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Green slopes of the Sarawat mountains in the Asir region

A visitor's gazette · Saudi Arabia

The counterweight to the Najd heat

Abha sits high enough that the air is cooler. The houses change with the rain.

Asir, عسير, is the counterweight to the Najd heat. Abha sits high enough that mornings can be misty. The Sarawat mountains catch a monsoon that never reaches Riyadh. After rain the slopes are green in a way the capital does not bother to imitate.

Green slopes of the Sarawat mountains in the Asir region
Sarawat mountains in Asir. Green is not a metaphor here. It is grass.

Houses

Rijal Alma is a cluster of stone and mud tower houses. The pattern is Asiri, not Najdi. Painted interiors exist. From the street you see height, timber, and quartz chips in the plaster. It is a village that learned to stack rooms because the slope is steep.

Stone and mud tower houses packed together in Rijal Alma, Asir
Rijal Alma from inside the village. Tower houses packed until the alley is a slot.

Abha has a regional airport. The drive from Jeddah or Riyadh is long and the last hours are hairpins. Take the cooler air as the point of the trip, not as a slogan.