates from Batha district. These buses except for the bigger SAPTCO buses, are not airconditioned. Its seats have remained so much to be desired and could be too crowded. Rent-a-car fee starts at SR.50 above depending on the car's model.

There is only one railway in Saudi Arabia, running from Damman to Riyadh (although supposedly this will change in the near future, with a planned extension to all the way across the peninsula to the Red Sea). I recently travelled to Riyadh on it. The two stations at either end are nearly identical. There are three classes, 2nd, 1st and "VIP". I highly recommend VIP -- it's only SR 120 for the entire journey, and it's much more spacious and comfortable than the other classes (although they are also reasonable). Despite the fact that this has to be one of the world's simplest rail systems (one line, two stations), getting ticketed was a bit slow, so allow time for the guy in front of you buying tickets for himself, two wives, three children by the first wife, two more by the second wife, and one more for the maid.

In all the journey takes about 3 1/2 hours. There is a dining car, but I never left my comfortable VIP class seat with it's in-seat power outlet for my lap top. There are four trains per day in each direction; the schedule is on the Saudi Railways web site at http://www.saudirailways.org/english/time_table.asp, although I find it is often very slow to load and the english section often doesn't load at all.

Getting around in Riyadh is difficult without your own car, so if you are intend to work here for a long time better to get one, rent a car also available there are numerous rent a car in the city.

note: only the men are allowed to drive here and wearing a seatbelts is a law.