This will be a relatively small gallery of a recent business trip my husband took to the provinces bordering Yemen – Asir, Jizan and Najran. Unfortunately, I can’t post most of the images I really wanted to include, but would just like to give a glimpse into this very rugged region of Saudi Arabia. Many of the pictures were shot from a moving vehicle, and he was unfamiliar with using my Sony camera. Still, I think he did an admirable job!

The Empty Quarter, located partially in Najran Province, is a part of Saudi Arabia that I would absolutely love to visit. I know our tour operator does go there in winter, and I have heard it’s a very “adventurous” trip.

The Rubʿ al Khali, or Empty Quarter, is the largest sand desert in the world, encompassing most of the southern third of the Arabian Peninsula. The desert covers some 650,000 square kilometers (250,000 square miles) including parts of Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. It is part of the larger Arabian Desert. The desert is 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) long and 500 kilometers (310 miles) wide. Its surface elevation varies from 800 meters (2,600 feet) in the southwest to around sea level in the northeast. The terrain is covered with sand dunes with heights up to 250 meters (820 feet), interspersed with gravel and gypsum plains. The sand is a reddish-orange color due to the presence of feldspar. (from Wikipedia; for more information and pictures, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rub'_al_Khali )